Land (23)
Enchantment (4)
Creature (15)
Instant (18)
Sideboard
Sideboard (15)
Maybeboard
I like Ancestral Recall. It's a fine card, I think.
But surely, I can do better than that, right?
"A strand of radiance mirrored from beyond the clouds; at its approach, the night cowered and finally lifted to void. Above the light, a pair of luminescent wings unfolded, and a voice rang out: 'So you can.'"
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Why play this deck?
Well, for the same reason why people play magic: to have fun. While you're very unlikely to ever win a PT and make a fortune by piloting this deck, it doesn't even need to win you a PTQQQ to provide you with invaluable joy. I can't recall any memory just as glorious as one of drawing sixteen cards for a single mana (we'll get to the "how" part in a minute). Oh, and the deck is quite budget-friendly, coming in fully-powered at roughly $170 at the time of writing. There's even a $50 version which will be discussed in the "Alternative Deckbuilding Options" section.
Ours is fundamentally a soft engine/midrange burst deck built around targeting and pump synergies. It plays similarly to Feather, the Redeemed decks and the Standard Heroic deck from 2015, but has a higher ceiling, being much more explosive than either of the above when all pieces come together. Each of our threats, if unaddressed, will take the game by its hand and run away; and if we have multiple threats working in tandem, then the game just becomes a highly entertaining massacre. When things go awry though, often involving mulligans to five, Thoughtseize, or an untimely (or timely, if you're watching from across the table) counterspell against a threat-light hand, well, they go awry. Still, that promise of sixteen cards is reason enough for your friendly neighborhood jankmage to stand back up even after the most devastating defeat. It should be for any living being. Sixteen cards! That alone makes this deck worth it.
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Card Choices
Literally every nonland permanent in the deck is an engine-in-a-can that can take over the game if not answered. Let us start from the core and work outwards.
Mirrorwing Dragon & Zada, Hedron Grinder
These two cards are the reason why the deck exists. Their ability is simple: Whenever we cast a spell that targets one of them, we get an extra copy of it for each other creature we control, and each copy targets a separate creature. So Giant Growth becomes Overrun and Expedite draws sixteen cards (usually it's 2-4, but your jankmage can dream and his dreams come alive once in 365 matches). As if Ancestral Recall is bad. I started out with a 4-2 split, as Mirrorwing just seemed like a much stronger card: it does well in combat, dodges Fatal Push, basically all the red removal (even Roast!), and anything else that comes out of a creature deck since they'll end up blowing up their own board if the dragon is targeted. But as it turns out, the difference of one turn mattered a ton and six copies of this effect were one too many since it's so clunky in multiples, so after some testing, I ended up with this 1-4 configuration. Only playing one copy of our namesake card kind of ruins the title's flavor, but "Pioneering the Mirrorwing" still sounds catchier than anything I could come up with that involves Zada. Anyway, remember that if we resolve one of these creatures with one or two targeting spells in our hand and it sticks on the battlefield, we pretty much can't lose.
Silverfur Partisan & Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
Both of these creatures help us generate a large number of tokens to maximize the power of our namesake, while also just being insane on their own if we have a few pump spells to spare. Silverfur Partisan was the first card that jumped to my mind when I started brainstorming for a Mirrorwing Dragon deck. It offers some extremely sweet synergy, essentially giving all our targeting spells a kicker of "make a 2/2". Remember that its ability triggers off any wolf or werewolf, including the tokens, being targeted by any player's spell, which means that if our opponent kills it, we at least get a wolf for our troubles. Krenko plays a similar role, though it is more explosive when it works but carries more risk. A sequence like Krenko on turn three into Giant Growth + Samut's Sprint on turn four lets us make seven tokens, which is nuts (or goblins I guess), though something as simple as a Wild Slash or Teferi, Time Raveler can completely ruin our day. Due to this, it's often better to wait until turn four so we can leave up Blossoming Defense besides casting the legendary goblin (or immediately give it haste). Currently, I have my three-drops in a neat 3-3 split, but the numbers can be adjusted based on the amount of removal-heavy decks present in your local metagame (the less removal, the more Krenko, and vice versa).
