Pioneer singletons?

[Aetherium Slinky]

I've been dreaming of a singleton format with Modern banlist and the recent Pioneer got me thinking about the idea again. In Pioneer I quite like the fact that the land base isn't broken (i.e. has an actual downside to playing multiple colours), you are forced to get creative with cards that are from recent sets, and the meta in general isn't completely solved. I'm sure in time it will be, but not for now or in the next few years. Gameplay in terms of turns should be much slower than in formats like Commander or regular Modern - without making each turn prohibitively long by itself. More land drops, big plays, less janky grinding for 10 mins straight. My proposal would be as follows:


        SETTLERS

• starting life 30
• 60 cards, singleton, nonrotating
• legal in Pioneer

[Judaspriester]

• [...]nonrotating
• ban list the same as in Pioneer

This could be reduced to:

• legal in Pioneer

[Aetherium Slinky]

This could be reduced to:

• legal in Pioneer

Yes, but what about your opinion?

[Judaspriester]

The "nonrotating" part could also be removed, since pioneer isn't rotating.

for the idea itself.. good question.. if you add a commander now, this format could be the home for brawl decks that rotated out (and in some cases get some new toys), which might be interesting for players. I'm just not sure how popular brawl is right now (I'm not playing it myself).

[Aetherium Slinky]

The "nonrotating" part could also be removed, since pioneer isn't rotating.

for the idea itself.. good question.. if you add a commander now, this format could be the home for brawl decks that rotated out (and in some cases get some new toys), which might be interesting for players. I'm just not sure how popular brawl is right now (I'm not playing it myself).

Not very popular afaik. It's a bit of a forced format so WotC supports it but what I've gathered from people who report about Magic (=Youtubers, mainly) Brawl isn't a particularly loved format due to its rotating nature.

Adding a leader would make the format more like Commander and I don't want another format that is like Commander. Although you make a very good point about Brawl!

[matthewac95]

One of the things I like about singleton formats is that the raw power level of cards can be higher since you can't have multiples and are less likely to see the card in any given game. Incidentally that also helps the price of the format as well.

I can sympathize with not wanting another Commander variant, the format is so popular it feels like it's everywhere. That being said, having the commander always available to cast is part of what enables the rich deck-building opportunities, since it establishes a base level of consistency that a singleton deck would otherwise lack. We're partially mitigating that here with the lower deck size, but it's still something to be mindful of - you don't want the format to be immediately solved into a small group of decks that beat the rest of the field simply by way of being that much more consistent than the others.

[Shredwick]

What's Pioneer again?

[Judaspriester]

What's Pioneer again?

The new eternal format, similar to modern. Starts at Return to Ravnica (fall 2012).

[Shredwick]

What's Pioneer again?

The new eternal format, similar to modern. Starts at Return to Ravnica (fall 2012).

So what's the difference between it and other Eternal formats? 

[Aetherium Slinky]

So what's the difference between it and other Eternal formats?

Smaller card pool. Fetches are banned so an actual downside to playing multiple colour goodstuffs (i.e. sacrificing consistency). It's designed to give home to cards that have rotated out of standard - much like Modern used to be before it got ridiculously fast. I presume WotC is going to do this every few years now. They're holding GPs for Pioneer so it's won't be a dead format.