Last updated on December 27, 2024
Arclight Phoenix | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak
WotC occasionally releases new MTG products designed for players who don’t have a big enough collection to build their own decks. They usually come in the form of Intro and Challenger decks, and 2024 saw the release of the Foundations Starter Collection.
Challenger decks seems to be on hold for the time being, but there are still plenty on the market from earlier years that hold up for their respective formats.
What Is a Challenger Deck?
Florian, Voldaren Scion | Illustration by Justine Cruz
A Challenger Deck is a preconstructed 60-card deck with a 15-card sideboard filled with heavily-played cards in a specific format. The objective of these precons is to be competitive right out of the box in a given format, to at least challenge your friends and hold their own at the FNM level.
Adjusting to the meta and competing at the highest level is an entirely different task. Another good resource from these decks is that certain competitive staples get reprinted, so these decks have more valuable cards including rares and mythics alongside pricey uncommons. These cards can be played in multiple formats, sometimes in Standard and Pioneer, and almost always in Modern and EDH.
But which of these Challenger decks stand as the best among them? Are they even worth your consideration? Let's jump in and find out!
Best Overall
The best pick overall goes to the Izzet Phoenix Pioneer deck. It features a phoenix doing the phoenix rebirth thing, provides the most value, a deck that’s competitive out of the box, and continues to be a top-tier pick in present-day Pioneer.
- 1 battle-ready 60-card MTG Pioneer 2022 Challenger Deck
- 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens and 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Izzet Phoenix (Blue-Red)—cast a whole lotta spells and fly in with spell-loving creatures
Best for New Players
I’d say that stompy decks are usually the best builds for newbies. Pioneer has evolved a lot over the last couple of years, but if you're trying to learn a basic strategy and improve from there, I suggest you go for Pioneer's Gruul Stompy deck for this category.
- 1 battle-ready 60-card MTG Pioneer 2022 Challenger Deck
- 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens and 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Pioneer Gruul Stompy (Red-Green)—accelerate your mana early and crush with giant threats
Best Budget Deck
No products found.It's funny because even though No products found. has almost entirely rotated out of Standard by this point, Pioneer did feature a highly competitive “Rakdos Vampires” deck that overlaps with this one very little. That deck stopped being a serious contender after Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord was banned, but this Challenger Deck will at least get you halfway there on a functional mana base for a good Rakdos deck.
No products found.
Best Competitive Deck
The Izzet Phoenix Pioneer deck is very interesting because it’s very hard to see Arclight Phoenix builds going anywhere. The card has taken the competitive scene by storm in almost all formats, and this style of deck is usually very linear with the best cantrips/cheap spells in Izzet () colors.
- 1 battle-ready 60-card MTG Pioneer 2022 Challenger Deck
- 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens and 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Izzet Phoenix (Blue-Red)—cast a whole lotta spells and fly in with spell-loving creatures
Best Choice if Cost Is No Object
No products found.No products found. (a.k.a. mono-red burn) offers lot of red staples like Hazoret the Fervent, Soul-Scar Mage, and Chandra, Torch of Defiance, which is roughly 10% of the deck’s value alone. You’ll get a lot of staples from Pioneer as well like Bomat Courier, Kari Zev, Skyship Raider, and Monastery Swiftspear.
No products found.
Best Value
Once again I’ll reward the Izzet Phoenix Pioneer deck this title based on the card value alone. It has the best card value in a Pioneer Challenge deck.
Getting into Pioneer is much more viable long-term because you can keep a competitive deck around for a long time. Meanwhile if you buy a deck to play Standard, six months later it probably can't compete anymore, either because it’s not good anymore or most of the cards have rotated out of Standard.
- 1 battle-ready 60-card MTG Pioneer 2022 Challenger Deck
- 15-card sideboard
- 5 double-sided tokens and 6 helper cards
- 1 deck box (holds 75 sleeved Magic cards)
- Izzet Phoenix (Blue-Red)—cast a whole lotta spells and fly in with spell-loving creatures
Best Bundle
No products found.Though the Challenger Decks from 2022 are great, the best bundle award goes to No products found.. It has a bunch of great cards that are still powerful after their time dominating Standard. These four decks play to controlling and aggressive players alike. Even if you just needed pull one of these cards for your Commander deck, you are a few replacements away from mixing it up at the next tournament. Non-rotating formats still have high regard for cards like Narset, Parter of Veils, Knight of the Ebon Legion, and Torbran, Thane of Red Fell.
No products found.
Wrap Up
Final Payment | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez
Pioneer and Standard have an advantage over other competitive formats, and that’s card availability (with lower prices).
The fact that you can sell a competitive product in a deck box is amazing, and although these aren't perfect builds they can put a player at FNM level out of the box. The Pioneer Izzet Phoenix deck is almost tournament ready with a few upgrades here and there (you'll need at least two more copies of the namesake card).
What do you think about these precons? Do you want Wizards to start making Challenger decks again? Let me know in the comments below or find us on Twitter and let’s take the discussion there.
Thanks for reading folks, and I'll see you in the next one!
Note: this post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to make a purchase, you’ll help Draftsim continue to provide awesome free articles and apps.
Follow Draftsim for awesome articles and set updates:
Add Comment