Episode 97: Pioneer: A G.O.O.D. Format?

On the one year anniversary of Pioneer, we give the format a performance review. We look at what happened over the last year, and what are the Goals, Obstacles, Opportunities, and Decisions that we can evaluate and make for the newest competitive Magic format. The Break Down: A Call From Corporate The Dive Down: A History Lesson The Dive Down, cont: A Performance Review Become a citizen of The Dive Down Nation!: http://www.patreon.com/thedivedown Get 15% off your first 3 months of ManaTraders! https://www.manatraders.com/?medium=thedivedown and use code "thedivedown" Timestamps: 3:21 - Housekeeping 7:59 - The Break Down Begins - Pioneer Challenges 22:20 - The Dive Down Begins - Pioneer, A Year in Review 25:44 - A Spike’s History of Pioneer’s Launch 35:10 - The Initial Round of Pioneer Bannings 40:06 - Pioneer First Golden Age 41:50 - Enter Theros Beyond Death 47:00 - The Companion Era Begins 49:27 - We’ve Been Told the Combo Decks Are Fine 52:39 - Combo Cards Banned, Pioneer is Saved(?) 57:04 - What the Pioneer Meta Looks Like Today 1:01:44 - Year 1 Takeaways 1:04:16 - Performance Reviews are Due 1:07:08 - How Has Pioneer Performed on its Goals? 1:20:50 - What Obstacles Should Pioneer Overcome? 1:31:54 - What Opportunities Does Pioneer Have Ahead? 1:37:45 - Decisions, Decisions 1:41:44 - Shane's Bottom Line: Pioneer is Fundamentally A Good Idea 1:43:10 - Dave's Bottom Line: It's Not the Gameplay's Fault 1:44:30 - Stan's Bottom Line: Dave is Right Links from this week's episode: 10/24/20 Pio Challenge: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/pioneer-challenge-12221068#paper 10/25/20 Pio Challenge: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/pioneer-challenge-12221072#paper Abe Stein "Defining the Pillars of Pioneer": https://articles.starcitygames.com/premium/defining-the-pillars-of-pioneer/ Pioneer announced: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/announcing-pioneer-format-2019-10-21 Our opening music is Nowhere - You Never Knew, and our closing music is Space Blood - Goro? Is That Your Christian Name? email us: [email protected] twitter: https://twitter.com/thedivedown