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Pioneer Finance Madness! Breaking Down The PTQ And The Bannings

Wizards’ decision to announce bans in Pioneer every Monday for the foreseeable future has many questioning whether it’s the right time to buy into the format. Fortunately, Chas has the rundown on what cards to buy, avoid, and look for in the future!

A lot can change in 72 hours.

Late last week, we were still talking about Pioneer in mostly theoretical
terms. There had been a handful of small events on Magic Online, and a few
high-profile streamers had begun showing off their first innovations, but
that was about it.

Things are quite a bit different now. Not only did we have our first
Pioneer PTQ, but we’ve also had our first Pioneer B&R announcement.
Over the course of three days, we first learned a little about what decks
might actually be good in Magic’s newest eternal format… and then we
learned what happens when Wizards of the Coast goes to lunch with (I can
only assume) a printed-out copy of the tournament results and a hunger for
aggressive B&R decisions.

Yeah. Lots to talk about today. Let’s get started.

What Does Yesterday’s Announcement Say About The Future of Pioneer
Bannings?

Before

the announcement

, I had assumed that WotC was likely working off a shortlist of cards they
had deemed problematic back when we didn’t even know what Pioneer was.
While this might still be true, it’s clear that they’re shooting from the
hip as well. Felidar Guardian was on everybody’s “most likely to get the
axe” list from the beginning, but I’m not even sure I could have told you
what Leyline of Abundance actually did at the start of last week. Heck, I’d
still need to pull up the card in order to tell you how much its second
ability costs.

That doesn’t mean that banning Leyline of Abundance was wrong – we’ll get
to that a little later on – but it does mean that WotC is reacting to the
format in real time. They’re looking at the same data we are, and they’re
making decisions based off the same handful of MTGO results.

I’m not here to judge whether that’s the best way to handle Pioneer
bannings going forward, but I am here to tell you that we have to
recalibrate how we think about bannings in order to adjust to this style of
decision-making. At this point, key cards in any deck that performs too
well on MTGO are likely going to get the axe on the following Monday. Keep
this in mind as you invest in this format going forward.

That said, we can’t just sit back and wait for things to shake out before
buying in to Pioneer. By the time WotC finally wipes their hands and
declares Pioneer ready for prime time, the metagame will be pretty well
established and all the key cards in the best archetypes will be at peak
value. You can wait until this point if you’re super risk-adverse, but I’d
still prefer to buy in early if I can. We just have to be aware that this
format is very much in open beta, and yesterday’s announcement was probably
just the tip of the B&R iceberg.

Analyzing The PTQ Results

If you want a metagame analysis of the PTQ’s Top 8 decks,
check out the article that [author name="Ari Lax"]Ari Lax[/author] wrote on the topic yesterday.
Even though he wrote it prior to the bannings, the information is still
super useful and on-point.

For our purposes, I’ll be going through Pioneer’s major archetypes one at a
time, breaking them down from a financial perspective. And we have to begin
with the weekend’s clear winner, even though it was just nuked into
oblivion by yesterday’s bannings:

Four-Color Copy Cat (31% of Top 32)


Four-Color Copy Cat cannot survive the banning of Felidar Guardian. There
is nothing that can effectively replace it, and it’s pretty clear that WotC
just wanted to nip this archetype in the bud. Apologies to anyone who
bought in, but it was clear from the start that this was one of the riskier
decks to invest in early on.

Luckily, you probably aren’t out too much money regardless. The most
expensive cards in this deck are Oko, Thief of Crowns and Teferi, Time
Raveler. You don’t need me to tell you that these cards have other top-tier
homes across multiple formats, and I highly doubt that the Felidar Guardian
ban is going to affect their price tags too much. You may want to sell Oko
for other reasons (he’s not long for Standard, obviously), but yesterday’s
announcement shouldn’t factor into it all that much.


Saheeli Rai is the big loser here, and she’s going to fall back off toward
the $5-$8 level she was at before Pioneer was announced. Saheeli might show
up here and there without Felidar Guardian, but it won’t be often and it
shouldn’t affect her price tag. It’s almost certainly too late to cash out
now, but I wouldn’t worry about buying low on Saheeli. That particular
dream is over.

