Bogles is another deck that we can port from Modern to Pioneer. The gameplan is simple: cast a cheap hexproof creature, and then stick a bunch of enchantments on it!
Hexproof Decklist (Pioneer)
Gladecover Scout is a familiar face when it comes to hexproof creatures, but after that we’re out of luck for 1-mana options. Luckily Bassara Tower Archer exists and can barely scrape us by with the requisite number of hexproof creatures to make this deck even possible. Having eight hexproof creatures in our deck means we have a 65% chance of finding one in any given look at 7 opening cards. This deck is helped by the London mulligan rule.
Once Upon a Time does great work in this deck, drastically increasing our ability to find a hexproof creature. It’s worth learning the math involved when playing this deck: specifically, if your starting hand does not contain any hexproof creatures, your odds of finding one from Once Upon a Time are 57%. It can also help smooth out the mana for our relatively heavy color requirements. Lastly, it means we’re more likely to lean towards creatures as our sideboard cards of choice, as our opponents are likely to board out removal against a hexproof-based deck and we can find our sideboard bullets more often with OUAT.
Ethereal Armor has historically been the best card in bogles decks at making sure the hexproof creature actually becomes the largest thing on the battlefield. All That Glitters and Helm of the Gods give us a massive 12 copies of this effect, ensuring that if we ever manage to give our creature evasion it will be game over. Helm of the Gods doesn’t contribute to the total for the other two, so if we find we need to make room for more interactive cards or other aura effects, this could be the first to go.
The evasion and lifelink that we can get from both Unflinching Courage and Gift of Orzhova give this deck a realistic way to win the game. Anyone who has played bogles in Modern is familiar with the effect of lifelink from playing with Daybreak Coronet. We don’t have access to quite that efficiency here, but these are fine at three mana to top us out.
We’re used to seeing Season of Growth in Standard with Feather, but it could work here as a card advantage engine. This deck works best when we are able to dig deep enough to find all of our pieces, so the card draw is a welcome replacement for Kor Spiritdancer. This could be a reason to include more copies of cheaper auras instead of the full eight copies of our expensive lifelink enchantments.
The card pool is not super deep, but there are a few more auras that we could try in small numbers. Sixth Sense could provide a bit of extra card draw, though it is unreliable since we can’t guarantee that we will be able to connect until our endgame is assembled. Gryff’s Boon could give us a little bit of extra evasion at a cheaper rate.
With Path to Exile not in the format, some of these enchantment-based removal might be the best white has to offer even if we weren’t looking to stick large numbers of enchantments in play. A tournament-ready hexproof deck likely will include some number of interactive spells like this, but in such an unknown metagame at the moment we just want to focus on doing our own thing.
We don’t need to go overboard with the cute enchantment synergies, but some of the most powerful sideboard options happen to be enchantments anyway, so we’ll look to include as many of those as possible in any given metagame. Leyline of Sanctity is a common inclusion in bogles decks because it can prevent both discard spells and the odd targeted sacrifice effect, which are two of the few ways that an opponent can interact with our strategy at all.
That’s our list for now! We’re exciting to continue our brewing and playtesting to see how this shakes out!