Following the somewhat recent announcement of the return of Organized Play with Pioneer as a vital part of the system, the format’s popularity skyrocketed, both in paper and online. And when I say it’ll be a vital part of the system, I mean it – the very next series of Regional Championships and the Pro Tour of 2023 will feature Pioneer.

Is this newfound place in the spotlight the only reason for Pioneer’s revival? Perhaps the format offers an interesting gameplay as well? Or it’s a wide-open world brimming with possibilities, perfect for people who like brewing their won decks? Maybe its wide-openness appeals mostly to grinders, ready to take a relavitely undeveloped metagame by storm with a tuned version of the best deck? Or maybe it’s just an unpleasant necessity that you have partake in if you want to compete at the highest level? There are more opinions about it than players in the Pioneer league queue on MTGO. While most takes are influenced by players’ results or their gameplay preferences, there was one thought that I saw a couple times – Pioneer resembles Modern in its youth. I found this hypothesis to be very intriguing. A mix of nostalgia for the old days and a bit of sheer curiosity convinced me that it’s a good idea to test it using a simple comparative analysis.

My goal will be to juxtapose the current Pioneer and Modern from the same time window. So if Pioneer as a format exists for about two years and nine months (it was presented on October 21, 2019), then it should be compared to Modern which had the same amount of time for its development. If we assume that it was created on August 12, 2011, then the period that should interest me is around May 2014. Due to the fact that taking into account the results from one month, especially one without a major tournament, wouldn’t make much sense, I’ve decided to extend my window of research to a little over half a year: from February 2014 (the banning of Deathrite Shaman and unbannings of Bitterblossom and Wild Nacatl) to the release of the Khans of Tharkir in September 2014, which included cards such as Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, and Siege Rhino and was probably the biggest shake-up in Modern caused by a single set up until the FIRE design era.

I will compare both formats in the following categories:

1. The size of the card pool
2. The ban list and its evolution
3. Metagame at the time of analysis
4. Formation of the player base
5. Convergence around iconic archetypes

The size of the card pool

To evaluate this parameter, I had to venture into the depths of MTG Wiki and perform complex mathematical operations. The results are as follows:
Modern: forty-four sets over elevent years, from 8th Edition to Magic 2015.
Pioneer: forty-two sets over nine and a half years, from Return to Ravnica to Streets of New Capenna.

Both formats are quite similar in terms of the number of sets they contain, which might suggest that the power level of both formats should be on a comparable level. Of course, this is a purely theoretical deliberation, because it does not take into account the power creep of recent years and the greater theoretical deckbuilding knowledge from year to year, which often translates into quicker format solving. But for the sake of analysis, I think we can assume that there are no stark differences here.

The ban list and its evolution

The bigger the format is, the more likely is that there will be a combination of cards that will dominate the metagame. On top of that, mistakes like Oko, Thief of Crowns happen from time to time (and over the last few years we definitely had above average number of those). That’s why creating a ban list is a natural consequence of competing in larger card pool formats. The process of shaping banlist in both formats is an interesting one for sure, so let’s take a closer look at it.

Modern ban list

The prototype of the ban list was presented to the world with the announcement of the new format. It was based on a mixed experience from a few different formats: Legacy at that time, the old Extended (which Modern was essentially replacing), ZEN-NPH Standard (where Stoneblade was dominating to the degree that was last seen when Affinity ravaged the format almost a decade earlier), and the series of Community Cup tournaments that took place before the announcement of the format. The main selection criteria were:

1. Raw power cards like Skullclamp, Mental Misstep, Ancestral Vision,
2. Logistic problems related to running tournaments: Sensei’s Divining Top
3. Cards that break the fourth turn rule, for instance: Glimpse of Nature, Dread Return, Hypergenesis
4. Cards for which there was no clear indication that they would be too strong, but were captured for the sake of principle and peace of mind. These are, for example Golgari Grave-Troll, Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle, and Bitterblossom.

In a nutshell, combo kills before the fourth turn were not welcome. But despite WotC’s effort to keep the format relatively free from fast combos, the very first Modern Pro Tour was a true combo extravaganza – a bunch of different blue-red combo decks fueled by Ponder and Preordain were battling Cloudpost combo-ramp decks and other linear strategies, and the result was a top 8 littered with proactive strategies – out of the eight decks, five was capable of killing on turn three or even earlier. Another wave of bans happened shortly after the tournament: Blazing Shoal, Cloudpost, Green Sun’s Zenith, Ponder, Preordain and Rite of Flame were axed from the format.

