Over the past few months, the Pioneer metagame has felt increasingly lopsided and relatively stale. Vampires has had an overwhelming representation in Pioneer Challenges on Magic Online recently, which has warped the format considerably. For anyone looking to play Pioneer, even if you choose to play something unique, it’s in your best interest to find ways to improve the Vampires matchup.
Well, in a recent Challenge event, one player made top eight with an off-the-wall decklist that was clearly skewed towards beating Thoughtseize strategies. This decklist features a wild Donate-style combo in an otherwise reasonable Azorius control shell.
Some of the deckbuilding decisions may seem a bit strange, but they certainly paid off, as the pilot played against Thoughtseize decks every single round of the event! This innovative archetype has a lot going on. To kick things off, we should look at how the combo itself actually works.
Nine Lives Combo
- Mana Value: 1WW
- Rarity: Rare
- Text: Hexproof. If a source would deal damage to you, prevent that damage and put an incarnation counter on Nine Lives. When there are nine or more incarnation counters on Nine Lives, exile it. When Nine Lives leaves the battlefield, you lose the game.
The combo aspect of this deck revolves around two specific cards: Nine Lives and Coveted Falcon. Early on in the game, you’re likely to simply play Nine Lives out like normal. Against most decks, this should help at least buy you some time to assemble your win condition.
From there, once you get to five mana, you can Disguise Coveted Falcon. You now have a window with your remaining two mana to turn Coveted Falcon face up even in the face of removal. Ideally, though, you’d like to have Nine Lives soak up some damage during your opponent’s turn. Then, you can flip up Coveted Falcon and trigger its final ability on the opponent’s end step.
This allows you to “gift” your Nine Lives to the opponent. In some games, if Nine Lives already has a bunch of counters on it, a couple attacks from Coveted Falcon and Restless Anchorage can seal the opponent’s fate. Most of the time, however, you’ll just plan to blow up the nine lives yourself.
See, Nine Lives causes its controller to lose the game once it leaves the battlefield. It doesn’t matter how this happens. With this in mind, this deck utilizes cards like Farewell and Cleansing Nova in the board wipe slot that can get rid of Nine Lives. What’s nice is that these cards are great at buying you time even before you’ve assembled the combo.
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Traditional Control Elements
- Mana Value: WU
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Text: Counter target spell unless its controller pays 3. If that spell is countered this way, exile it instead of putting it into its owner’s graveyard.
Most of the rest of the deck is primarily made up of traditional Azorius control cards. At two mana, No More Lies acts as the premier Counterspell option. No More Lies is perfect at answering turn three Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord or Fable of the Mirror-Breaker from the opponent. Dovin’s Veto, while a bit narrower, fulfills a similar role.
In addition to the Counterspell suite and board wipe package, this deck also utilizes Get Lost as a nice efficient catch-all answer. On top of that, Memory Deluge serves as an elite source of card advantage that simultaneously digs for your combo pieces and board wipes.
Lastly, this deck boasts playsets of both Leyline of Sanctity and Omen of the Sea. Both inclusions may seem a bit weird at first glance. After all, Leyline is very narrow, and Omen of the Sea is generally weaker than Deduce unless there are some extra synergies going on. Fortunately, the presence of Coveted Falcon makes both of these cards better than they look.
Against Thoughtseize decks, Leyline of Sanctity is bound to be a house. When the card isn’t pulling its weight, though, you can always give it to the opponent when you turn Coveted Falcon face up and draw extra cards. Similarly, Omen of the Sea sits in play after generating value, so you can send it to your opponent at little cost.
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Fighting in a Hostile Environment
- Mana Value: B
- Rarity: Rare
- Text: Target player reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card. You lose 2 life.
Overall, having access to the Nine Lives combo provides this archetype with a nice angle of attack. Against some decks, like Heroic and mono-green Devotion, playing Nine Lives by itself can stave off big attacks. At the same time, if the opponent overextends into Nine Lives to try to end the game, a well-timed board wipe can singlehandedly send them back to the stone ages.
The existence of Leyline also helps a ton in the face of discard spells, which act as the primary form of disruption for the Rakdos Vampires shells. Given how popular Rakdos Vampires is right now, playing the card makes a lot of sense.
The biggest problem this deck has is in matchups where the Nine Lives+Coveted Falcon combo is unreliable. For example, giving up on The Wandering Emperor and extra interaction can be a big problem against opposing Azorius control decks. Finding a window to tap low for your combo cards against Abzan Amalia can be tough, too.
All things considered, having access to a more streamlined gameplan seems better in a diverse field. As such, it’s unlikely this deck will gain a lot of long-term traction compared to more typical Azorius control builds. Nonetheless, in a field currently dominated by Vampires, there is some appeal to bust this out. Consider giving this deck a whirl at your next FNM if you’re looking for something a little unique.
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