Welcome to Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Exit Interview week!
If you missed Innistrad: Midnight Hunt First Impressions week, various members of the SCG Staff shared their thoughts on their Top 5 Innistrad: Midnight Hunt cards in each format before having the opportunity to play with them. With Innistrad: Crimson Vow preview season about to begin, we thought it would be fun to have those same folks update their lists now that they’ve had the opportunity to play with Innistrad: Midnight Hunt for the past month and share what they got right, what they got wrong, what surprised them, etc.
On Monday, we knocked out Standard and yesterday we Considered our way through Historic. Today, we’ll knock out Pioneer and tomorrow is Modern. The same scoring system we had in place for Innistrad: Midnight Hunt First Impressions week will be in place here so that we can get an idea of what card ranked in what place in the aggregate to close out each article. The scoring system is as follows:
- 1st — 5 points
- 2nd — 4 points
- 3rd — 3 points
- 4th — 2 points
- 5th — 1 point
Today, we kick things off, once again, with our Pioneer aficionado, Todd Anderson!
Todd Anderson
Previous List
- Smoldering Egg
- Hostile Hostel
- Augur of Autumn
- Cathartic Pyre
- Faithful Mending
New List
- Consider
- Play with Fire
- Fateful Absence
- Brutal Cathar
- Faithful Mending
I missed the mark pretty hard here. I thought Augur of Autumn would be perfect for Mono-Green Devotion, but it just isn’t seeing any play. Still, I think it might be good, though. Consider and Play with Fire have been showing up all over the place as slight upgrades to existing spells. Wild Slash was always solid, and Play with Fire can be a bit better when trying to be more aggressive. Consider is just an excellent piece of card manipulation, and will replace Opt in virtually every list that wants either.
Fateful Absence is much stronger in older formats because players don’t usually have extra mana lying around. Like Path to Exile, the downside of that resource you’re giving your opponent doesn’t outweight the efficiency of your removal spell.
Brutal Cathar was a shock to me, as was this whole new Winota, Joiner of Forces deck. These new iterations can play a stellar normal gameplan, but a single Winota can bury your opponent in one combat step. Brutal Cathar is a great play in the early turns, but a complete blowout when found mid-combat. The entire strategy is currently racing toward #1, and Brutal Cathar is a huge part of that.
As for Faithful Mending, it’s the only card from my original list that I’m keeping. It isn’t putting up big numbers, but I think it has great potential long-term. Anything that’s seeing a lot of play in Modern is probably good enough to make the grade in Pioneer. Faithful Mending is a unique effect since we don’t have Faithless Looting, and just so happens to be in the same colors as all the God-Pharaoh’s Gift decks that were in the format at the beginning. Perhaps there’s something still there?
Ari Lax
Previous List
- Consider
- Sunset Revelry
- Memory Deluge
- Play with Fire
- Champion of the Perished
New List
- Consider
- Brutal Cathar
- Play with Fire
- Fateful Absence
- Galvanic Iteration
Consider yet again takes top billing with Arclight Phoenix. Any other expectation was nonsense, next question. Play with Fire was another obvious choice as “choose your own Shock adventure” is the power level of Pioneer, though it versus Fiery Impulse or Magma Spray in the Izzet Phoenix decks is up for debate.
Brutal Cathar having type line Human is yet again something I underestimated, though it’s a different payoff in Pioneer from Modern. The Winota, Joiner of Forces decks have recently made a big switch towards Werewolves that has allowed them to just be a more functional normal deck. Previously they were really reliant on Esika’s Chariot or Winota to win a game; now they can just Duskwatch Recruiter and Brutal Cathar up to Tovolar’s Huntmaster and win without either of their key four-drops.
Fateful Absence fell a bit short in other formats, but it feels right at home in Pioneer. Azorius Control needs that flexible answer in the absence of Prismatic Ending, and it was previously playing Seal Away. The more important part might just be the win condition being Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, so your opponent using the Clue is just immediately outclassed once you start winning. You could really argue for a couple of other control cards here, namely Sunset Revelry as a backbreaking sideboard card against Boros Wizards (Lurrus) or Memory Deluge as some added mirror leverage, but Fateful Abscene sees splash play in white aggressive decks and will probably be a format role-player for a while.
The last slot here is a bit speculative, but Galvanic Iteration being an actual addition to the Lotus Field Combo deck is scary. I know that deck is fundamentally manageable, but it’s also the least defaultly interactable deck in the format. Galvanic Iteration making your combo chain more reliable in a lot of ways is the exact kind of thing that pushes the deck back towards the Underworld Breach days, and even if there isn’t a ton of Lotus Field Combo now, the deck with Galvanic Iteration is a looming presence in the format.
