Boros Pia Deck Guide
Darren "ServoToken" shares the in-depth secrets of his Thopter Token siblings.
Boros Pia – the latest in a long lineage of Pioneer’s red-based aggressive decks, has taken the format by storm recently. The deck has proven extremely flexible and unexpected because it doesn’t conform to the “traditional” building philosophy that Red aggro decks have shared in the past. With access to premium removal on top of a tremendous go-wide threat, the deck can really take whichever shape it needs to to navigate its way around the opposition. Let’s get into what makes this deck tick, and see why it’s been on a tear lately.
The Threat Base
At its base, Pia is a riff on a Prowess deck, utilizing some familiar faces as the early plays that establish an early board presence. Monastery Swiftspear is the classic one-mana Prowess creature that will continue to pay off all subsequent spells cast while snowballing damage – providing a real clock as the rest of the deck plays out. Its lesser-seen cousin, Soul-Scar Mage, also makes an appearance here. While not providing Haste, Soul-Scar gives the deck some excellent utility in combination with its burn spell suite in order to answer some of the larger threats in the format. The prowess creatures form a formidable duo of turn-one threats that – left unchecked – can completely take over the game.
Backing them up is honorary one-drop creature Kumano Faces Kakkazan, which both triggers Prowess and, too, improves the efficacy of the burn spell suite. Many Red decks have moved away from burn spells due to their general incapability to deal with Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, but with Rakdos taking a bit of a dive lately, we are starting to see their resurgence in full force.
Moving up the curve, we, of course, have red aggro staple Bonecrusher Giant a two-for-one spell that can provide some late-game aggression and hidden utility with the extra text on Stomp. This card isn’t as notable here as it is in some other decks, but still holds a solid place as a huge threat that offers a good amount of flexibility. Part of this deck’s appeal is its ability to remain fluid in its role from matchup to matchup, and with Bonecrusher’s capacity to act as a control card and finisher, the deck has an easy time making that pivot.
Lastly, we come to the namesake of the deck, Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival. Pia is a sneakily insane addition from Aftermath that really ties the deck together and provides the bulk of that tremendous flexibility by offering a means to go-wide around some of the common answers that will stonewall other red aggro decks with flying tokens. Looking at the remaining cards in the deck, you might think that the deck is built around triggering Pia as many times as possible, though that’s more or less just an added benefit rather than the main goal. Either way though, Pia puts a tremendous amount of power on the board and is very difficult to answer once things get rolling.
Bonus Utility
Boros Pia packs two key factors that distinguish it from your typical red aggressive deck – the first of which is its removal suite, which is actually effective against the threats of the format. Play with Fire is a classic addition at this point, bolstered by Soul-Scar to make it into a card that matters against creatures with more than two toughness. I shouldn’t have to go into too much detail on why the aggressive deck wants to play a card that deals damage to the opponent’s face though. The real hot tech that the white splash brings to the table is Chained to the Rocks. This one-mana answer to all of Green Devotion’s creature base, Sheoldred, and other bulky threats like Thing in the Ice or Crackling Drake, is exactly what the doctor ordered as these fat creatures have normally been the bane of the Red deck’s existence. Red decks have splashed for a one-mana exile effect in other formats before, but haven’t had much of that luxury in Pioneer since the early days of Boros Heroic. This card can single-handedly swing matchups though, and is worth the investment into white nearly on its own.
Impulse for the Win
The other distinguishing difference between Boros Pia and something like Atarka Red is the sheer amount of card advantage that the deck can generate. The biggest folly of the Red aggressive deck is that it will eventually run out of gas when faced with any reasonable amount of disruption. With the recent addition of Wrenn's Resolve, though – and in combination with Reckless Impulse – the deck can absolutely churn through the top of the library and find more action. This makes the Prowess creatures even stronger as, of course, with more cards comes more Prowess triggers and with more Prowess comes more damage.
Normally, eight copies of this effect would be sufficient, but Pia ain’t done, as it’s also packing three copies of Showdown of the Skalds. This card has been on the fringes of the format for years now, having all of the right words on it yet no real outlet to make those words matter. Most decks that have looked to the card have only really been concerned with the four-card draw effect from the first chapter with the counters from the second and third being more of an afterthought, but with how many spells Pia can bust through in a turn cycle, Showdown has the opportunity to turn a soldier into an army. All of these, of course, also coming with a Thopter Token or two from Pia means that this traditionally go-tall aggro deck now has the chance to go wide and around the opposition.
