Every workday while the set is new, Insight is taking a quick look at another deck featuring cards from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. Today we look at a major addition to Pioneer, forged on the anvil of the Oni Cult. Let's make Blood (and other) sacrifices—for pain and gain and Constructs!
One of the main consequences the release had on the format is pushing the fairly successful black-red aggro lists into a more control-oriented direction. Those decks had a very consistent mana base, featuring two robust creature lands as of Forgotten Realms, and now they can strengthen it with the addition of the channel lands: for pressure, for recursion. They're not a major change, but they nicely play around , , , and the likes.
What's actually major is that now the list contains an artifact theme, strongly suggested by the new in-color powerhouse uncommon . The Anvil is an amazing attrition engine in the deck, draining for one per turn cycle and creating an army of chump blockers that can also go wide, all while fueling itself. Of course we'd like to have more artifacts to feed the Anvil without necessarily losing its little Constructs, so fits the bill perfectly. The same goes for another new card from Neon Dynasty, . Both are able to replace themselves, so the sacrifice turns into pure value.
The aggro version of the deck was already running , which conveniently eats artifacts, too. And all those Blood tokens that the archetype was trafficking in since Crimson Vow? Also artifacts! So here's former star relegated to a sideboard role, while early Blood-producers and are consolidating their position as workhorses. is another great synergy piece providing two artifacts for one mana/card.
The removal and disruption suite, led by and respectively, is mostly left untouched in virtue of its tremendous efficiency, but the expendable artifacts clearly have as one of their simpler payoffs. The build still has no permanents over mana value 2 (no spells altogether, really, except for a singleton ). So is still eligible as companion, further mitigating the opportunity cost of all the sacrifices. The Harvester is especially strong in combination with our nightmarish feline, as it becomes a source of repeatable spot removal. It's a grindy brew, less explosive than the version with Kroxa and , but it already proved to be effective by scoring a third place at the Pioneer Challenge on Magic Online.
Rakdos Artifacts by claudioh, 3rd at Pioneer Challenge, February 13
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