Pioneer - Saheeli Rogues

16 19 8
8 25 5 22
Aggro Combo

Grixis Rogues deck built around the new combo with Saheeli Rai + Luxior, Giada's Gift + Altar of the Brood. For those that do not see the combo, if you equip Saheeli with a Luxior she can target herself with her -2, which creates an artifact token copy of Saheeli. You legend rule the original Saheeli, and can now -2 the new one targeting again itself because it is now an artifact. This is obviously a loop, and with an Altar of the Brood on the board you mill your opponent out entirely. Altar of the Brood works very well in a Rogues shell where milling your opponent with creatures is already your primary win condition, so I feel this Saheeli Rai combo would be a perfect addition to the deck. Saheeli Rai herself is actually an insane value card in a Rogues list to begin with, as her -2 ability combos perfectly with both your key creatures Enforcer and Thought-Thief. Using the -2 with an Enforcer on board gives another Rogue ETB trigger, and with Thought-Thief you get an essentially free rogue attack trigger and with 8 cards in the opponent's graveyard another +1/+0 for all your rogues. The only card in the combo that feels mediocre without the combo in the list is Luxior, though it can be equipped to Kaito Shizuki to have him attack which will allow him to guarantee he does not need to discard with his own +1 afterwards. Sadly he cannot block with it as he is not on the board, but he does phase with Luxior so you do not need to reequip it every turn. The phasing mechanics unfortunately make Kaito feel less powerful with Altar, as his phase in is not considered "entering the battlefield," but creating tokens will mill your opponent so Kaito somewhat plays with Altar still.

 The deck is largely just trying to trade cards like Deathrite Shaman, Brazen Borrower, Zareth San, and other random cards from the current Rogues list in Pioneer for the full copies of Saheeli Rai, Luxior and Altar. I am torn on whether to play Consider or not. I think the deck benefits certainly from a cheap 1 mana card selection spell to help set up its combo that can lead into developing something like Luxior or Altar on turns 2 or 3, but at the same time I feel like a permanent could be stronger to combo with a straight turn 1 Altar. I have looked at permanent options and found them largely to be lacking, so I have returned in my own thoughts to the idea that a 1 mana cantrip is just stronger than a permanent to potentially combo with Altar in case you do not manage to find your combo.

In the sideboard Robber of the Rich is probably the best card that red gives us access to. I think if this deck is actually as broken as it seems to me people may genuinely start packing cards like Wheel of Sun and Moon or even Gaea's Blessing type effects, and if that is the case you will be happy to have a card that makes your plan B so much better that you can just drop your plan A. Robber is likely a card that you will side out all copies of Luxior for in certain matchups as the card is likely far too weak if not a straight liability (allowing your planeswalkers to be targeted by creature removal like March). Robber of the Rich is a threat that can take over the game on its own in value as a rogues deck, and so it is one of the best threats to slam after your opponent has committed removal into an Enforcer or Thought-Thief. I expect actually that this is a deck that sides its combo out fairly regularly, in a similar vein to the way Legacy Elves decks can easily get away with removing all copies of Natural Order and expect to play almost entirely on a creature aggression gameplan that may hard cast Craterhoof or Zenith but doesn't count on it. The deck can fluxuate between being a nearly full combo deck against the more midrange matchups where combo shines to being an aggro-mill deck against decks like control where they can easily counter your combo anyways once they know what to expect. The versatility the deck will have post board is part of what makes me think that Luxior, Giada's Gift may have completely broken Saheeli Rai again and we may finally see another 3 mana planeswalker eat a ban in Pioneer.

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Atramhasis
Last Updated: 14 Nov 2023
Created: 04 May 2022
542 114 0

Mainboard - 60 cards (20 distinct)

Creature (8)
$0.20€0.150.03
$1.98
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (25)
$1.00€0.820.03
$11.90€14.463.02
$3.75€4.080.06
$15.00€5.120.02
$0.83€0.610.03
$15.00€19.9611.61
Land (22)
$4.31€3.594.62
$5.991.27
$3.60€5.223.66
$0.260.02
$12.77€11.520.29
$6.64
$10.80
$19.81€19.687.69
$15.80€14.490.46
Planeswalker (5)
$2.87€3.950.96

Sideboard - 15 cards (6 distinct)

$1.61€2.050.09
$1.17
$0.50€0.600.03
$0.49€0.430.03
$0.75€1.421.53
$2.48€1.830.35

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Main/Sideboard Rarity Count
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