Boros Pia is the most flexible aggro deck we’ve seen in Pioneer for a long time, and its true power is shining through with how many wins the deck is securing lately. It covers most of Red’s traditional weaknesses with extremely potent new additions, and makes for a blindingly quick strategy that can pivot into the controlling role on a dime. I’m looking forward to seeing where the strategy goes from here, as it’s one of the more exciting changes that we’ve seen in quite a while.
Sideboard Guide
*It is typically correct when cutting any number of Wrenn's Resolve or Reckless Impulse to not prefer one over the other. If you are taking out two of the eight, take out one of each card, for example. These will be referred to as “Impulse Effects” if they come up in the sideboard guide.
Green Devotion
Matchup Feel: Even
Sideboarding Philosophy:
You’re not as fast as other aggressive decks, which means that you need to rely on correctly timed disruption of their large payoffs while trying to keep their early Elf starts at bay. You then want to find your window to pivot with a Pia and some exile – this will usually be immediately after dispatching their first or second creature and before they can resolve a Karn and get a bunch of value out of it. Portable Holes and other cheap removal for the Elves, and Declaration in Stoneto go with Chained to the Rocks to keep the Trolls and Cavaliers at bay. This matchup is all about timing, and you knowing their deck better than they know yours.
Rakdos Sacrifice
| IN | OUT |
| +2 Rest in Peace | -4 Play with Fire |
| +2 Declaration in Stone | -4 Bonecrusher Giant |
| +1 Showdown of the Skalds | -1 Kumano Faces Kakkazan |
| +3 Portable Hole |
Matchup Feel: Slightly Unfavored
Sideboarding Philosophy:
This matchup comes in a couple of phases, the first of which is answering Cat Oven. This is the backbone of their strategy, and disrupting it by sniping the ovens or exiling the cats makes it so that they need to spend additional time and resources setting back up which will give you the time to deploy your own threats. The second phase is dispatching the recursive removal in Mayhem Devil or Fable plus Bloodtithe Harvester. Either of these sticking around will more or less ruin your day. Pia is the answer to this matchup, so protect her from these cards at all cost. If this matchup is an issue in your local meta, Reidane, God of the Worthy is an excellent inclusion instead of something like Alpine Moon or Rest in Peace.
Humans
| IN | OUT |
| +3 Portable Hole | -2 Impulse effects |
| +2 Rending Volley | -3 Showdown of the Skalds |
Matchup Feel: Slightly Favored
Sideboarding Philosophy:
This is one of those instances where you’re going to approach the matchup intending to take the control role from the beginning. You have a lot of answers available while they do not, which means that you have the opportunity to outpace their threats and get in repeatedly for chip damage. Constantly be looking for points where you can sneak damage through, and don’t be overly aggressive at any point because they have the capacity to grow out of nowhere via Thalia’s Lieutenant and Adeline. Cutting Impulse effects is key because Thalia is their easiest way to make this matchup difficult for you.
Abzan Greasefang
| IN | OUT |
| +2 Rest in Peace | -4 Chained to the Rocks |
| +2 Rending Volley | -2 Play with Fire |
| +2 Declaration in Stone |
Matchup Feel:
Unfavored Pre-Sideboard
Even Post-Sideboard
Sideboarding Philosophy:
Game one is basically unwinnable if they have a Parhelion in the top 20 cards of their library. If they are on the Chariot plan, then it’s manageable, but your removal suite still isn’t set up to deal with them. Pia can pull a lot of weight in this matchup if you can manage to summon some Thopters as none of their threats have Trample, but trading down on resources like that will only get you so far. Post sideboard, you bring in a lot of very strong answers for their plan and should mulligan relatively aggressively for them. Any hand with two lands, a prowess creature, a RIP/Volley, and an Impulse effect if you can manage it is perfect as it’ll let you develop your game plan while disrupting theirs tremendously. Even if you can’t get a turn one threat down, it’s more important to stymie their development than anything else.
