Pioneer Masters is coming in December, and we officially have some spoilers. We won't go over all of the new that were announced recently, as there aren't quite enough to devote an entire article to yet, but we have some good news that confirms the inclusion of key decks and archetypes into the explorer format that will eventually convert to Pioneer on Arena. Something that we have to consider is that Explorer on Arena is far from actually being Pioneer. There are a ton of cards that are missing, and in turn, there are very powerful decks from the format that we have never seen on Arena before. If you don't play Pioneer in paper, or in MTGO, you may not have ever heard of some of the stuff that's coming. I have some advice: prepare yourself. There will be a brand new meta after Pioneer Masters hits Arena, and Explorer will look nothing like it did before. Today I have a deck that I believe to have an incredibly high power level, and also one of the decks that I believe to be the most consistent in the format. It has the best removal possible, has a spell that tutors and allows you to cast the spells for free, access to five colors, and some powerful creatures and planeswalkers that allow you to close out the game. Let's take a look at Niv to Light.
Niv to Light is a deck that has been played for a few years in Pioneer, and it seems to get updates here and there. There are some new cards from Foundations that are seeing play in the deck, and I'm not sure if that is the final version of it, or if people are simply trying out some of these new cards. What I will say is that the deck has been doing very well in some of the recent Pioneer challenges on MTGO, with this list winning one just a few days ago on the 23rd. If you aren't familiar, there is a key combo in the deck that actually allows you to tutor out a seven mana planeswalker and cast it for free, amongst a plethora of other value spells. We'll take a look at that particular combo, and then other key cards of the deck.
Relevant Combo Cards
This is what the entire deck is centered around, and was literally the missing piece that kept the deck from being played on Arena. Some have tried to play the deck without this card, but the issue is that a lot of the spells are barely playable in the format unless you are tutoring and casting them for free. This allows us to amass incredible value and take advantage of the strong effects that the big mana spells in this build have. We can even go get a board wipe if we need it, or simply a big flyer that is hard to remove. Oh yeah, and you can also get one of the most prolific planeswalkers printed in the last few years that could end the game very quickly after being on the board.
This is where the deck just feels flat-out broken. You spend mana of two colors or more to cast Bring to Light, and you have yourself a Tibalt. Since Valki has a two mana casting cost, which allows you to choose which side of the card you want to cast, you are allowed to get the two mana casting cost as a tutor, and then since you can cast the spell for free, you get to choose whichever side of the card you want to cast and cast the spell without paying any additional mana. The first time it happens to you, it feels like someone canceled Christmas. I can't think of a better way to describe how I felt when it happened to me the first time. I looked at my opponent in disbelief. He said, "That's how the casting of the spell works. You can call a judge if you want to." He said it with such confidence I knew I was cooked. Tibalt came down and literally was The Grinch. The deck wants to maintain card advantage by getting ridiculous value from the spells that it casts. This immediately allows you to look at two extra cards, so I would say it definitely aligns with the point of the deck. If that isn't enough, it can also remove literally any nonland permanent.
Other Strong Cards in the Deck
This card is another common hit to get off of Bring to Light. Once again it allows you to look at a ton of cards and put them in your hand. It has an almost Atraxa-like effect. Since the deck runs a ton of spells that have two different mana symbols, there is a good chance that you at least get two cards from it, and all of the spells that have two mana symbols are good. If that isn't good enough for you, you also tutored a 6/6 flyer for five mana. Since the list is kind of a Swiss Army Knife of removal and win conditions, there are only two of this spell played in the list.
This is another Niv card that was a later addition to the deck, but it is nice as a one-of because of the fact that we can recast spells from the graveyard. Since the deck is equipped with phenomenal removal, it's almost like it creates two additional copies of each removal spell. You can discard a card to cast it, but if you simply discard another spell that you could recast with Niv, you can create a nice little assembly line of value. They wanted to make the card a little more fair, so they require that the spell that you recast be exactly two colors, but don't worry - Bring to Light is exactly.....two colors.
Yorion is a nice addition to the deck. We are all familiar with it - it's the blink all your stuff guy. The reason that we like playing it in the deck is that the majority of our permanents have some type of strong enter the battlefield effect. Yorion is also a decently strong body, and triggers cards like Up the Beanstalk, so you can add him to the list of value cards. We don't mind playing him as the companion because he simply allows us to play that many more fun spells. You don't even have to be worried that you might not find the cards that you need, because Bring to Light effectively acts as a 3rd, 4th, 5th, and even 6th copy of the given finisher cards in some instances.
This is a deck that was really powerful in the Pioneer meta in the last round of RCQs, and it appears it is yet again resurging right as Pioneer Masters is about to hit our favorite MTG digital client right before Christmas. I and some other creators will have early access to Pioneer Masters on MTG Arena, so come on by on December 4th to check it out! I will definitely be playing this deck, because it is sweet!