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seismic-lawns · 2 days ago

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Gladiator Big Talk: Pioneer Masters, White/Blue

So on the gladiator discord, (Gladiator is a competitive singleton format using the Timeless card pool on arena and you should check us out, it's great) I do a series of long, hastily written thoughts on every single new-to-arena card and call them Big Talks, and now they live here! Some notes:

This is comprehensively talking about every single new-to-arena card in Pioneer Masters. If I don't bring up a card, it's probably because it's already in the format.

I'm sorting this by collector number, which, for this set is baffling, so Ctrl+F is your friend if you want to find a specific thought.

Each card is also a link to it on scryfall, so you can follow along without having the full set open.

Without further ado, let's start off with Archangel of Thune:

White

Archangel of Thune: This girlie goes hard, but in an era where we have so many high-value white 5s with lifelink, this one looks pretty medium outside of decks that are all in on cards like Vito and Enduring Tenacity.

Artful Maneuver: I really like this set partly because of commons like these that are completely horrendous but still important cards from their contexts. God I loved Tarkir block.

Celestial Archon: This is just unfortunately just an enormous amount of mana for some pretty “just idiot” stats, which don’t make me excited -_-

Chained to the Rocks: This card is worse than it looks, but still absolutely playable in decks that are already specifically RW. You should play this, but with the knowledge that it will not be free to make it online, even if it only takes 1 fetch to do so. I wouldn’t play this in 3 color, but I’m not a jeskai pilot, so it could be playable there, and I’m just more skeptical than I should be.

Dictate of Heliod: I have gotten a lot more critical of anthem effects during 2024, and here is about the most commitment to anthems you can really get, which is not a good thing. At this point we have a lot of good options for things that can be anthems and it makes our bar pretty high. This really gets nowhere close.

Extricator of Sin: The bar for aristocrafts cards is getting higher at a pretty wild rate, and this card I think would have just been an “interesting thought” to add into crats back in 2021, and three years later I don’t think it gets particularly close.

Ghostblade Eidolon: This honestly could see some play and I wouldn’t be that shocked, but 3 mana for a 1/1 double strike is super below rate, and most decks don’t even want to use a slot for that card, but an enchantress shell could theoretically want this.

Gideon, Ally of Zendikar: This is one of the best Chad’s around - his 0 is totally passable, and even the spots where you are stuck in just making a 2/2 per turn are fine. His +1 is pretty good, especially for potentially enabling a -4 while sticking around if you’ve got a decent board state, and the -4 is really good (because anthems are great when versatile and resistant to removal), especially as something you can often do alongside other effects over the life of Gids.

Hero of Iroas: The auras deck is a real thing that has only really needed a dedicated pilot for at least a few months now, and this is a very narrow addition to it, but still a good one, very least for making cards like sheltered by ghosts cost W and such.

Hopeful Eidolon: This one’s a lot easier to picture making it into a deck than Ghostblade, as enchantress does like the prospect of a somewhat versatile early blocker that triggers constellation effects, and this does that job very well. That said, this is also just not a creature that’s much to write home about, so that may well be it’s downfall for playability.

Imposing Sovereign: This effect is really good, and it’s especially good the earlier it can come down, and the more you can capitalize on the fact that all your opponent’s blockers need to wait a turn before they can ever block. In decks like Death and Taxes, or really just any deck with a lot of aggressive creatures and removal they’re comfortably able to use proactively, this card shines a lot. That said, I think at the moment the tournament meta is not well positioned for this gal–the more mana drains and t3feri’s there are, the worse things are for a creature that’s really just shining if your opponent is playing primarily to the board. I think right now she’s not gonna make it, but bookmark her for a couple months down the road or if any of Drain, Cruise, or Dig get banned.

Keening Apparition: If I had a nickel for each creature this was functionally identical to in our format that was in an arena set in the past 2 months, I’d have 3 nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird it happened one more time than the joke structure usually allows for.

Knight of the White Orchid: Hell yea buddy this card’s great, and it’ll be especially good in any season finals for lower seed players. This card also just like is a house - first strike is big, and it’s not really hard to engineer this to grab you a surveil land or just an untapped plains on either side of the table. Card just goes hard and is a good piece for the early game.

Kytheon, Hero of Akros: So the bar for 2/1s for 1 has risen a decent chunk since 2015 when kind of design was relatively unheard of, but this card’s still good. A savannah lions with an ability to protect itself that also incentivizes already good play patterns is just always going to be good, and on top of that almost all the words on Gideon’s side are good and/or not actively bad, so there’s not really room to complain.

Lagonna-Band Trailblazer: I was a huge fan of this card for commander when I first started playing because I had a Karador Centaur-typal deck, and this was one of the like 10 playable centaurs at the time. Man, I’m really glad I started playing with Theros block, because I think I would not have liked it if I was already enfranchised by then.

