October ’23 Pioneer Metagame Update
Looking at how the Pioneer format shook out on MTGO & in Paper via MTGGoldfish Tournament results.
Last month was the first time I did this analysis for both Online and Paper deck lists, and this month there were even more Paper events! It’s the first time we get to look at month over month rankings as well, seeing which deck were ranked higher or lower than before. Spoiler alert — your perception of the format may be a little rocked this month!
Reminder that this analysis looks to give some insight into how the Pioneer format is shaping up on a monthly basis, allowing readers to see what decks have gotten stronger, weaker, more popular, or have started to fade away. When looking at these results, remember that sample size is important and that this does not look to show the best deck(s). What you can walk away with from this analysis includes ideas of how your current deck positioned, what decks you may encounter at an event, and what decks are gaining traction in the format as a whole.
Tier Analysis — Combined Events
Re-arranging the article from last time, we’re going to get to the main course first, and then address some extras. So if you came to see what takes the top spot of the tier list, here you are! If you’re looking for more on what gained or lost popularity and power, take a look at the remainder of the article.
Well now, that’s a little unexpected!
As a reminder from last month, the method we use to come up with a “Final Tier result” for our decks is a twist on the Composite Ranking method in ABC Analysis. Instead an additive composite ranking, here we are multiplying the Tiers from Online Popularity, Online Power, Paper Popularity, and Paper Power and creating a composite average of those Tiers to give us our final results. Because of this, we get Tiers with decimal points — but that allows us to translate into a letter grade much easier!
The S Tier Deck
The new and only top dog in both the tier list and in popularity, Phoenix continued to see a surge in game play and results since last month’s return to the power rankings. Continuing to prey upon the anti-Mono Green Devotion decks while putting up a 50–50 match up against the Green deck itself, Phoenix is a complicated deck with plenty of angles to approach winning a game from. Phoenix is a deck that definitely scales in power with the pilot, and benefits from having more and more experience with the deck even more so than an advantageous play field. The deck isn’t without it’s own weaknesses however, as decks that can slow it down or go over-the-top of it’s game plan and burn-based removal can douse it’s flames. Keep an eye out for Azorius Control and Lotus Field Combo as you aren’t packing nearly as much interaction as a Spirits list would be, and Rakdos Midrange with maindeck graveyard hate like Misery’s Shadow on top of cheap removal can be rough — but not impossible.
The A Tier Decks
Right on the heels of Phoenix in number of decks is a format “bogeyman” deck that refuses to quit. Because Phoenix is up (and Mono Green is down) Rakdos should continue to see lots of play in a field that posts a lot of positive-win rate match ups for a deck that is often considered the “Jund” of the format. The Black in the deck helps propel the deck to more advantageous Control match ups thanks to cards like Thoughtseize and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse than it’s Izzet competitor, but it comes at the cost of being weaker to Enchament-based decks and more “over the top” style decks. Enimagic Incarnation continues to bother Rakdos, despite seeing less play now — and the Omnath-Pile decks such as Bring to Light and Up the Beanstalk brews just out-value Rakdos in a long game.
Well well well…what do we have here? It seems like it’s been forever since I could reasonably argue that Mono Green Devotion isn’t an S tier deck in the format — although I do think this brief stumble will be very short lived. The fact of the matter is that Mono Green still has one of the higher average win rates — even higher than the S Tier decks according to MTGMeta. By virtue of a higher overall win rate, it has a better match up spread against the other perceived metagame decks as well. So why has the deck fallen down a tier to A?
Currently, there is no big payoff to playing Pioneer. Although the EMEA RC took place this month, the main grind this Season has been Modern for RCQs. The NA RC is also taking place in December — fairly late for an event to be taking place — so there is no real reason to play for grinders. That means those who are slowly coming back to practice for December may be trying out other decks, since Mono Green hasn’t gotten anything that new and is fairly an on-rails deck to play (often referred to as “spreadsheet magic”). Pilots of Mono Green aren’t learning anything new with the deck by playing it more, so they aren’t. Ixalan’s release may see them pick it back up in order to adjust their spreadsheets to new threats, but simply put — Mono Green is still a powerful deck, and should be considered if you play a Pioneer tournament.
Although Heroic was the hotness last month, Convoke has picked back up as the predominant Boros strategy in the format. Recent additions of Immodane’s Recruiter and ways to fit Thalia, Guardian of Thraben into the main deck have iterated ways for the deck to be just as fast, but more resilient in what were worse match ups beforehand. With decent head-to-head match ups into the three decks above it on the list, Convoke really struggles against a specific type of deck that can go taller than it goes wide just as fast. That means decks like Abzan Greasefang, Selesnya Angels, and different versions of Indomitable Creativity can be difficult for the deck to deal with. There’s also the fact that even the strongest Convoke start can fold to an on-curve wrath effect from Azorius Control. However, good luck trying to play a tempo or fair game plan against a deck that can put out a 4/4 and make three or more 2/2’s in the process by turn two.
