Wizards of the Coast has announced yet another format: Pioneer. Beginning with Return to Ravnica, it includes all Standard-legal sets printed since then. I’m not going to bury the lead here: I don’t like it. I know I just published an article last week essentially saying “Don’t knock it until you try it” but this is more than just a knee jerk reaction (I hope). I have legitimate reasons (again, I hope) for not being too excited for Pioneer.
1) We still have Modern. On the official announcement they said that Modern “isn’t going anywhere.” Pioneer is essentially Modern with all the cards they don’t want removed. Smaller banned list, better format, right? No Karn Liberated, KCI, storm (ANY of its cards, including Ponder, Preordain, and Serum Visions), cascade, Liliana of the Veil, Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets, dredge, Hogaak, Mox Opal, artifact lands, Urza lands, Stoneforge Mystic, Jace the Mind Sculptor, Emrakul the Aeons Torn, Chalice of the Void, Kiki-Jiki, Arcbound Ravager, infect, Tarmogoyf, Blood Moon, and those are just the ones I remember. The banned list officially starts with the Khans fetches, because if they cut off Khans block the format would be way too small. I get that the card pool is ridiculously huge by now (2003-now, at four sets a year, ~200 cards per set, 3200 cards, only ~200-300 of which see competitive play) and they want a format where people can play their rotated Standard cards on more equal footing as everyone else, but I kind of feel like that’s backseat to “fixing” Modern.
2) Tournament focus is watered down. If you want to grind tournaments you need a deck for every format your LGS runs. Say your LGS runs two Standard and two Modern tournaments a month and then tosses in a Pioneer tournament, suddenly you have to spend another $400 on another deck. If you don’t want to dump that kind of money, too bad. Situations are different from city to city but maintaining a Standard AND a Modern AND a Pioneer deck (not to mention Commander) gets expensive.
3) No original Innistrad. I’m going to be petty for a moment, so bear with me. NO INNISTRAD???!!!!!! WHAT THE HECK, WIZARDS? INNISTRAD IS THE SECOND-MOST LOVED BLOCK IN THE GAME!! AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! *whew* Ok, calmed down (a bit). Innistrad is by far my most favorite world (I’m actively trying to collect every Innistradi card) so I’m slightly biased, but I kiiiiiiind of understand why they cut off at RTR. As detailed above, Liliana of the Veil, Snapcaster Mage, Delver of Secrets, as well as Past in Flames and a few other cards would be way too powerful in a more limited card pool (though Delver without the cantrips is severely weakened). RTR has its powerful cards (Voice of Resurgence, for example), but is nowhere near INN’s overall level. It does mean that Stony Silence is out of the format, but at least Rest in Peace is legal.
I don’t think Pioneer will take off terribly well (I’m looking at you, Brawl). New formats crop up from time to time, and I’m sure people said Modern is just bad Extended, so we’ll see. According to Seth, probably better known as SaffronOlive, over 6138 decklists (at last count) have been uploaded to MTGGoldfish in 48 hours, so there is community support as well. Who knows what the future will bring?
