Pioneer and MTG Arena

Amokhet Remasterd is now 11 Days old and it is time to talk about the next Edition that will be released this year for player who wants to player older Formats like Pioneer.

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But first lets Talk about what is Pioneer for a Format ? Pioneer is a non rotating Constructed Format and all cards from the coresets and all expansions since Return to Ravinica are legal.

The format was introduced on October 21, 2019, and was officially codified on January 30, 2020, when it is featured on Grand Prix Brussels.

The goal was to create an Eternal format where the cards are easier to get without paying thousands of dollars for a deck. For this reason the so called Fetchlands are banned in Pioneer.

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As you can see Pioneer is realy young Format and therefore the ideal Eternal format for MTG Arena. But who thinks that it is enough to publish a Pioneer Masters Set and you can play Pioneer on Arena is wrong.

Picture taken from the MTG Wiki on Gamepedia

With the release of Amokhet Remasterd there are still 19 sets missing on Mtg Arena and that is a lot of cards missing.

Let's just assume that until all Cards are available for Pioneer on Arena Wizards 5000 Cards are still missing. To make it easier to calculate, let's say 50% reprints, there are still 2500 missing Cards.

Let's also assume that Pioneer Masters will be about the same size (339 cards) as Amokhet Remasterd. It will not be much bigger, as Wizards of the Coast has announced that Pioneer Masters will be draftable. This would mean that you would need about 7 Pioneer Masters sets until all cards are available.

More than 2 Pioneer Masters Sets will not be released per year. More would not make sense from a developer's point of view since all the cards have to be implemented and tested.

Wizards of the Coast with more than 2 Pioneer Masters sets per year would also scare away some of its customers who are not willing to buy more than 5 sets per year.

This means that we won't have a real Pioneer format on Arena until 2023 at the earliest.

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If you think that Pioneer Historic will replace this, I have to disappoint you once again. I have here a list of over 50 cards which are Historic Legal but not Pioneer Legal. If these cards were suddenly no longer playable there would be a big Shitstorm

Enchantress’s Presence, Gempalm Polluter, Gempalm Inceneriator, Chainers Edict, Honden, Mirari`S Wake, Momentary Blink, Krosan Tusker, Phyrexian Obliterator, Body Double, Ancestral Mask, Meddling Mage, Maelstorm Pulse, Knight of the Reliquary, Ranger of Eos, Platinum Angel, Merrow Reejerey, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Captain Sisay, Darksteel Reactor, Imperious Perfect, Soul Warden, Phyrexian Arena, Mindstone, Tendrils of Corruption, Serra Ascendant, Hidetsugu’s Second Rite, Distant Melody, Goblin Matron, Fauna Shaman, Aether Spellbomb, Allosaurus Shepherd, Ball Lightning, Blessed Sanctuary, Blood Artist, Branching Evolution, Bruvac the Grandiloquent, Chromatic Sphere, Elvish Archdruid, Explore, Goblin Chieftain, Innocent Blood, Isamaru, Hound of Konda, Kira, Great Glass-Spinner, Krenko, Mob Boss, Kels, Fight Fixer, Kor Spiritdancer, Oona’s Blackguard, Path to Exile, Phyrexian Tower, Momentous Fall, Muxus, Goblin Grandee

Some of these cards are not even legal in the Modern Format. These are mainly jumpstart cards like Muxus, Goblin Grandee.

Wow, a lot of text has been written, so I will stop here. Hope I could inform you a little bit about the Pioneer and Mtg Arena.

I used the following sources for my little article:

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Sources

https://magic.wizards.com/de/articles/archive/news/ank%C3%BCndigung-des-pioneer-formats-2019-10-21

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-digital/mtg-arena-state-game-july-2020-07-15

https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Pioneer

https://scryfall.com/ (to verify the pioneer legality)