Devotion Decks (15% of Top 32)

Todd Anderson is almost single-handedly responsible for getting Leyline of
Abundance banned yesterday.
He wrote a primer on the deck for StarCityGames last week
, and then put his money where his mouth was by
coming in second in the first-ever Pioneer PTQ.
His deck looked great on stream all weekend, and it appeared as though both
Mono-Green Devotion and Simic Devotion would become pillars of the nascent
metagame. These are the pre-ban lists:



Can these decks survive the loss of Leyline of Abundance and Oath of Nissa?
That remains to be seen. WotC very specifically did not ban Nykthos, Shrine
to Nix in order to give the deck a shot at a slightly lower power level,
and we’ll see if their decision pays off. It’s possible that Devotion will
still be too good, and Nykthos will get the boot later this month. It’s
also possible that the deck won’t be able to get there anymore without its
two enablers. Asking Devotion to be good but not too good going forward is
a tough needle to thread, and I’m not psyched about buying into any of
these cards at current retail on the hope that WotC hit that mark.

At any rate, Leyline of Abundance was responsible for many of Devotion’s
best draws, though the deck still looked great on steam without a Leyline.
Oath of Nissa might end up being the bigger loss, as it quickly proved
itself one of the most important cards in all of Pioneer. It was on the
fast-track to being a $10+ enabler, but now it’s gone. Expect both cards to
end up back at their pre-spike prices…at least until some future generation
of Pioneer players start buying them out ahead of every B&R
announcement in hopes that WotC will set them free.



There are quite a few other financially-relevant cards in Devotion, and we
should talk about them as well. To start, Nissa, Who Shakes the World,
Hydroid Krasis, and Once Upon a Time were all expensive before the Pioneer
announcement, and their price tags still have more to do with Standard than
with Magic’s newest eternal format. Still, it’s worth noting just how
quickly all three of these cards found a top tier home in Pioneer. Heck,
Once Upon a Time is currently the fourth-most-played card in the format
right now according to MTG Goldfish. You probably don’t have to worry too
much about any of these cards spiking because of Pioneer play, but it’ll
certainly help backstop any impending price drops once a certain
Simic-colored planeswalker is banned in Standard. Future bannings might
hurt these cards, but I expect both Nissa and Once Upon a Time to find new
homes quickly, even if Devotion doesn’t survive.

Voracious Hydra and Vivien, Arkbow Ranger are also Standard-legal cards,
but they’ve mostly flown under the financial radar. Voracious Hydra and
Vivien see play as one-ofs or two-ofs in some of the Simic Food decks, but
those brews are so expensive thanks to Oko, Hydroid Krasis, and Questing
Beast that neither of these cards have benefited all that much. They’re
getting a bit friskier now, though – Voracious Hydra nearly doubled in
price over the weekend, and Vivien jumped a couple of bucks as well.


These two cards might have a lower ceiling than most Pioneer staples simply
because they’re still in print, but Core Set 2020 will probably
end up being one of the worst-selling expansions in the entire format. If
Devotion ends up being one of the pillars of the format after all is said
and done, these two cards will probably end up doubling in price again. I’m
just not very confident in that after yesterday’s bannings.

That brings us to Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. This is the card that makes both
Mono-Green and Simic Devotion work, and it’s clearly still on WotC’s watch
list. Nykthos is currently sold out at $25, and it’ll end up in the $30+
range long-term if Devotion is allowed to stick around as a top tier pillar
of the format. I’m not taking the risk at that price point, but you might
be able to snag some of these on the cheap if enough folks assume that
yesterday’s announcement has killed Devotion for good. Like I said, it’s a
tough needle to thread, but if you can snag these for $5-$10 from some
disgruntled Devotion player later this afternoon? Do it.

Izzet Phoenix (9% of Top 32)


The current iteration of Izzet Phoenix in Pioneer is actually pretty
affordable. You need four copies of Arclight Phoenix and Thing in the Ice
for your maindeck, but none of the enabler spells are even rares, much less
mythic rares. As a result, both Arclight Phoenix and Thing in the Ice have
seen considerable gains over the past few days, with Arclight Phoenix
doubling in price from $10 to $20 and Thing in the Ice jumping back up to
$15. Both cards have at least a little bit further to rise if Izzet Phoenix
doesn’t get banned into oblivion next Monday, and this deck seems resilient
enough to survive almost any metagame shift.



In terms of the uncommons, Wild Slash has been the biggest financial winner
so far. The Fate Reforged uncommon was easy to get for less than a buck
last week and now it’s sold out at $3.50. Most of the other commons and
uncommons in this deck were printed at least twice, so it stands to reason
that this card has been the choke point so far, especially since it’s
showing up in almost every deck that runs red. I don’t think Wild Slash has
much further to climb, but it can certainly sustain a price tag near $5
until it’s eventually reprinted.

