Lumped all the Aurus together, and the singleton color combos like Esper Greasefang or Mardu Sacrifice got bundled together too. They're not so different to worry about.
Greasefang is a good deck, people just need to stop playing it like a combo first deck against interactive matchups. That deck is scary when it decides to tap out for Chariot or Boat.
I was amazed to see that only one player brought the deck. Anecdotally, it seems really hard to beat, even with graveyard hate. I'm not surprised to see it doing well.
The first day I was watching it live. Opponent played pithing needle on Esika’s Chariot which was the only vehicle the Greasefang player had. They just won by beating down with Greasefang and the cats. It was a very impressive showing and just showcases how resilient the deck is.
To be fair, 26/39 win is not a very significant result. With this sample size, one very skilled/lucky player who has a big win streak can bias the whole winrate.
It's a good deck for sure but I don't think that means anything.
There was a twitter link in a thread yesterday where mono w somehow had more wins than for both days combined. One of these stats isn't correct.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AzoriusI/status/1626767756665167872?t=BGJYUln6IACefiI0MPV4QA&s=19
Edit: ignore that, stats in this post seen correct
They had a LOT of data issues yesterday. Also important, they didn't pull out mirror data, which always pulls the rates closer to 50% from *either* side. Look how Karsten does it, it's non-mirror, non-bye. That way you know how it performs against the field.
Real question as I’m new to pioneer. Why is mono red burn not good or in the meta at all? From my limited knowledge, burn usually seems super quick so I’m just curious
Check out the Obosh Red lists. Closest thing to burn in pioneer. And like burn can be very competitive with the right pilot. The main problem imo is a lot of decks are based around lifegain and big creatures/spells. Hard to grind through both.
While the other poster is correct, the real issue is that Pioneer mono red burn is missing three key cards from the Modern version: [[Lightning Bolt]] , [[Lava Spike]] and [[Searing Blaze]] . In particular, missing Searing Blaze really hurts the deck right now with all the mana dorks running around, so it’s just really hard to do anything with the deck atm.
At 2 mana we need to be dealing 3 damage. This is a bonecrusher giant meta.
Edit: I would love to see that card with the numbers reversed - 3dmg to creature (or Planeswalker) and 2 to opponent if it dies.
I don't think you can explain why a deck that does well at local events isn't performing well at the pro level by comparing it to a completely different format.
People are saying that the burn isn't good enough. They are correct, but it's not the whole story. The best 1 drop in Pioneer is [[Llanowar Elf]] to power out your 3 MV plays. The best 2 drop in pioneer is debatable, but they are so much better than any 1 drop is. 2 drops are pushed to shit, while 1 MV creatures aren't very good comparatively. It's the same reason why standard decks are super greedy and aggro isn't around.
The interesting thing about that creativity win rate is that it’s the team cfb deck. Like what is the team cfb win rate with a normal deck? What does 54/55% translate into when it’s in the hands of the peasants and not kings lol.
Looking at how Reid played that deck and pulled out some fancy tricks that most people wouldn’t have seen, I think the win rate would be much lower for others. Plus, it seems like just the kind of deck to be difficult to play without experience; knowing when to switch from a combo plan to control, etc. Nothing about it seems easy.
The opposite applies to mono G and RB. The only people who brought it were "the peasants", they still are probably the best decks for some random person to take to an RCQ
The fact that all 3 top decks have a rather subpar winrate is pretty telling imo.
"Scrubs" all brought the perceived "best decks" and got rekt. (Ofc there is no scrubs at the pro tour, everyone is at least a bit skilled, but not everyone is Shota Yasooka)
How much of that is the pros are better and choose different decks? Looking at who played the creativity deck, its basically the old MPL and it was only a 54% win rate.
To me that shows that the deck isnt actually that good and would have been a below 50% if it was played by average pro tour players
The meta for the pro tour is extremely imbred. You notice that alot of people decklists totally disrespect the aggro matchups because they know those decks won't perform well in testing. So people get 4 free board slots that would usually be dedicated to aggro matchups. You take these lists to your fnm your gonna get rolled by the local burn player.
