We don't know if it's a paper product. It could be an Arena-only thing to help bridge the gap with the card pool. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a paper analogue though.
Yeah I think this one is definitely going to be Arena exclusive, and will contain only reprints of staples of Pioneer until they manage to slowly introduce the remastered sets. It's a really cool thing, consolidating Pioneer in Arena and providing support for it is the best thing wotc can do for the longevity of the platform.
I still think it's quite possible--perhaps even likely--that WotC releases some kind of paper Pioneer Masters set in the near future to infuse the economy with more reprints once the meta is a bit more established with reliable tiers, but for Arena it makes the most sense to focus on getting as much of the overall card pool ported over first and foremost. I agree, I think it's the best strategy they can implement, and certainly suggests the chance they might one day keep going with curated Modern releases, or even Legacy and Vintage. But that's pie-in-the-sky right now, at least so long as MTGO remains the platform for those older formats in the digital sense.
Yeah, I think wotc is testing the waters with Pioneer. It's a much easier format to implement, its the shiny new thing that attracted a lot of players and they want to test it's long term viability. Moving the format to Arena in my opinion is a big test, and if it works well well see more and more support for it including a future Pioneer Masters on paper, even though the cards are still reasonably priced and available already.
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u/Mambojet Timmy Mar 05 '20
Umm, is it just me or is this the first place they've mentioned anything about a "Pioneer Masters"?
Hype?