Linvala, the Preserver: Wowie uh this card’s not aged well at all, and frankly was never that good in the first place, which just makes it a bit more sad. Just 2 years later we’d get Lyra and that kinda just gives everything a sense of perspective, y’know?

Lotus-Eye Mystics: There’s like 2 decks that are pretty darn stoked that this card exists now, but those decks also probably didn’t want to play auramancer so like why start now?

Phalanx Leader: A lot of these “just heroic” creatures are surprisingly interesting to think about, but this one just requires so much commitment on a very vulnerable body to feel like anything other than embarrassing, so I’ll pass.

Secure the Wastes: This card’s aged pretty steadily poorly in my eyes, and I’ve come to realize it’s an effect that is almost never super wanted, let alone needed. The one saving grace of the card is that it’s instant speed, but I’d still almost always rather play something that is consistently on-rate or does an effect that is more desired reactively.

Silence: I don’t think Silence has a great place in our format, and that’s coming from someone who is quite possibly the most vocal supporter of Silence effects in non-combo decks in the format. If it’s gonna have a home, it’ll be in a deck that can afford to easily pivot from controlling the board to comboing off, which makes me realize that it might have a home in Pact Oracle decks if they ever truly recover from the loss of DT and decide they want a silence effect (they typically don’t need it).

Silkwrap: God this card sucks so bad. It’s truly beautiful how far O-rings have come in the past 5 years.

Sphere of Safety: Enchantress is eating fucking good today my friends. God this card’s great, and I’m so happy to see this really help (along with a few other cards this set) to bring the 3-5 color enchantress decks together.

Spirit of the Labyrinth: I really enjoy these D&T pieces that are multi-typed, because it really stretches what packages these decks can include by a couple of notches. On top of that, this card’s just pretty good, and is a nice touch to punish the decks I don’t like by forcing them to have removal before they cast their Cruise or + their 5feri.

Starfield of Nyx: This is not actually a good enchantress card, and really it’s only justifiable if you’re trying to reanimate an omniscience or something similarly game-ending. The second big issue, though, is that if you’re using this to get omniscience it’s the most narrow way to do so by far in a deck with a pretty large swath of ways to cheat out omni before t10.

Swift Reckoning: I’m glad that cards like this are here, because it’s a good reminder of where we started, where this was an exciting uncommon for being pretty revolutionary when it had flash. We’ve come a long, long way since then, and I’m pretty happy for us to get there.

War Oracle: I think if this was a 4/3 it’d be (well firstly, it’d be bonkers, but it’d also be) enticing enough for me to try some where, but the fact that it’s pretty uncommon for it to get to attack with 4 power turns me off a lot for it. However, I think this card’s weirdly close to being in a good spot for it being a 4 mana uncommon in gladiator.

Eidolon of Rhetoric: Unlike Spirit of the Labyrinth, this card doesn’t excite me much, especially because it got outmoded in paper by Archon of Emeria 3 years ago, so it’s hitting Gladiator DoA.

Evangel of Heliod: I think this card is a funny Brawl/Commander card, but I’m both not excited to play white 6’s in gladiator and doubtful that this can realistically get you enough tokens to be impressive at all.

Fiendslayer Paladin: This card looks pretty bad, and it’s not very good, but if you’re wanting to play the Auras deck and/or an aggressive white deck, and your opponent’s gonna be on grixis or similar colors, this is a great card to sleeve up.

Heliod, God of the Sun: Was this card ever good? I don’t remember it being anything ever, and it looks so bad by our modern standard for Gods or just cards in general.

Ajani Steadfast: This card is not that great, but it’s a slam dunk in one of my favorite decks to pick up, Superfriends. This card’s -2 is great, and with even just 1 good creature out, the +1 pads out your life total and lets you attack pretty easily into board stalls. Is this card good? I don’t think so. Does it have a good chance of slotting in somewhere and staying there? I think the answer to that one is yes.

Call the Gatewatch: I see so few copies of the legendary tutor from Kaldheim, and this one is so, so, so much worse.

Hushwing Gryff: I got deja vu before realizing that my thoughts on Mesa Pegasus in J25 are the exact same as this card: This card is 2nd (or, really, probably around 3rd) in a slot that doesn’t exist anywhere, so don’t think about it.

Oath of Gideon: I am so happy to see this card, especially being paired with BFZ gideon, where it really shows its strength. Getting 2 blockers for your walkers or for your life total if your opponent is aggressive is really nice, and it then pays that off by letting you do big downticks on planeswalkers with a lot more wiggle room, and enabling huge effects a lot easier. I think it only realistically has a home in superfriends, but it does have a good home there.