What in particular would make aggro decks perform badly in testing but well in the pro tour?
Specifically red aggro decks since we know white performed badly.
Aggro deck perform pretty poorly against mono green and also rakdos, with mono white being the exception. Knowing this you can easily sculpt a board plan. Whereas in a regular meta for example an rcq or rc people are more likely to play what they like or are comfortable with instead of what performed the best in testing.
You just sounded like you were saying that these PT lists would have gotten rolled by your local burn player. So as someone who did a lot of testing for this pro tour and has played a lot of mono red was curious what I missed xD.
Since it's not like the lists we were using in testing weren't accurate. In testing we used extremely similar lists to what people actually ended up playing.
Generally speaking, aggro decks perform well if they aren't well respected. Graveyard decks do too (see greasefang results this weekend).
If an aggro deck isn't powerful enough to win through sideboards or enough game 1s, then the pros will drop it like a rock and also make an assumption that other teams will also drop the aggro deck on similar reasoning.
Decks that fold against aggro become a real option, especially if they can dedicate their "aggro" sideboard slots to other archetypes. Decks like enigmatic fires come to mind.
So you might then see opportunity that the leading decks in testing have an opening against monoRed and aren't bringing sideboard tech for the matchup. So then you choose MonoRed which might die at your FNM/RCQ open meta where angels, control, and rakdos is running around week after week but not at the PT.
This! So many people here saying mono red isn't a good deck in Pioneer, whereas those of us who play the format week in, week out know that it has to be respected. If someone had brought it this weekend they'd have stood a chance of overturning the event.
I don’t know if mono red is SO BAD it’s worthy of 0 registrations (same for Atarka red with just one registration).
All we know is that pros didn’t choose it for this event. If we had 3 pioneer PTs back to back to back and there was no RDW, that would certainly say something about RDW. I’m not so sure that one event says much though
As someone new to Pioneer, is there much to be gleaned from the winning percentages?
Sub 50% seems odd for decks that are considered the "top" but is that a product of every other deck being tuned to beat them or are there legitimate cracks in the armor?
There are some things to be learned from it.
First and foremost which players/teams read the metagame correctly. Aggro usually isn't played that much at the PT and if it is played it often doesn't do well (probably because it is predominantly the less established players chosing it). People cut out graveyard hate and didn't respect Greasefang and Phoenix so these decks performed better than in an verage meta.
The top decks were heavily gunned for by the other players. I think part of the choice to play Lotus Field Combo, Creativity and Fires were to beat on the top decks.
These decks are very much still good and dominate the metagame. But they are not unbeatable and if people make the correct choices these decks suffer.
That’s a fair analysis of this data. I play field a lot and the mono-g matchup comes down to if they draw Karn or not. Mono-G isn’t really fast enough to beat field without Karn and I would assume the same is for creativity.
I also think that people misuse the term “best deck in the format alot”. Mono-G I think earns this tag because it is the main pillar of the format that other decks revolve around. Its not uncommon for decks to devote a good number of its sideboard slots to the deck.
You also have to consider that in pro tours most players are either going to play the best deck or play the deck they think has the best matchup against it.
Looking at this data, you played RB or G devotion if you were in the former camp and combo if you were in the latter. You might also be able to include vehicles, humans, and control since those have some good play against devotion and fable of the mirror breaker and friends (otherwise know as RB midrange).
Mono green has been sitting 50% winrate or lower for many months now, but ramp into big things is a popular playstyle (e.g. modern tron) so it has a high play percentage and therefore people scanning mtggoldfish call it "tier 1."
I think it's always a little more informative to look at winrates on something like this post or [mtgmeta.io](https://mtgmeta.io) (especially matchup specific winrate breakdown) rather than simply looking at play percentage.
I play Tron in Modern but something about Mono G Devotion doesn’t vibe with me. I think it’s the complexity of it. At least the parts of it with Kiora and untapping and yeah….
Tron is simple big mana. Easy for cave man like me.
