While there were many positive points in 2025 for Magic: The Gathering, the game certainly had its bad moments. Standard not only had multiple power outliers this year, but they took an extremely long time to fix. Vivi Ornitier is certainly the poster child for this problem, but Cori-Steel Cutter was also a significant power outlier from earlier in the year.
Thankfully, Cori-Steel Cutter left Standard in much shorter order than Vivi did. Unlike Vivi, however, Cori-Steel Cutter has continued to see significant play in older formats. The card seems fine in Legacy and Modern, but in Pioneer, Cori-Steel Cutter currently seems like an obvious power outlier. UR Prowess is so powerful at the moment that the deck could legitimately be a tier zero archetype.
Pioneer UR Prowess
In MTG Pioneer, Izzet Prowess has quickly become the best deck in the format by a mile. The unexpected ban of Heartfire Hero combined with the surprising Lesson upgrades from MTG Avatar created the perfect storm.
While Standard doesn’t have access to Learn, the same is not true for Pioneer. Now, Academic Dispute can function as both a pseudo removal option as well as a sideboard package, grabbing the perfect card for any situation. Boomerang Basics can remove an opposing roadblock, and Octopus Form can protect your Prowess creatures from removal, all while pumping up your Prowess creatures for very aggressive swings.
While the Lesson package is crucial in allowing UR Prowess to hold Pioneer hostage, Cori-Steel Cutter remains the deck’s biggest issue. Thanks to pumping out endless creatures, this artifact can win the game on its own without endangering your other creatures. Throw in that Learn effects can enable Steel Cutter on their own, and it’s clear that this is the most offensive card in the deck.
Since these metagame shifts to Pioneer took hold, Prowess has been, by far, the most popular deck in the format, showcasing a whopping 28% metagame share. Despite the massive target on its back, this archetype continues to perform extremely well. This is a sign that MTG Pioneer is in trouble.
Ridiculously Dominant Results
Despite the rise of Orzhov Midrange, a deck designed specifically to counter UR Prowess, the deck has continued to dominate Pioneer. Across December and January, UR Prowess had a top-eight result in every single Pioneer tournament on Magic Online. The archetype, on average, had three copies in the majority of Pioneer top eights and won nine different Pioneer challenges.
Dominance at this level could easily give Standard players Vivi Cauldron flashbacks. It suggests that UR Prowess can attack on a strong enough angle that there isn’t common counterplay available for the archetype. While things certainly look bleak, especially from this dominant performance, there is a sliver of hope.
Stress Tests Needed
At the moment, Pioneer doesn’t have a lot of competitive pressure. While Pioneer was a part of the last Magic Online Championship Series, the set has now rotated out for the majority of the new year. Besides an upcoming Arena Championship Qualifier weekend for the format, Pioneer does not appear to have any major tournaments scheduled for quite some time.
This means that UR Prowess’s dominance, to some extent, might be a result of Pioneer players just playing what’s readily available. There isn’t much incentive to innovate in the format right now, but that might soon change. Despite players identifying Pioneer as Wizards’abandoned format, the company continues to reassure players that Pioneer has not been forgotten.
All of that said, provided that UR Prowess remains a power outlier for another month, which seems extremely likely, something might be done about it soon. Learning from their mistakes with Vivi Cauldron, Wizards has become a lot more aggressive with ban windows in 2026. Thanks to this, the next ban window for MTG is February 9th.
It seems likely at this point that something might be done about UR Prowess soon, but it’s impossible to tell the future. Wizards of the Coast’s ban decisions have always been exceedingly difficult to predict, and this will likely be no different.
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