Rakdos Midrange
Matchup Feel: Slightly Favored
Sideboarding Philosophy:
The Impulse effects make this matchup much easier than it ought to be. Between a way to refill the hand that dodges both Thoughtseize and Sheoldred, and Pia’s ability to go over the top of their three or greater-mana threats, you shouldn’t have much issue navigating around whatever they can throw at you. Fable is a critical piece that should be removed on sight as it can dig them through your meager card advantage. Outside of that, they’re playing a lot of expensive cards that don’t do very much against you. Be aggressive early, and slow down around turn three or four to focus on removing threats and creating a mana advantage for yourself.
Spirits
Matchup Feel: Highly Favored
Sideboarding Philosophy:
Spirits has always struggled against the instant-speed removal that Red decks pack, and that’s only gotten worse as we add more White removal as well. They’ll tend to want to get aggressive against you because they can’t outpace your Impulse effects, but you can swiftly dispatch the one creature that they go in on with Curious Obsession and handicap them from as early as turn one. They don’t even have the advantage of flying over a board stall anymore because of the Thopter Tokens. You’ve got to keep a real stinker of a hand to consistently lose this matchup.
Enigmatic
| IN | OUT |
| +2 Declaration in Stone | -4 Bonecrusher Giant |
| +1 Showdown of the Skalds | -1 Kumano Faces Kakkazan |
| +2 Invasion of Gobakhan |
Matchup Feel: Even
Sideboarding Philosophy:
How this matchup goes more or less depends on the context of their hand and how quickly they can deploy a legitimate threat. You’re going to want to go as aggressive as possible in the first couple of turns, and hope that whatever removal you drew is enough to answer the one threat that they can deploy. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t. There isn’t much you can do against a Koma, for example, but cards like Agent of Treachery and Kenrith are more or less whatever. Sideboarding, you want to increase your capacity to throw them off their game. You aren’t going to be able to out-grind them, but you can set yourself up to at least keep pace with their outrageous late-game card advantage.
Lotus Field
Matchup Feel:
Slightly Unfavored Pre-Sideboard
Even Post-Sideboard
Sideboarding Philosophy:
This is an interesting matchup that again depends on the context of both players’ draws. If you’re able to deploy a quick clock and push through damage via Prowess, they won’t have much in the way of stopping you. If they get the nuts turn-three hand, there’s not a whole lot you can do to stop them. After boarding, you need to be a combination of extremely careful and extremely lucky with your disruptive pieces because you’re likely to only draw one, and it needs to accompany a couple of creature threats as well. If you’re able to snipe one key piece like a Pore over the Pages with an Invasion, it can buy you the time you need to squeak out a win. Otherwise, Alpine moon on Lotus field and cross your fingers that they don’t draw a Boseiju.
Azorius Control
Matchup Feel: Highly Unfavored
Sideboarding Philosophy:
If Temporary Lockdown goes on the stack, you can basically just scoop that one up right then and there. Outside of that, sweepers in general hurt, and Planeswalker threats can be very difficult to navigate because, unless you have a tremendous army to fight through them, you’ll be faced with the dilemma of “Do I attack them or remove the walker?” every turn, and there’s no clean answer to that, unfortunately. Luckily, this matchup is beginning to wane in popularity so you can just hope to avoid it.
Red Deck Mirror
| IN | OUT |
| +3 Portable Hole | -3 Showdown of the Skalds |
| +2 Declaration in Stone(on the draw) | -2 Play with Fire (on the Draw) |
Matchup Feel: Being on the Draw is somehow better???
Sideboarding Philosophy:
In a true mirror, you can go into the matchup assuming the control role because your removal is more effective against your own threats than vice versa. Your Prowess creatures will never outclass theirs so blocking isn’t usually on the menu, but with some clean answers to their relatively few threats in the early turns you can easily navigate to the point where you’re flipping the script by around turn four or five.
If you’re on the play, don’t play too heavily into their removal spells until you can get a Pia up and generating Thopters, since you know that all of their removal is one-for-one based. A Fun way to tackle this mirror if you think you’re going to see it a lot is to include a two-damage sweeper like Flame Sweep or Into the Fire, since your Prowess creatures will survive it and theirs won’t.
