One of the greatest things about Magic: The Gathering is the many ways that you can engage with the game. It doesn't matter how much you love a particular deck or format; repetitive play patterns can get a little stale.

Maybe you've been smashed by an Overloaded Cyclonic Rift one too many games in a row, or you've had your combo Force of Willed when you thought you were safe, or you've been smacked for twenty damage on turn three by a Slickshot Show-off yet again.

You play one deck, or one format, enough and you can get understandably frustrated or bored. You still love Magic, but you're just not having fun with the way you have been playing it. At some point, you just want to step away from what you're doing and find something new.

Fortunately, Magic is one of the best games ever invented when it comes to customization. If the grind of Standard has got you down, then maybe you should try Pioneer.

What is Pioneer?

On the official website, Wizards of the Coast has this to say about Pioneer:

"This nonrotating format features sets from Return to Ravnica, forward. It aims to be more powerful than Standard but less powerful than Modern or Legacy."

Currently, there are 56 legal sets in Pioneer, encompassing the last 14 years of Magic history. It is a non-rotating format, which means cards that are legal in Pioneer right now will always be legal in the format (barring something like a Ban list update that nabs a particularly broken card, of course).

So, if you fall in love with a deck, strategy, or group of cards, those ways to play will always be legal in the format. This is very different from Standard, where no matter how much you love playing with a card like Lumra, Bellow of the Woods, at the end of its allotted Standard legal timeframe (typically about three years), it will rotate out of the format.

Pioneer is a fairly stable play environment and should let players feel that they can invest in buying and learning to play a particular deck without the fear of a pending rotation making that deck choice obsolete.

Additionally, Pioneer was designed to be the bridge between Standard and Modern, and it has a power level that firmly sits between the two. It's not as powerful as Modern, especially since it lacks things like the free spell Elementals, but it has enough card availability to take on the most powerful cards in Standard.

What are some of the popular cards in Pioneer?

You can't talk about the great cards in Pioneer without first acknowledging the most important cards that you can't use. One of the defining features of Pioneer is that Fetch Lands are banned.

So, while the format does have access to a variety of ways to build strong multicolored decks with solid mana bases, those mana bases are still somewhat constrained (and Landfall strategies aren't as oppressive as they otherwise could be).

While Fetch Lands are banned, the following popular cards are not.

Thoughtseize

Thoughtseize is probably the biggest pillar of the Pioneer format. This is the card that holds the format together in a way. Thoughtseize keeps the most degenerate decks in check by preemptively attacking them where they're most vulnerable (in their hand, before they can be played) and at the most opportune time (as early as turn one).

Mutavault

Mutavault may be the most important Land in the format. It synergizes with every Kindred strategy in the format, enabling everything from Elves to Goblins, while also pairing with cards like Unholy Annex to enable options that would otherwise probably be unplayable. It even occasionally pops up in random Control decks as a cheap beater.

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is an example of a card that dances the power level line in Pioneer, much like its time in Standard. There are times when this card is so present that calls will go out for it to be banned. And other times when it will see little to no play.

This isn't a bug of the format; it's one of the features. There are so many strong cards in the format that it creates an ebb and flow, where cards and decks rise and fall as new cards enter the format, or new interactions are discovered.

Parhelion II

Pioneer is also a great place for certain cards to get a second chance at finding playability. Parhelion II was never a serious player in Standard, but it has become a key combo piece in one of the format's best Combo decks, where it pairs with Greasefang, Okiba Boss.

Vivi Ornitier

Pioneer is also a place where a card like Vivi Ornitier can find a home. Vivi is too powerful for the current Standard format (which is a little crazy considering how powerful the current Standard environment is) and earned a ban.

However, it can still be played in Pioneer, where it frequently sees play in tournament-winning decks. Pioneer offers a way for players to continue to use some of the cards that get banned in Standard due to their power level.

Badgermole Cub

You thought you could get away from the terror that is Badgermole Cub? Well, while Pioneer may have a ton of powerful cards across a decade and a half of Magic history, that doesn't mean it's immune to the most powerful cards in Standard.

Cards like Badgermole Cub, Quantum Riddler, and the Lessons package of cards from Avatar: The Last Airbender are strong enough to create decks around in Pioneer as well. In some cases, they are extremely similar to their Standard counterparts, but in others, they combine with older cards to create entirely new archetypes.

Why should you play Pioneer?

Pioneer sits at an interesting point on the Magic gameplay spectrum, as a format with a much larger card pool than Standard that isn't affected by the nuclear-level power increases that other non-rotating and Eternal formats experience when a Modern Horizons set releases.

Cards enter Pioneer through the Standard format, giving players the chance to develop an attachment to them and creating demand for a place to play them once they have rotated out of Standard. This is particularly important with the arrival of Universes Beyond.

Universes Beyond works as a recruitment tool for the game, which means there will soon come a time where the players that jumped into Magic because they loved a particular Universes Beyond product, like Final Fantasy for example, will find it frustrating that this product is no longer Standard legal.

This is where Pioneer comes in. It provides another place where people can play the cards that originally brought them into the game.

Conclusion

This a great time to dive into the format, learn some of the decks (maybe even invest in some of the popular cards before they see much more play), and get a feel for the format.

In short, Pioneer feels like the most wide-open format in Magic, with a ton of viable play patterns and deck choices. It is the place where nostalgia meets innovation. where the game's past and future collide.