Pioneer Peak: Is This A Death's Shadow?
Earlier in the week, A supporter by the name of SirEklz wanted to see a deck with Scourge of the Skyclaves in Pioneer so this is what we came up with!
Gameplan
In Modern, we have Death's Shadow as a cheap threat that rewards us for hitting ourselves. Naturally, we had to try to make Scourge of the Skyclaves as its Pioneer counterpart. The issue is that Scourge requires us to care about both player's life totals!
Because we care about both of our life totals, I added Eidolon of the Great Revel.
This should help both players continue to wither their health down for a big Scourge. In Pioneer, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and tons of standard's mistakes are still legal so we have to pack some form of prevention of lifegain. Roiling Vortex has now entered the chat! This is a card I've been super hyped on since spoiler season, as it can shut down lifegain, burn both players, and dunk on Fires of Invention!
All of this deck is built on the back of a typical Rakdos Pyromancer playstyle so we have an "early game" plan. We're still trying to fire off multiple spells for cheap to build a board presence and disrupt our opponent's with cards like Thoughtseize. All these cheap spells will eventually fuel our Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger!
Conclusion
The deck was a lot better than last week's Werewolves, but it still feels too fair for what Pioneer has access to. I do think the deck would benefit from more graveyard hate in the maindeck along with a miser Temur Battle Rage for the surprise OTK. Currently, the meta has a ton of the cards and decks that were banned out of standard and needs more ways to slow those decks down in order to be a true contender. However, the deck was a lot of fun and Scourge of the Skyclaves just needs a few more set releases to live up to its potential in Pioneer!
As always, thanks for watching!
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-Your Friendly Neighborhood AsianAvenger
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