The Coolest Decklists From The First Two Weeks Of The Pioneer Regional Championships

RC Athens

The deck that went 9-0 on day 1 was Storm Herald combo. It’s a graveyard-based strategy where you fill your graveyard with two key cards – Colossifaction and Burning Anger. This makes it so that you return both when you cast a Storm Herald. Then stack the triggers so it taps itself to (likely) lethal the opponent.

This deck is not new. It has existed for a while, but it’s been on the fringe with the rise of better graveyard decks that force the meta to run incidental hate. However, with the current downturn in the popularity of these kinds of decks, the Storm Herald combo becomes amazing.

Storm Herald Combo fills its graveyard differently than its grease fang counterparts. It fills its graveyard with cards like Merfolk Secretkeeper, Otherworldly Gaze, and Gather the Pack. The diversity is because your entire deck is based around Storm Herald. So, you play Traverse the Ulvenwald to acquire it more often.

The deck doesn’t have a secondary game plan; it’s all in on doing your opponent for 23. If there’s a Rest in Peace in play and you don’t have an answer, your best bet is to cast Ledger Shredder‘s and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and pray your opponent draws bricks forever.

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Storm Herald Combo

RC Toronto

The breakout deck from Toronto is a blue/white Lotus Field deck by Allen Wu, abusing the card Strict Prospector to counter the trigger. You’re abusing the mana with expensive comeback cards like Farewell to reset the board.

The other way this deck can abuse Lotus Field is with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, which can be cast for free using two Lotus fields and then using Teferi’s uptick ability to untap both of the lands and cast discontinuity to end the opponent’s turn on their upkeep.

They also abuse the opponent’s end step with cards like Memory Deluge, which abuses the fact the deck ramps an insane amount by being two spells—one from hand and one with flashback digging even more.

A mechanic that’s good for cheating on mana is Foretell from Kaldheim. Cards like Doomskar allow you to pay five mana over two turns or five mana in one turn. This allows you the flexibility needed when you do or don’t have a Lotus Field. Another card that abuses this mechanic is Behold the Multiverse.

Strict Prospecter is the backbone of this deck, being able to stop your own Lotus Fields and oppress your opponent’s triggers and trying to remove it with a Leyline Binding? Pay 2. Chained to the Rocks? Pay 2. It also can shut off some decks like the Elementals deck I’ll mention later.

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Azorius Lotus Field

RC Dallas

In the Dallas RC, we saw a tribal deck in Top-8. It’s the tribe everyone loves from standard two years ago, Rouges. Rouges usually try and mill your opponent to turn on their countermagic and snowball their threats.

Here are some of the important rouges within this archetype: Thieves’ Guild Enforcer being able to mill two for every rouge you play to turn on Drown in the Loch quicker. Other notable rouges are Soaring Thought-Thief, Brazen Borrower, and everyone’s favorite surprise Zareth San, the Trickster.

This deck is good because you can hold up your interaction. And when your opponent passes, you can jam your threats at the end step. Since this deck is UB it gets access to the good interaction spells in Pioneer, like Fatal Push and Thoughtseize. But you also get to play Drown in the Loch and Go for the Throat for even more removal.

If you like Zareth San, you’ll love the newest addition to this deck from March Of The Machines Invasion of Amonkhet. It creates a two-for-one upon cast by replacing itself and making your opponent discard.

The mill is relevant for Drown in the Loch, and once you attack it down, you can copy a card you’ve milled from your opponent. You can copy a Sheoldred the Apoclypse, an Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines (for double rouge triggers), or even an Atraxa, Grand Unifier to refill your hand.

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Dimir Rogues

RC Shanghai

Yes, I know you aggro players have been dying for a decklist to play. And boy, do I have one for you. I know aggro players only want one thing, Reckless Bushwhacker. No, I’m not talking about Boros convoke. I’m talking about the decklist from RC Shanghai, Ataraka red. This deck aims to kill the opponent as quickly as possible.

The early aggressive creatures the decklist plays are Monastery Swiftspear, Kumano Faces Kakkazan, and Phoenix Chick. With these creatures, you’re able to pressure your opponent’s life total and go wide to set up for a Burning-Tree Emissary Reckless bushwhacker kill.

The draw to this deck over Convoke is it has fewer awkward cards and more burn spells. This helps turn your early damage into lethal. When you get hit with a Temporary Lockdown, and you need that last bit of damage cards like , [c]Lightning Strike, and Play with Fire will end the game.

The deck also plays Pioneer all-star Bonecrusher Giant along with some other “one-of, fun-of” cards like Ghor-clan Rampager, Gallia of the Endless Dance, and Kari Zev, sky-Ship Raider. Ghor-clan Rampager makes combat awkward for the blocker. Galia allows for more card draw. And Kari Zev is a nightmare to block and allows you to have Ragavan in Pioneer.

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Atarka Red

RC SEA

At the South East Asia RC, we saw Fredrick Fong top 8 with his take on 4c elementals. The deck abuses the new card from March of the MAchines aftermath, Nissa, Resurgent Animist. The card acts as a Lotus Cobra to ramp into bigger five-costed spells. Nissa can also turn fetch lands into a new card by having Nissa find you an elemental.

The good elements within the format are modern’s favorite pair, Risen Reef, and Omnath, Locus of Creation. Both of these cards scale well, with more elements being found. Omnath is a powerhouse in the format.

He allows you to come from behind by drawing a card and gaining four life a turn. The other elemental the deck plays is Omnath, Locust of the Roil, which also works well to kill the opponent and draw cards in the late game.

This deck seeks to grind out opponents’ resources by having all their cards draw more cards and do something else. With this, we create a card advantage to continue going overtop the opponent. It also uses cards like Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines to oppress opponents while doubling landfall triggers.

This deck’s removal package is cards like Leyline Binding and Chained to the Rocks, which are both fantastic with a four-color mana package. Also, doubling with our Elesh norn becomes a massive bonus of these early removal spells. Lastly, the few good cards we also run alongside these are Growth Spiral and Escape to the Wilds. Escape is used not to have the cards you want to cast to avoid discard spells for your next turn.

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4c Elementals

General RCs

Another deck that has been popping off in the RCs is Rakdos Sacrifice. A fan favorite as it uses Pioneer beloved combo to generate value, Witches Oven, and Cauldron Familiar. This sacrifice outlet with good Rakdos cards throughout gives a very gritty game plan.

This deck is built around the combo above while using Mayhem Devil to make each sac ping for one more than the last. With the combo mentioned prior, Mayhem Devil allows for two additional damage per cycle, and it only goes up from there.

The deck plays other things to sacrifice. Bloodtithe Harvester is an insane two-drop. it sacrifices itself to kill something causing another devil to trigger and creating blood, which is another trigger. It can also cycle through your hand to find you more value.

Since this deck is Rakdos, it gets access to the best interaction and removal in Pioneer, being Thoughtseize and Fatal Push. Another spell that works as a removal spell is Claim the Firstborn. It can take their smaller creature to attack with it and sacrifice it at the end of the turn; all for one, mana is quite powerful.

It’s also hard to run this deck out of cards because it plays Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, which does everything for this deck. The first trigger is making a dork, which makes treasure to sacrifice for more triggers. Then loot the wrong cards in your hand away and flip them.

Other than fable, the list runs Unlucky Witness, another card with a powerful death trigger – It can dig at the top two to find whatever you’re lacking. Witch’s Oven is the only outlet in the deck required in play. Our other sacrifice card is a Deadly Dispute. Drawing two, causing a sac trigger, and giving a treasure token for another sac makes this card an all-star within the deck.