• By Thiago • 11/27/19

Hi everybody, For me the best part of this new Pioneer sensation is the wide range of possibilities to try while the format is still open. And here I bring a different approach from what I’ve seen of midrange decks so far. I remember that on the first week of pioneer on my LGS, I’ve seen everybody saying that “if you’re playing midrange, you are playing green/blue and 4 Okos” and that kinda pissed me off. Later that day I was already thinking about possibilities for a midrange sheel without blue or green, just to show that I’m no loko for not playing Okos hahaha. Looking at the submitted deck on CardsRealm, I found this unfinished list and loved the idea. [deck](17295) Mardu Pyromancer was always a strategy that I liked in Modern, and the fact that after such a long time I would use some of my “BW Tokens” cards only made me more excited for this brew. After looking for what cards I had at home and/or wasn’t expensive at my LGS, I came up with this deck list, which was the one I used on the 2nd week of pioneer: [deck](17814) You can see one of the matches I had (and a lot of misplays I made hahahaha) in the video below. This match ended up in a draw, with my opponent holding at 1 life in the end. [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KW9u8NlnsVA&feature=emb_title) [card](Blessed Alliance) impressed me. The card was way better than I expected, helping me as a removal+4 life against aggro decks and also as a untap two +1/+0 lifelink tokens to protect Sorin and gain even more life. On the other hand, [card](Magma Jet) and [card](Crackling Doom) were not that good. 2 mana for 2 damage is not what you want to do on Pioneer, and without green the mana fixing is hard for a 3 color card. I ended up in the first place that day with a (3-0-1) result!! Played against Monogreen Stompy, Jund Soulflayer and two Sultai Midranges. Like in Modern, the traditional midrange decks have problems to deal with token generation. But against unfair decks like [card](Soulflayer), the opposite happens, and I only won because of lucky topdecks and some misplays from my oponent (video of this match below). I was happy to see that my deck could withstand such an aggressive match like against Stompy. [youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXw50LVpsb4) Well, with the experience I got with this tournament and with no more [card](Saheeli Rai)+[card](Felidar Guardian) combo on the format, I updated the list: [deck](19533) As you can see, no more [card](Rakdos Charm) to play against Copycats. Since the field in my LGS is very aggressive, I decided to try 1 [card](Sweltering Suns), 1 [card](Collective Brutality) and 1 [card](Kaya, Orzhov Usurper) on the main deck. Again, I had problems dealing with unfair decks. Playing against Izzet Phoenix, all the sideboard came during the match, but it wasn’t enough. The other matches were ok. [card](Sorin, Solemn Visitor) saved me twice against Izzet Ensouls. [card](Sweltering Suns) ended with the Monored Prowess in both matches, and the token generation + [card](Ashiok, Dream Render) was too much for the Golgari [card](Seasons Past) to deal. For next week, I adapted my deck to have a better match against those unfair decks. I will try to use [card](Declaration in Stone) to deal with the [card](Arclight Phoenix) deck and also I’m curious to see if [card](Chandra, Acolyte of Flame) will be worth the spot in the maindeck. Here is the List I will try: [deck](19766) Hope you liked this. Feel free to post any questions and/or advices. I’m having lots of fun updating this deck and I will insist on that for the time being in Pioneer. =)