Do you only want to ban cards based on power? What about deck diversity? If 75% of decks run CoCo or Copter, regardless of the deck variety, games will be boring.
The problem is we don't know what cards are going to really break diversity at the moment. Everyone playing frontier is doing so in small pockets, with some playing decks like GB elves and mardu aggro while others are going all in on Ensoul being the new artifact aggro deck. Also Azorious control has started to bubble up in places as well, but over all I just haven't seen a huge prevailance of Coco or DTT that people are worried about.
If the format starts getting major tournaments in the US that is when bannings would start really making sense. Otherwise, all that will happen is casual players getting upset that they lost a good card they could play.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Hey guys come check out our gatherling tournament Sunday at 12pm est... I can't seem to link in here because they keep getting removed... but it's called Battle on the Frontier... it's on gatherling.com
I feel that having Khans block legal but banning fetches would lead to an interesting environment. That way it will be slightly harder to make 3/4 colour decks. although I guess it's been possible in standard without them
on the other hand, I feel that banning lands as simple as fetches could be dangerous/risky, since while they enable 3/4 colour mana bases, they don't really do anything broken.
Hey guys come check out our gatherling tournament Sunday at 12pm est... I can't seem to link in here because they keep getting removed... but it's called Battle on the Frontier... it's on gatherling.com
I'll be sure to try and check it out, though being the release weekend for the Nintendo Switch and the new X-men movie, that might be a bit difficult.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Is this a real format or something in the working process?
I'm not sure what is the card pool, yet players seemed to make deck lists. M15 or Origins?
As for ban list, I would assume that Emrakul, the Promised End, Reflector Mage and Smuggler's copter are banned because they are recently banned in standard (that's because Frontier is close to Standard format)
Is this a real format or something in the working process?
I'm not sure what is the card pool, yet players seemed to make deck lists. M15 or Origins?
As for ban list, I would assume that Emrakul, the Promised End, Reflector Mage and Smuggler's copter are banned because they are recently banned in standard (that's because Frontier is close to Standard format)
It is everything starting with M15 and moving forward. This was chosen because it was the first set with the hologram marking on rares/mythics. No, it is not a "real" format as in sanctioned by wizards. It was mostly made by stores trying to make obsolete standard product valuable again. And no, there are no cards banned in this format regardless of changes to standard bans.
Is this a real format or something in the working process?
I'm not sure what is the card pool, yet players seemed to make deck lists. M15 or Origins?
As for ban list, I would assume that Emrakul, the Promised End, Reflector Mage and Smuggler's copter are banned because they are recently banned in standard (that's because Frontier is close to Standard format)
It is everything starting with M15 and moving forward. This was chosen because it was the first set with the hologram marking on rares/mythics. No, it is not a "real" format as in sanctioned by wizards. It was mostly made by stores trying to make obsolete standard product valuable again. And no, there are no cards banned in this format regardless of changes to standard bans.
Thanks. I wanted to know was this something I should seriously look into.
I do think the Frontier name is odd. And since I have been playing Magic in 1996, I feel that in 5 years and we'll have players looking for a Frontier 2 (and it'll be based on all the same reason why they made Frontier at the first place).
do we know if there are any tiers/decks that are just better than everything else?
I've been playing it since the format was announced with around 250 games logged. Like many people who picked it up it was because I missed my recently rotated standard deck and was very interested when I heard of the format. So far I am liking it a lot. Despite not playing something classified as top tier I find the format very diverse with nothing overpowered. Much like Modern it feels like there is something for everyone.
Aggro: UR Ensoul, Atarka Red, Goblins, Abzan Constrictor
Control: Grixis, Jeskai, Esper - with or without Dragons, but almost all play Torrential Gearhulk
Midrange: Abzan, Jeskai Black, Jund, Mardu - most any 3-color good stuff decks
Combo(ish): Rally, CopyCat, Elves, Jeskai Ascendancy
Ramp: Marvel
Other (Johnny): Sphinx's Tutelage, Aetherflux Reservoir
The top consensus according to MTFrontier's podcast is Atarka Red, Grixis Control, Rally, and Abzan Midrange - I've played against all of them and none feels overpowered. Right now there is no "real" meta based on sanctioned events so the data is coming from Cockatrice leagues and large community run events.
As far as bans I don't think any of the most mentioned candidates should be banned: Fetch lands, Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise all seem fine here as they were in standard. Dig and Cruise will certainly depend on what is printed going forward and should be closely watched.
For the banned Standard cards:
Smuggler's Copter - everywhere in standard but not nearly so in Frontier. Lightning Strike polices creatures the same way Bolt does in Modern/Legacy. We also have Reclamation Sage in the format and Thunderbreak Regent (very common) to outclass it in the skies. Fatal Push is also here now.
Reflector Mage - Dies to Lightning Strike, is really only played in Rally Combo - and not even that much.
Emrakul - Good but fair. Aggro decks mostly keep her in check. Ensoul vs Marvel is the Frontier version of Infect vs Tron in Modern.
