While many MTG players praise the current state of Modern thanks to its surprising diversity, it bizarrely cannot even hold a candle to Pioneer. Despite Wizards’ indifference towards the format, it’s ironically thriving. A Pioneer Showcase Challenge over the weekend revealed to players a surprisingly healthy metagame. There wasn’t a single duplicate deck in the entire top eight! All of the top finishers aren’t defined powerhouses in Pioneer, either, as a rogue deck surprisingly broke through the fray.
While Valki, God of Lies is no longer the issue it used to be, decks trying to cheat in its alter ego, Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter, still occasionally appear. As a new Pioneer deck demonstrates, however, Tibalt isn’t the only monster that can be cheated in with a little effort. Fan-favorite Spider Man character Venom, Lethal Protector can be cheated in the same way, providing a powerful upgrade to a forgotten strategy.
MTG Venom, Lethal Protector in Pioneer
For fans of Spider Man’s Venom, you now have a competitively sound deck to play the Symbiote in. MTGO user kanara38204 has been refining Esper Legends for some time now. After being the sole player to consistently achieve results with the deck for months, they have now top eighted the 198-player Pioneer Showcase Challenge that took place over the weekend. Because Pioneer is mostly unsupported by Wizards of the Coast, these are some of the most competitive Pioneer events of the year.
While the deck is very capable of hard-casting Venom, Lethal Protector, you’ll get Venom into play most commonly from Shiko, Paragon of the Way‘s triggered ability. This will allow you to exile Eddie Brock from your graveyard and cast a copy of it. Since Eddie Brock is a modal double-faced card, MDFC for short, you’ll be able to cast Venom, Lethal Protector for free. This combo also applies to Valki, God of Lies, and, while Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter offers more card value than Venom, the two cards are better than one another in certain positions.
Venom, Lethal Protector is often stronger than Tibalt, Cosmic Imposter so long as you aren’t extremely behind on board, and your opponent isn’t keeping up a potential removal spell. This is thanks to Shiko both cheating Venom into play and providing the value piece needed for Venom to excel. You can immediately attack with Venom and sacrifice Shiko to draw five cards and put another permanent into play for free. If that happens to be another Shiko, you can reanimate Tibalt on top of your Venom, creating a board that’s almost impossible to beat.
Notably, Shiko isn’t the only way to cheat Venom ahead of time. You can also use Jace, Reawakened to Plot Eddie with his second ability. This will allow you to cast Venom, Lethal Protector for free on your next turn, attacking quickly and drawing lots of cards. Interestingly, Jace is Standard legal, meaning that players could play around with this idea once Vivi Ornitier gets the ban hammer. This trick can also be notably done with Valki, God of Lies, who has three appearances in this deck.
While this combo is an incredibly neat way for Venom, Lethal Protector to see competitive play, it’s more or less a side quest as far as the deck is concerned. Eddie Brock is also very strong in the deck’s core context, but it’s not the most important card in the strategy.
The Real Centerpiece
While the Venom, Lethal Protector and Valki, God of Lies combos are the spice that pushes this deck over the top, they aren’t part of the core engine that makes this deck tick. That honor instead goes to Raffine, Scheming Seer, who fuels all of the strongest plays that this strategy is capable of.
This deck takes full advantage of Raffine’s Connive ability, which gets amplified on wider boards. This not only allows you to get your MDFC cards into the graveyard for Shiko to reanimate, but it also gives the front side of Eddie Brock, in particular, a lot more use. Reanimating Cecil, Dark Knight with Eddie Brock puts a ton of stats on the board, and gives two more attacking bodies to amplify Raffine’s Connive ability.
This sort of synergy is supported further by Nashi, Searcher in the Dark. The card offers a growing creature that acts as card advantage and a way to bin your MDFC cards all in one. This card can also oddly pick up enchantments that it mills over, which helps branch into a secondary card advantage engine that looks rather clunky at first glance.
Unholy Annex/Ritual Chamber makes an appearance as a full playset to help grind against other midrange strategies. This card looks really weird at first glance in the deck, especially considering that the only Demon in the entire list is Raffine, Scheming Seer. Without it, however, this deck becomes much weaker in Midrange matchups where the opponent excels at trading resources one for one. Unholy Annex greases the wheels of your strategy, pushing you towards your pseudo-combo finishes.
The rest of the deck is rounded out by a rather typical removal package consisting of Thoughtseize, Fatal Push, and Sheltered by Ghosts. These are partnered with a collection of Channel Lands that take advantage of all the Legendary creatures present in the deck.
Good and Bad Matchups
Esper Legends looked relatively well-positioned for the Pioneer Showcase. The deck seems positioned to absolutely crush opposing midrange strategies like Rakdos and Mono-Black. Every single threat in your deck threatens to generate a lot of meaningful advantage, and you have Unholy Annex to keep up with their card advantage. The deck seems similarly poised to fight a decent control matchup. You can attack their hand and consistently present threats that need removing for the entire game.
Where this deck might struggle is when playing against other combo and aggressive strategies. While this deck does have some explosive combos, they aren’t meant to be incredibly consistent or close the game quickly. Compare that to the likes of Scapeshift combo or Lotus Field, and you’ll likely lose the game before you can meaningfully pressure the opponent. Notably, combo decks did not perform exceptionally well in the Pioneer Showcase Challenge, which means that the metagame is likely diverse enough that you can avoid your bad matchups.
While many of this deck’s hypothetical matchups seem rather decisive, aggressive strategies are a bit of a question mark. While it appears that Esper Legends would need some specific draws to keep up with faster strategies, judging from kanara38204’s finish, it certainly has the tools to do so. The deck is capable of creating a lot of bodies quickly, providing cheap removal to fast problems, and can go over top Red quickly.
Overall, I’m incredibly excited to see an expert pilot with a niche deck succeed at one of the bigger Pioneer tournaments in 2025. In addition to providing a competitive home for Venom lovers to explore, this can hopefully promote Pioneer as a format where passionate brewers can achieve success with their labors of love.
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