Sage’s Reverie: This card has the ability to be good enough in certain applications, but I’m just not interested in the work needed to get it to that point, because I think you need to be drawing 3 cards to start being impressed with this, and ideally putting it on something with hexproof, because this is asking for a big blowout.

Hallowed Moonlight: I’m not a huge fan of this card, but I would be remiss if I said it didn’t have some applications. Like, if I’m against howdy for round 1 of a season end, I’d sincerely consider slotting this in. Same idea goes for if you think UFO or I are going to play sneak attack against you or the like. Even then, it’s not amazing, but it gets the job done decently well in a slot that can be used for silver bullets without being too awful if you don’t get full value off it.

Open the Armory: Another copy of Kellan’s adventure is nice, and there’s a couple decks that might want that. That being said, the biggest draw of Kellan’s adventure was not the spell itself, but that it also drew a decently on-rate creature. This tutor lacking that makes it a much, much harder sell, but I could see a couple of decks sleeve this up without feeling bad about it.

Reprisal: I remember when this card was cool as hell and my favorite removal spell in standard, but uh our slots for removal are slim and this card’s restriction make it not a reasonable include.

Tragic Arrogance: I don’t love a nonland cataclysm these days, and this card is really only that. I think you’d just play a gearhulk despite giving that choice back over their way, and I wouldn’t play that these days either.

Blue

Aetherling: The definition of beef has really changed over the last decade - it used to be that any hard to kill idiot, regardless of mana cost, could be played in a control deck without much thought, and be quite good. Now, we’ve kind of settled on 2 kinds of beef, being either something that fills another role in the deck and kills the opponent or something that is like 5-6 mana and just 180s the direction of the game if you’re behind on the board. Cards like Aetherling are the casualty of that shift in direction, and it’s a little sad to see that sometimes.

Anchor to the Aether: Bad limited removal is bad limited removal. I’m gonna be real, though, I’m a bit shocked with how many of the new cards are in some way bangers; it’s a great time.

Aqueous Form: For example, this card should see some play, especially if bogles decks decide to play islands in this format. This is a really cool card to both smooth out your draws and provide evasion to stuff that’s huge and hexproof or has heroic triggers.

Artisan of Forms: I think this card’s just straight bad, and I can’t really put it any other way. Don’t work for your phantasmal image, kids.

Bident of Thassa: This card just doesn’t commit to the board enough to be worth a card in your deck, especially at 4 mana.

Chasm Skulker: I think I like cards like Nadir Kraken more, but I really do have a soft spot in my heart for cards that grow with card draw, and this is one of the classics for that, and frankly, is a pretty good card for the slot, too.

Cloudfin Raptor: This card is pretty funny to see right now, where, thinking about it, this card really has a difficult time eventually getting to a 3/4, which is where you probably need it to get quickly to feel good about it, and otherwise, I’d just rather play a spyglass siren or the like.

Crush of Tentacles: Upheaval this is not, and it’s pretty difficult to actually live the dream in any way. If you’re getting to enough mana to cast the surge cost side of this, you probably can’t rebuild that turn, and despite the 8/8, I think you need to rebuild right after a mass bounce to feel good about it.

Day’s Undoing: I have a long history with this card, and I think it’ll either find a home in this format, or will have a home early. If you’re a deck with an easy time playing on your opponent’s turn, this card doesn’t have a real downside. I don’t really think it’ll slot into the control decks i’m used to seeing, just because those already are winning on card advantage, but it’s a card I’m confident I’ll see across the table.

Illusory Angel: This card’s bad, and if you consider it’s real cost (whatever spell you play first), it immediately becomes at or below rate, and has nothing else really going for it.

Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy: This is probably either the best or 2nd best looter we have in the format, and it’s just so much effect for so little. Even just looting a few times then getting 2 life/worse attacks a turn after that is great, and if you ever snapcaster with it you’re in heaven.

Jhessian Thief: I said this in a conversation over imposing sovereign, but the bar for 3s really is so much higher than for 2s, meaning you don’t just want a saboteur effect, you want one with evasion or that mercilessly kills the opponent, not a 1/3 that’s occasionally a 2/4 instead.

Master of Waves: I could definitely see a merfolk deck slotting this card in as a way to add 10ish power to the board on a bunch of bodies, but outside of that, this format is just poorly positioned for blue permanents that aren’t subtlety right now.

Mizzium Skin: This is definitely a card that is legal in the gladiator format. Is it good? I hope not, frankly.

Niblis of Frost: This just is more commitment to the board than its homes are probably willing to spare for a pretty mild effect.

Nimbus Naiad: nah

Opal Lake Gatekeepers: Look, I think the gates deck is not that outlandish in our format and this card still sucks there.

