Midrange Pt 2: The Future of Pioneer

When has Wizards Banned a Midrange Piece?

Let's start this discussion by talking about everyone's favorite thing... BANS! People love to bitch about pioneer's current state of affairs, myself included. Why become better at the game when we can just endlessly complain about the decks that beat our favorite strategies? In Pioneer the cards I hear mentioned in ban conversations are Nykthos/Karn out of Mono-Green Devotion or Fable of the Mirror Breaker from Rakdos Midrange. I am not a fan of the playstyle of Mono-G, but I feel as though it is not oppressive enough to warrant a ban. There are ways to beat the deck, and as someone who isn't an expert in the deck, I cannot write an article about it in regards to banning something. As for Rakdos... Lets just say this deck has become a pet deck of mine. With over 100 matches played, I have been brining it to Pioneer RCQs with a lot of success and several top 4's in a row before finally winning one. More on that later, for now should we ban that stupid enchantment that makes a treasure goblin, a kiki-jiki knock off and filters? How much mana does that thing cost? Holy shit it does a lot for 3 mana. A part of me sees several very good cards within Rakdos such as Sheoldred and Dreadbore, but nothing seems to be the problem, they just all add up into something truly terrifying. As a side note, the ability to enable fatal push more often with treasures is the most underrated part of this card. I can't believe it has taken so long for people to start playing it in Modern and Legacy, but we're getting there. If you ban Fable of the Mirror Breaker in Pioneer, it wouldn't be unheard of, but I do believe it encourages a playstyle that Wizards rarely bans. Let's look at the history of Midrange bans from Wizards. Where did they draw the line and agree with a younger me that "Midrange is broken bro."

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‍Vintage: Does Lurrus count? Lurrus offers a value engine costing you absolutely nothing in its original form without an errata. Lurrus is literally the only "normal" magic card to ever face a ban in Vintage. It's no longer banned but that was after the unprecedented move by Wizard to errata an entire mechanic.

Legacy: Oko, Thief of Crowns is about as midrange as it gets for a planeswalker. It pretty much does it all and had to go because who wants to play Oko midrange mirrors all day? Other than that I am having trouble fining Legacy bans centered around Midrange decks.

Modern: Midrange is not uncommon in Modern these days, but that has not always been the case. Generally the bannings in Modern happen when one deck warps the format. Other than Jund, I don't think a Midrange deck has ever done that. There was an Oko, Urza, Emry Deck that got banned, but let's look at the Midrange bans to double check. Looking at the bans we have: Veil of Summer, Punishing Fire, Deathrite Shaman, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Yorion, Sky Nomad, Oko, Thief of Crowns and Bloodbraid Elf which was later unbanned. These cards all point to Wizards agreeing that very rarely does Midrange warrant a ban, more that individual cards which automatically slot into these strategies are the real problems. Oko, Thief of Crowns didn't make midrange broken, it made any deck he was in broken.

Pioneer: When looking at this format's ban list I can't help but see a trend. They have mostly banned combo pieces. Of course there are fetchlands and some fast mana stuff, but mostly this is a clear indicator by Wizards that fast combo is reserved for Modern and Legacy. Some could argue that Lurrus of the Dream-Den and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath are right at home in Midrange, but these are far beyond anything Midrange has access to now. Moreover, their bans had little to do with Midrange's place in the format and more with how broken the cards proved in other formats. Smuggler's copter was in a very aggressively slanted Midrange vehicles list in Standard, but only seemed to occupy aggro decks in Pioneer before its banning. Lastely, there's Expressive Iteration, but I don't think that was a Midrange card so much as a draw spell for tempo decks like Phoenix. Therefore, I'm going out on a limb and saying that Wizards regards strong Midrange cards has healthy for Pioneer.

Standard: I came into Standard right after Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic were banned. The grinders at my local game store regarded the ban as a positive thing because the Caw-Blade deck had become half the format. This was 100% a midrange strategy with some Control/Tempo elements. ‍If you read my last article I'm sure you would understand why I was livid that Siege Rhino was allowed to dominate a format for so long without being addressed. As someone who played a good 6+ years of standard, I don't ever feel like bans were directed at Midrange as a strategy aside from Caw-Blade, but let's take a look: Attune with Aether, Rogue Refiner, Oko Thief of Crowns, Veil of Summer, Fires of Invention, Cauldron Familiar, Growth Spiral, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, and finally The Meathook Massacre. Three of these cards stand out, Attune with Aether, Rogue Refiner and The Meathook Massacre because these feel like fair Midrange cards. These aren't Uro or Oko, doing incredibly bonkers things in multiple formats.

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With these data points, does Wizards ban something from Rakdos Midrange because the deck is in such a good spot? At the time of writing this article, it has a 16.5% meta share with Mono-G at 15.9%. Neither of those percentages indicate a need for a ban, but hypothetically, we could have a case like the 2018 Standard ban of Attune with Aether, Rogue Refiner, Ramunap Ruins, and Rampaging Ferocidon which was done to hit the top two decks to lighten the load on the metagame. Maybe we see the same for Karn/Nykthos and Fable. Knock down the top two formats before the Pro Tour to allow for the best players to innovate the format. I think the trouble with this approach however is the next two decks may rise to take their place. Wizards seems to have shown favor for Midrange decks based on their bannings and I don't think such a small meta share warrants action when Standard has Grixis Midrange at 32.7% and Legacy has Devler at 20.8%. Rakdos Midrange is the premiere Midrange deck of the format, yet it is still capable of losing games to other decks without boasting much of a combo finish. Outside of maybe two flipped fables, the deck is quite slow and fair. That is what Wizards likes to see out of their formats going forward; two players playing actual magic with a board presence and decent spectator moments. It is the culmination of their past 10 years of Standard sets, minus all of the truly broken card designs. The current Rakdos Midrange deck does not seem to exceed more than a 55% non-mirror win rate based on recent NRG events. Unless that number starts to creep towards 60% I think Wizards is safe to leave the format untouched for now. In my opinion, Fable of the Mirror Breaker is not the boogieman of past formats, but rather the result of Wizards pushing the format in a very fair direction. The more fair the format is, the more likely some form of Midrange will be the best thing to be doing.

