Toughtseize, Duress, can dismantle your opponent’s hand while Fatal Push, Torch the Tower checks any pesky early creature, and Reckoner Bankbuster helps you stall any graveyard-centric strategy. Dustyn Nogueira and Simon Scrutton’s 3rd and 4th place finishes in the second biggest tournament of this report with more than 378 players prove its strength. Manalacaio version of Gruul Aggro plays a full set of [Card]Aloe Alchemist[/card].

Mono Blue Belcher can get an instantly lethal plst-DDT-57-goblin-charbelcher activation by going “landless” with an extra large helping of blue modal double-faced cards (MDFC). The shakeup created by the most recent banned and restricted announcement has been a breath of fresh air for the Modern format. It’s just in time too, as the Modern cycle of the Regional Championships is starting imminently.

While Slickshot Show-Off initially put Mono-Red Aggro on the map, the deck is now essentially a watered-down version of the Prowess decks that are among the tier-one Pioneer decks. Mono Red exchanges some overall staying power for more consistent pressure. If your goal is to relentlessly kill your opponent, this is the best deck to do that. If you’re looking for an aggressive strategy that gives you more options, consider one of the tier one decks instead. The absence of Amalia combo has allowed Boros Convoke an entry point back into the Pioneer metagame. That said, Rakdos and Jund Sacrifice are now on the rise, and could prove problematic for this archetype.

We try to win the race, which will work in some cases, but it can go very wrong if the mirror’s card combination is better than yours, or if your opponent’s Fatal Push comes before yours. Prepare for the June 2024 Explorer Qualifier Play-In and Qualifier Weekend events with Strickles, and what he is working with to attack the metagame. We are happy to continue our efforts of making playingmtg an amazing source for MTG players all around the world. Bill Comminos’s list finished 6th in the Super Sunday RCQ however Marc Tobias won a tournament with 546 players on November 9 with a list that has just a few differences. Not many talk about it, but Case of Stashed Skeleton may be responsible for this deck’s success.

Best MTG Arena Decks

With all these new cards around, it’s interesting to notice how oceansoul iteration is playing the full set of Ornithopter. With a 2nd place finish in an MTGO Challenge, it seems like playing 0-2 Ornithopters is not mandatory and going all in on the Moon-Circuit Hacker tempo play could be great. It helps Arclight Phoenix go into the graveyard and accelerates our more expensive spells, and its level 3 is also relevant. Besides being a great mana sink, it makes our removals like Lightning Axe hit bigger targets as Niv-Mizzet, Reborn or Ygra, Eater of All.

Thanks to this, it has been performing very well at both major and minor events. Despite this winning stream, it’s currently unclear if this deck has the legs to be a real dominant force in the metagame going forward. In theory, Selesnya Angels has the chops to be a solid tier 2 deck, but this is a rather unpopular version of Collected Company decks at the moment, putting it in tier 3 for now. Orzohv Control deck is a control deck that lets you take your time to set up while you control the playing field.

If your type of game is to go all out and not let the opponent recover, the Rakdos Prowess is the deck for you. Don’t get me wrong, Selesnya Angels may win a relevant tournament just ass moon11 did. Choose wisely based on your expected metagame and any Coco deck may lead you to victory. Both decks have at least 12 Duskmourn’s overlords, tools for drawing and keeping the gas flowing in Up the Beanstalk, and amazing removals edh deck with Leyline Binding as the best one of the list.

Pioneer Meta Tier List

Sure it’s not as consistent as the likes of Gruul Aggro or Domain, but it’s much, much cheaper. According to MTG Goldfish a current Gruul Aggro deck will run you nearly $300, while Domain will cost over $500. Even on the low end with Mono-Red Prowess, you’re looking at at least $200 to sleeve up a deck in Standard right now. In that context, $30 for a deck that can get you Challenge wins is an absolute steal. The downside is that we give up more interactions than the Metagame might demand.

The goal of this deck is to get copies of Arclight Phoenix into the graveyard while maintaining a high spell count in hand. This allows you to consistently cast three Instants or Sorceries to bring back Arclight Phoenixes, making it difficult for your opponent to keep them off the battlefield with traditional removal. Regardless, all iterations of this deck struggle against aggressive creature decks, and those happen to be some of the best decks in the format. Because of that, the deck is tier 3 at the moment, played only by a select few who can pilot the complicated archetype efficently. Overall, Selesnya Angels is currently very well equipped to take on the Pioneer metagame.

Bonus: Izzet Lotus

As the name suggests, this deck is all about lands with the Cave subtype from Lost Caverns of Ixalan. There are a lot of these in Standard right now, and a surprising number of payoffs for running them, too. This was the biggest underperformed during the Foundation’s first week. Jund can win without Gilded Goose, or Traverse the Ulvenwald, however, making many more foods thanks to the Goose and Vinereap Mentor can give you many advantages.

Ride’s End has been showing up a ton lately as a “five mana” exile-based removal spell you can typically cast for two, and it performs that same role here. Dealing with big threats on the cheap and drawing a card always feels great. Orzhov Slasher tries to use the combo of Unstoppable Slasher with Bloodletter of Aclazotz to win games in one hit-kill, while using removal and discard to hold the game and ensure the combo works. Learn how to play the new RDW iteration in this strategy guide including sideboard guide + Bo1 and budget versions.

This makes it a great time to get into Pioneer if you’re interested in the format. Sacrifice is another archetype showing dominance, but Jund seems stronger than Golgari, however, Golgari won this month’s biggest tournament with 546 players competing for the win in France. Selesnya Company and Phoenix are fighting hard to remain relevant in Tier 1; both are close to Jund and Rakdos Midrange, but not so compared to Rakdos Prowess. Niv-to-Light’s powerful performance is a reflection of where the metagame went after the ban of Jegantha, the Wellspring. Rakdos Midrange is now the most popular deck in the format by a wide margin, and aggressive decks are still very good. Curiously, Azorious Control decks often don’t run any creatures in the main deck.

Finding Elenda is not a problem thanks to the full playset of Bring to Light and Niv-Mizzet Reborn itself. However, I also always mention that decks that innovate and adjust their pieces have more chances to stay relevant. This made Rakdos Prowess get twenty-eight top 8 finishes two weeks ago, which made me think that this was the undisputable king of the hill. However, this week, Rakdos Midrange proves that playing without mice is possible.