Pioneer: 5 Decks to Start Playing in 2025

Magic: The Gathering is a game of constant change, and the 32 years since its official launch have created a wide variety of competitive and casual formats. These environments can often be challenging for new players: choosing a deck, understanding the rules, and what works and what doesn't in a tournament are all obstacles to consider.

In this series, we present good entry points to the main competitive Magic formats, with five good decks in 2025 that are competitively relevant while also being intuitive to learn and even popular among top players. Today, we're covering Pioneer, whose Metagame has been slowly developing as new set releases. Some strategies have emerged throughout the year, creating new entry points into the format, such as Hammer Time and Orzhov Greasefang, while other strategies remain as reliable in the format as they have been over the past years.

Mono Red Aggro

Mono Red Aggro, or Mono Red Lynx, is the most popular deck in Pioneer today and potentially the best archetype in the format right now. It's an aggressive list running cheap creatures that synergize with pumps and other abilities that target them—in particular, it capitalizes on the interaction between Manifold Mouse and Monstrous Rage with Heartfire Hero and Emberheart Challenger, which led to Rage and Hero being banned from Standard in June.

To complement the clock, Mono Red leverages cards like Screaming Nemesis, which punishes blockers and permanently locks life gain, and Sunspine Lynx, which, due to the abundance of nonbasic lands in most Pioneer strategies, can win the game the moment it enters the battlefield.

This package is lined with several red staples, such as Kumano Faces Kakkazan, Lightning Strike, and Bonecrusher Giant, for a consistent, fast-paced game plan that demands format-wide adaptations that many can't keep up with.

Selesnya Angels

If Mono Red Aggro is the problem, Selesnya Angels sells itself as the solution. This is another aggressive archetype, but focused on a synergistic go-wide plan with Angel creatures. With Bishop of Wings, they offer considerable life gain that quickly turns into pressure with Righteous Valkyrie and Resplendent Angel.

To accelerate these cards and circumvent mana costs, Selesnya Angels has the combination of Collected Company and Kayla's Reconstruction, two spells that allow you to put creatures with a mana value of three or less on the battlefield without paying their mana costs, thus enabling explosive plays and/or small surprise tricks during the game.

Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic, while not angels, offer the necessary ramp to play our important cards early, while Skyclave Apparition serves as a board interaction. This combination of synergy and immediate impact makes Selesnya Angels a great strategy against Aggro and very slow decks, but at the expense of its matchup against combos and Control.

Orzhov Greasefang

Speaking of combos, the interaction of Greasefang, Okiba Boss with Parhelion II is one of the simplest ways to win games quickly in Pioneer. With the vehicle in the graveyard, we can use Greasefang to return it to the battlefield with Haste, paying the cost of crewing Parhelion II with Greasefang itself and attacking for five with Flying. Parhelion puts two 4/4 Angel tokens when attacking with it, totaling 13 damage, and since the token remains in play, if the opponent doesn't have an answer, they will attack for eight the next turn, totaling 21 damage.

There are several Greasefang variants in Pioneer, but the most straightforward and consistent in the format today is the Orzhov version. Besides using only two colors—which facilitate deckbuilding concessions and running utility lands—it features a complementary strategy that works perfectly with the main game plan: discard sources and Monument to Endurance.

With Seasoned Hallowblade, Fleeting Spirit, or Guardian of New Benalia, we can trigger Monument to Endurance's ability every turn cycle, and they stack for each copy. And with The Mycosynth Gardens, we can copy it to create small snowballs every turn cycle, where each card we discard will draw two or more cards, deal six or more damage, or grant two more mana during the turn.

Boros Hammer Time

Hammer Time is a strategy that players have been trying to use in Pioneer since Resolute Strike in Zendikar Rising, but it only became a real deck with the recent release of Cori-Steel Cutter and Cloud, Midgar Mercenary, which increased the archetype's consistency while offering a solid alternative game plan.

Essentially, our goal in Hammer Time is to fetch Colossus Hammer and cheat its equip cost with cards like Sigarda's Aid, Kazuul's Toll Collector, or Kemba, Kha Enduring, granting +10/+10 to a creature as early as turn three, but Cori-Steel Cutter does a good job of what Urza's Saga has always offered the archetype in Modern: a go-wide strategy.

Due to the low cost of our spells and the ability to use adventures like Kellan, the Fae-Blooded, triggering Cori-Steel Cutter every turn to create more tokens in play is an easy task. And since it's an equipment, it interacts with Cloud, Midgar Mercenary and also with Colossus Hammer by granting Trample to the equipped creature, meaning that the ten or more damage from Colossus Hammer will bypass blockers.

With two fronts to attack and with them interacting with each other, Boros Hammer Time has become a true competitor to Pioneer while still being an intuitive, easy-to-play strategy that rewards good decision-making and learning during matches.

Nykthos Stompy

Nykthos Stompy is the most aggressive variant of Mono Green Devotion, using Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx with cards that have heavy-green requirements on their mana cost to generate an absurd amount of mana every turn with the land. While the traditional version focuses on going big with cards like Cavalier of Thorns and Outcaster Trailblazer, our plan is focused on cheap, high-power creatures.

In addition to the creatures, Leyline of the Guildpact enables four devotion as early as the second turn, and Tribute to the World Tree grants three more devotion, while serving as both a permanent power boost and a constant source of card advantage.

Just like with Selesnya Angels, we also leverage Collected Company in this list to cheat on mana costs, and there are versions that complement the card with Storm the Festival, whose high mana value is offset by Nykthos and ensures more consistency in keeping the board full.

Once you have enough creatures and devotion, simply use Tyvar, the Pummeler to turn them into giant threats, where dealing damage with any of them will likely win the game in one or two combats.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!