Magic Rumors: Pioneer Horizons?!

Hello, internet, my name is Blue, and today, I’ve got an interesting read for you all. Over the last few weeks or so, I’ve been hearing rumors and speculation about an upcoming Pioneer Horizons set coming out within the next year. I originally saw it from @PleasantKenobi but then saw more and more discussion about it online in various places, including Facebook and Reddit. Though all the talking is just rumors at this point in time, it did get me thinking about what cards I’d like to see be reprinted. In today’s article, I’ll be discussing my Top 7 cards I want to see in Pioneer, whether it be from a standard set reprint or a Modern Horizons style reprint. I know seven is such a weird number, just bear with me on this one.

Before we get too far into the discussion, I want to point out a couple rules I’ve set for myself. Cards already banned in Pioneer, like Oko, Thief of Crowns and Felidar Guardian are being omitted. As much as I’d love Smuggler’s Copter back in the format, Wizards has already deemed it too powerful. In addition to this, cards currently banned in Modern and Legacy will be, for the most part, omitted as well. There is a single card on the Modern ban list I will be talking about today, but aside from that, I feel cards banned in the much stronger and faster formats are banned for a reason and will either do everything, like Skullclamp or aren’t worth even talking about with how bad they’d be, like Blazing Shoal. One last note that this isn’t necessarily the order I’d like to see them. The list is more just as an arbitrary way to organize things rather than having any significant impact on my thoughts on the cards themselves. Without holding you up any longer, let’s get into it with #7 on our list.

#7: Path to Exile

Through my experience of the format, I’ve noticed that white feels like the weakest color. It’s the only color without a premium removal spell and relies too heavily on bad cards like Declaration in Stone or enchantment-based removal like Banishing Light. Though I’m not entirely against Oblivion Ring effects, they run a lot of potentials to get blown out by something as simple as Return to Nature and that can spell bad news for decks not well equipped to handle that. White needs a better removal spell option, and one that doesn’t lose to enchantment removal. Path to Exile is 100% the pick here in my opinion. It’s cheap enough to help fight mono-red and mono-black in the early game, it’s efficient enough to answer big, creatures from mono-green all the way into the late game, and it exiles to fight against Sultai Delerium and annoying recursive creatures like Scrapheap Scrounger. Yes, this card makes UW infinitely better than it already is, but I don’t think that’s entirely a bad thing. The deck is currently less than 1% of the meta and that’s mostly because it doesn’t line up all that well with the rest of the format. Path will help fix that and bring UW forward in the standings.

#6: Slippery Bogle

A while ago, I wrote up an article on Bant bogles and I felt the deck was really strong. If you haven’t read the article already, you can read it here. As strong as the deck was though, it had one problem: consistency. Bogles is a deck that mulligans fairly aggressively digging for a creature, and sometimes we can get stuck with that creature not coming down until turn two or, even worse, turn three with Witchstalker. By that point, we could have already had it discarded by Thoughtseize or be relatively close to just being dead on board, where a turn three Hexproof creature is the last thing we need. Slippery Bogle is the one thing the deck is missing to increase consistency at least a little bit. In conjunction with Gladecover Scout, that would give the deck eight 1-drop bogles and four to six backup 2-drop bogles, depending on if you play Paradise Druid. The rest of the deck is fine; it’s just getting down that early game creature that really pushes it where it needs to be.

#5: Viscera Seer

Similarly to bogles, Aristocrats is another deck I feel is just on the cusp of being good. With multiple Blood Artist effects in Zulaport Cutthroat and Cruel Celebrant, several card draw engines with Grim Haruspex and Midnight Reaper, and lot’s of cheap sacrifice fodder like Gutterbones and Cauldron Familiar, it has everything it needs except a cheap, free sacrifice outlet. I understand that Woe Strider was just printed and Cartel Aristocrat exists, but the two and three drop slots in the deck are already pretty full with various payoffs. I don’t mind playing either as an option, but Seer is miles better being a one-drop in the deck, and the others can’t sacrifice themselves so they can’t protect themselves from being exiled with something like Lava Coil.