Quicken: This card’s not amazing, but it does offer a pretty huge upside if you find yourself wishing treasure cruise had flash at an end step. I think it’s worse than consider/opt, but can be slotted into those slots if you are gunning for plays like cantrip into cruise if opp doesn’t act proactively enough.

Rapid Hybridization: You don’t have to play these effects, we have good removal in every other color (except maybe green), and lord knows you’re not playing monoblue.

Scatter to the Winds: This was one of the first in our line of “cancels with versatility” but now we just get “cancels with upside” so what’s the point?

Shipbreaker Kraken: This was the coolest rare possible when I started playing, and I eventually realized that it was just fully bad. This card is just completely bad. Probably cool at least in limited though.

Sight Beyond Sight: Wow billy why’d your mom let you have TWO sleight of hands? The answer is 3 generic mana, turns out. This is just so deeply bad, and it’s an effect that really only looks interesting at 3 mana, not 4.

Stormtide Leviathan: BEEG WHALE. I think this is not a great card, nor the best persist target, but it is certainly funny, and likely will win games only a little worse than some other persist hits.

Tah-Crop Skirmisher: COM MON PI KER clap clap clapclapclap

Temporal Trespass: This card is just so cool, and I would argue that it fits pretty well into some shells that wouldn’t necessarily play time warp. That said, this card takes a lot to be happy with it, so my guess is that it will only be played in turns or dredge decks until at least treasure cruise is banned.

Tidebinder Mage: I don’t think I can see this card legitimately seeing play in our format, and after a bit of thought, I don’t think even in season finals situations could I really picture it. Being a hard to cast 2/2 really hurts when it’s not shutting down an important creature, and a lot of its targets don’t actually suffer much from it, like Samwise, Inti, Wingbane Vantasaur, Scooze, etc.

Windrider Patrol: I think the biggest insult of this card is that they think that scrying 2 is a huge effect, when you just want to kill them, and this card doesn’t even do that in our format 😔

Silumgar Sorcerer: I truly enjoy this card, but I will say that you should just play the Overcharged Amalgam instead.

Sphinx of Magosi: God this card is such a real one, but it is demonstrably worse than a card I probably shouldn’t have played, but did: Faerie Formation.

Thassa, God of the Sea: This card gets a huge bonus from being a machine that turns creatures into unblocked creatures, but it’s very expensive to be that kind of machine, and most decks either don’t need the effect out of redundancy, or don’t need it out of playing on a different axis.

Clutch of Currents: Sorcery speed unsummons are gross and frankly bad.

Flitterstep Eidolon: Maybe someone will pick this card up, but that bestow cost is criminally high, and the creature itself is pretty middling as far as slither blades go.

Hidden Strings: I’m so glad this is on arena so I can play lotus field, but also this card sucks here.

Jace, Architect of Thought: I want this card to be anything, but it's quite bad - it’s 4 mana for a + that we pay 1 mana for these days (Tamiyo), and its other two abilities are also pretty middling. We’ve come a long way to get to the point where a 1 mana creature is a better planeswalker than Jace in every ability, but it’s where we’re at.

Jace, Memory Adept: This planeswalker is a lot better in 40 card than it is in 100 card singleton.

Oath of Jace: Ok, I know that I hyped up Oath of Gideon a lot, but the truth is that most of the Oaths are quite bad. Case and point, Oath of Jace, which is not worth playing, even if you are scrying 3 each turn, which you won’t be.

Retraction Helix: I’m sure there’s something funny to do with this card, and with a Jeskai Ascendancy and/or Paradox Engine this card goes hard, but I’m doubtful it’s going to find a home with a dedicated pilot, which is what a card like this desperately needs.

Dramatic Reversal: I don’t think we have any of the pieces that really let this combo off, but I will say that we do have an infinite with this card, retraction helix, 9 mana from nonland permanents, and Scholar of the Ages. In this ess–gets shot

Enter the Infinite: This card does kind of just win the game if you cheat it and have the right deck built, but again, there hasn’t been a dedicated/tournament player for this style of deck in a long while, and I think combos with Enter the Infinite are pretty low on the list of combo decks I’d like to see or think is likely.

Part the Waterveil: This is one that I think just won’t see play. It’s worse than Time Warp in a couple of ways and the versatility it adds is unlikely to ever come up. It could come up in a turns list, but those decks I do not think want to go 5 deep on time warps.

Tome Scour: There’s 2 decks that are so stoked to see this card, and no one else wants to touch it. Simple as that.

Void Shatter: We have better cancels with better upsides, and the fact that this doesn’t pitch to subtlety is a real downside.

#magic the gathering #mtg #mtgpio #pioneer masters #gladiator #gladiatormtga #big talk

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