Over the past month RIW Hobbies is both proud and excited to see the return of high profile Magic: the Gathering tournaments at our store. In particular, and in addition to our weekly Thursday evening Pioneer events, we’ve hosted two large-scale #MTGPioneer events: a $1K and RCQ both of which attracted more than 35 players each for a Saturday full of fun and exciting MTG play. 

With the Pioneer Format being both relatively new and leading the way in terms of in-store play popularity, highlighting the decklists from our large $1K and RCQ events seems like an excellent jumping off point to showcase the players, decks, and strategies that have been performing well at our biggest LGS events.

Regardless of whether you’re looking for a sweet new deck to play, trying to get a better idea of what to expect from the newest fan-favorite tournament dueling format in an LGS metagame setting, or are curious to see what proficient paper tournament players are sleeving up and how they are building their sideboards: there is a lot of information to be learned from looking at a large spread of high caliber Top 8 decklists.

All of the Top 8 competitors elected to accept an even prize split rather than play it out for greater additional prizes. With no invite on the line, even with several high-caliber pros in the field, everybody was happy to accept a nice split, hang out and socialize after several hard fought rounds of Swiss dueling. Each player walked away with more than $200 store credit and a great time was had by all.

RIW HOBBIES PIONEER $1K

JUNE 19, 2022 

TOP 8 DECKLISTS

What I’m hoping to showcase most in today’s article is how exciting, diverse, and dynamic Pioneer is as a paper Magic: the Gathering format that is optimal for LGS play and events. 

I, for one, was excited by the diversity of decks that made Top 8 in two different large and high profile events. Between two events and two Top 8s there were a total of 16 top 8 slots and those sixteen slots were represented by 12 completely different archetypes. 

So, as we work through both sets of Top 8s in today’s article, I’ll be featuring 12 entirely different deck archetypes that were each expertly built, tuned, and piloted in a competitive LGS, paper setting. I think that is likely a fantastic way to approach learning a new and dynamic format like Pioneer, especially if a player is looking to play on the IRL tabletops at an LGS. 

I wanted today’s article to be more about highlighting the diversity of strategies performing well in high level LGS play, as opposed to editorializing about which decks I think are the best or most format defining at the moment. With that said, the first deck list I’ll be featuring in today’s article is my build of Lotus Field and I am a big fan of this 75: 

Obviously, that’s a ton of decklists to look at but overall Pioneer appears to be a fantastic format to play in cardboard at an LGS with a wide array of different decks and strategies that appeal to a wide range of skilled players. With so many different viable strategies to choose from players have the option to select a powerful strategy that lines up with what they enjoy playing and will likely play against a different deck most rounds of an event. 

The $1K attracted 35 players and the RCQ 45 players, so in total the two Top 8s reflect the Top 16 performing lists of an 80 player pool of decks. I can also take that a step further and perform a quick analytic breakdown of the Top 16 archetypes after the completion of Swiss rounds:

1 LOTUS FIELD 

1 ABZAN MIDRANGE

1 RAKDOS VAMPIRES

1 BOLAS CITADEL STORM 

1 MONO GREEN KARN 

1 MARDU GREASEFANG 

2 R/W HEROIC 

2 U/R PHOENIX 

1 BANT HUMANS

2 IZZET PYROMANCER

2 MONO BLUE SPIRITS

1 MONO RED AGGRO 

Such a spread would be well-received as a sign of great strategic diversity in a singular event Top 16 and the fact that this data reflects two Top 8s suggests an even better format. Overall, my impression playing Pioneer, as well as reviewing and writing about the LGS paper meta both suggest the format is open and diverse in terms of the types of strategies that can and do perform well. 

Ultimately, Pioneer appears to be an ideal format to play in cardboard in an LGS setting which is truly what I am currently most interested in playing Magic in 2022. I’m all about building and playing the decks I think look sweet (Such as Lotus Field, but also several of the other lists in today’s article piqued my interest such as Mono U Spirits, Bant Company, and Izzet Phoenix) and hanging out and slinging spells with friends and other talented players. Pioneer Constructed at RIW Hobbies really checked both of those boxes for me, especially coming out of the Pandemic Era of MTG where cardboard play hasn’t been as popular. Sleeving up a new deck, shuffling up, and playing against other new decks I haven’t seen before in Pioneer has been an incredible reminder about what I find so incredible and enjoyable about playing Magic: the Gathering.