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The most toxic pioneer ever was!

Pioneer Aggro BUG (Sultai) Counters Infect Unblockable

Elsterooo


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Feedback appreciated I've come to the grim realization that I don't have any reliable way to test out competetive decks. The only access I have to playing against actual people is arena, since none of my friends are into magic. Thus I'm happy for any feedback from interested players on how this deck is performing.

This is an aggressive list that wants to profit from the strong points of poison counters while protecting its creatures with cheap spells and rendering them unblockable to take your opponent's opportunity to react away as much as possible.

There is still an issue of a limited amount of cards that support poison counters, so cards like Hope of Ghirapur are the best option to get the ball going while disrupting your opponent until you find your key pieces, Fynn, the Fangbearer and Venerated Rotpriest. It's a very straight forward list for what it wants to do.

In the competitive space, this deck has turned out to be an alternative to the Spirit deck lists out there, therefore the question becomes why you would play this deck instead of those.

Compared to aggro spirits, this list is lacking in synergy. This deck really, really wants to fit Bilious Skulldweller, but I can't reliable experiment with splashing black, simply because across several options, the manabase always behaves differently. (Arena, tappedout, and mtgduelist)

Without the Skulldweller, there is a slight lack of aggressiveness that puts this deck behind the already existing lists it's competing with, mainly that you could end up with Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief, Hope of Ghirapur, and a lone Wasteland Viper for your first couple of turns. There are several ways of potentially fixing this, but they require more practical testing. Now I know every decks' weakness is a bad hand, but in this case it still borders a lack of consistency, especially to satisfy what should be a competitive contender.

This decks manabase could easily go down to 19, but I've left it at 20 because of the already mentioned inconsistencies with my draws during testing.

Finally, in pioneer, the Rotpriest is not enough to do away with toxic/infects issues of old. There is a lot of fodder for debating on why to go for poison counters and not just, you know, stick with reducing your opponents life total to zero. If you want to go with this strategy, and actually commit to it, you need to outspeed those other aspects, or poison counters become pointless.

But enough negatives, when you do hit that 60%-70% hand however, there is not much able to stop you from going in regardless of what your opponent is doing, except exile and -x/-x effects. In case of those becoming more relevant in the meta, more Slip Out the Back is your best friend. I have not missed a single discounted Distorted Curiosity in my playtests and even losing a Rotpriest or Fynn, you reload quickly. The big reason to play this over other aggressive strategies, is the fact that you don't need to buff, hold, love or smell your creatures, you just need to attack with them three to four times.

In other words: the strength over other decks is our ability to entirely focus on turning everything unblockable, protecting it, or otherwise disrupt our opponent and prevent them as much as possible from playing the game they enj- I guess the Ichor is setting in. Hail Phyrexia!

I'm in need of feedback. For now I consider this deck done and it'll stay as it is, as I have no way of telling which direction would be pushing it further. I'll still openly push for making competitive decks, but not being able to test in a reliable environment puts me in a weird spot.

There are several options:

  1. Splashing black for Bilious Skulldweller

  2. More focus on direct disruption, Infectious Bite being a canditate, since it would highly maximize Wasteland Viper's usefulness if Fynn is not out

  3. Combat Research having a bigger focus as a card draw engine since we have several legenrady creatures, and with it, entirely focusing on Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief as a "support" role for the deck, dropping Hope of Ghirapur. This would also work particularly well with adding. Skulldweller.

Venerated Rotpriest looked incredibly threatening when it released. The pioneer format lacks both the storm mechanic and infect. I still wanted to build with it, expecially since I wanted to bring Fynn, the Fangbearer into the pioneer space. As much as Rotpriest will find a home in modern and onward, pioneer still barely lacks the support to make a poison deck enough of a clear contender to really stick out. I have one more idea regarding Rotpriest, but the writing's on the wall.

In the end, this deck is, if we're looking at the core strategy, just an alternative to what spirits are doing, but if that is a deck you enjoy, then I hope this one will be fun as well!

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The deck is archived. I tried to make something more creative with Rotpriest, but the best stategy turned out to be boring, thus I won't really pursue this anymore.

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Top Ranked
  • Achieved #19 position overall 1 year ago
  • Achieved #2 position in Pioneer 1 year ago
  • Achieved #1 position in Pioneer Aggro 1 year ago
Date added 1 year
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is Pioneer legal.

Rarity (main - side)

4 - 0 Mythic Rares

19 - 1 Rares

33 - 0 Uncommons

4 - 3 Commons

Cards 60
Avg. CMC 1.46
Tokens Phyrexian Mite 1/1 C
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