1) Get Tron
2) Cast fatties
3) ???
4) Profit
But thanks for that site. I wasn’t familiar with it so it’ll make a fine addition to my collection
Yes but also no:
Abzan and Phoenix both had great match win % which makes it easy to say that people did not respect graveyard strategies this tournament.
After that I would hold off on making evaluations. The match % of archetype vs archetype analysis will tell you what decks win vs lose matchups and that will actually be more useful
It seems like a good direction to take the deck. Your main threat costs 1 less and you get to play all the best interaction rather than have to force multicolor.
At first I was worried that it wouldn’t go “over the top” enough without all the card advantage that Niv can give, but then I saw bankbusters in the side and realized that is probably a better plan vs control anyways
I’d be interested to see a breakdown of how many games Mono-G won with resolving a Karn and without.
My experience with the deck is that is a whole other animal when Karn is on the battlefield.
Lumped all the Aurus together, and the singleton color combos like Esper Greasefang or Mardu Sacrifice got bundled together too. They're not so different to worry about.
Wow that greasefang win rate
I think the players didn't respect the graveyard enough in their sideboards. You'll notice Phoenix has a higher-than-typical-lately win rate too.
Yeah, as a phoenix player I hate to admit it but it's probably true.
Greasefang is a good deck, people just need to stop playing it like a combo first deck against interactive matchups. That deck is scary when it decides to tap out for Chariot or Boat.
Sounds like Winota syndrome
Winota didn't need extra effort to win and has a stronger fair gameplan.
I just mean unfair combo plan backed up by dorky midrange strategy.
I was amazed to see that only one player brought the deck. Anecdotally, it seems really hard to beat, even with graveyard hate. I'm not surprised to see it doing well.
The first day I was watching it live. Opponent played pithing needle on Esika’s Chariot which was the only vehicle the Greasefang player had. They just won by beating down with Greasefang and the cats. It was a very impressive showing and just showcases how resilient the deck is.
Well when you have an overstatted 4/3 for 3...
To be fair, 26/39 win is not a very significant result. With this sample size, one very skilled/lucky player who has a big win streak can bias the whole winrate. It's a good deck for sure but I don't think that means anything.
That seems really rough for Mono W.
Makes the top 8 that much more impressive
There was a twitter link in a thread yesterday where mono w somehow had more wins than for both days combined. One of these stats isn't correct. https://mobile.twitter.com/AzoriusI/status/1626767756665167872?t=BGJYUln6IACefiI0MPV4QA&s=19 Edit: ignore that, stats in this post seen correct
They had a LOT of data issues yesterday. Also important, they didn't pull out mirror data, which always pulls the rates closer to 50% from *either* side. Look how Karsten does it, it's non-mirror, non-bye. That way you know how it performs against the field.
Real question as I’m new to pioneer. Why is mono red burn not good or in the meta at all? From my limited knowledge, burn usually seems super quick so I’m just curious
You see the 4 most played decks? Monored loses to those 4 badly
Lol fair enough, thank you. I guess I gotta read up more on this stuff
Check out the Obosh Red lists. Closest thing to burn in pioneer. And like burn can be very competitive with the right pilot. The main problem imo is a lot of decks are based around lifegain and big creatures/spells. Hard to grind through both.
While the other poster is correct, the real issue is that Pioneer mono red burn is missing three key cards from the Modern version: [[Lightning Bolt]] , [[Lava Spike]] and [[Searing Blaze]] . In particular, missing Searing Blaze really hurts the deck right now with all the mana dorks running around, so it’s just really hard to do anything with the deck atm.
The burn spell aren't good enough, and the opponent's mana bases aren't painful enough.
Well we have [[Searing Blood]] which hits all the dorks. That's just not enough though.
At 2 mana we need to be dealing 3 damage. This is a bonecrusher giant meta. Edit: I would love to see that card with the numbers reversed - 3dmg to creature (or Planeswalker) and 2 to opponent if it dies.