Dreadhorde Arcanist
I love cheap instants and sorceries. I love efficient interactions. I love this card. There's a lot to do with it in various formats and decks, as simply flashing back a spell each turn presents incredible card advantage. In our deck, its job is to double up every pump spell that we play, since we can cast it, then attack with Arcanist to flash it right back. Landing it on turn two sets us up for a strong engine later on, and we can always slam a Giant Growth to attack with a 7/9 trampler on turn three. Beware of Teferi, Time Raveler, though. It fizzles the flashback and is just generally an extreme annoyance to play against since none of our creatures like being bounced (I briefly mentioned this when discussing Krenko).
Season of Growth
The scry clause is obviously nice, especially with the token generation from Krenko and Silverfur, but it's the second ability that pushes this random enchantment over the top. What it essentially does is add a cantrip kicker to every targeting spell we cast, which translates to an insane flow of card advantage. Imagine playing Season of Growth into Dreadhorde Arcanist and Expedite. That spells "draw four cards", which already beats Ancestral Recall. We can also just spam random pump spells onto any creature, generating value along the way, without running out of cards. That said, this is technically a do-nothing enchantment that we need to take a turn off to play, which is fine on turn two as our only other two-drop is Arcanist, but can create awkward sequencing later on. And if we don't have both a creature and a pump spell, it does literally nothing (at least very little, counting the scry). But the ceiling's just so high that I think running four copies is correct anyway.
Our permanents have powerful abilities, but they all need instants and sorceries to trigger or reach maximum potential. These spells are the fuel that keeps our engine up and running.
Expedite
Here is the most important spell in our deck: the Ancestral Recall you've been dreaming of. At base rate, it replaces itself. With Dreadhorde Arcanist or Season of Growth, it's a spectacled Light Up the Stage. With Silverfur Partisan, it's a one-mana Wistful Selkie. With all three, it's two Mulldrifters. With Zada or Mirrorwing Dragon, well... Enter the Infinite? Basically, for one red mana, it's going to regularly draw us a fresh hand of cards. Don't be afraid to fire off a copy for sub-optimal value, either: something like Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin + Expedite on turn four to immediately attack is still pretty solid. This rule holds true for all of our pump spells.
Blossoming Defense
Our second most important spell. While +2/+2 for one mana is not an amazing rate, we don't care about the pumping as much as the hexproof. This deck is quite susceptible to removal, as our creatures don't do anything upon entering the battlefield; thus, the ability to grant a creature hexproof is crucial in fighting off disruption. Blossoming Defense happens to be the most efficient Pioneer-legal protection spell in the Gruul colors (unban Veil of Summer!), so we're running it. It feels especially great to have the opponent target Silverfur Partisan with a removal spell only for us to counter it with Blossoming Defense. Thanks for the free wolf!
Samut's Sprint
At first glance, Samut's Sprint appears to be a spectacularly mediocre card. However, haste is an ability that can be broken by being given to creatures that aren't supposed to have it. One of our most efficient starts consists of Season of Growth on turn two into Dreadhorde Arcanist and Samut's Sprint on turn three, which lets us attack with a 5/5 and cast the rough equivalent of Read the Bones. Casting it on turn four alongside a Krenko to give it haste and make four goblins is also a great line (six if we have Arcanist). Scrying is mostly just a handy bonus, but the extra card selection does stack up if we have Zada or Mirrorwing on the battlefield.
Giant Growth
I was somewhat surprised by this, but at base rate, Giant Growth, all the way from Limited Edition Alpha, appears to be the most efficient one-mana pump spell available in Pioneer. Technically, Aspect of Hydra, Appeal / Authority and Might of the Masses all have higher ceilings, but the first one isn't applicable to our deck and the latter two are only good when we've already flooded the board with tokens. On its own, Giant Growth is by no stretch a great card, but what if it becomes Become Immense, cantrips, or comes with a 2/2? What if Hordeling Outburst is attached to it? What if it's Overrun? With literally any of our creatures on the battlefield, Giant Growth is by all stretches a great card.
Reckless Rage
Reckless Rage is a hyper-efficient removal spell with the "drawback" of Shocking a friendly creature. In most decks, that's too heavy a cost, mostly because targets are needed on both sides, but we can actually turn it into a benefit. First of all, Silverfur Partisan is the only creature in our deck that always dies to Shock, and we can just target a wolf token after one has been created since it'd just make another one. Second and most importantly, we have Season of Growth; killing a creature and drawing a card for one mana is just too good to pass up. All in all, Reckless Rage far surpasses all other removal options available to us. I did consider Domri's Ambush for the capability of removing planeswalkers, but this is a really mana-tight deck and none of our creatures (outside of Mirrorwing Dragon and without pump spells) are large enough to kill an up-ticking planeswalker.