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Rakdos Midrange isn't seen as the problem with the Pioneer format, but rather the ultimate goal of Wizards of the Coast

Pioneer in Winter 2022

As we reach the end of 2022 with the release of Brother's War, we see that not many new decks have cropped up with new cards being injected into the format. Instead we see the strongest decks getting even better with new fun toys to play with. Mono Green Devotion was the obvious benefactor to new cards from an artifact set because their Karn sideboard package upgraded its worst tools with better options. The Brain Stone, Haywire Mite, Cityscape Leveler and Woodcaller Automaton have made the Karn sideboard into something truly formidable, rather than a sad version of the Modern Karn-board. But wait, what did the other tops decks receive? Well Izzet Phoenix received Brotherhood's End. Mono-white Humans now has a better 1-drop with Recruitment Officer. Additionally, there are more painlands for everyone to play with. All of those aforementioned new cards pale in comparison to the upgrade Rakdos Midrange got. Misery's Shadow. I'm not going to lie to you, wen I had this card sent to me by a friend, I almost laughed thinking it was mediocre and not worth my time. We only mused about it because we both love cards with Shadow in their name, IE Death's Shadow. As it turns out Kalitas wasn't good because he made zombies or had lifelink or could grow, it was his exile effect. Todd Anderson pointed out on his twitter and Patreon just how strong Shadow was, so I started playing with it. Instantly, many of the deck's weaknesses became more 50-50 in the same way that Sheoldred helped shore up the phoenix match up. Mono-Green and Rakdos Sacrifice became much more winnable game 1's. Cauldron Familiar now gets exiled, and all of the devotion producing creatures like Old Growth Troll and Cavalier of Thorns do not get death triggers. Plus, Misery's Shadow offer a much quicker clock into Lotus and combo decks.

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My overall assessment of Rakdos Midrange is that it is extremely powerful and with each new Standard set it seems to be replacing its satisfactory cards with great cards. Misery's Shadow is an example of the deck lacking a second strong 2-drop creature and then suddenly receiving one almost incidentally while everyone was focused on busted artifacts. It may sound like I'm going back on my previous statement that Rakdos doesn't need a ban and I stand by it, but if Rakdos Midrange keep receiving upgrades on the level of Misery's shadow, it soon will lack bad match-ups outside of things that go WAY over the top. Start buying your Fires of Invention pieces now. Calling for bans on the deck may be premature because I think the meta game needs time to adjust and new strategies need to be tested. Misery's Shadow and Sheoldred were the game changing cards that allowed Rakdos Midrange to get a leg up on the meta. If new strategies invalidate the upgrades received by Rakdos Midrange, then we will all feel silly calling it the best deck. This situation reminds me of the time in Modern where LSV called for the banning of Death's Shadow because of a brief window of dominance. In hindsight, with Modern Horizons, companions, and just future set releases, this statement became laughable and click-bait. There will always be a best deck, but what matters is how oppressive, unfair, unfun and unbeatable it is. All this is to say, is a metagame really that bad when 'Jund' is the best deck and not even by that large of a margin?

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When a meta game purposely curated to be filled with Control, Aggro and Midrange, one would think it falls down to the age old rock-paper-scissors dynamic. The graphic above would seem fairly straightforward in a format where Combo is limited to slower decks Lotus Field or fragile decks like Greasefang. However, this no longer appears to be the case. If you read my previous article on the sheer power level of cards like Siege Rhino in Standard, it becomes evident that a powerful enough Midrange deck covers all of its bases and breaks away from this traditional assumption of beating Aggro while losing to Control. Cards like Thoughseize, Dreadbore, and Kroxa mean your Control opponents struggle to stabilize. Additionally there exists Fable of the Mirror Breaker, Bloodtithe Harvester and animate lands which incidentally get better when facing Control because these card either tax the resources/answers of Control or leave behind value. On the other side of things, Aggro cannot handle 10-12 removal spells mainboard and even more in the side. Extinction Event can even serve as a one-sided wrath in clutch moments allowing for smooth 'turning the corner' moments in close games. This rock-paper-scissors dynamic is slowly becoming obsolete as Midrange keeps getting new cards. When wizards refuses to print powerful control spells and bans combo pieces, Midrange gets the leftovers. Anything decently good can just slot into Midrange without the need for synergy. If it is powerful enough on its own, it will be seen in the best Midrange deck. Going over the top of Rakdos seems like the best game plan with decks like Fires of Invention or Gruul Vehicles, but we are simply answering one Midrange strategy with another. There lies my overall assessment of formats like Pioneer and Standard. Wizards wants fair grindy decks to be the default best decks of the format and there's not much that will change going forward unless Wizards makes a clear stance against things like Fable of the Mirror Breaker. Midrange is king and will continue to be for the foreseeable future. I'm not saying this is a problem, just the current trend in these younger formats. I'd venture to theorize that even eternal formats will fall into Midrange metagames. In my next article I want to talk about the game theory surrounding this strategy and why I feel as though it will be always be the final boss of magic formats. In magic lore terms, Midrange strategies are the true Phyrexians because eventually all will be Midrange...