With thousands of Magic cards currently in existence and a multiplicity of formats to play the game in, there are bound to be a few hiccups with regard to balancing MTG. An innocuous card in one format could be broken in another, resulting in banned lists that are constantly shifting and evolving as new cards are released. Here is the ban list for MTG's Pioneer format.
Pioneer is one of the newest formats for MTG, introduced to official play in 2020. The format utilizes cards from 2012's Return to Ravnica set onward. The initial impetus for creating the set was to create a format accessible to long-time players who didn't want to let their older cards go to waste and also wanted to explore synergies from across Magic sets going back over a decade.
MTG Pioneer Ban List
A list of banned cards in the Pioneer format can be found at Magic's website here, but here is the list reproduced for convenience:
- Balustrade Spy
- Bloodstained Mire
- Expressive Iteration
- Felidar Guardian
- Field of the Dead
- Flooded Strand
- Inverter of Truth
- Kethis, the Hidden Hand
- Leyline of Abundance
- Lurrus of the Dream-Den
- Nexus of Fate
- Oko, Thief of Crowns
- Once Upon a Time
- Polluted Delta
- Smuggler’s Copter
- Teferi, Time Raveler
- Undercity Informer
- Underworld Breach
- Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath
- Veil of Summer
- Walking Ballista
- Wilderness Reclamation
- Windswept Heath
- Winota, Joiner of Forces
- Wooded Foothills
This list contains cards from new sets and old sets - while the list is frequently changing, it is more common for cards to be added than removed. These ban lists help ensure the competitive Pioneer meta isn't dominated by just one or two decks, allowing players to play what they want even at high levels.
This article was originally published on dbltap as MTG Pioneer Ban List.