The only card I previously ranked not showing up today is Champion of the Perished, but I still have longer-term hopes for that card. Really, basically every card people ranked before is reasonable. Pioneer is in a really great place right now where new Standard sets are at about the right power level to impact the format, and I hope to see the format retake its place as paper events ramp back up.
Dom Harvey
Previous List
- Consider
- Cathar Commando
- Champion of the Perished
- Sunset Revelry
- Angelfire Ignition
New List
- Consider
- Play with Fire
- Sunset Revelry
- Fateful Absence
- Brutal Cathar
This round was a resounding victory for the unassuming role-players in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt. Consider was an easy #1 and delivered as expected, bringing Arclight Phoenix back to the top tier of Pioneer, boosting Jeskai Ascendancy, and showing up elsewhere in decks like Azorius Control where it’s ‘just’ a minor upgrade to Opt.
Play with Fire isn’t quite as impactful but was a shoe-in for a fixture of Pioneer in Boros Burn where the once-in-a-blue-moon upside of Wild Slash is much less important than digging for that final burn spell to cross the finish line just in time.
This resurgence of Burn makes Sunset Revelry even more important for the slower white decks in Pioneer. Azorius Control gained more cards than any other deck with this set but desperately needs the help to keep up against Burn, and Sunset Revelry is just the ticket. Meanwhile, Fateful Absence gives you necessary coverage against a much wider range of threats like opposing planeswalkers or Winota, Joiner of Forces, a card you now can’t escape in Pioneer either.
Brutal Cathar gives Naya Winota much-needed early interaction that’s also a strong Winota hit, while Tovolar’s Huntmaster replaces Angrath’s Marauders as a more castable and consistent threat that’s just as lethal when parachuted in via Winota. Leading this wolfpack is Tovolar, Dire Overlord, which enables some absurd draws with or without Winota. It also powers up another recent addition in Ranger Class that lines up well against the targeted removal that is absolutely necessary to stop Winota itself doing its thing. These other Wolves are replaceable, but Brutal Cathar is responsible for pushing this deck to the next level and gets to represent it here.
Ross Merriam
Previous List
- Consider
- Play with Fire
- Champion of the Perished
- Faithful Mending
- Briarbridge Tracker
New List
- Consider
- Play with Fire
- Brutal Cathar
- Fateful Absence
- Memory Deluge
Overall, not a bad list. I nailed the top two, though I don’t think beginning the list with two obviously powerful one-mana spells was any stroke of genius. Consider has been by far the most impactful card from the set for Pioneer, raising Izzet Phoenix to the status of best deck, and I think it’s currently underrepresented since there aren’t many high-level tournaments for Pioneer right now. Meanwhile, Play with Fire has largely replaced Wild Slash in aggressive decks as one of the premier red removal spells in the format.
The last three were trickier. Brutal Cathar was a complete oversight on my part. It adds a completely new dimension to Naya Winota, since it’s a removal spell you can find off a Winota trigger. This makes the card even more dangerous, and because it’s unique in its effect, I put it third on the list over similar Werewolves in the new iteration of the deck like Tovolar’s Huntmaster.
The last two spots are two cards that have elevated Azorius Control to a top-tier deck in Pioneer: Fateful Absence and Memory Deluge. I considered Memory Deluge for the original list, but ultimately took it off since Wilderness Reclamation is banned. I wasn’t sure the card was enough better than similar cards like Behold the Multiverse to get there, but I’m sure Shaheen Soorani is excited about it. But I have Absence ahead of it because I think it’s less replaceable by the other removal spells available than Deluge is by other draw spells.
Cedric Phillips
Previous List
- Consider
- Play with Fire
- Memory Deluge
- Sunset Revelry
- Augur of Autumn
New List
- Consider
- Play with Fire
- Sunset Revelry
- Brutal Cathar
- Memory Deluge
Ya know, all things considered (har har), I’m pretty happy with my results here. Consider and Play with Fire were obvious hits, Sunset Revelry and Memory Deluge were speculative hits, and while I didn’t value Brutal Cathar correctly in a single format, I’d rather miss on the bottom end than the top end. I’m a bit bummed that Augur of Autumn isn’t seeing more play universally, especially because I felt like this was the format that it would be best in, but it is what it is.
Without further ado, the SCG Staff’s Top 5 Innistrad: Midnight Hunt cards for Pioneer are now…
5. Sunset Revelry — 6 points
4. Fateful Absence — 9 points
3. Brutal Cathar — 12 points
2. Play with Fire — 19 points
1. Consider — 25 points
Cya back here tomorrow to review Innistrad: Midnight Hunt’s impact on Modern!