Following Dandân Secret Lair Success, Players Hope WotC Takes Interest in Beloved Fan Format Pioneer Next
MINNEAPOLIS, MN — Following the success of the ShoeBox event earlier this month, a new wave of interest in community designed formats has drawn the attention of Magic players across the world. The fervor only mounted after WotC’s previously announced Dandân Secret Lair sold out almost immediately, throwing the storied shared-deck format into the limelight. This all has led to players wanting more formal recognition of their minor formats of choice, with product requests ranging from Clover to Value Vintage to Patriarch’s Bidding. However, one particular fan format has come to the forefront, with fans across the community spectrum rallying for it’s recognition by the game’s designers.
Pioneer, a competitive 60 card format using Standard-legal sets from 2012’s Return to Ravnica and later, has received a groundswell of support from Magic players online. “Pioneer is a format with a lot of deep history to it. It had a ton of buzz surrounding it before the Pandemic,” Pioneer player and evangel Rick Fronk tells Commander’s Herald. Fronk, who appears online under the screenname “HangLikeGreasefang”, has been campaigning for the format since he saw a local store host a tournament for the underground format a few years ago. “It even got a showcase at a side event at MagicCon Chicago back in 2024. Though even I think it was a little ambitious of the designers to call it ‘the Pro Tour’.”
Fronk tells us he, and many other long-time fans of the rogue format, were disappointed as events catering to them seemingly dried up last year. “I don’t know if we got confused as an Arena-only format like Historic or something, but now we can’t find paper tournaments anywhere. We’ve tried email chains and social media campaigns. We’ve tried streaming it online. We’ve even tried harassing the hosts of WeeklyMTG. Our group was almost without hope, but Dandân seeing such a huge surge really gave us hope. A bunch of fellow Pioneer players even chipped in for one of those celebratory fruit trays earlier this week to try and tip the scales any way we could.”
“For the last damn time, we’re not giving any more support to Rainbow Stairwell! Oh sorry, you said Pioneer?” Our reporters were fortunate enough to sit down with WotC representative Bill-Huey Jensen to discuss the requests, who tells us he has “been absolutely inundated with requests since the Secret Lair dropped.” More than a few outlandish requests have come across his desk in the past week, Jensen tells us. “Pioneer is one I’ve seen brought up a few times, and we really want to give it a place to shine, but with all the new Standard cards coming in, we just don’t have a place to showcase it like the others.”
All hope is not lost though, Jensen tells us. “I think the best option for a smaller community like the Pioneer faithful would be starting with a more intimate tournament first, like a Nerd Rage or Star City Games event. Build up fans organically, then maybe we can try and fit them into our Official Format list. That’s what worked for Legacy.” Jensen does want to see the format succeed beyond it’s oft-overlooked community, and hopes more people take notice. “Just as long as no one sends us another one of those fruit trays. I hate those damn things.”