Our manabase is quite simple: twelve dual lands and ten basic lands; eighteen red sources and seventeen green sources. There's a Castle Embereth since it offers a relevant effect for very little opportunity cost, but otherwise we don't have a whole lot to talk about.
On a more interesting note, I think that mana creatures are a viable consideration. I tested with Llanowar Elves and Gilded Goose first, as this deck never has anything to do on the opening turn anyway and using one-mana accelerators to enable turn-two Arcanist + haste spell seems very good. It played out very awkwardly. Most of our deck is red, and Llanowar Elves doesn't produce red mana. We really need all our mana every turn, but Gilded Goose can only ramp once. Ah, how much I'd give for Birds of Paradise!
So how about two-mana accelerators? Sylvan Caryatid turned out to be just the... plant for that job. Not only does it fix our mana, but it also doesn't get Wild Slash'd. Ramping from two to four lets us go off one turn earlier, with something like Caryatid into Krenko + haste spell into Zada + anything being our fastest draw. It also lets us play more copies of Mirrorwing Dragon, which is very difficult to remove for a lot of decks but would often be too slow without an accelerator. The biggest concern with this plan is that Sylvan Caryatid doesn't do anything if we don't have a threat in hand but takes up the two-drop slot, so we have to shave copies of Dreadhorde Arcanist and Season of Growth (which are threats) to make space; this further lowers the consistency of a deck that already has to mulligan a lot. If you want to try the Caryatid plan, I recommend the following main deck:
(All decklist images in this article can be clicked to open an mtggoldfish link)
I will not include a sideboard guide. There are two reasons for this. For one, I don't believe sideboard guides are good at all. Every local playgroup has its own meta, and even in the same matchup, opponents will have different card choices, which means sideboarding is essentially a process of prepared improvising. "Boarding by the book" is highly ineffective. For another, currently, Pioneer B&R announcements happen every week, so the deck to beat at this hour could be completely invalidated in seven days; thus, the sideboard configuration is almost always in flux. Due to these factors, I will simply explain each card's purpose separately.
Anger of the Gods
Our deck is naturally good against creature-based decks since they generally run fewer removal spells and we can grind out a huge board to beat theirs. However, fast aggro (White Humans, different versions of Mono-Red, and Blue Devotion to a certain extent) can run us over before we are able to fully set up. In those matchups, Anger of the Gods almost single-handedly wins us the game. It also doubles down as graveyard hate since almost all the graveyard-central decks in Pioneer right now are based around creatures. If Rally the Ancestors decks comtinue to increase in popularity, though, we should definitely start running copies of Tormod's Crypt.
Destructive Revelry
This is the most efficient artifact/enchantment removal spell available in our colors. Fires of Invention, Wilderness Reclamation, Search for Azcanta , and auras from Bogles all need blowing up.
Fry & Pithing Needle
Anti-planeswalker interaction. Fry is usually better as it's able to kill creatures against U/W decks and can't be countered, but Needle deals with multiple copies of the same 'walker and can also snag unfrieable things like Liliana, the Last Hope (though most planeswalkers that see Pioneer play are blue or white). Notice that we can't deal with Nissa, Who Shakes the World's static ability, which is annoying but inevitable (Domri's Ambush isn't even a clean answer).
Domri, Anarch of Bolas & Shifting Ceratops
These cards are our counter to counterspell decks. Counterspells can sometimes be a huge issue (I miss Veil of Summer) because how threat-light we are, so if the opponent counters our first threat we may suddenly find ourselves with a handful of dead pump spells. I took three different cards into consideration for this purpose: Domri, Ceratops, and Rhythm of the Wild. Domri and Rhythm of the Wild are very similar. They both have the same mana cost and the same core ability of making creatures uncounterable. The difference is that the former provides ramp and situational removal while the latter gives our creatures haste. I think Domri is stronger in this specific deck; haste is great with Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin, but doesn't actually do much else after the third turn, though ramping from three to five is quite significant as it allows for either three-drop + double spell or Zada + spell. The fighting ability is marginal but still an upside. Also, Teferi, Time Raveler can't bounce planeswalkers. As for Shifting Ceratops: it's an efficient, uncounterable threat on its own that's difficult for a variety of blue decks to interact with, outside of Aether Gust and white removal.
