Ryan Condon

·6 min read

AC5 Testing Diary #3

Soundtrack for today:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6916OQQ1VIcYjF1BSU5ZHZ?si=76465cacd5754465

Intro

We're in the home stretch!! The time has passed so quickly. Part of it was a great Chicago trip where I got to spend time with my brother & good friend, as well as attend the PT, meet some awesome folks I had previously only known online (Hi Paul, Ethan & Jesse!). MKM Limited is so incredibly good, and I'm psyched to have an opportunity to draft it at the highest level. Speaking of which, here's the only limited content you're gonna get today, my sweet sealed PTQ deck from the weekend (all cards are readable if you zoom in):

https://x.com/rcondon17/status/1761585143695720722?s=20

I love sealed, and while I came up frustratingly short, this tournament felt like I was one of the better players in the room and this deck was possibly my most aesthetically pleasing, well-rounded sealed deck i've ever had at a big tournament. There are so many subtleties in the manabase, card choices, and gameplan, and for a base-GW deck splashing two UB cards, it ran smoother than a typical 2-color aggro deck with no splashes (of course, I got lucky with a pool that allowed for this type of build).

However, this month, I know I need to pivot back to Explorer. MKM will be there (of course I'm still playing the Arena Open this weekend, gotta get that cash), but if I'm one of the 100 best limited players in the world, I think I'm probably worse than the average RC competitor when it comes to Pioneer/Explorer. It's clear where I need the reps.

So with that in mind, today I'm going to be doing another “format overview” of the best decks and where I stand with them - This time more encompassing but also more short-form, and focused on deck selection, which I'm going to have to do before too long.

State of Pioneer

While explorer isn't exactly pioneer, it's pretty damn close, so the Pro Tour results really matter. The only major difference (though it is a major one) is that Lotus Field combo isn't viable on Arena thanks to the absence of Hidden Strings & Vizier of tumbling sands. This is an important absence; putting less pressure on the slower decks to be able to disrupt a hard-to-answer combo engine.

The other big thing is that the RB vampires deck that team CFB discovered at the PT is almost completely portable to Explorer. So let's start with that.

Explorer Field

RB Vamps

  • Definitely a real deck with staying power. Really hard (but not impossible) to answer if they get the “splinter twin” off
  • Pretty easy to overpower if they don't though - It's truly a crappy version of RB midrange with access to a super good combo, which on net makes it a significant improvement
  • Overall, I think this deck is much more gameplannable against now that it's a known quantity. Even if it's dominating the online queues, I would expect people to be able to beat it at the AC5. It's a playstyle fit I think, but I'd be hesitant to register a deck that's pretty weak without drawing a specific 2 cards together.

UR Phoenix

  • Has been one of the best decks in Pioneer for a long time
  • Really powerful & consistent engine with a good sideboard plan against graveyard hate
  • Strong against decks that aren't inherently doing something more powerful than it (UW control, RB vamps)
  • Weakest against decks who are comboing off into something more powerful (Lotus which doesn't exist here!!, Amalia, Boros heroic)
  • I've become more comfortable with gameplay with this deck in recent days. I think it's pretty hard to hate out of the format (though if it's the #1 target, it will definitely be the wrong choice for the tournament)

Amalia Combo

  • Definitely took a hit in popularity at the PT, but that's because UW was such a huge player going in, and that matchup is AWFUL
  • Quite strong against the current “best” decks (Vamps, Phoenix)
  • Overall a deck that can definitely lose to itself
  • If I thought UW was going to be almost completely absent from the field and phoenix + vamps would be super popular, I might choose Amalia

UW Control

  • Didn't do well at the PT because of Lotus & Phoenix. Lotus doesn't exist online but Phoenix is probably the most popular/best deck.
  • I'm pretty comfortable with this deck and feel like it's a “good deck” with few unwinnable matchups
  • Would play UW if I expect a ton of RB and Amalia, or if I feel like I can tune it to be good against Phoenix

Quintorius combo

  • Wasn't very popular at the PT because Lotus is a “better” combo deck, but 2 pilots did quite well
  • Surprisingly hard to hate, you just need to be faster than it (1 piece of disruption/slowdown helps you be “faster”, but it's really hard to completely shut down this deck)
  • Good matchups across the board besides aggro pretty much… would need to test the vamps matchup
  • This might be a really good choice for the field if it's not on most people's radar. It's also significantly easier to play than most of the other decks.

Aggro (Boros heroic, Mono red obosh, Boros convoke, Izzet ensoul, Humans)

  • Did decently at the PT but Lotus is its best matchup
  • Good if I expect a lot of other combo players / generally a field that's gone away from creature kill
  • Do not feel like generically good decks, more of a counter to other things going on

Jeskai Creativity/Control

  • A new control space that was opened up at the PT. Seems promising, Atraxa is very good against vamps and the red cards (fable, helix) are just good
  • Still very hesitant to play a 3-color deck in a format that's been defined by its poor manabases
  • Also would be tough to play, especially in mirrors

UB Control

  • Plays worse cards than UW (No Emperor, Teferi, No more Lies, Lockdown) but gets Deadly cover-up (great against Amalia and Phoenix), thoughtseize (great against combo, including rak vamps), and fatal push (great against aggro)
  • Would require a lot of reps and tuning
  • Probably am not going to be confident enough that this is a “better deck” than the other control versions to play it, but worth testing a bit to see if it feels dominant

Rakdos Midrange

  • I think this is just a worse version of the Rakdos vampires deck. Not interested in playing it.

Mono-Black Waste Not

  • Team had a pretty good version of this list. Best matchups are Amalia & Phoenix, control and stuff like engimatic are bad matchups
  • Might want to play if I expect a ton of phoenix
  • Deck loses to itself a lot though so doubt I'll end up on this

Abzan Greasefang

  • I think this is a better overall deck than its share of the field right now.
  • That being said, it loses to graveyard hate that will be present for Phoenix
  • Good against phoenix and Rakdos, bad against control

Mono Green Ramp/Devotion

  • Used to be really good in pioneer but has fallen off since Karn got banned
  • Haven't played with this but it has a surprisingly good control matchup, and I would guess is good against midrange and aggro. Probably quite weak to phoenix & combo.

Brews

  • We've got a solid team that's been doing some brewing. I doubt we'll end up finding anything robust enough to bring to an unknown field, but I'm happy to follow the leader if we feel like we've found a good deck. “Good deck” to me would look like…
  • Beats Phoenix and RB vamps, with winnable matchups against UW, Amalia and Quint
  • Has a powerful proactive gameplan
  • Gets to play some of the best cards in the format. To me, these are…
  • Treasure cruise
  • Fable of the mirror breaker
  • Thoughtseize
  • Fatal push
  • No more lies
  • Teferi
  • Wanderer
  • Picklock prankster
  • Creativity

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