While most of the Izzet Phoenix maindecks are pretty similar at this point,
there’s quite a lot of interesting variation in the sideboard. Interesting
spec targets like Anger of the Gods, Chandra, Torch of Defiance, Keranos,
God of Storms, Sweltering Suns, and The Royal Scions abound. Keranos
definitely has the highest financial upside here based on its price history
and current value, but it also seems like the farthest from finding a real
home in the format. Chandra has already gone up a bunch due to seeing play
in other decks. As for the red sweeper spells, most of them are still just
a buck or two. If you’re building a big Pioneer collection, you should
probably just grab them all now – the ones that see play in any given week
will depend on what the current metagame looks like.


The Mono-Red Aggro deck that had the highest PTQ finish this weekend is
also one of the most affordable competitive decks in recent memory. Ash
Zealot is a fifty-cent card. Bomat Courier is a buck. Soul-Scar Mage is $4.
Eidolon of Great Revel is the heavy hitter of the bunch, tipping the scales
at a whopping $11 (sold out).

Of course, Mono-Red Aggro is what it is. Its cards rarely spike too hard,
and you’ve either got all these cards already or you’re probably not that
interested in playing Mono-Red. Eidolon of the Great Revel might have a
little more room to run, but I don’t see that happening yet. Bomat Courier
should probably be worth more than a dollar, but that’s been true for a
while. Rampaging Ferocidon might stick around the $5 mark now, though.
That’s kind of relevant I suppose!

I’m more interested in looking at what other cards might make the cut in
future builds of Mono-Red Aggro. Hazoret the Fervent, Chandra, Torch of
Defiance, Smuggler’s Copter, and Goblin Chainwhirler look like the biggest
no-shows in this particular list, though all four of these cards did show
up in quite a few of the other Mono-Red Aggro lists in the Top 32. It
doesn’t appear as though these four cards are about to see another spike,
but they should all be fairly stable at their post-spike prices. Mono-Red
Aggro mages are going to need access to their entire toolbox, as the best
way to attack the metagame is going to be radically different on a
week-to-week basis.

The Field

The rest of the decks in the PTQ made up less than 10% of the Top 32, but
I’d still like to discussing some of the more interesting brews here. It’ll
be interesting to see which of them see a massive surge in play over the
coming days – and which were just Week 1 outliers.

Simic Nexus


This is the deck that actually won the PTQ, but it didn’t show up in enough
force for WotC to take action. Is Nexus going to be the sort of deck that
shows up and spikes a tournament every now and then, or will it win another
event or two and get something banned?

I’m leading more toward the former right now. There are a lot more answers
to Nexus in Pioneer right now than there were during its Standard heyday,
but be aware that WotC doesn’t really like the Nexus of Fate play patterns.
It’s also possible that Dig Through Time will be banned at some point due
to totally unrelated reasons. Both of those possibilities make this a
fairly risky deck to invest in.


That said, Nexus of Fate is itself probably the only card in this deck
that’ll tank due to a banning, so you may still want to sleeve this up if
you’ve already got those kicking around your collection. I just wouldn’t
invest in Nexus itself right now.

Kethis Combo


I feel like Kethis Combo is still mostly unexplored territory. Now that
Copy Cat is gone, though, it’s quite possible that people will turn to this
deck in their next attempt to break Pioneer in half. And if that happens,
you can expect some pretty serious spikes before the inevitable banning.


Many of the key cards in Kethis Combo have yet to spike. Lazav, the
Multifarious and Kethis the Hidden Hand are both about as cheap as they’ve
always been. Once Upon a Time, Oko, and Teferi are expensive for other
reasons. Mana Confluence and Mox Amber have actually gone down in price
this week. I have no idea if this deck actually has room to run, but I’ll
be keeping an eye on it pretty closely going forward. There’s money to be
made here if it does.

Mono-Green Ramp


I’ve got my eye on Mono-Green Ramp right now because it’s the green deck
without either Oath of Nissa or the Nykthos/Leyline of Abundance package.
It’s the slower deck, certainly, but Ugin, the Spirit Dragon combined with
Emrakul and Ulamog give it a pretty enviable late-game.


There aren’t a ton of spec targets here since Ugin and Walking Ballista are
both super expensive already, but Hour of Promise is a fun penny stock. You
can pick them up for just $0.59 right now, and it’s a four-of in this
build. The card might look underpowered compared to the big mana decks in
Modern, but it’s a solid spell in Pioneer.

I do worry a little about Once Upon a Time, which could have easily been
banned along with (or instead of) Oath of Nissa. But if the format gets a
little more diverse over the next couple of weeks, I suspect that WotC will
leave the card alone. After all, the fewer cards from their latest set that
they have to ban, the better.


