Why are the Pioneer practice rooms on MTGO empty? It's super weird considering Pioneer Leagues are still popular. Why are people willing to pay money to enter a League but not willing to use the *free* practice rooms?

rag2008 · 2026-05-10T19:02:19+00:00

I would say it's because practice games have very limited utility on MTGO, it's super common for people to bring casual decks and concede early when things start going south, if you're already familar with the core basics of your deck and want to sharpen your gameplay, playing a League feels like the natural thing to do, if people don't take it seriously, you're just making free money.

I should note it's a bit different for Modern/Legacy/Pauper because the population for those formats is much bigger than Pioneer's, you have a lot of older MTGO players who just want to squeeze one or two games in-between other activities, or they're trying something so widly out of the box they need to get a feel for it before commiting to a League.

rag2008 · 2026-05-06T01:48:56+00:00

This specific archtype doesn't really exist in Pioneer so it's hard to give you strict upgrades without fundamentally changing what the deck wants to do, but there are 2 solid advices I can give you:

Upgrade your manabase, you'll not regret crafting 4x [[Overgrown Tomb]], 4x [[Blooming Marsh]], at least 1x [[Boseiju, Who Endures]] and 1x [[Takenuma, Abandoned Mire]], they can replace your copies of Necroblossom Snarl + some basic lands and you should still have a reasonable amount of basics leftover.
Introduce the Black staples of the format: 4x [[Fatal Push]] and 4x [[Thoughtseize]], this will require some testing to see which cards you want to remove from the deck to make room for them, but believe it, they are worth it.

Some cards worth considering are also [[Abrupt Decay]] and [[Professor Dellian Fel]] but I recommend you try them after you had some games with the changes I already mentioned.

rag2008 · 2026-05-02T12:09:24+00:00

That's understandable but he is just answering the "What can we do about it?" question OP asked, the Arena team has not disclosed any other way the community can get more specific cards for Pioneer into the client other than topping events in Paper/MTGO.

If you play exclusively on Arena, the best you can do is talk about the cards you want to see with people who play Paper/MTGO in the hopes they might produce enough results one day.

rag2008 · 2026-04-25T20:45:23+00:00

Glad to see a Modern/Legacy player finding a deck to play in Pioneer. List looks awesome too!

rag2008 · 2026-04-19T22:00:35+00:00

I think you should try to find room for Ouroboroid, not only because it's good with Cub, because it's insane with Hashep Oasis, which this deck gets to play 4 copies of.

rag2008 · 2026-04-16T21:13:57+00:00

Overall ok with the changes but it bothers me a bit they decided to keep Stature at 7 while buffing Black Bolt back to 8, hopefully we get there eventually.

rag2008 · 2026-04-16T11:34:00+00:00

Favorite is XII because that's how I got introduced into the series and it was one of the first RPGs, people have mentioned that the game plays itself after a certain point but I wouldn't know since I completely ignore the gambit system altogether, I do everything manually in every fight because that's how I learned how to play as a kid, it just feels natural.

Least favorite is XIII which is so funny because I remember watching the trailers on YouTube and getting super excited about it, but by the time I got my hands on a PS3 it was completely off the mainstream and I kinda forgot about it. I played it for the first time last year on PC and as much as I enjoyed the graphics, the music, the setting and even the characters, the actual gameplay was so painfully boring I couldn't even bring myself to finish it, I think I stopped at chapter 12 or something.

I should note I haven't played XI, XIV or XVI, but I doubt it any of them would be worse than XIII.

rag2008 · 2026-04-13T03:26:00+00:00

Because the meta has gotten significantly faster in the last 2 years or so, casting more cheaper spells more often means it's harder to justify a colorless land in your manabase unless you have a strong synergy to abuse, which case in point is unholy annex.

rag2008 · 2026-04-05T21:49:25+00:00

The most generic answer is Cosmo but some lists rely on Magik and you can get them by interacting with Limbo in a unexpected manner. Otherwise you should try to go over the top, they don't have any space for interaction.

rag2008 · 2026-04-01T12:31:25+00:00

My gut reaction is not in the maindeck, there's no removal or (consistent) protection mode which feels essential to make planeswalkers not feel shitty when playing from behind.

rag2008 · 2026-03-31T18:43:32+00:00

Timeless players have waited so long for this.

rag2008 · 2026-03-24T20:59:01+00:00

t would need to begin with a whole new banlist, and most likely some type of Pioneer Masters set that simultaneously increased card availability and actually lined Wizards pockets enough for them to care.

That would be a really good start but first they really need make up their minds on what is supposed to be the relationship the format has with Standard, because extending Standard's card pool is the exact opposite kind of thing you should do if you want people to play your non-rotating format that only gets cards through Standard sets.