After the inital onslaught of bans after PT Philadelphia, the Modern banlist remained quite calm for a couple of years. That didn’t mean the changes weren’t happening at all, they just weren’t that drastic anymore. In December 2011 Wild Nacatl and Punishing Fire got banned, and less than a year later, they unbanned Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Next batch of bans happened in January of 2013 – Bloodbraid Elf and Seething Song had to die for the sins of Jund and Storm respectively. In May, Second Sunrise shared the fate of Sensei Divining’s Top – the combo turn of Sunrise decks could last over twenty minutes, which made the tournaments far too long. Finally, in February 2014, Deathrite Shaman – the true culprit of Jund’s domination – got banned. In exchange, they set free Bitterblossom and Wild Nacatl.

The whole process was fairly clear and straightforward, except for the Wizard’s first move – creating a ban list before a single game was played in the newly created format. Ever since then, the same question has been asked repetitively: should all the cards that haven’t been given a chance in Modern stay banned? Personally, I’m a fan of Glimpse of Nature unban, so that tribal players could rejoice and try bring back Elves as a competitive deck. I’m also pretty sure that each and every one of you have your own opinions about the topic – after all, players can spend hours talking about the Modern ban list, even though they have absolutely no control over it.

Pioneer ban list

The only things that Wizards banned from announcing the format were fetchlands – arguably the strongest cycle of lands ever printed. Everything else was set free, although information gathered from other formats strongly suggested what could be problematic. WotC, however, decided not to make any sudden movements and left the format in hands of the players (to some extent). For the rest of 2019, WotC kept releasing weekly ban announcements about the format, swiftly reacting to the quickly developing metagame on MTGO. By the end of the year, there were four impactful rounds of bans:
November week 1: Felidar Guardian, Leyline of Abundance and Oath of Nissa (which remains the only unbanned card in the format so far)
November week 2: Veil of Summer
December week 1: Field of the Dead, Once Upon a Time and Smuggler’s Copter
December week 3: Oko, Thief of Crowns and Nexus of Fate
After this initial period, the metagame stabilised and a few different combo (or at least combo-adjacent) decks emerged as the best archetypes in the format. Apparently, this wasn’t what Wizards wanted to see, and in August 2020 the key cards from virtually every important combo deck were banned:

1. Inverter of Truth – combo with Thassa’s Oracle
2. Kethis, the Hidden Hand – a good value monster, which in addition allowed for various types of combo kills, usually with the help of Mox Amber and Diligent Excavator.
3. Underworld Breach – Lotus Breach combo
4. Walking Ballista – combo with Heliod, Sun-Crowned

Six months later, in January 2021, another wave of bans took place. The list included:

1. Wilderness Reclamation – an outstanding design mistake by the Wizards
2. Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer – all-spells combo engine
3. Teferi, Time Raveler and Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath as two cards whose power level was simply too high compared the rest of the format.

In 2022 three new cards were added: Lurrus of the Dream-Den in March and two fresh ones, in June: Winota, Joiner of Forces and Expressive Iteration.

In the case of Pioneer, the whole process of creating a ban list was transparent, understandable, and each banned card was backed by results that showed why it should go. Of course, you can mull over specific choices when it comes to combos A + B, for example: why did Walking Ballista, which is a much more broad card that sees play in many archetypes got banned instead of Heliod, Sun-Crowned? Was the Lurrus ban truly needed? Or is the “ability to create frustrating removal-check gameplay” justification of banning Winota a troubling sign of a decline in quality of decisions surrounding the ban list changes? Overall, in my opinion, Wizards did a good job setting up the Pioneer ban list and I wish they’ll keep developing formats in the same way in the future.

Metagame at the time of analysis

Did Pioneer and Modern from the past have the same varied and attractive metagame? After all, the players’ opinion about any given format was always largely based on the variety of playable archetypes and the attractiveness of the gameplay the format presents. What was it like in the case of Modern from 2014?
This is probably best shown by the results of Pro Tour Born of the Gods, held in February 2014, right after the Deathrite Shaman ban. Jeskai Control won the whole event, beating Melira Pod in the finals. In the top 8, there were also three different Splinter Twin decks (UR, Temur and Jeskai), as well as Affinity, Storm and Blue Moon. In addition, among the best performing decks in constructed were: various types of Zoo (using the recently unbanned Wild Nacatl), other types of Birthing Pods, midrange decks in Jund, BG Rock and Jeskai, non-Zoo aggro in form of Burn, Bogles, Merfolks, and weird combo decks like Ad Nauseam and Living End. And that’s not even the end of playable archetypes from that time, so we can safely rule that there was an abundance of varied decks that offered very different playstyle in that iteration of Modern.
How does the Pioneer metagame look like? There is a lof of interesting archetypes too:
Aggro: Mono Red, Humans, Prowess
Aggro-combo: RW Heroic
Midrange: RB Midrange, Niv-Mizzet
Control: UW Control
Tempo: Spirits
Ramp with combo potential: Mono G Devotion
Midrange with combo potential: Phoenix, Greasefang decks, RB Sacrifice
Pure combo: Lotus Field, UG Paradox Engine
On this basis, it can be concluded that both the Modern from the old days and the current Pioneer are diverse enough that any player, regardless of their preferred playstyle, should find something for themselves. Of course, we do not know exactly how Pioneer will end up looking after Pro players start solving it, but at least at the moment, it looks healthy.

