Pioneer: Aggro dominance leads to stagnation

Pioneer is currently facing an identity crisis. Aggro is king, but the format feels a little stale, and the community is getting restless even with the recent B&R doing nothing.

The format health is middling, with a 61.3 score. The B&R Health is high at 75.0, because nothing was changed, indicating stability, but the declining event and player growth scores (36.0 and 28.5 respectively) show a clear downward trend. Diversity isn't directly measurable, but the dropping Shannon index over the last few years shows an unhealthy pattern.

Red Deck Wins is the deck to beat at 25.1%, a huge chunk of the meta. Arclight Phoenix sits at 13%, followed by a smattering of other aggro decks like Rakdos, Selesnya, and Golgari Aggro. Auras is still hanging around at 4%. The super-archetype breakdown says it all: Aggro makes up a whopping 75.9% of the field. Control and Combo are struggling to keep up at 10.2% and 13.9% respectively.

Reddit is buzzing about the dominance of aggro and power creep. Rakdos is the boogeyman, and people are actively trying to find ways to beat it. Leyline Binding and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse remain controversial cards in the community but the discussions have decreased in strength. Boros Convoke and Dimir Control are gaining traction as potential answers, but ultimately, Pioneer needs something to shake up the aggro-fest that it is.