Now an update for @MTG_Arena! Pioneer Masters is coming December 10th 2024! Pioneer Masters brings many cards to MTG Arena for the first time as we work towards our goal of parity with competitive Pioneer in tabletop.
Unfortunately I think this is too little too late. Format was starting to recover but it got two big kicks to the nuts in the last few weeks:
- No Pioneer RCQ season next year is going to hurt a lot Pioneer competitive play,
- Yesterday’s announcement is probably going to do some damage to the playerbase, most players I know were into at least partially to avoid UB sets. The likelihood that more sets per year with half of them being UB is going to increase deck prices is going to be another issue for player retention.
I’m hoping that the Spotlight Series next year really highlights Pioneer, because there really isn’t anywhere else it’ll get the eyes of the tournament grinders.
UB in everything is definitely a big pill to swallow. I obviously love a lot of the media that the crossovers are coming from, and I’m certainly going to enjoy buying the cards. But it does take away from the cohesion of what Magic is and feels like (even in its multiplanar setting). And now that it’s making its way into Standard and Pioneer, instead of a casual space (Commander) or a place where I never played (Modern, Legacy, and Vintage), it does feel icky to think about sitting down with my deck that’s all in-world, and my opponent is playing some amalgam of Magic cards and Sephiroth and Spider-Man.
No Pioneer RCQ season is the most insane thing to me. Just starts to get really good with the Amalia and Sorin bans, good enough to convince me to buy into the format after staying out of constructed for 6 years and then this rug pull. No clue what they’re thinking here.
most players I know were into at least partially to avoid UB sets
This was why I bought in. I don’t want a rotating format and this was the only non-rotating format without UB.