This is another deck I’ve got a close eye on going forward. Sorin,
Imperious Bloodlord might be the most powerful planeswalker that most
people routinely forget about, and we’ve seen what Grey Merchant of
Asphodel can do in the right deck. Mono-Black Devotion has taken off a bit
online in recent days, and Sorin has more than doubled in price on MTGO
over the past 72 hours. In paper Magic, you can still pick them up for $10
with ease. Drana is another card that hasn’t spiked yet, while Kalitas
appears to be smack dab in the middle of a spike itself.

The best part about Mono-Black Devotion? I don’t think there are too many
ban risks in this deck. Something will get the axe if this deck takes over
completely, but there’s very little splash damage or utility card risk
aside from Nykthos. To me, this deck is in the sweet spot of safety and
upside if you’re looking to invest in Pioneer right now.

The No-Shows

Aetherworks Marvel was the first card to spike due to Pioneer speculation.
Then it dropped back to $10 because everyone was afraid it would get
banned. Now it’s an afterthought.

Paradoxically, Aetherworks Marvel has a higher ceiling now than it did
before it no-showed the PTQ. If the card had proved as broken as expected,
it would almost certainly be on the shortlist for a future banning.
Instead, it might dodge all the early bannings entirely and find a niche in
the format later on. While I can’t condone spending $10 on a card that
hasn’t done much yet, I’d definitely look to buy in a few months from now
if Aetherworks Marvel continues flying under the radar. I suspect it’ll
show up in Pioneer at some point, and it’ll be both expensive and good when
it does.

With Devotion powered down and Copy Cat out of the picture, it’s possible
that we’ll see more midrange in the format going forward. It’s also
possible that the green decks are going to stay focused on ramp decks and
planeswalker-based decks from here on out. I liked this card as a spec back
when it was less than $10, but I want to see it show up and perform before
I’m going to spend $20.

Classic control decks haven’t really broken through in Pioneer yet. It’s
possible that this is a Veil of Summer problem, or a “we need to ban more
things first” problem, or just an issue of control decks not knowing what
they have to react to in a fledgling metagame. That said, Teferi, Hero of
Dominaria is generally only showing up as a one-of or two-of in the decks
that do want to run it right now. That’s not enough to justify its current
$35 price tag.

This Week’s Trends

It should come as no surprise that there weren’t many non-Pioneer gainers
this week. Standard is under a stranglehold right now, with Oko decks
dominating the format in a way that makes our former worries about Bant
Golos seem quaint in comparison.

I’ll be covering this week’s Mythic Championship in detail next Monday, but
I doubt it’ll move the needle on Standard very much. The Oko decks will
almost certainly win out, and any non-Oko decks that do well are going to
be finely tuned to the Oko-centric metagame. People aren’t going to invest
in any of these decks until WotC bans the problematic Simic planeswalker,
so you shouldn’t be speculating on much of anything in Standard right now.

As for Oko himself, the card is down to “just” $50 after its brief foray in
the $70 range. This is partially due to banning fears, partially due to
waning interest in the current Standard environment, and partially because
the available supply of Throne of Eldraine cards keeps rising. Oko
should fall even farther once it’s finally banned in Standard, and its
future value will depend almost entirely upon whether WotC lets it continue
to wreak havoc across Modern and Pioneer.

If Oko is allowed to remain a pillar of those formats – which could easily
happen, since WotC might not want you to feel too bad when you open one in
your booster pack and discover that it’s banned in Standard – then we could
eventually be looking at a price chart similar to Liliana of the Veil. At
any rate, I wouldn’t buy in now. Oko should bottom out toward the end of
December, especially since it’ll be banned in Standard by then, and we’ll
have more clarity about its place in Modern and Pioneer by then anyway.

As for any copies of Oko you have now, I’d sell them off if you play the
short-term trends in the market. Oko will probably drop below $30 at some
point this year. If you’re playing with Oko right now or you can’t be
bothered to sell, holding is also fine. I suspect that Oko will be allowed
to run rampant in at least one or two eternal formats, which means that
it’ll end up at $50+ again at some point in the future. I just can’t tell
you when.

Moving on to Modern, it appears as though the format’s older key staples –
the ones that aren’t legal in Pioneer – are dropping a bit right now. It’s
not a crash, but very few people are buying into Modern right now as the
eyes of the community are elsewhere. That generally leads to lower prices.
I wouldn’t panic-sell or anything – Modern is fine! – but expect these slow
losses to continue through the end of the year unless the Mystery Boosters
are some kind of exciting new Modern product. You’ll have a nice buying
window for Modern in late December, just like with Oko, and prices will
rebound in January and February as always.