Pioneer
Constructed · Nonrotating
Pioneer is a nonrotating 60 card format: every premier set from Return to Ravnica (2012) onward, forever. Nothing rotates out, your deck stays legal, and the pool only grows.
The Rules
- 60 card minimum. There’s no maximum, but nearly everyone plays exactly 60 so their best cards show up more often. (CR 100.2a)
- Up to 4 copies of any one card, except basic lands, which have no limit. (CR 100.2a)
- 20 starting life. (CR 103.4)
- 15 card sideboard in tournament play. The 4 copy limit counts deck and sideboard together. (CR 100.4a)
- Matches are usually best of three. Between games you can swap cards with your sideboard, as long as the deck stays legal.
- Nothing ever rotates. Every premier set from Return to Ravnica forward is in, minus the banned list, and new sets join as they release.
Deck Makeup
- Decks look like Standard’s older, sharper sibling: 20 to 24 lands, tight four-of cores, and archetypes refined over years.
- Reprints count. A pre-2012 card becomes legal the moment it’s reprinted into a Pioneer legal set. Legality follows printings, not release dates.
Tips
Pioneer cards stay legal indefinitely. It costs more up front than Standard, but it stops charging you every rotation.
Pioneer has a settled metagame, and knowing the handful of pillar archetypes tells you exactly what your deck needs to beat.
Watch Out For
Pioneer’s pool is a slice of Modern’s. Plenty of Modern staples predate Return to Ravnica and never got reprinted in.
Commander decks and similar products aren’t premier sets. Their cards are only legal here if they also appear in a premier set from 2012 on.
Banned Cards
Pioneer keeps its own banned list, and it has moved plenty since the format launched. Worth a look before you build. We don’t list banned cards here on purpose: banlists change, and a stale list is worse than none.
Official Banned & Restricted List