Recapping the Pioneer Trial at NRG St Louis

Explore the highlights and key moments from the Pioneer Trial at NRG St Louis. Discover top deck strategies and standout performances from this MTG event!

This past weekend was an action-packed NRG Series event that featured a large Modern tournament, and a large Pioneer tournament. Given that I have a good bit more knowledge of Pioneer as a format, and that it is Pioneer RCQ Season, I wanted to go over the results for this, and examine the interesting results that we had in this tournament. It was won overall by Azorius Control, and I found that to be particularly interesting because it is an archetype that is not often played currently in Pioneer, as there are so many aggressive decks that are popping up that can deal with it efficiently. There are also a lot of discard decks that can sniff out the relevant answers that Azorius often has. I think it is really something to take note of, because we could see this deck become more popular in the next few weeks. Something else that I believe to be noteworthy is that the tournament took place in St. Louis, Missouri. The reason I think this is relevant is that MTG Events seem to have different results in different parts of the country - at least on this scale. In all of the RCQs I've been to and seen results for in my home state of Pennsylvania, I haven't even seen Azorius make top 8. I think it speaks to the different player bases that we have all across the country, and the world. Although this deck won, Mono Green Devotion took second place, and the rest of the top 8 was rounded out by the usual Amalia, Phoenix, and various other meta aggro decks, the deck that I really wanted to focus on that is something we haven't seen too much of before is Izzet Ensoul. This deck took third place in the event, and appears to be pretty well positioned overall. The deck is capable of doing ridiculous amounts of damage and killing the opponent very early in the game.

Total Cards:

The deck largely centers itself around having an indestructible artifact land that they can enchant go make it a creature with five toughness. Sounds like a silly concept, but in the pioneer format, it is incredible effective against most decks. It requires them to have exile or an edict effect, and they can't simply kill it with damage. Since it runs blue, it also is able to out-tempo the opponent with efficient counter spells that can allow their damage to get through, or at least to protect their indestructible creature.

Relevant Cards

Magic the Gathering Card - Shrapnel Blast - MTG Circle

This is one of the cards that allows the deck to explode for tons of damage out of nowhere. Most of the time people are so concerned with the fact that a random artifact became a five power creature out of nowhere, that they completely forget to play around this card too. The deck also does a great job of efficiently putting artifacts onto the board with the plethora of two for ones that it has.

Magic the Gathering Card - Ensoul Artifact - MTG Circle

This is the main card in the deck. We are looking to enchant Darksteel Citadel, and we can enchant it as early as turn two. It won't be ready to swing, but we can get it ready for up to 10 damage on turn three with Shrapnel. The deck ideally wants to ensoul onto this land because it is indestructible, but it won't hesitate to put it on any artifact, especially if the opponent does not appear to have any answers for what is about to happen.

Magic the Gathering Card - Cryptic Coat - MTG Circle

This is another spell that can immediately be a good top deck and allows the deck to be pretty resilient. We can cloak the top card of the library, and the creature that is creatred will have ward. It also can't be blocked! Even if the opponent does manage to remove the cloaked creature, we can also pay to pick up the coat, and then simply recast it. I think this is the card that really green lights the deck. Yes, ensoul on the artifact was a cheeky combo, and shrapnel allowed for great damage, but this is the card that can really close it out in the late game when we need to get through with the final damage.

Magic the Gathering Card - Spell Pierce - MTG Circle

This card in here as a three of is something that makes everyone think twice. The best part about the tempo and pressure of the deck is that they can't really afford to think twice. It is often a scenario where you simply have to cast your removal into open blue mana and just pray that they don't have the efficient tempo counter. This allows the deck to protect it's creatures, deal with possible discard spells, or possibly even counter a planeswalker that may look to take over the game.