Rakdos Sac has an interesting pattern for October. While the deck still rounds out in the A tier — same as the previous month — it was incredibly popular and successful Online while it saw less play and success in Paper. Looking at some of the decks the Sac deck stacks up well against — the Tempo and Aggro decks in the format with weaker stat-line Creatures — Rakdos Sacrifice could almost be described as a “metagame call” deck. Boros Convoke skyrocketed in popularity online, which Sac has a 58.2% Win rate against according to MTGMeta — although the Spirits decks were incredibly unpopular online. A lot of the online decks were piloted by Sacrifice gurus Logan Nettles and Matias Leveratto — so pilot skill is definitely a thing to think about here. While the deck has clear strengths, it really does suffer against Izzet Phoenix in game 1, and post-sideboard games can be rough since the Phoenix player can play around graveyard hate by adapting a more Control-style game plan. Mono Green Devotion is also an unfavorable match up, so having two-out-of-three top decks as bad match ups is a lot against the deck, making it less popular in Paper.
However, the deck did get a new toy that lists have been running in Syr Ginger, the Mealender. Working hand-in-hand with your Cat-Oven combo to grow extremely large and fix your draws (a huge boon to cracking Blood tokens) gives the deck another base-3 power beater alongside Bloodtithe Harvester to end games quicker. The added bonus of being immune to The Wandering Emperor unironically makes it a tough cookie for decks like Azorius Control to deal with.
The B Tier Decks
Lotus Field is extremely excited to see Izzet Phoenix as the top tier deck in the format right now. The deck was in an awkward spot last month as it needed to try and streamline it’s new combo lines with Chandra, Hope’s Beacon in addition to packing enough removal to deal with the aggro decks cropping up in Boros colors. However, Phoenix decks have played low amounts of countermagic in the main deck, meaning that Lotus Field now gets to play uninhibited Game 1 against the most popular deck in the room instead of racing Mono Green or fading multiple discard effects and Sheoldred triggers from Rakdos Midrange. Phoenix and Rakdos both beating up on the tempo decks also means Lotus Field pilots will see less of their bad match ups if they’re able to stay in the X-0 or X-1 bracket for the course of a tournament. That all said though, Lotus Field is still weak to any aggressive or tempo strategy that is able to slow it down — or take it down before it gets it’s lands online.
It’s been a hot minute since putting a Rat inside the cockpit of an angelic death ship has been good enough to be at the top of the tables in Pioneer — but October was a good month for the Grease Gang. Decks in general have been erring more and more towards a Midrange-style backup plan, maindecking copies of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and cutting down on the number of Liliana of the Veil in order to do so. The deck is still capable of a turn 3 Greasefang, Okiba Boss thanks to Vessel of Nascency and Grisly Salvage — although a few lists have gone back to Eldritch Evolution with more 4-cost Creatures to also tutor for.
I anticipate seeing this deck a little more with the release of Lost Caverns of Ixalan coming up soon. The Grease Gang is getting some new tools in the form of Souls of the Lost, Squirming Emergence, and Bitter Triumph to deal with Karn and opposing Creature threats.
Although it’s not the only Control deck on the block anymore, it’s still the most powerful one. Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and The Wandering Emperor are a force to be reckoned with still in Pioneer. With a deck full of board wipes from Supreme Verdict to Sunfall, the Azorius versions of Control love the fact that more and more aggressive decks are being played and that less and less Tempo and Disruption decks are seeing play. Another deck that loves seeing Izzet Phoenix as the lone top deck in the format, a plethora of counter magic such as Absorb to shut down the Izzet deck’s lack of interaction is right where this deck wants to be.
I would honestly expect to see more of this deck in the coming months, even despite the doomsayers about Cavern of Souls.
Mono White Humans is in an interesitng spot right now. On one hand, it has a 57.6% win rate on MTGMeta against Izzet Phoenix, but on the other hand, it’s sitting at sub-50% win rates against decks like Boros Convoke and the Bring to Light decks. While still capable of explosive starts and disrupting the timeline for decks with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, the more opposing decks start putting Creatures in the way of the deck’s smaller Humans, the harder it’s going to be to culminate those small advantages into a resounding victory. Rakdos decks still being popular will prey on Humans, and the resurgence of Gruul Boats is also harder for the deck to fight through. It’s still a powerful deck, and capable of potentially winning an event — but it isn’t the lights-out “counter” to the top of the metagame it was when Mono Green Devotion was up there.
