Pioneer's Blood Moon

If you play blue, there's no shortage of options for dealing with the mid- and late-game problem: from counterspells like Change the Equation to trigger-blocking Sunspine Lynx with Tishana's Tidebinder, there's no shortage of methods for solving Mono Red's late-game problems.

On the other hand, the early game requires a secondary color that works accordingly: white for Temporary Lockdown and Beza, the Bounding Spring, red for Torch the Tower, black for Fatal Push, and more.

The problem lies with the other colors: not all of them have efficient tools to hold the early game — that's where Mono Red preys upon them in most matches — or they don't have the means to prevent the combination of Screaming Nemesis and Sunspine Lynx from ending the game as it goes on.

In this case, going faster is an option.

It doesn't matter if your opponent is planning to Sunspine Lynx for five damage if you deal 13 damage with a guaranteed eight more the next turn with Parhelion II, or constantly negate their damage with Valor's Flagship every turn — your opponent's resources are finite, yours will last as long as Greasefang, Okiba Boss is in play.

There are other archetypes that can achieve the same result, but not all of them have the same interactive potential as Mardu Greasefang: Transmogrify to Valgavoth, Terror Eater or Atraxa, Grand Unifier on turn four can do the same thing, and Nykthos Ramp can just put so much pressure on the board in a single turn that your opponent's actions are irrelevant, with the advantage that your mana base isn't punished as much by Sunspine Lynx.

And that brings us to the third point.

Sunspine Lynx is so good in Pioneer because the format isn't used to making concessions in the mana base. Look at any two-color list, and if you find four basic lands, that's a lot.

Blood Moon's lack of effects makes players want to optimize their options between Duals, utility lands, manlands, Field of Ruin, and so on. And if your list has more than two colors, there may not be enough reason to have more than the occasional copy of a basic land to counter Field of Ruin — Sunspine attacks this very essence of the format.

The answer comes down to two options: play lists less susceptible to this hate, like Nykthos Ramp, Mono White Humans, and Mono Black Midrange, or adapt your mana base to include more basic lands at the expense of excessive color efficiency.

Does your list really need those copies of Sulfurous Springs? Is that Takenuma, Abandoned Mire doing enough in your list besides being a Glorified Swamp? Will that copy of Stormcarved Coast make a big difference if it's a Mountain? Do you need four copies of Mutavault for what you're trying to do? Is Castle Locthwain a good card in the circumstances of a more aggressive Metagame?

All of the above examples come from concessions. Others include extending the viability of Fabled Passage to other lists that run Slow Lands, for example. After all, a few small points of less damage can make a huge difference between winning or losing against Mono Red Lynx's late-game plan, and as irrelevant and offensive as it may seem to shape your mana base by a card, that's been the nature of other formats for years because of Blood Moon.

It's too early to say that Mono Red Lynx will dominate Pioneer to the point that Wizards will need to intervene. It's the new trend in the format and, just like the Bounce lists, it will need to prove its worth in the larger scope as players adapt their decks and find counter-archetypes to play.

There is, however, one point that we should pay close attention to: the current iteration of Mono Red has two cards that go against both of Pioneer's core and the most effective response window against Red Aggro in history.

Screaming Nemesis has an ability that we haven't seen since Stigma Lasher in Eventide: it locks the opponent's chance of gaining life for the rest of the game. Personally, I consider this type of game design to be a gross mistake by today's standards — if you want to lock life gain forever, create a Planeswalker that creates this emblem, not a creature that establishes a game state that is difficult to remember without some permanent marker, and especially a creature that punishes blocks with this drawback.

It is the backbone of why it is so difficult to counter Red Aggro in Standard and Pioneer today, and while I don't consider its banning necessary today in either format, its design presents a very high risk for a non-rotating format.

Whether Sunspine Lynx remains will depend on how Wizards wants to handle the mana base issue in Pioneer. Like Screaming Nemesis and several other creatures in the current game design, Lynx has a very strong effect with a very efficient body for a low by its standards cost. A 5/4 for that deals four or more damage the moment it enters the board and also prevents life gain would have been considered a bit much in the past.

However, its success is entirely due to how well-positioned it is in a format that has never faced efficient nonbasic land hate before. This is the first time that Pioneer has had to, for good reason, worry about how many utility lands to put in its lists, instead of just swapping Swamps and Mountains for Sulfurous Springs for the sake of consistency.

Lynx, and other cards that may come out with the same effect over the years, play an essential role in monitoring and punishing the greedy mana base that Pioneer has grown accustomed to in the absence of a Blood Moon.

Maybe the problem is the soup of abilities combined with its ETB, or the fact that it's a creature, or even that it doesn't give your opponent choices. Perhaps, the problem is that it's a creature: think of cards like Burning Earth: the enchantment has been legal in Pioneer since day one and has never appeared in the Sideboards or Maindeck of any list because a four-mana enchantment that gives your opponent choices is not where Red Aggro wants to be.

I don't believe in banning Sunspine Lynx or Screaming Nemesis today, but there's plenty of time (and two sets) until the next Banned and Restricted announcement on June 30th. Until then, Pioneer can adapt, create new proposals, strategies, or even fix its manbase so as not to be punished by the closest thing to a Blood Moon we've ever had in the format.

If it doesn't and Mono Red Lynx becomes the new deck to beat — and it's showing good signs of doing so — it's likely that some intervention will happen given recent results and Wizards' increased focus on intervening in Standard and Pioneer during the upcoming ban window.

Until then, rethink your mana bases, your early game interactions, and how to prevent Screaming Nemesis from dealing noncombat damage to you.

Thanks for reading!