Possible Bad Matchups for the Deck

Ensoul is an aggro/tempo deck. It wants to win quickly before the opponent can stabilize, and overwhelm them with large creatures that popped up out of nowhere. Although the biggest threats in the deck have five power, there are some decks that have larger creatures who are able to profitably block ensoul's large threats. This can definitely create a problem, as the ensoul deck has to rely on damage based removal, and since all of the spells in the deck are pretty cheap, they aren't doing tons of damage. This ensoul deck lost in the semifinals at NRG to Mono Green Devotion. That makes sense, because Mono Green is one of the only decks that can get huge creatures on the board and stabilize themselves with them faster than the ensoul can animate their artifacts.

The deck also tends to struggle against discard decks, particularly Waste Not, because of both the efficient removal, hand disruption, and a plethora of edict effects. Waste Not is also a deck, that if allowed to stabilize, easily amasses much more value than the ensoul deck. It is definitely a matchup, however, where ensoul can win from bad draws, or general inefficient play from the Waste Not opponent. The biggest thing about the ensoul deck is that it always has a chance, because it is ready at any time to do heaps of damage out of thin air. Some decks are happy to play their three mana creature or planeswalker on turn three, while ensoul is ready to hit you in the face swiftly for ten damage.

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I am a Magic The Gathering competitive player, and streamer. I specialize in homebrew decks. My favorite formats are: Standard, Pioneer (Explorer on Arena), and EDH. I first started playing MTG in 2001, and have played on and off since then.

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Explore the top-tier Demon deck in MTG's Standard format with new cards from Foundations. Optimize your strategy for competitive play in Best of 3 matches.

This Deck is on DEMON TIME

We went into Foundations knowing that the demon deck was a top archetype in Standard, and even in Pioneer, but the question still remained: with new cards coming, would it still be good? And if it's still good, what could we do to make it better? Foundations gives us some key cards that almost appear to be made for the deck, and we won't scoff at that. The set is made to be a basis for many different archetypes, so it was nice that we got some decent demons with our core set. Something we'll have to worry about going forward is all of the other decks that will be popping up. We will be vigilant about our sideboard choices and stay prepared to make the changes that are needed. We do have some cards in the sideboard from the new set, so let's take a look at the deck itself that will show us main deck and sideboard additions from Foundations. We are following the previous demon archetype, but now we are able to be a little bit more well-rounded, and we have cut down on some of the cost by building the deck in paper. One could also argue that the deck has a better mana curve, as the previous version ran 10 four drops. Since we took out two copies of Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, that lowers the cost of the deck by about $150 USD. While some argue that we have taken out one of the best cards in the format, we are also helping the deck stay more true to its goal, while making it more accessible to newer players.

It's TIME for the Way-Too-Early Mono Black Foundations Deck!

Foundations has almost fully been spoiled, and I believe that it is safe to say that we are in for some fun times in Standard. There will be a lot support that is coming for many different archetypes, and they have made some evergreen cards available in the set that should help the format be very and healthy. There are some that I like, and some that I hate, so we can conclude that they likely made well-balanced decisions with their card choices. Wizards has also come out and stated that they have good consumer support for this set so far, and I fully believe that. Sadly, we will not be having early access for this set, so I will be dropping a lot of decks here in order to get my ideas officially published somewhere. For today, I made a new Mono Black Midrange Deck (like I do for each set) and I think this one is pretty sweet. We are going to be able to do our gain and drain combo for a long time in Standard, and it's about time I get started trying to find the best deck. You know what we are going for here. There are so many tools to resolve our combo, and we can even make a ton of vampires that have lifelink to get extra triggers off of tenacity. We are creating a good bit of ways to gain life in the deck without even having to splash for another color. We also have a sneaky way to add a bunch of mana with the vampire subtheme that we have in the deck. Even if some of our initial game plans don't pan out the way we want them to, we were fortunately able to include a ton of good midrange cards that grind well, and amass tons of value. Relevant New Cards

This New Rakdos Reanimator Deck Will Give You FOMO!

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Recapping The World Championship in Vegas!