Wilds of Eldraine printed a card that has done wonders for the Gruul archetype in Pioneer — The Huntsman’s Redemption. Heck, we might even start calling this deck “Gruul Sagas” because of the work it and The Akroan War do for this deck! On top of being a way to find whatever card you need for the current board state (Lovestruck Beast to block? Bonecrusher Giant to Stomp something? Thrillseeker to end the game with a fling?) Redemption itself provides a mini-overrun effect, combining with Reckless Stormseeker to create some large, aggressive Creatures pretty quickly. This allows the already aggressive deck to end games even quicker, giving it the slight edge in match ups like Lotus Field Combo and buffing it’s head-to-head against tempo decks like Azorius Spirits.
To note as of the writing of this article — “Gruul Aggro” was the cheapest Pioneer deck on the first page of MTGGoldfish with an average cost of $192. Although it’s important to note that Goldfish will also lump Atarka Red into this category, and true Gruul is slightly more expensive at $220 (a tad more expensive than Humans, on par with Convoke). This could also add to why we see more of the deck popping up in Paper — it’s relatively cheap!
Up and coming Decks
The list can be called a lot of things, but the 5 Color Rona Combo Soup deck has been the flavor-of-the-month ever since it first saw play. If you aren’t familiar with the deck itself, there are a few versions of it floating around, but for the most part it takes the least-card intensive combos in the format — Retraction Helix + Rona, Herald of Invasion + Mox Amber, Atraxa, Grand Unifier + Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast, Valki, God of Lies + Bring to Light, Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy + Mana Dorks like Llanowar Elves & Sylvan Caryatid, and even a wishboard with Karn, the Great Creator + Fae of Wishes — and smashes them all together in a deck thanks to Yorion, Sky Nomad. If that seems like a lot, it’s because it sure as hell is!
For the most part, the deck capitalizes on angles of attack more than consistency, and the fact that each of it’s interactions is strong enough to threaten ending the game if unchecked for over a turn. Being able to ramp in general is never a bad thing, but also being able to pivot from a Rona to suddenly an Atraxa being hardcast turn 4 is difficult to adapt to as the opponent. Lukka gets run over Transmogrify so that you always flip into Atraxa by sacrificing one of your 17 total 2 drop creatures as it needs to find something with higher CMC. Of course, you can just hard cast Atraxa with Kinnan’s mana doubling ability on your mana dorks. Oath of Nissa finds almost everything in your deck, and turns of Plaza of Heroes to make Green mana allowing to go Plaza turn 1 into Oath into any untapped land letting you use pathways on other colors. The wishboard helps you find hate pieces such as The Stone Brain or Tormod’s Crypt in addition to a win con for your Rona combo — Atherflux Reservoir.
The downside to so many combos in one deck? Drawing the wrong cards at the wrong time, an influx of mana dorks, and of course a weakness to getting the card you need Thoughtseize’d out of your hand.
Breakdown of Analysis
What Events get counted?
For the Online tournament portion of the analysis, all MTGO Preliminary, Challenge, and Showcase events are counted. The reason Leagues are not included is because the results for Leagues are curated lists, only showcase 5–0 decks, and do not report all lists that achieve the perfect record.
For the Paper tournament portion of the analysis, all Paper events that I find on MTGGoldfish’s Tournament Search. The RCQ Season changing from Pioneer to Modern may also affect the number of Paper events being reported, as most LGS level events are not worth tracking on larger sites (and would be excluded the way Leagues are for MTGO).
Defining Popularity
The end resulting decks need to be present enough in order to be above the average of decks producing results for the month. This eliminates “flash-in-the-pan” decks that win a Prelim or RCQ and then fade into obscurity. For October, there were 518 placing decks Online (avg of 11.3) and 1,304 decks in Paper (avg of 13.2).
A deck’s popularity is pretty straight forward — however many decks show up in the results from that archetype is the total number of decks played that month. In order to break the decks into Tiers, we distribute the decks across a normal curve. To create our Tiers, we break out some High School Math and look at the Standard Deviation of decks. Decks within 1 Standard Deviation of the Mean are considered “Tier 3” decks — these decks are close to the average for being ranked, and may be where the “up-and-coming” decks fall in popularity. Decks within 2 Standard Deviations of the Mean are considered “Tier 2” decks — these decks are your commonplace decks you will most likely see when playing in a Tournament. Decks over the 2 Standard Deviation threshold are considered “Tier 1” decks — these are the most popular, the most likely to be played in multiple numbers if you went to a Tournament.
Defining Power
The way a deck’s Power is defined is based on the number of Points it receives that month. These Points vary based on the Event, and if they are Online or in Paper.
Once a deck’s Points have been determined, the same processes that distributes the Total Decks Played is repeated for Total Points Earned. Using our Standard Deviation math, decks within 1 Standard Deviation of the Mean are considered “Tier 3” decks — these decks have either put up inconsistent results, or perhaps a handful of decent results and then disappeared. Decks within 2 Standard Deviations of the Mean are considered “Tier 2” decks — these decks are “above average” in their power level(s), and can be considered strong contenders within the Meta that may also prey on specific top tier decks. Decks over the 2 Standard Deviation threshold are considered “Tier 1” decks — these are the best placing, the most likely to perform well at Events in multiple numbers.