Formation of the player base

Despite the time difference between introducing Modern and Pioneer, WotC had a similar goal – creating of a non-rotating format that would bridge Standard and older formats with extemely high entry threshold that discouraged most players from venturing into them. For Modern it was Legacy, and for Pioneer it was Modern. However, the similarities end here – in each of those cases, Magic as a game was in a completely different position. In 2011, the pool of players was much smaller than today, so it would seem that Modern should have a harder time gaining traction, but that was actually a benefit in disguise for the fledgling format. The key was not having more competition around, especially when its predecessor – Extended – was suspended after seeming endless restructuring. With time, an extremely devoted communities of Modern players grew all around the world, and they’re still going strong to this day.

What is the pioneer pool of players?

Pioneer started in 2019, when the player base for Magic at large was far bigger than in 2011 – when Modern was in its inception, there were around ten million active players, and in 2019 the number more than tripled. On the other hand, it had to compete for the interest with Modern, Commander (the current most popular MTG format) and the entire community built around Magic Arena. Despite that, Pioneer was doing brilliantly. The fact that it was yet to be solved and you could play and win with your pet deck attracted those who were frustrated with the older formats. Unfortunately, the entire momentum of Pioneer vanished with the start of the COVID pandemic.

Almost overnight, MTGO became the only way to play non-Arena formats competitively, and one of the main arguments for newcomers to try Pioneer – cheaper cost of entering the format – stopped being a problem. On MTGO, deck prices for other, already established formats weren’t higher enough to convince people to try Pioneer. In addition, rental programs made it easier than ever to start the journey with online gaming. But the biggest problem for Pioneer was a total annihilation of casual players due to the suspension of in-play store – they couldn’t attend their weekly Pioneer events, build their attachment to the format and grow a community around it the same way Modern players did almost a decade earlier. The effect of that organic growth is the fact that Modern is the most popular competitive constructed format around the world by a fair margin.

‘Sodek, so in your opinion COVID killed Pioneer and there’s nothing we can do to help it?’

No. The pandemic only froze the processes of creating the format, but with restrictions slowly being lifted and the tournaments – Pioneer included – returning, a thaw of sorts can be noticed. In my opinion, Pioneer is still early in the stage of shaping a dedicated community around it. On the other hand, it can already be considered a great achievement how quickly it has reached the stage where it is now, especially given the fact that before the announcement of changes to Organized Play on March 31 hardly anyone took it seriously. This massive growth of interest was demonstrated by the attendance at the weekly MTGO Challenges. Before the announcement, there were maximum of several dozen people attending, and the lower limit of players required to start a Challenge was set at thirty-two. Currently, over a hundred people play each of them regularly, which is basically the same level of attendance as Modern. And we have to remember that Pioneer still has a lot of room to grow, especially with the Regional Championships and Pro Tour are still ahead of us. However, in my opinion, just having a few high-stakes events isn’t enough for Pioneer to build a faithful community. There is also a need for a healthy, diverse metagame and interesting archetypes that will gather players around them, similarly to what early Modern did.

Convergence around iconic archetypes

Speaking of interesting archetypes, why is it so important for the format to build a community around them? Because a lot of players who have invested their time and money in building and practicing a certain deck develop this sense of attachment, which keeps them in the format for years. Moreover, they often lacks the resources to switch to another deck. The more recognisable the archetype, the higher the chance for people to start flocking around it. Of course there are players who are exceptions to this rule and play many different formats. However, even if that’s the case, they usually have a preferred format. So for instance, Modern players who play the format competitively for years, have multiple decks, and are surrounded by friends from the local game store who are doing the same, are less likely to switch their field of interest overnight.
An important question has to be asked: what is the difference between Modern and Pioneer in this matter? What actually influenced the formation of those communities around specific archetypes in the past? In my opinion, there are several variables.

What influences building a community around an archetype in a format?

