We finally got all, or almost all, of the changes we were hoping for.
Vintage saw the restriction of Vexing Bauble and Urza's Saga, which isn't relevant to most people.
Grief got the axe in both Legacy and Modern alongside Nadu, Winged Wisdom. In a rare transparent post, WotC disclosed they didn't test Nadu in its final form and missed interactions with Shuko and Lightning Greaves. Good on them for not beating around the bush so we know how it happened, which we all assumed, as it's doubtful they'd have tested that kind of combo deck and admitted it was good or fun gameplay they expected.
Pioneer had bannings for Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord and Amalia Benavides Aguirre, which were also banned in Explorer for arena players.
Treasure Cruise was noticeably absent from this list. Everyone expected it to go since Phoenix has overperformed for quite some time and Cruise is banned in every other format. A lot of the reasoning behind the bans is how fetch lands, which are banned in Pioneer, easily enable the card. However, as the card pool grows in Pioneer, it gets easier to cast Cruise.
Pioneer is my current focus. We have RC DC coming up soon, and while I've been absent from tournament Magic for a long time, I have booked my travel to DC and plan to grind a few LCQs to hopefully get into the main event. I would have skipped the LCQs if Pioneer didn't have any changes. It looked stale, and the decks didn't look that fun. I also expected Amalia to make round timers more of a suggestion than reality because of how easy it was to go to extra games.
Phoenix is immediately public enemy number one. If you're playing in the sweaty MTGO leagues or whatever else, I assume it's a lot of Rakdos Midrange, Phoenix, and Lotus Field.
Rakdos can shut down Phoenix with hate cards and get an edge, but it will suffer in other matchups and likely end up an average choice if you can predict what slice of the metagame you're going to attack.
Phoenix is a great deck, but the environment is going to be hostile. Think about how you'd build a non-Phoenix deck right now. The metagame hasn't evolved yet, and a lot of people will default to these easy choices.
Lotus Field can attack this kind of metagame well. It's notorious for having a strong Phoenix matchup, and it will beat up on Rakdos if Rakdos isn't prepared. Lotus Field feels like a great choice in the immediate future.
I anticipate many players moving to UW Control. With all these decks combined, we have a balanced and fair metagame.
While not banning Cruise is a mistake in the long term, it may work okay in the short term until the metagame balances out, we see a more diverse set of decks, and nothing taking up a huge metagame share. That's when Phoenix starts to creep in as the best deck. It's adaptable, consistent, and powerful. It is easy to customize to attack specific metagames, and it has a solid post-board game plan against graveyard hate.
Ultimately, Cruise won't last in the format, so I am curious why they chose not to pull the trigger now. They even said they will check back in on the format in December and called out Cruise and Fable of the Mirror breaker. For what it's worth, banning Fable would be foolish. It's a pillar of the format with fun gameplay. The format has combo and aggro, and Fable is the glue holding many midrange strategies together. Without it, the format would likely feel worse. This is not Standard. It's Pioneer, which has a wider range of strategies that don't involve extremely interactive gameplay. Fable is obnoxious in formats where interaction is the main focal point, but it's a great card in a format like Pioneer.
Phoenix will likely be the most played deck in the short term, and then we may see Rakdos enter the conversation for most played deck. Rakdos will almost never be the best choice for a large open field event, however it won't be the worst choice either.
For the LCQs and RC, I'm planning to test Phoenix, Lotus Field, and potentially Rakdos Sacrifice depending on how the metagame shakes up. If the floodgates open and we start to see more aggressive decks like Convoke or Mono White Aggro, Rakdos Sacrifice will be a good way to attack those decks much like Phoenix, but it will have a favorable matchup against normal Rakdos Midrange that targets decks like Phoenix.
If I had to play a deck in a Pioneer tournament today, I'd choose Lotus Field, as most people won't have gone overboard with the hate yet. That will likely change quickly and the format, at least in theory, will be cyclical with these changes, until we get Duskmourn.
Overall, the ban announcements were great. While it's more of a reactive approach since a lot of these bans were a bit overdue, they didn't let things fester too long, and they seem willing to go further if necessary in the future.
In the coming weeks I'll focus mostly on Duskmourn and Pioneer as I get ready to play some paper Magic for the first time in a while. Hope to see you there!
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