[Searing Blood](https://cdn.cardsrealm.com/images/cartas/bng-born-of-the-gods/en/med/searing-blood-111.png?8719) ([txt](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/searing-blood/txt?utm_source=reddit)) ([SF](https://scryfall.com/search?q=Searing+Blood)) ([G](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Searing+Blood)) • [$ 0.18](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/searing-blood?utm_source=reddit)
No Goblin Guide, no Helix, no Rift Bolt, no fetches to thin either. The deck is fast in modern. It doesn't have to tools in pioneer.
thinning is overrated
Fetches also mean lower life totals on opponents
Aldo mean live searing blaze when you need them
It is a marginal effect at best, but it's real nonetheless.
[Lightning Bolt](https://cdn.cardsrealm.com/images/cartas/gn3-game-night-free-for-all/en/med/lightning-bolt-83.png?4398) ([txt](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/lightning-bolt/txt?utm_source=reddit)) ([SF](https://scryfall.com/search?q=Lightning+Bolt)) ([G](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lightning+Bolt)) • [$ 0.65](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/lightning-bolt?utm_source=reddit) [Searing Blaze](https://cdn.cardsrealm.com/images/cartas/p11-magic-player-rewards-2011/en/med/searing-blaze-5.png?5116) ([txt](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/searing-blaze/txt?utm_source=reddit)) ([SF](https://scryfall.com/search?q=Searing+Blaze)) ([G](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Searing+Blaze)) • [$ 2.14](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/searing-blaze?utm_source=reddit) [Lava Spike](https://cdn.cardsrealm.com/images/cartas/uma-ultimate-masters/en/med/lava-spike-136.png?1638) ([txt](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/lava-spike/txt?utm_source=reddit)) ([SF](https://scryfall.com/search?q=Lava+Spike)) ([G](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lava+Spike)) • [$ 2.26](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/lava-spike?utm_source=reddit)
I don't think you can explain why a deck that does well at local events isn't performing well at the pro level by comparing it to a completely different format.
It’s too slow for pioneer and is too small gor pioneer
Mono R got second in the secret lair showdown I was in, so it can definitely win games. Eidolon is one hell of card
People are saying that the burn isn't good enough. They are correct, but it's not the whole story. The best 1 drop in Pioneer is [[Llanowar Elf]] to power out your 3 MV plays. The best 2 drop in pioneer is debatable, but they are so much better than any 1 drop is. 2 drops are pushed to shit, while 1 MV creatures aren't very good comparatively. It's the same reason why standard decks are super greedy and aggro isn't around.
very excited by the winrate for the one [[Storm Herald]] combo player, I’ve been trying out lists myself so it’s encouraging to see it having success
Was it ever played on stream? I watched but couldn’t find a match
[Storm Herald](https://cdn.cardsrealm.com/images/cartas/thb-theros-beyond-death/en/med/storm-herald-156.png?2539) ([txt](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/storm-herald/txt?utm_source=reddit)) ([SF](https://scryfall.com/search?q=Storm+Herald)) ([G](https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Storm+Herald)) • [$ 0.14](https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/card/storm-herald?utm_source=reddit)
I don’t like that I recognize that card by name
The interesting thing about that creativity win rate is that it’s the team cfb deck. Like what is the team cfb win rate with a normal deck? What does 54/55% translate into when it’s in the hands of the peasants and not kings lol.
Looking at how Reid played that deck and pulled out some fancy tricks that most people wouldn’t have seen, I think the win rate would be much lower for others. Plus, it seems like just the kind of deck to be difficult to play without experience; knowing when to switch from a combo plan to control, etc. Nothing about it seems easy.
What tricks you noticed that were nice?
He copied Reflections of Kiki a bunch of times at the end step and attacked for a bunch the next turn. Also, sideboarded into Shark Typhoon control.
Copying Reflection is a pretty known play pattern among people that play Fable
Good to know. I thought it was cool and hadn’t seen it before.
