It's been a couple of weeks, but between the exciting B and R announcement and the holiday season, I haven't shared my thoughts on a brand new Pioneer Masters Limited format. I focused on Foundations longer because of the ACQ, where I made it to day two and opened a decent deck but was unable to convert due to some variance. My opponents played great and built great decks, and unfortunately, I drew poorly.
Moving on, let me share some thoughts about Pioneer Masters.
Pioneer Masters was designed to bring Pioneer cards to Arena with the eventual goal of removing the Explorer format and leaving us with Pioneer. For that reason, I knew a bunch of cards had to be put into this set, some of which have no real impact in Limited, such as Stain the Mind.
With that restriction comes the question: did Pioneer Masters feel like an organic Limited format?
I don't think so. It's fun for a bit, but the format plays differently than most Limited sets. For one, because of the mechanics, it's hard to entwine certain decks. For instance, if you start out as a multicolor Gates deck and get cut, it's difficult to pivot late in packs because it's filled with cards like Supernatural Stamina and Akroan Crusader—cards meant for linear aggro decks that won't combine well with what we're trying to do in a slower-controlling deck.
Dimir Control is a solid archetype and my early pick for best in the format, as it has strong, grindy commons. However, even if Dimir is open, if you don't see the right commons you'll end up playing a hodgepodge of nonsense creatures like Cloudfin Raptor. Cloudfin Raptor is fine in a deck like Azorious Flyers, but it asks you to play a lot of creatures, something the control decks don't want to do.
On top of a lack of overlapping synergies, there are also more matchups than usual in Limited. For instance, the Gates deck is strong against Control, especially with cards like Gate Colossus. Control can't close the door quickly, so you end up staring down a more powerful, inevitable deck.
Gates has a difficult time with decks like Mono Red and Boros Aggro. Gates is playing almost a full turn behind, and it lacks enough efficient removal to keep up. Gates Ablaze is important for these matchups, whereas a card like Guild Summit is too slow but absolutely busted against the slower decks.
Some archetypes don't seem to work. GW appears to be a Hexproof Bogles-type strategy with cards like Gladecover Scout and Bassara Tower Archer as targets. Unfortunately, even when you suit these things up with counters and auras, there's a lack of cards like Etheral Armor to win combats against large creatures.
Orzhov looks best as a Sacrifice Midrange deck, which is great against the aggro variants of the format, but you're often too slow against a deck like Gates.
This rock-paper-scissors-type of gameplay is a cool twist on a Limited format but not something I'd want out of a serious format with serious events. However, this format is meant to enable Constructed on Arena, and we're lucky we get to draft and play with some of our favorite cards from the past decade or older.
As a Limited lover, Pioneer Masters misses the mark, at least for now, but I'm sympathetic to the plight of designing a set intended first for Constructed and with a specific set of cards that had to be included. Things may change. Pioneer Masters will rotate cards as time goes on. They will remove some cards and add different cards to shake up the format, so things could change a lot with each iteration. For instance, Goblin Heelcutter is supposedly leaving the format with the next change. Heelcutter is potentially the most important common in some of the best-performing Red Aggro decks. This will drastically change the power level of Red Aggro, and we may see a shift in exactly how you draft specific archetypes, even if they remain viable and intact.
That is a cool twist and reminds me of how much fun I had with some iterations of Shadows Over Innistrad Remastered while others were a bit less interesting.
As for color balance, I like both heavy-Red Aggro decks and Dimir Control. Gates is too inconsistent but might be the format's most powerful deck at its peak. Gates' issue is moving out of the archetype is nearly impossible, and all it takes is another Gates player at the table to sink your draft. For that reason, the way I get into Gates is when I get passed payoffs. I speculate aggressively on them, and you have to commit as early as possible. Waffling and passing payoffs like Gates Ablaze will let other people in the door to limit the upside, which you need. Bad Gates decks are worse than other archetypes, coming up a card or two short.
I find it hard to get into other archetypes since everything seems to steer me towards Red Aggro or Grixis Control. There aren't many other archetypes I'm that interested in drafting. I'd like to piece together an Izzet Nivix Cyclops Prowess deck, but the pieces don't seem to fall into place often. I tend to always end up in the same spot because I feel white and green are poorly positioned in the format. Without much incentive to take cards of those colors, I get a bunch of Dreadbore, Ob Nixilis's Cruelty, Fallaji Archaeologist, and Treasure Cruise or a bunch of Dragon Mantless, Goblin Heelcutters, and Makindi Sliderunners. There's not much in between unless I'm feeling risky and end up in Gates.
Overall, you won't regret it if you miss Pioneer Masters, but it's possible later iterations make the format feel more organic and nostalgic for Magic's 2010s era.
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