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Magic: The Gathering Arenahas officially added the Pioneer format to the client. It joins Historic and Timeless as a non-rotating format, and is perfect for those who want to play a format that’s (mostly) the same as it is on paper as it is on Arena. With the addition of Pioneer, the Explorer format will be discontinued.
Pioneer has been a format of Magic: The Gathering for quite a while and has an established meta with years of experimentation. With its arrival on Magic Arena, more players have access to playing the format without needing the physical cards to play.
What Is Pioneer?
Pioneerwas introduced to Magic: The Gathering on July 03, 2025, as a newnon-rotating format to fill out a gap between Standard and Modern, as Modern was becoming harder to get into for new players due to how large the card pool was. With the high power level of Modern,many Standard cards would become useless after rotationfor Standard came since the power level of them was much weaker.
Pioneer was created as a way for players tostill be able to play their Standardcardsafter rotation as the power of the formats was a lot closer. The originalbanlist only consisted of the five fetchlands released in Khans of Tarkirand slowly expanded over the years.
Every set from Return to Ravnica onward is legal in the Pioneer format. The sets and cards that are legal in Pioneer areonly sets that were Standard legal. As such, sets such asModern Horizons 3 and Command Legends are not legal in Pioneer. If a Standard set has a bonus set, such as Strixhaven’sMystical Archiveor Outlaws of Thunder Junction’sBreaking Newscards, these cards arenot Pioneer legal unless they already were legal.
The following sets are the sets that are legal in the Pioneer format:
Born of the Gods
Oath of the Gatewatch
Core set 2019
War of the Spark
March of the Machine
Duskmourn: House of Horror
Foundations
Any new Standard releases are automatically made legal in Pioneer as well.
The Pioneer banlist is fairly small, with only the most egregious cards in the format getting hit by the ban hammer. These are all the banned cards in Pioneer that you cannot use in your decks:
Field of the Dead
Lurrus of the Dream-Den
Wooded Foothills
Transition From Explorer
With the official introduction of Pioneer to Magic Arena, theExplorer format will cease to exist. Explorer was always meant to be a placeholder format until all the cards that see Pioneer play were available on the client.Explorer becoming Pioneer was always the end goalof Explorer.
Explorer was a format exclusive to Magic Arena where all the cards that were Pioneer legal on the client were legal in the format, and nothing else. It does not include Alchemy and Historic releases, and followed the same legality as Pioneer. Theonly card banned in Explorer that is Pioneer legal is Tibalt’s Trickery.
Not every single card that is Pioneer legal will be available on the Magic Arena version. However, the majority of cards will be, andall the cards that are a part of meta and most rogue decks will be available. If any card suddenly pops up in decklists,they can still be added through the Anthology dropsthat Magic Arena does to directly inject cards into its formats.
For players of the Explorer format, you won’t notice a ton of differences once it becomes Pioneer. The two formats were very close to each other already, with only a small handful of meta cards not on the client that kept certain decks from reaching their full potential.
Top Pioneer Decks
Izzet Phoenix
Izzet(red/blue)Phoenixhas been a top deckin Pioneer for practically the entire lifespan of the format. It has had the longest staying power, and continues to dominate asarguably the best deck in all of Pioneer. The deck is all about bringing out the titularArclight Phoenixfrom your graveyard by casting multiple spells and attacking with an army of creatures with flying.
The deck utilizes cards likeLedger ShredderandPicklock Pranksterto dump Archlight Phoenix into the graveyards to cheat out by casting cantrips likeOpt, Consider, andSleight of Hand. With how much it uses the graveyard,Treasure Cruiseis a consistent draw three cards for just one blue mana.
Rakdos Midrange
Rakdos(black/red)Midrangeis a deck that utilizes the many tools that the color combination has. Rakdos Midrange decks use cards likeThoughtseizeto cut off your opponent’s most important cards while setting up cheap threats likeBloodtithe HarvesterandUnstoppable Slasher.
There is a large removal suite available, with the most important beingFatal Push.Fable of the Mirror Breakerprovides both card advantage and the ability to ramp and generate more of a board presence.Unholy Annexgives the deck draw power and burn as Demons likeArchfiend of the Drossare also played.
Prowess
Prowess is primarily played as one of two variants,Gruul(red/green) orRakdos(black/red).The Gruul Prowess versionhas access to more protection spells likeInnkeeper’s Talentwith impulse draw onQuesting Druidwhich also grows with all red spells. Meanwhile, Rakdos variants have removal inFatal Push, and a more consist killing move by usingCallous Sell-Sword’s Burn Together to sacrifice Heartfire Heroto deal double whatever Heartfire Hero’s power was to an opponent.
Gruul Prowessfocuses more on consistency and resilience,whileRakdos Prowess is more combo-oriented to win the game as quickly as possible. Both have different tools in the sideboard, and there’s no “wrong” version to be playing, all coming down to personal preference. However, Rakdos Prowess has more top results than Gruul Prowess.
Azorius Control
Azorius(white/blue)Controlhas been the staple control deckof Pioneer since its inception. It still remains the best option for fans of control, with a ton of tools to control the board state and prevent spells from resolving. You don’t play many creatures, with the only way to generate them being throughThe Wandering Emperor. The other “creatures” are those found on lands, namelyRestless Anchoragewhich can turn itself into a 2/3 flyer.Fountainportalso helps to slowly amass an army of tokens.
As the name implies, most of the deck are cards that control what goes onto the battlefield and stay there.March of Otherworldly Light, Get Lost,andPortable Holeall act as removal for permanents on the battlefield, whileDovin’s VetoandNo More Liescounter spells so they don’t resolve in the first place. Azorius Control isall about being the one in control of the game, and utilizing your resources to the maximum potential.