#4: Faithless Looting

Now I know what you’re thinking: “But Blue, Faithless Looting is a busted Magic card! Surely you can’t be serious!” Hear me out here, though. Most of Looting’s power in Modern was its ability to facilitate unfair strategies too easily. It could dump two Arclight Phoenixs in the bin on turn one to get them back either that turn with free spells or the next turn to the same tune. In Dredge, it throws multiple Dredgers in the graveyard on turn one to start filling the yard and generating value, not to mention being a one-mana way to trigger Dredge twice from a single card, then Flash it back later to do it again. In Pioneer, the Dredge mechanic just doesn’t exist and Wizards has been extremely cautious with free spells lately to the point that there just aren’t any in the format to my knowledge. The explosiveness of Phoenix simply doesn’t exist in Pioneer compared to what it could do in modern. My main point here is that if Looting did anything to the format, it would make Phoenix slightly more consistent by replacing Izzet Charm as the primary discard outlet. There’s an argument it helps reanimator become an archetype, but even then, the best reanimation spells available don’t start until turn five at the earliest. All Looting would be doing would be a cost-efficient way to get your reanimation targets in the graveyard. When you take into account how many ways there are to already do that and the archetype still isn’t being played, I can’t imagine Looting being that impactful there.

#3: Delver of Secrets

Tempo decks in Pioneer are few and far between and I feel like the lack of the archetype makes the format feel faster. I have no problems with fast formats but there needs to be something to slow that down. Mono-Blue Tempo was a strong contender when it was in Standard and it has a shot in Pioneer, but it’s missing something. It doesn’t necessarily need Delver to make it good but it would definitely help. As a wizard, it turns on Wizard’s Retort and is easy to flip into a real threat. Once it’s flipped, it’s an efficient flying body that’s easy to protect with the rest of the deck. The sneaky little insect would easily increase the playability of tempo decks in the format.

#2: Lightning Bolt

As most of you probably guessed, of course, I’d want Bolt in the format. It’s one of the best cards in all of Magic being a versatile burn spell in aggro decks or a removal spell in control decks. With the exception of Standard, Pioneer is the only constructed competitive format that doesn’t have access to Bolt and I think it would be fine in the format. Many solid creatures in Pioneer are X/3’s and dodge Shock, making red-based control decks nearly nonexistent in the format. This is simply because red doesn’t have access to strong removal options at one mana. On the other side of the argument, red-based aggro decks don’t have that many good burn spells. Wild Slash seems to be the best option, to my understanding, and it just feels super weak compared to what the deck could be doing in other formats. When we take into account that Modern feels like it’s becoming the new Legacy and Pioneer becoming the new Modern, it would be nice to feel that progression more prominently with such an iconic card in Magic’s history.

#1: Bitterblossom

Bitterblossom is a card that I constantly feel like is really good or not good enough, and that’s how I feel with it in pioneer. It’ll either be a powerhouse in control mirrors swaying the match post-board or it’ll be absolute trash with an aggro-heavy meta. I think putting it in Pioneer will be fine because it’s not a card that will completely warp the meta. Decks that can’t answer it, like mono-red or mono-black, would never play against it and the decks it would be played against, like UW or Jeskai, have mountains of answers available. I can only ever see it being problematic in a UB heavy-meta since those colors can’t really answer enchantments, but even then they have Brazen Borrower to bounce it and either discard it or counter it on the way back down. I think Bitterblossom is a safe card that would be a strong addition to the format.

Wrap-Up

What do you think of my list? Are there cards you want to see I didn’t talk about? Am I completely nuts for thinking Faithless Looting is safe in pioneer? Let me know either in the comments below or on twitter @TheRealBlueMTG. While we’re here, don’t forget to follow the site on Twitter as well at @MTGOracle to keep up with everything we do here on the site. Anyway, that’s all from me today. Until next time, this is Blue, signing out!