We have a Banned & Restricted Announcement coming this Monday!

Of course, this is no guarantee that anything will change, we've certainly had "no changes" before, but after a Pioneer Pro Tour that had some pretty wild statistics, we've got a lot to talk about.

Yes, my team crushed the event with the Rakdos Vampires deck which was the talk of the tournament. It's rare these days that a new deck pops up at a pro-level event and makes a huge splash with how fast information travels and how many games are played each day on MTG Arena and Magic Online, so it is very exciting when it does happen and it makes a lot of sense that it would dominate the conversation around the event.

We also had a 60.2% win rate in the event, the highest of any deck with more than two players and an extremely high win rate for any event. However, it's important to note that this number is inflated by a number of factors. The deck was obviously a huge surprise, which caught many people off guard in both gameplay and sideboarding which gives a pretty big edge. Furthermore, the deck was mostly played by half of fame caliber players who had spent a week working on every possible plan and iteration of the deck.

To put it mildly, Rakdos Vampires is great, but once you remove these extra factors (put it in the hands of the average player in the field and against opponents who have properly prepared for it) it ain't 60% great. As such, you won't be hearing any calls for a Vein Ripper ban today!

However, there's another number that jumps off the page from Frank Karston's metagame breakdown graph:

Izzet Phoenix - 169-125 (57.5% win rate)

For every factor that Rakdos Vampires had going in its favor, Izzet Phoenix had essentially those exact same factors going against it. It was expected to be and was the most played deck in the field, essentially the default deck for anyone who wasn't sure what to play. It was also by far the most prepared for deck in the field as well; my team played more games against Izzet Phoenix than perhaps every other deck in the entire field combined, as we knew it was going to be the litmus test for anything we tried. At one point Reid tried to put a blanket ban on testing against Izzet Phoenix, because we had simply accumulated so much data on the deck.

And despite all this, the deck being played by a huge sample size which levels out to "tournament average player" playing it, as well as everyone in the room trying to beat it, and it still managed to pull an astoundingly high 57.5% win rate.

This is an extremely damning statistic.

Any win rate over 55% for a deck played by a large enough sample size is already considered to be excellent, but usually the most played deck in the field never reaches this threshold because of the target it has on its back.

As such, I think the time has come...

Treasure Cruise Should Be Banned In Pioneer

When it comes to Treasure Cruise in Pioneer, the question really is "when" not "if" as far as its banning.

Treasure Cruise is banned in virtually every format, much for the same reason that Ancestral Recall is banned in every format - drawing three cards for 1 mana is just a silly thing for a Magic player to be able to reliably do in game of Magic: The Gathering. In Pioneer (as well as Historic), Treasure Cruise has gotten by because there aren't fetchlands to turbocharge it, but the reality is that Pioneer and Historic are only getting bigger as time goes on.

Izzet Phoenix has hit the critical mass of cantrips and velocity to become a well-oiled Treasure Cruise machine, to the point that we (and many other players) were ready to board in the oft-maligned Leyline of the Void because we just needed the cheapest and most nuclear option. Whenever decks are boarding Leyline of the Void in against decks that have robust "fair" plans and are not all-in graveyard decks like Dredge or Hogaak, that is very indicative that there is a big problem.

It's true that Treasure Cruise has only really seen success in Pioneer specifically in Izzet Phoenix, meaning there are perhaps cards that are more ubiquitous, but again it's only a manner of time. The numbers don't lie, it's time for Treasure Cruise to be banned in yet another format.

Good riddance.

But what about the rest of the format?

Watch List - Fable of the Mirror-Breaker

I was joking before about banning Vein Ripper or Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord, but there is definitely a card in the Rakdos Vampires deck that is under the potential ban microscope in Fable of the Mirror-Breaker // Reflection of Kiki-Jiki.

Adding Red to the Vampires deck was the tipping point that sold us on the deck, mostly just because of how powerful casting Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is. Already banned in Standard for being too ubiquitous and seeing play in virtually every format, there's no doubt that Fable of the Mirror-Breaker is one of the best cards printed in the last decade. It is also the glue that holds many decks together, to the point that it often feels wrong to not play the card - a large part of the reason why it was banned in Standard.

The fact that we added Fable of the Mirror-Breaker to essentially a Mono-Black Vampires deck is also pretty damning.

Rakdos Midrange is typically the big Fable of the Mirror-Breaker deck in the format and it had a poor showing at the Pro Tour, but the card was also a major player in Enigmatic Fires, Rakdos Sacrifice, Omnath to Light, Jeskai Creativity, and more.

We may not be there yet on Fable of the Mirror-Breaker either, but this also feels more like an "when" rather than an "if."

Watch List - Amalia Benavides Aguirre

While The Lost Caverns of Ixalan provided Pioneer with two brand new and very powerful combo decks, which led to the very fast banning of Geological Appraiser, Amalia Benavides Aguirre has so far avoided the ban hammer.

Amalia Combo also had a good tournament at Pro Tour Murders at Karlov Manor, running a 55% win rate through the event and making Top 8, and has been a fairly consistent top deck in the format since it's printing.

However, unlike with Izzet Phoenix, there are more factors at stake here beyond just the numbers.

Amalia is a combo deck, and is capable of winning on turn three. It is also extremely taxing against decks that aren't playing a lot of removal or interaction, because of how readily it can assemble the combo when unopposed. This puts a lot of pressure on the format, as decks have to have a particular set of answers or they risk having an almost unwinnable matchup.

But that's not all. As we saw in the Top 8 of the Pro Tour, another factor is the awkwardness of the unbounded loops that the deck can produce, leading to draws. Simon Neilson's Top 4 match against Amalia Combo ended with him winning 3-1-2, because he forced two draws by using a pump spell in response to the trigger that was going to put Amalia at 20 power. Once over 20 power and without the "destroy everything" safeguard, the loop becomes unbounded and the game is a draw.

This is a pretty serious issue for tournament logistics.

While Amalia Combo probably isn't "too good" for the format or anything, the pressure it puts on decks to have the correct answers as well as the awkwardness of the combo makes it a definitely potential ban target.

Watch List - Lotus Field

Our last card to talk about today is the format's one pure combo deck, Lotus Field.

Non-deterministic spell-based combo has always been a somewhat sore spot for tournament Magic, as sitting there and watching your opponent play a bunch of spells while you hope for the 2% chance that they might whiff is probably one of the least fun things in Magic as a game. We've seen action before on Storm decks in Modern when they weren't the best deck, and Lotus Field came in at a pretty modest 46.1% win rate at the Pro Tour.

That being said, it did get a pretty powerful new tool.

Archdruid's Charm added a good amount of both consistency and resilience to the deck, being both a tutor as well as an anti-hate card. The jury is still out on how exactly to build the deck, but the power is of course there. Furthermore, like Amalia Combo, Lotus Field combo does require a certain sort of the correct interaction to deal with, and if your new deck doesn't have this interaction it can be a very difficult matchup.

I wouldn't expect any movement here, but it is certainly a deck to watch.

What About Unbans?

Folks love to talk about unbans, but realistically the Pioneer banlist is a very reasonable one. There's a lot of combo sort of cards that just aren't healthy for the format like Felidar Guardian and Balustrade Spy, a lot of dumb power outliers like Oko, Thief of Crowns and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, and fetchlands.

For the most part Pioneer is a good format. I don't think it would be egregious if nothing changed, but it would be a better format without Treasure Cruise.

It's going to happen, might as well be now!