MTG Salvation

Nightpack Ambusher is exactly what this deck needs against Control and Midrange. I would also consider Brineborn Cutthroat, because turn 2 is often the turn before you are going to need countermagic, and it provides a good clock if you cast a spell on your opponents turn every turn.

The one problem here is that people wouldn't just mainboard Duress or Despise when Thoughseize is banned. These cards simply aren't that good in the mainboard. Thoughtseize being banned would just make black decks worse because they would have less efficient tools to attack the hand.

Quote from WarMachinePrime »

Giving Green the free digging power of OUaT when they already have so many playable 1 mana dorks gives it a consistency that circumvents variance, a huge part of Magic.

play something like Duress and completely whiff against creature-based decks

Interesting, so variance is good when it comes to green but bad when it comes to black? I get what you are saying, I just think the message needs to be consistent. I would be fine with a Duress/Despise split and I play a lot of mono black.

I hope you see that these are two different things entirely. Duress and Despise aren't really cards I'd want to mainboard, because they often miss in certain matchups. That puts you behind on card advantage. Not having a manadork or a 3-drop to capitalize on it puts you behind on a different axis.

Green decks were very consistent in putting a 3-drop on the battlefield on turn two, because of OUaT. This was reflected in the meta (tons of green based aggro decks). Thoughtseize is played in mono-black aggro and Golgari lands, both of which have been hit by last monday's bans in another way. Let's just await what the new tier one decks will be.

Quote from D90Dennis14 »

It should also be possible to destroy Wurm with Creativity to shuffle it back into the deck and tutor out again, right ?

This doesn't work. The wurm's effect is a triggered ability. This would be put onto the stack after completely resolving your Creativity.

Smuggler's Copter getting the ban for being "too big a threat for a lot of non tier decks" makes no sense. Non-tier decks can play all the answers to the copter that the tier decks can play. I think what you want to say is that it homogenizes decks, and that every midrangey creature deck will want to play the copter. I don't think that is actually true though. Collected Company decks often don't want the copter because it's not a CoCo hit. Any deck that ramps will want to play bigger threats. It's barely fast enough to be played in aggro decks (Simic Aggro doesn't want it, mono-red sometimes does).

Banning more things now is bad for Pioneer as a competative format. There is just no data to support any bans, and no deck is obviously too strong. People like to hate on Field of the Dead, but I don't believe it's as good as people say it is. Most of the other decks that seem to be tier 1 right now are well equiped to go beat it. It is a real problem for control to beat, but every deck has it's bad matchups. I personally thing Once Upon a Time makes green decks way too consistent, but again: there's not enough tournament data to prove it.

Fry is good to deal with Lyra, as well as Teferi some other planeswalkers.
Gruul Spellbreaker protects you from Settle the Wreckage and is just an awesome creature

Phyrexian Revoker is a weird mainboard inclusing. What's going on in your meta that you want to stop with those?

Quote from SaltMaster 5000 »

So instead of winning by actually playing the game and making decisions, they'd rather just put Ethereal Armor and 3 Rancors on Bogles and Louis C.K. you. A lot of Magic games mirror modern board game design where no one truly interacts with each other, they're just playing "Multiplayer Solitaire".

I think your view of modern is off. Path to Exile, Fatal Push, Thoughtseize, Dismember and Snapcaster Mage are still among the 10 most played cards in modern. The format has a lot of proactive decks, but that doesn't mean the games are uninteractive. Even decks like Bogles, Ad Naus and Neoform can be interacted with, but you have to find your angle, as it were. If anything, these decks FORCE people to interact. No competative player is content with just playing Neoform Mirrors all day and going 4-4. People pick up these fast 'uninteractive' decks when they think the meta doesn't currently have the angle to interact with them. Once the meta catches on, it usually finds that angle. If modern was like you describe it, it wouldn't be thriving right now.
EDIT: I noticed I misread the original post

From the perspective of a Spike: The reason people like cards like Carnage Tyrant is because they love to win games. Dash Hopes does never win you the game and never counters something that would lose you the game unless you were already winning the game and Tyrant's Choice would already get you there. People don't hate interaction, but people like interaction most when it's flexible and efficient. Dash Hopes is not flexible and not efficient.

I understand that making a cube involves more than just giving players access to cards they love. Dash Hopes might find a home in some cubes where this punisher mechanic is a theme or a cube that tries to get people far out of their comfort zone.

About the blocking and flaming: Stop it please? While making controversial statements generalizing magic players is pointless, reacting to it in this way only sustains it. These posts are a report of a person's experience. Even if we experience things differently, isn't there something to be learned?

I've brewed Vannifar Pod but I think it's not quite there: https://scryfall.com/@Nideon/decks/7ad940e3-db76-4693-a050-119a33299340

But just because a deck contains a lot of cards that are new to the format, doesn't mean it's always better. The Frontier BG Counters list can be updated too.

BTW: I brewed Robots yesterday: https://scryfall.com/@Nideon/decks/439f521f-8e80-47bd-b047-8ae02c597ee6

If I would build a Pioneer Cube, I would include rares and mythics. I don't think the commons + uncommons froms these sets is really enough to make the gameplay interesting. Drafting standard's greatest hits from the last 6 years sounds pretty good.

Are all these artifacts really that good when you can just play this: https://mtgdecks.net/Frontier/bg-counters-decklist-by-wrinkle22-664782

With Pioneer just being announced: What cards/strategies do you think will dominate Pioneer? Powerful cards like Thoughtseize are legal in this format, since it includes Ravnica Block and Theros Block. Compared to Frontier, how powerful will this format be?

Opinions?