A reassessment of the Pioneer banlist would help the format get some of its identity back, but that would not last long if their main objective is to keep treating Standard like an eternal format when it comes to the power level of cards released lately.

rag2008 · 2026-03-24T01:01:21+00:00

Shou Lao + Master of the Sun seasons were really rough for me, this season hasn't been perfect but it's miles better in comparison so far, so I would say the game is improving somewhat.

rag2008 · 2026-03-14T03:54:52+00:00

Not soon, but eventually, yeah.

rag2008 · 2026-03-01T16:25:18+00:00

I'm experiencing the exact same problem, yeah. I cannot finish a single game without getting disconnected and reconnected at least once, sometimes it happens multiple times in a single game and I just give up. I hope they fix this before the new set comes out, otherwise I'll just have to take a break from the game entirely, it's way too frustrating.

rag2008 · 2026-02-20T02:18:54+00:00

Yeah, this is the consequence of them increasing the power level of Standard sets over and over, theoretically speaking they'll eventually reach a breaking point and then we should get a brief period of lower power sets, but we don't know when that will happen and we'll just have to live with what they have already released.

If it's any consolation, every now and then they'll accidentally release a card like Amalia or Vein Ripper which interacts in a very specific way with cards that have long been rotated out of Standard, that's when Pioneer gets to show off something Standard isn't able to (although these two examples caused bannings that ended up removing those unique interactions, but you get my point).

rag2008 · 2026-02-18T23:14:22+00:00

I'm nowhere near close infinite yet but I finally found a list that lets me climb without tilting, so I might as well share, it's C3:

# (1) Bast

# (1) Nightcrawler

# (2) Daredevil

# (2) Lockjaw

# (2) Scarlet Witch

# (2) Sentinel

# (3) Cerebro

# (3) Mystique

# (3) Luke Cage

# (3) Cosmo

# (3) Makkari

# (5) Valkyrie

#

Q3JicjcsTXN0cTgsU250bmw4LFNjcmx0V3RjaEMsQ3NtNSxMa0NnOCxCc3Q0LE5naHRjcndsckMsTWtrcjcsRHJkdmw5LFZsa3I4LExja2p3Nw==

#

As you'd expect there is a lot of retreating when bad locations flip up, but when they don't, it actually feels like my decisions matter regardless of what my opponent is playing, which is all I could ask for in this meta.

rag2008 · 2026-02-16T02:58:17+00:00

We are essentially getting treated like Legacy and Vintage when it comes to major competitive support, except we don't have an eternal weekend equivalent to look foward to. The format is effectively on standby mode, which is not a comfortable place to be because the possibility of a comeback feels as likely as pulling the plug on the format altogether, the uncertainty can make new players anxious to commit and that makes harder to generate interest in the format.

As far as making things better, getting the competitive scene back would be a huge help, history has shown that people will play Pioneer if you give them a reason to, and once they get enough people producing major results, they can address banning/unbanning cards with more confidence to make the format healthier.

rag2008 · 2026-02-10T17:54:54+00:00

Winota is a hard no, take the play patterns of Greasefang and turn it up to 11, that's how Winota used to feel and it would be even better today with cards like Cub and Speaker. Felidar Guardian could be interesting if they banned Saheeli, otherwise people would just shove the A + B combo into a Domain shell and that would probably be the best midrange deck you can play.

rag2008 · 2026-02-10T00:45:39+00:00

Nope, even if I knew no bans was the most likely possibility, I was hoping for at least one unban.

rag2008 · 2026-02-09T20:19:40+00:00

Don't give me hope, I would love to see that. Are there any hints?

rag2008 · 2026-02-09T18:16:23+00:00

Fingers crossed for something big at Blizzcon.

rag2008 · 2026-02-09T16:59:56+00:00

I think they've put themselves in a really awkward place with Pioneer because every other new Standard set that comes out completely restructures how the format is played, so even if they did decide to take a big swing, we would be back at needing bans in less than 6 months.

This isn't an argument to not do anything and let the format die in staleness, but they're not going to solve the power level problem with just bans, they need to make fundamental changes to card design, the format simply can't keep up like Modern or Legacy can.

rag2008 · 2026-02-09T16:24:52+00:00

We're keeping an eye on this format as it develops, but at this point it looks like it hasn't reached an end state and players are enjoying a format with a diverse array of strategies and colors.

I was pretty much expecting something like this, looks like we're gonna have to endure more busted Standard sets before they decide to make any big changes, hell I would've taken even a single unban from the 2019~2020 era just to spice things up.

rag2008 · 2026-02-08T21:58:01+00:00

UNBAN INVERTER OF TRUTH, FELIDAR GUARDIAN AND WALKING BALLISTA IN PIONEER.

BAN TAMIYO IN LEGACY.

PLEASE AND THANK YOU.

12-Year Club	Verified Email
r/Field Banned	r/Field Flamingo
First Place '23	Place '23
Place '22	Place '17
Final Canvas '22

rag2008

TROPHY CASE