Pioneer Peak: Chevillry Isn't Dead!
This list comes from someone who I used to play against all the time and he's been known to brew! Felix Sloo aka xfile did well (Top 8'd) in his Pioneer PTQ with his take on a Jund deck in Pioneer. The reason his list caught my eye was because of Chevill, Bane of Monsters!
Gameplan
It plays like a midrange deck that is loaded with removal and has tons of value creatures
With how much we'll be killing creatures, Chevill, Bane of Monsters seems right at home here. With how popular Burn is in Pioneer, Chevill forces them to use a 3 damage burn spell to answer him before he starts gaining life and drawing cards. The fact he also has deathtouch is relevant as this will allow us to force the opposing creatures to have first strike because he can still trade with something on his way out. We also have Grim Flayer as a way to fix our draws and load up our graveyard to fuel Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger and trigger delirium. We also get to throw away things that we can bring back with Lurrus of the Dream Den. We also have Scavenging Ooze which feels important with all the Lurrus mirrors going on right now. Those decks rely on the graveyard to get more value so it's nice to stop that before it gets out of hand.
Felix is pretty hyped on Unbridled Growth as a constant way to draw each turn and I can see why. It also fixes our colors to make our manabase maybe less painful while triggering Revolt. Soul-Guide Lantern is another form of reoccuring graveyard hate that can also draw us cards. Dead Weight is amazing here as we can constantly shrink or kill creatures with it.
The pointers I was given, it seems that this deck does struggle against pure control and Yorion piles but it has a solid plan against opposing Lurrus decks. To help us with the bigger matchups we needed to get more aggressive and that gameplan comes with Goblin Rabblemaster
This card means that we're no longer able to meet the companion requirements for Lurrus so we can just play Lurrus in the maindeck. It's not a bug or a misclick, it's intentional. It may not seem correct to board out of Lurrus but it may be mandatory for this deck to beat the bigger decks. Especially because Rabblemaster just wins on its own and doesn't require us to spend more resources.
Conclusion
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The deck ended it's run at 2-3 with some unfortunate flooding and a tough to beat control deck. After playing the deck, I think the deck needs more cards like Angrath's Rampage or something because of our inability to deal with cards like Apostle of Purifying Light. It also wouldn't hurt for us to have more ways to interact with planeswalkers and a nice split between Dreadbore and Angrath's Rampage would be perfect. Either way, the deck was fun and it feels like it just needs a little bit more tuning for a league as opposed to a more predictable queue when it comes to PTQs.
Either way, Congrats on another Top 8 though Felix, and I'm back to finding ways to force Chevill!
As always, thanks for watching! See ya at the next one.
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-Your Friendly Neighborhood AsianAvenger
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