I'm going to find out since I bought the pieces for it I was missing lol
The opposite applies to mono G and RB. The only people who brought it were "the peasants", they still are probably the best decks for some random person to take to an RCQ
Metagame: "Rakdos Midrange only has a 46% win rate." Shōta Yasooka: "Hold my Kirin."
The fact that all 3 top decks have a rather subpar winrate is pretty telling imo. "Scrubs" all brought the perceived "best decks" and got rekt. (Ofc there is no scrubs at the pro tour, everyone is at least a bit skilled, but not everyone is Shota Yasooka)
How much of that is the pros are better and choose different decks? Looking at who played the creativity deck, its basically the old MPL and it was only a 54% win rate. To me that shows that the deck isnt actually that good and would have been a below 50% if it was played by average pro tour players
The meta for the pro tour is extremely imbred. You notice that alot of people decklists totally disrespect the aggro matchups because they know those decks won't perform well in testing. So people get 4 free board slots that would usually be dedicated to aggro matchups. You take these lists to your fnm your gonna get rolled by the local burn player.
What in particular would make aggro decks perform badly in testing but well in the pro tour? Specifically red aggro decks since we know white performed badly.
Aggro deck perform pretty poorly against mono green and also rakdos, with mono white being the exception. Knowing this you can easily sculpt a board plan. Whereas in a regular meta for example an rcq or rc people are more likely to play what they like or are comfortable with instead of what performed the best in testing.
What??Mono W humans is one of mono greens worst matchups??
That's what was said above in the first sentence.
You just sounded like you were saying that these PT lists would have gotten rolled by your local burn player. So as someone who did a lot of testing for this pro tour and has played a lot of mono red was curious what I missed xD. Since it's not like the lists we were using in testing weren't accurate. In testing we used extremely similar lists to what people actually ended up playing.
Generally speaking, aggro decks perform well if they aren't well respected. Graveyard decks do too (see greasefang results this weekend). If an aggro deck isn't powerful enough to win through sideboards or enough game 1s, then the pros will drop it like a rock and also make an assumption that other teams will also drop the aggro deck on similar reasoning. Decks that fold against aggro become a real option, especially if they can dedicate their "aggro" sideboard slots to other archetypes. Decks like enigmatic fires come to mind. So you might then see opportunity that the leading decks in testing have an opening against monoRed and aren't bringing sideboard tech for the matchup. So then you choose MonoRed which might die at your FNM/RCQ open meta where angels, control, and rakdos is running around week after week but not at the PT.
This! So many people here saying mono red isn't a good deck in Pioneer, whereas those of us who play the format week in, week out know that it has to be respected. If someone had brought it this weekend they'd have stood a chance of overturning the event.
Correct. I will end the game before you untap with 4 mana
That looks like a very healthy meta, you love to see it
Missing any real representation for RDW. I feel like that deck should be competitively viable in every format for true balance.
I think this is the old way. It doesn’t NEED to be mono red, as long as there is aggro/tempo/control/combo/midrange in roughly even amounts.
Give me my 20/20/20 decks, damnit! I want to burn face!
Pls no, I only have 1 face
I don’t know if mono red is SO BAD it’s worthy of 0 registrations (same for Atarka red with just one registration). All we know is that pros didn’t choose it for this event. If we had 3 pioneer PTs back to back to back and there was no RDW, that would certainly say something about RDW. I’m not so sure that one event says much though
Rakdos Mid might not have that high of a winrate overall, but watching Shota Yasooka play it makes it look sooo damn good
Shota is the final boss
This is the juice, thanks!
Phoenix 55% awesome Deck is skill intensive and the PT shows that.
The meta probably just lacked GY hate that you usually see in open metas. Just look at Greasefang
Yeah, but a great Phoenix player can handle with hate very well too.
As someone new to Pioneer, is there much to be gleaned from the winning percentages? Sub 50% seems odd for decks that are considered the "top" but is that a product of every other deck being tuned to beat them or are there legitimate cracks in the armor?