Heroic Intervention
I am aware that this card is very narrow and holding up two mana is no easy task, but Supreme Verdict on a developed board? Sorry ma'am; I must intervene.
Shapers' Sanctuary
We hate to have our creatures hit by removal. There are currently a bunch of Golgari based, Rock-y midrange decks that are loaded to the brim with removal spells. If we play Shapers' Sanctuary on turn one, two sets of events could happen: either the opponent blows it up, which means one less Abrupt Decay in their hand (I don't think anyone will cast Assassin's Trophy on turn two), or they leave it, which means we gain card advantage whenever a creature of ours gets killed. Win-win. And if we ever have two copies on the battlefield, all our creatures just scream "don't touch me I'm Phage".
In the end, remember one thing: don't overboard. This list needs a critical mass of proper threats and pump spells to function smoothly, and cutting too many of either will take the punch right out of our deck. Slowing down the opponent only translates to a win, after all, if we ourselves can keep moving forward.
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Alternative Deckbuilding Options
There is more than one way to build a Heroic-esque Mirrorwing/Zada deck. Below are a few directions worthy of exploration:
To maximize the power of Zada and Mirrorwing Dragon, there is a mono-red build. The lack of green means we lose three highly important cards: Silverfur Partisan, Blossoming Defense, and Season of Growth. Instead of these, we pack the most efficient token generation available and add Renegade Tactics as another targeting cantrip. The result is an extremely explosive deck that can flood the board with tokens and win out of nowhere with Zada or Mirrorwing followed by a few pump spells. The deck's weakness is that it's less consistent than the Gruul version due to an even lower number of threats, and without Blossoming Defense, there's also no way to properly protect them. We do have seven cantrips in Expedite and Renegade Tactics, so don't be afraid to fire them off for no value, since finding a threat is of utmost importance.
If you want to give the mono-red build a try, I recommend the above list. It is ideal if you're on a budget, being only $50 at the time of writing, and surprisingly competitive at that.
This is decidedly an Against the Odds deck, and I think it's way too janky to even do well at FNMs. But boy is it fun when it works. We go off by getting Jeskai Ascendency down with Zada, Hedron Grinder and a mana creature, so all our cantrips (we gain access to Slip Through Space and Defiant Strike with blue and white mana) are effectively free and draw a bunch of cards, which (hopefully) will include more cantrips, so we just draw our deck clean and make our creatures huge, then swing in for lethal. However, any sort of interaction (removal, discard, counters) can easily break this plan apart. On a brighter note, the four-color manabase is not as bad as it looks (ignore the pain) thank Attune with Aether.
This is my current main deck, though there's most certainly room for improvement. I'm not super-experienced with Jeskai Ascendancy, and the Pioneer metagame fluctuates constantly, so I didn't bother with a sideboard.
Feather, the Redeemed is obviously very powerful in a deck that looks to target creatures with spells, given that there is an established Feather deck that functions similarly to ours. So what if we smash the two together? Two Ancestral Recalls per turn cycle sure sounds good. The mana is where the problem lies, though. Season of Growth into Feather is going to be very painful, which leads me to believe that the Gruul build is still better even though Feather heightens the deck's ceiling. A notable addition in the sideboard is Declaration in Stone, which shores up the Green Stompy matchup by being able to remove their gigantic creatures. Straight Gruul has no ability to do that.
Above is my current 75. One thing I am uncertain about is whether Gods Willing should be played over Blossoming Defense in the main deck. Not a huge difference, though, as neither card is distinctly stronger than the other.
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"The person who finishes a journey is rarely the same as the one who starts it."
For now, ours will come to an end. If there's any conclusion to draw, it's that this deck is cheap, spicy, synergistic, customizable, and fun. And it's pretty good at winning for such an off-radar strategy, though I wouldn't count on it winning a high-profile tournament. So by all means, play it (and don't forget to upvote). Go forth and enter the infinite, lovely mage.
"To be honest, I'm not quite sure what's going to happen."
–– Renna, Selhoff alchemist
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| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 5 years |
| Last updated | 4 years |
| Legality | This deck is Pioneer legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 1 - 0 Mythic Rares 27 - 9 Rares 11 - 6 Uncommons 11 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 1.97 |
| Tokens | Goblin 1/1 R, Human 2/2 G, Wolf 2/2 G |
| Folders | Deck ideas, Green deck, pioneer, The Mirrorwing, To check, Amazing Ideas, Seems Fun |
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