Re: [Official] State of Pioneer Thread (B&R 12/16/2019)
Posted: Sun Jul 11, 2021 7:34 pm
I feel very much the opposite. I think the ban policy at the beginning was what brought players in my area to play. Yes, we totally lost the competitive crowd for awhile but we had like 30 players a week with nearly all unique decks and that's what made Pioneer fun. You're totally right to say a ton of things went sideways really fast for Pioneer, not being on Arena and only MTGO, covid, Theros broke the format, and they stopped banning things almost all at the same time. I think had they kept banning things regularly and with the same standards for doing so people would have come back to Pioneer faster because it would have been fixed before paper shut down and we'd see that the format was being managed. Many of us just feel that they gave us a fun new format and then just ditched all responsibility for it, that's really what killed confidence.
If I were to run the format, I'd probably do a ban announcement every 2 weeks instead of every week. It was just a bit too fast. But that announcement isn't a forced ban- I say again, they do not have to ban something just because they have an announcement (reddit seems to not understand this so I've had to work it into my elevator pitch), it's just an update on the state of the format even if that means "things are fine, no change" or "we see this deck pulling ahead, we are not banning anything at this time, but we are aware of a growing trend". At least it means "we see you and we're still engaged in the format". It would give them an opportunity to actually manage a format with open data instead of all this hiding data BS they've been doing. I'd probably also just set some clear standards for when things get banned and be open and clear about them, just like Modern once was until that went away without any regard. Then if people have their deck banned they can see it coming from a mile away, know why, and have all the numbers. If they choose not to do anything about it then that's on them. And when a deck starts eating too much of the format, things are effectively banned anyway but no one is willing to accept that the decks people invested in are now outclassed and worthless too. My goal would be to keep tier two pretty close to tier one in power, that's basically it; you can't make every card playable, you can't even make most cards playable, but you can definitely make tier 2 playable.
Had they continued managing the format we'd never have suffered the combo dominance we did for so long. They literally just plugged their ears and ignored the format. THAT is what killed things for so many of us. It made the format just look like a cash grab then an abandonment. So many people think bans kill a format but when a format actually dies no one seems to realize it was because of a lack of bans. Things started to look decent after they finally removed all the combo decks but the player base was already gone and we were also deep in covid. If Pioneer is to come back, I think many players would ask for an actual apology from WotC and an announcement saying they're going back to their original policy (or near) of regular B&R announcements. It would be a slow return but it would probably revive the format.
As far as unbans are concerned, I think they're warranted. I think that's one of the things they can play with more if they have announcements every 2 weeks. It's suddenly easier to unban something and say it's on probation until X date then we'll have a decision about it returning to the field like any other card. You know, communicate with players so we have an understanding of what is going on. The way things are now, if a deck gets too powerful we just guess and it feels horrible, then it suddenly gets banned or we keep holding our breath and feeling bad not knowing what to expect. But it's crazy how things get banned and players rush back in to play the decks they already have and like playing.
I guess, in short, I think moving back to a twice a month B&R is what would make Pioneer a more unique format and better than it's current state.
Tough thing too is that Modern is solid right now so no one wants to think about Pioneer. Might be a good time to make some policy changes and get some early adopters, but overall I think Pioneer is dead at least for a year or two.
If I were to run the format, I'd probably do a ban announcement every 2 weeks instead of every week. It was just a bit too fast. But that announcement isn't a forced ban- I say again, they do not have to ban something just because they have an announcement (reddit seems to not understand this so I've had to work it into my elevator pitch), it's just an update on the state of the format even if that means "things are fine, no change" or "we see this deck pulling ahead, we are not banning anything at this time, but we are aware of a growing trend". At least it means "we see you and we're still engaged in the format". It would give them an opportunity to actually manage a format with open data instead of all this hiding data BS they've been doing. I'd probably also just set some clear standards for when things get banned and be open and clear about them, just like Modern once was until that went away without any regard. Then if people have their deck banned they can see it coming from a mile away, know why, and have all the numbers. If they choose not to do anything about it then that's on them. And when a deck starts eating too much of the format, things are effectively banned anyway but no one is willing to accept that the decks people invested in are now outclassed and worthless too. My goal would be to keep tier two pretty close to tier one in power, that's basically it; you can't make every card playable, you can't even make most cards playable, but you can definitely make tier 2 playable.
Had they continued managing the format we'd never have suffered the combo dominance we did for so long. They literally just plugged their ears and ignored the format. THAT is what killed things for so many of us. It made the format just look like a cash grab then an abandonment. So many people think bans kill a format but when a format actually dies no one seems to realize it was because of a lack of bans. Things started to look decent after they finally removed all the combo decks but the player base was already gone and we were also deep in covid. If Pioneer is to come back, I think many players would ask for an actual apology from WotC and an announcement saying they're going back to their original policy (or near) of regular B&R announcements. It would be a slow return but it would probably revive the format.
As far as unbans are concerned, I think they're warranted. I think that's one of the things they can play with more if they have announcements every 2 weeks. It's suddenly easier to unban something and say it's on probation until X date then we'll have a decision about it returning to the field like any other card. You know, communicate with players so we have an understanding of what is going on. The way things are now, if a deck gets too powerful we just guess and it feels horrible, then it suddenly gets banned or we keep holding our breath and feeling bad not knowing what to expect. But it's crazy how things get banned and players rush back in to play the decks they already have and like playing.
I guess, in short, I think moving back to a twice a month B&R is what would make Pioneer a more unique format and better than it's current state.
Tough thing too is that Modern is solid right now so no one wants to think about Pioneer. Might be a good time to make some policy changes and get some early adopters, but overall I think Pioneer is dead at least for a year or two.