Tournament results

Each top deck from the early days of Modern had the opportunity to build the community around it, mainly through strong results at large paper events. The faithfulness of some of those groups can be still witnessed years after their favourite archetype got axed (vide Splinter Twin acolytes). Do Green Devotion, Spirits or RB Midrange players like to play with their decks? Probably so, but is it enough for them to identify with the listed archetypes as Splinter Twin fanatics did and still do? I have my doubts about it. Due to the lack of large tournaments, no archetype in Pioneer has managed to build such a brand – none of them had the opportunity to pass the test of time and to become immortal in the memory of players. Maybe the decks from before the second wave of bans, such as Inverter, Heliod or Underworld Breach combo could followed Twin’s footsteps, but the banhammer ended their life before it started for good. Maybe Phoenix could still achieve such level, even if it’ll largely happen on the back of nostalgia from the Faithless Looting times in Modern.

Coverage at major tournaments

Another crucial factor that greatly influenced the popularisation of Modern as a format and helped building the narrative around certain archetypes was the coverage of Pro Tours and Grand Prix. Highlighting an archetype on the big stage helped players forming a sense of connection to it in a way that Pioneer didn’t have There was a brief moment, just before the pandemic when the first round of the Players Tour started, when Inverter and Breach broke out and started gathering some following around them, but they were banned relatively shortly after. Later on, mostly due to the pandemic, we didn’t get much coverage and Pioneer became forgotten by everyone but the most dedicated MTGO grinders – until the Organized Play announcement, they were basically the only people actively interested in the format. Even to this day, no one knows for certain which archetypes are truly good and which only looks okay on the surface. Because of that, we can’t really talk about people converging around the best archetypes – at least for now.

The cost of entering the format

The last important factor is the entry cost and the potential monetary loss in the event of a banning or if the chosen deck simply turns out to be unplayable. I think it’s safe to assume that there are quite a few players out there who would like to play Pioneer, but they don’t want to invest blindly and prefer to wait for the first major results to buy into the format. The fear of another wave of bans can’t be ignored as well – in May and June, Winota has been talked about as a potential target for a ban, but the action was taken sooner than anyone expected. Expressive Iteration died for the sins of Delve spells, which WotC wants to keep in the format at all costs, even if in the end they’re pretty likely to go at some point as well. Recent changes to the ban list have shown that no one can feel totally safe – who knows if Nykthos, Shrine of Nyx will still be legal six months from now? Or maybe something else will get the axe? Major tournaments at the highest level that will start happening a couple of months from now will send a strong signal to the Pioneer community about what is worth putting together, and this movement will for sure translate into Pioneer’s greater share in the constructed environment.

Conclusion

Despite the very similar size of the card pool and comparatively diverse metagame, 2011-2014 Modern and current Pioneer are not in the same place of development. Pioneer, despite the better management of its ban list, is behind compared to Modern. In my opinion, the main reason for this difference is the pandemic and its consequences: suspension of in-store play and freezing the Organized Play, which inevitably brought a significant reduction in the coverage of paper-based events.
In my opinion, Pioneer is just getting started. This is evidenced by the number of players who take part in the Pioneer Challenge and the growing number of 5-0 published leagues. We’ll also start getting overwhelmed with lists from local qualifiers any moment now. But can the format develop even faster, or are we close to solving the format? I talked about it witha couple of MTGO grinders who specialise in Pioneer: Xerk (Wojtek Kowalczuk), Aardos (Marcin Klimuszko) and WrzoBuSeks (Przemek Olszewski). Their main conclusion was that Pioneer is underdeveloped. Main reason for that is the fact that not enough people have worked on figuring out the non-standard interactions and most players are just copy-pasting lists from last week’s Challenges. Therefore, it was relatively easy to ‘break’ the format, or at least to surprise the unprepared metagame with something unusual. The successes of GW Angels or UB Control – even if only temporary – showed that new interactions are just waiting to be discovered. The same pattern was seen in Modern. Lantern Control, Amulet, or KCI have eluded the brewers for months or even years, and there is no indication that the Pioneer shouldn’t follow the same pattern. The current top decks are nothing unusual in terms of the complexity of deckbuilding – they are usually one or two colour deck built around a fairly consistent game plan. It is true that we can already see movements related to the search for the best possible builds of any given archetype – fifty shades of Humans and countless versions of blue-red Treasure Cruise or Geasefang decks are good examples of this. However, I feel that the best is yet to come – I bet that Pioneer in a few months, after we’re done with the current qualifying season and this batch of Regional Championships, will be a significantly different format that it is now. It will be much more based around subtle and intricate synergies rather than just stapling the best cards from the last couple years of Standard together. This diversity will in turn attract those who have not been able to convince themselves to try it out. The first dominoes have already fallen, and we just need to patiently wait for events to unfold – or be the change we want to see and look for something that will break the format.