Tracking Points
For Online Events, points are awarded based on Event type and size. Preliminary Events award points based on record, with a 4–0 record earning 3 Points, a 3–1 earning 2 Points, and a 2–1 earning 1 Point for the deck. Challenge Events award points based on the deck’s finish in the tournament, with Top 8 earning 3 Points, Top 16 earning 2 Points, and Top 32 earning 1 Point. Showcase Events are similar to Challenge Events, but have an additional point added on to their placement due to the prestige, awarding 4–3–2 Points based on placement.
For Paper Events, the points are awarded based on Event size and wins. Due to lower Paper numbers and an inconsistent format between reported events (Single elimination, full on RCQ events, 1k and 2k Events, etc) I’ve normalized the scoring system to make all events as equal as possible. For Events that are 32 decks or smaller, 0.5 Points per win is awarded. This increases to 1 Point per win for events between 33 and 128 decks, and 1.5 Points per win for events between 129 and 512 decks. Events that are prestigious enough to have more than 512 decks (such as PTs) award 2 Points per win, but are extremely rare.
The method for Paper Events may be adjusted to be attendance-based-only if I find more Events to count, since this current system would skew the Points heavily in favor of Paper decks.
Similarly to Popularity, Power has a baseline for ranking as well. For October, there were 1,043 points awarded to placing decks Online (avg of 22.7) and 4,872 points awarded to decks in Paper (avg of 55.4). Paper decks get points even for winning a single round in a large event, and tend to have more decks listed than Online results do.
Popularity Analysis — Online Events
With the scoring in mind, here’s the Popularity of the decks from Online events with at least 12 decks played:
Izzet Phoenix takes over the number one slot on MTGO popularity with a nice amount of decks being played. Surprisngly, Rakdos Sacrifice is the second most popular list — as mentioned above in the Tier list breakdown it is most likely due to the number of the third deck seeing play — Boros Convoke.
New to the list for October is 5 Color Rona and all the combos that come packed inside that deck, while Mono B Waste Not which was a deck to watch from September is still barely registering on the charts for popularity this month. The biggest surprise is probably seeing Rakdos Midrange and Mono G Devotion in such small numbers online.
Power Analysis — Online Events
With the scoring in mind, here’s the Power of the decks from Online events with at least 23 points accrued:
Aside from the most Popular decks continuing to also be the most successful decks, we see that a pair of Control decks — Dimir Control and Azorius Control are putting up a solid number of results despite having too few number of decks to rank in popularity. This would speak to the deck and it’s position in the current metagame — winning against the more seen decks while not being overplayed.
Abzan Greasefang puts up some results again, although it’s doing so sporadically as it has more decks than Enigmatic Fires does in the popularity rankings with less total points.
Popularity Analysis — Paper Events
With the scoring in mind, here’s the Popularity of the decks from Paper events with at least 14 decks played:
In Paper, the format looks to be a little more what we’re accustomed to seeing the past few months. Rakdos Midrange is still the most popular deck in Paper, while Izzet Phoenix and Mono Green Devotion put up an equal-tier amount of decks alongside it. The biggest fall off between Online and Paper is Rakdos Sacrifice which falls a tier entirely as only the 5th most played deck in Paper, while Mono W Humans and Abzan Greasefang put up large numbers in Paper.
Both the Azorius Lotus Field and Izzet Creativity decks are still hanging on in Paper, seeing lower amounts of play by comparison but still being decks you’ll run into at larger events.
Poower Analysis — Paper Events
With the scoring in mind, here’s the Power of the decks from Paper events with at least 56 Poitns earned:
The big three are still powerful decks to contend with in Paper Pioneer events, while Azorius Control has a very good showing with a lower number of decks to place 8th overall on the Power Ranking. The same can be said about the 5 Color Rona and Bring to Light lists, putting up larger amounts of Points despite lower numbers of decks.
The Mono B Waste Not deck just makes the cut at 59 points despite having not enough decks to place on the Popularity tier list — a testament to the deck’s current position in the metagame and the fact that it may be a contender for higher tiers in future months.
Decks and their Win Rates
I put together a visualization you can play around with that allows you to look at specific stats for decks, sorted by their Win Rate. It’s separated by Online or Paper for more accurate analysis, and can be filtered to a minimum amount of decks played to show up on the chart. Play around with it all you want, and it will update whenever I update my database!
In future articles, I may go more in-depth in win rates — however I do not have the head-to-head match ups recorded myself to do the full analysis on which decks performed well against specific archetypes for the month (I’ve sourced all my points made above in these area to other site’s data collection).
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