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This Beloved Combo is BACK with Foundations!

We went into the weekend still feeling a bit ambivalent regarding what Foundations would bring to the standard format, and I think now it is safe to say that even if you might not be excited about what you see, you at least are leaning one way regarding good or bad for the new cards coming in the set. From the excitement I conveyed in the title, it is pretty easy to conclude that I am officially excited for this new set. We are going to get back an infinite combo that will be Standard Legal that reminds me of my initial learning days in MTG, and the mechanic that made me fall in love with the game. We are going to be getting a life drain combo, and it is more efficient, and more valuable than before. We used to have to rely on two five mana enchantments to do this, but now we can curve into it, and the abilities for both pieces of the combo are also on creatures, thus giving us additional value for our mana spent to assemble the puzzle. The combo has not been legal in standard for some time, and one of the cards was historically pretty expensive. It was something that people were pretty excited to cast in other formats, and always creates a fun time. OK, let me stop gushing over it - The combo that we used to do about ten years ago was Exquisite Blood, and Sanguine Bond. It creates an infinite loop where if an opponent either loses life, or if we gain life, we win the game. There obviously are tons of ways to do this, and it even can be done in combat. Even playing a land can set this off. It used to be somewhat of a clunky combo, and now it is much more efficient, and is assembled on curve. Let's take a look at the combo itself, and some other cards from Foundations that I think can help support it, and overall that I'm excited for whether they fit into the deck or not. New Cards that Assemble the Infinite Combo We have played with this card at least a little bit, and we know that it is one of the new fun enchantment creatures from Duskmourn. It gives us the effect that cards like Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, and Sanguine Bond used to give us. Although it does cost one more mana than Vito, it is much more difficult to remove, and I believe the stickiness of the card makes it that much more playable. There are ways to win with just this card alone, as there are still a decent number of life gain options in Standard, and other formats. Now we are going to do the infinite loop for it, and it will be legal in Standard until at least 2027!

Going Over the New Products From Foundations

We still have a lot of ambiguity on what all next month's Foundation Set release will entail. Will we have a bunch of staple cards? Will we have the staple cards and some new prints that breathe life into the format? It kind of remains to be seen, and as we approach the spoiler portion of the release, we are simply left to speculate. Some things we are starting to see, however, are the multiple different product offerings from Wizards for this release. The overall intention of the set is to allow for new players to buy as little as one product, and be able to start playing Magic. We have seen starter and challenger decks before, but Foundations appears to be not only doubling down on that option, but taking it a step further. We will look at the different products that will be coming out, for whom they are designed, and I will give my own opinion if they are worth buying, or maybe what type of Magic player might enjoy said product. I have to start by saying that I appreciate the way this is being done. They are making it incredibly easy for a new player to get into the game. Other TCGs are doing this as well, as they are all trying to get new players these days. I like that there is a clear and simplified way for a new player to learn, and that they are able to start with some basic principles before diving into the complex game that we know. New Products Hitting the Shelves The first Foundations product that is worth noting is something that will truly be for beginners. It is the Beginner Box. It appears to be going for around $30-$35 USD and is designed for someone who has never played MTG before. It is intended that you can pick up that box, learn from the beginner guide, rulebook, and the two 20 -card starter decks, and play with a friend right out of the box. It comes with playmats, life counters, and everything else needed to play Magic. Once you feel that you have an idea of how to play, they also have some Jumpstart decks - Eight of them to be exact. They are similar to the theme packs that you could purchase previously, and if you put two of them together, it could make a deck. Since they are preconstructed, I believe that the cards likely won't differ, but it should still give some exciting gameplay. While clearly intended for beginners, it could also be nice for the more seasoned player who is trying to teach someone else how to play, but may not have incredibly simplified decks like some of these are. The mechanics these days can be overwhelming, so starting with a more vanilla deck can be helpful when learning. I'm already thinking of getting this for friends of mine who want to learn how to play.

This Deck is on DEMON TIME