Every Tuesday Insight is taking a quick look at one of the top-performing, most peculiar, or simply sweetest Pioneer decks among recent results. In spite of the name, Creativity isn't the most creative way of winning. But when a good part of the field just rolls over and dies to this, you got to take advantage!
The plan almost sounds too simple: Step one is to cast or . That there are two of them all but elevates the strategy to the level of a one-card combo. The one card in question, the irreplaceable second piece, is . It turns two Treasure tokens into and . The latter turns the former into a hasty, trampling 30/30. Attack. The end.
Now we could spend time discussing the design in detail. There's plenty to like. For example, the deck only needs one of each creature, as it's easy to discard a drawn Wurm to Score/Windfall//. It gets Xenagos back into the library with or . The aforementioned all help find Creativity, and if unsuccessful on their own, they also feed .
A more interesting topic is how many Pioneer decks don't have a good way of beating this. Sure, White-Blue Control with its countermagic should have a field day against an opponent intent on resolving a sorcery of mana value 5+. (You ideally cast Creativity with X>2 not to run afoul of removing a token in response.) But if they spend too much time holding up counter mana in games two and three, they will absolutely die to and , coasting quickly from sideboard to battlefield on a check from the Treasury. The black decks with their might hit Creativity, but they might as well miss it, and then what?
The format is of course more than capable of racing what is typically a turn-five combo kill. Boros Heroic, Izzet Prowess, Monored Aggro, and various tribal or otherwise synergy-powered decks can all do it. But can they still do it under fire of the , , and variety? The deck has indeed room for cheap interaction, and that even includes . The removal lines up well enough with 's toughness too. Meanwhile, the ubiquitous Green Devotion may find a mana Elf shocked and a planeswalker pierced, and won't be good at surviving a 30/30 attacker then, if ever.
So maybe one of the biggest plays available is also the big-brain play of Pioneer. Just make sure to counter lest you be hit with the only that shows up anywhere in the format.
| Through the Wurmhole! by Slasher21, Top 16 at Pioneer Challenge, September 24 |
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| Main Deck | Sideboard |
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