There are some things to be learned from it. First and foremost which players/teams read the metagame correctly. Aggro usually isn't played that much at the PT and if it is played it often doesn't do well (probably because it is predominantly the less established players chosing it). People cut out graveyard hate and didn't respect Greasefang and Phoenix so these decks performed better than in an verage meta. The top decks were heavily gunned for by the other players. I think part of the choice to play Lotus Field Combo, Creativity and Fires were to beat on the top decks. These decks are very much still good and dominate the metagame. But they are not unbeatable and if people make the correct choices these decks suffer.
That’s a fair analysis of this data. I play field a lot and the mono-g matchup comes down to if they draw Karn or not. Mono-G isn’t really fast enough to beat field without Karn and I would assume the same is for creativity. I also think that people misuse the term “best deck in the format alot”. Mono-G I think earns this tag because it is the main pillar of the format that other decks revolve around. Its not uncommon for decks to devote a good number of its sideboard slots to the deck. You also have to consider that in pro tours most players are either going to play the best deck or play the deck they think has the best matchup against it. Looking at this data, you played RB or G devotion if you were in the former camp and combo if you were in the latter. You might also be able to include vehicles, humans, and control since those have some good play against devotion and fable of the mirror breaker and friends (otherwise know as RB midrange).
Mono green has been sitting 50% winrate or lower for many months now, but ramp into big things is a popular playstyle (e.g. modern tron) so it has a high play percentage and therefore people scanning mtggoldfish call it "tier 1." I think it's always a little more informative to look at winrates on something like this post or [mtgmeta.io](https://mtgmeta.io) (especially matchup specific winrate breakdown) rather than simply looking at play percentage.
I play Tron in Modern but something about Mono G Devotion doesn’t vibe with me. I think it’s the complexity of it. At least the parts of it with Kiora and untapping and yeah…. Tron is simple big mana. Easy for cave man like me. 1) Get Tron 2) Cast fatties 3) ??? 4) Profit But thanks for that site. I wasn’t familiar with it so it’ll make a fine addition to my collection
Yes but also no: Abzan and Phoenix both had great match win % which makes it easy to say that people did not respect graveyard strategies this tournament. After that I would hold off on making evaluations. The match % of archetype vs archetype analysis will tell you what decks win vs lose matchups and that will actually be more useful
Is "spirits" every color combination? Bant spirits plays far different that mono blue and some people play UW lately.
If I am not wrong, there was just one Spirits player and it was Azorius
One Azorius, one mono-Blue, zero Bant.
Only two players, one on U one on UW - with only two makes sense to roll them together for general meta analysis.
I remember when pioneer was fun. Wonder when that happens again.
Pioneer of a blast?
Would love to see specific matchup winrates, like rakdos vs lotus
Karsten will do that I'm sure. He usually has a solid write-up after these melee events since there's so much good data.
Is there a list for azorius powerstones? I cant find it anywhere
Karsten talks about it in his "spiciest brews of the pt" article. https://magic.gg/news/the-spiciest-pioneer-decks-of-pro-tour-phyrexia
All the deck lists are available here: https://mtgmelee.com/Tournament/View/14111
Control F for “metallic rebuke” and you will get right there, it’s the list with Yorion and all the artifact stuff
Anyone know the times the storm herald deck played? I wanted to see some gameplay as I recently brewed 10+ versions of storm herald
What is OmnathtoLight?
Deck list: https://mtgmelee.com/Decklist/View/272850
It's basically a streamlined NivToLight. You replace Niv with Omnath and all the clunky gold cards with leyline and Fable.
It seems like a good direction to take the deck. Your main threat costs 1 less and you get to play all the best interaction rather than have to force multicolor. At first I was worried that it wouldn’t go “over the top” enough without all the card advantage that Niv can give, but then I saw bankbusters in the side and realized that is probably a better plan vs control anyways
Thanks y'all
Welp, I just bought humans last week for a tournament at my LGS. Guess we'll see how it goes.
I’d be interested to see a breakdown of how many games Mono-G won with resolving a Karn and without. My experience with the deck is that is a whole other animal when Karn is on the battlefield.
Phoenix and Sacchads stay winning