Dominaria United hasn’t been out long, but it’s already had a big impact on the Pioneer format.
The Magic Online Showcase Challenge took place last weekend. As it leads up to the MOCS, the Showcase Challenge is the highest-stakes open Pioneer event until the Regional Championships this fall. It’s also the place where the most powerful innovations are brought out.
In the Magic Online Showcase Challenge, four of the Top 8 (and 9 of the Top 16) decks featured new cards from Dominaria United. Most of the major archetypes gained something. Let’s take a look at what’s new!
KARN’S SYLEX IN MONO GREEN
We’ll start with the far-and-away best deck in the format, Mono-Green Devotion. The main deck of this powerful combo strategy is pretty hammered out at this point. The only real deckbuilding decision is whether to use the last two slots to interact (Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves, Skysovereign, Consul Flagship), to assist in your combo (Teferi, Who Slows the Sunset) or a little of both (Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God).
The Mono Green sideboard is also pretty tight with a variety of artifacts that help the combo, but there is more room for interaction there.
Karn’s Sylex is a powerful play out of the sideboard against some of Mono-Green’s worst matchups. The deck can struggle against low-to-the-ground creature decks like Boros Heroic, Mono-White Aggro or Mono-Blue Spirits.
Mono Green has good blockers, but it is hard to win this way when they play many threats or make a large, unblockable creature with Brave the Elements or God’s Willing. Tommy Ashton, better known as Stainerson, took 3rd place in the Showcase Challenge with a copy of Karn’s Sylex as a Karn, the Great Creator’s wish target. Sylex may seem like a slow sweeper, but it can often be activated the same turn it enters play using Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner’s ability to untap it.
Rakdos Midrange is another popular choice among players for the best deck in the format.
It’s a deck that uses well-statted value creatures, efficient interaction and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker to grind an opponent out of cards. Every format needs a great midrange deck like Jund, right?
All three new Painlands (Adarkar Waste, Karplusan Forest, and Sulfurous Springs) are among the biggest additions from Dominaria United in Pioneer, specifically Sulfurous Springs in Rakdos.
Sulfurous Springs isn’t a four-of in Rakdos, but it helps smooth out the edges of what was once a pretty rough manabase. Between Haunted Ridge and Castle Locthwain, Rakdos’ first couple of lands often enter the battlefield tapped and Sulfurous Springs will help offset that.
Rakdos also gained a solid midrange creature: Sheoldred, the Apocalypse. I’ve seen Sheoldred described as everything from unplayable, to ban worthy, and maybe in the right shell its ability can be abused.
Rakdos Midrange uses Sheoldred like Siege Rhino: it’s a great way to stabilize the board and get out of burn range against faster aggressive decks, and a serviceable way to pressure control decks.
Tirentu used both Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and Sulfurous Springs to finish in the Top 16 of the Showcase Challenge:
Rakdos’s biggest gain was probably Liliana of the Veil.
The powerful planeswalker, Liliana of the Veil, has recently fallen off in Modern and Legacy, but is back with a vengeance in Pioneer. If it goes unanswered, it’s almost impossible for a control deck to beat a Liliana that goes to ultimate.
Rakdos may be the obvious home for Liliana of the Veil, but it may not be the best fit for it.
LILIANA OF THE VEIL IN ABZAN GREASEFANG
Abzan Greasefang has been hovering around tier 2 in Pioneer for several months, but hasn’t had a big breakthrough.
The deck functions on two different axes:
PLAN A – Put a copy of Parhelion II into the graveyard and reanimate it with Greasefang, Okiba Boss. Unfortunately, the A-plan is vulnerable to creature removal, graveyard hate, and Karn’s ability.
Plan B – Play a fair game by getting value out of Esika’s Chariot and Can’t Stay Away, forcing the opponent to interact while you try to set up a window to combo.
Liliana plays well with both plans, often letting you discard a vehicle to reanimate while your opponent has to discard a real spell; it also helps you to play a fair one-for-one game and eventually having the ultimate ability to interact with their graveyard hate piece.
I would start by slotting Liliana in place of some copies of Duress and Raffine’s Informant.
The top decks were not the only strategies to receive notable help from Dominaria United….
Painlands benefit many other fringe decks. UW and Bant Spirits have long been solid Pioneer decks that may not be Tier 1 but are often good metagame choices. The addition of Adarkar Wastes may give them the consistency they need to take on the best decks: UW Spirit Aggro got 8th place in the Showcase Challenge.
Aggressive red decks with Burning-Tree Emissary and Reckless Bushwhacker have also been popping up.
They feature the new one drop Phoenix Chick and use Karplusan Forest to cast Atarka’s Command more easily.
Finally, I want to show off what may be the best home for one of Dominaria United’s most powerful cards: Leyline Binding.
When it was spoiled, everybody talked about how powerful this would be in Modern, where the combination of fetchlands and triomes would make it easy to cast for 1 or 2 mana regularly.
In Pioneer, however, it interacts well but doubles as a great way to put powerful 7-drops into play given its high mana value. The usual way to cheat high-powered creatures (such as Agent of Treachery, Void Winnower, and Hullbreaker Horror) has been Transmogrify, usually in a Fires of Invention strategy. But move aside Transmogrify, it’s Enigmatic Incarnation’s time!
Enigmatic Incarnation has popped up now and again in Pioneer and was good at playing long, slow grindy games where it got to turn cantrips like Nylea’s Presence and Omen of the Sea into removal spell creatures, but it was full of air and often couldn’t close games when it was ahead. Now with Leyline Binding, you get to put a powerful 7-drop into play that can either stabilize the board or slam the door on your opponents. How does it sound to exile their best play, and then sacrifice the Leyline Binding to steal it with Agent of Treachery?
This list from Mason Clark is a pretty early draft of the deck, but I think that this might have what it takes to go over the top of any fair deck in the format.
It’s not particularly flashy, but Dominaria United has given already-existing decks some powerful tools, mostly in the form of interaction. We’ve got about two months until the first set of Regional Championships, which will be on the release weekend of Brothers’ War (at least in the U.S.)! So try out some of the new tools, and keep your eye on the upcoming spoilers to see what might be the next card to make a splash in the Pioneer format. Until next time!