We'll see if interest picks up at the next rotation. It will depend on how attached people are to BFZ and SOI blocks as those are next to go. I'm hopeful since I tend to get attached to my Standard decks.
do we know if there are any tiers/decks that are just better than everything else?
I've been playing it since the format was announced with around 250 games logged. Like many people who picked it up it was because I missed my recently rotated standard deck and was very interested when I heard of the format. So far I am liking it a lot. Despite not playing something classified as top tier I find the format very diverse with nothing overpowered. Much like Modern it feels like there is something for everyone.
Aggro: UR Ensoul, Atarka Red, Goblins, Abzan Constrictor
Control: Grixis, Jeskai, Esper - with or without Dragons, but almost all play Torrential Gearhulk
Midrange: Abzan, Jeskai Black, Jund, Mardu - most any 3-color good stuff decks
Combo(ish): Rally, CopyCat, Elves, Jeskai Ascendancy
Ramp: Marvel
Other (Johnny): Sphinx's Tutelage, Aetherflux Reservoir
The top consensus according to MTFrontier's podcast is Atarka Red, Grixis Control, Rally, and Abzan Midrange - I've played against all of them and none feels overpowered. Right now there is no "real" meta based on sanctioned events so the data is coming from Cockatrice leagues and large community run events.
As far as bans I don't think any of the most mentioned candidates should be banned: Fetch lands, Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise all seem fine here as they were in standard. Dig and Cruise will certainly depend on what is printed going forward and should be closely watched.
For the banned Standard cards:
Smuggler's Copter - everywhere in standard but not nearly so in Frontier. Lightning Strike polices creatures the same way Bolt does in Modern/Legacy. We also have Reclamation Sage in the format and Thunderbreak Regent (very common) to outclass it in the skies. Fatal Push is also here now.
Reflector Mage - Dies to Lightning Strike, is really only played in Rally Combo - and not even that much.
Emrakul - Good but fair. Aggro decks mostly keep her in check. Ensoul vs Marvel is the Frontier version of Infect vs Tron in Modern.
We'll see if interest picks up at the next rotation. It will depend on how attached people are to BFZ and SOI blocks as those are next to go. I'm hopeful since I tend to get attached to my Standard decks.
I was looking at some Grixis lists and all I'd really need to do is re-buy Jaces and a set of DTT. other than that I think I have most of it
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned this, but I think that when and if Wizards makes Frontier official, the "twist" will be the number of copies of a card allowed based on rarity, just like it is in Magic Duels (on Steam). The fact that we have a de-facto Frontier format and a Duels format that are sort-of-the-same-but-really-totally-different is awkward. I'm going to make some wild predictions!
1. Wizards WILL officially endorse Frontier eventually
2. They will do so with a nod to the online Magic Duels platform
3. They will apply the card # limits present in Magic Duels (commons: 4, uncommons: 3, rares: 2, mythics: 1)
4. They will make a special fuss of retro-actively adding the Khans block to Magic Duels
5. They will instantly ban any cards that are not available in Magic Duels
All five of these (if I'm not mistaken) would be required to make these two formats identical, but I think an additional reason for this course of action is that endorsing Frontier is a bad look after Extended failed and as, many have argued, Modern is failing as well. Frontier needs to have some radical change that sets it apart from the others. You can call it circumstantial, but the fact that we have four rarity levels and a four-copy maximum lends itself very well to this new use of the rarity system. Especially when you consider the fact that we have "unplayable" mythics contrasted with "unprintable" commons like Lightning Bolt, Dark Ritual, and countless others, it's thrown the whole game into a weird gray area of nobody really agreeing on what each rarity should mean...
So I'm theorizing out muh butthole here, but it's hard for me to imagine them doing this differently.. it just seems like too perfect of an opportunity to tie up so many loose ends and to make the addition of Mythic rarity feel truly "at home" with the rest of MTG
They aren't going to artificially limit cards in a paper format based on Duels. The reason they are doing those limitations is due to the fact there is no secondary card market for Duels: You are strapped with whatever you get, so they have to take into account RNG when deck building. Paper magic you always have the secondary card market so people can build decks with a four of mythic.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
They aren't going to artificially limit cards in a paper format based on Duels. The reason they are doing those limitations is due to the fact there is no secondary card market for Duels: You are strapped with whatever you get, so they have to take into account RNG when deck building. Paper magic you always have the secondary card market so people can build decks with a four of mythic.
Agreed here. A format with forced variance by limiting mythics...gross.
All 3 Frontier sideevents at GP New Jersey fired with 11 players on Friday and 16+ on Saturday and Sunday. The format isn't the most popular but certainly isn't dead yet.
Having to say something like this doesn't really feel like a good justification. That's nothing against you, I just fear for the players of this format. This format was created by game stores, so it *feels* like, to me anyway, that it was a ploy just to sell old standard cards that weren't good enough for Modern.
I really don't mean to bash the format; I'm happy for those that play it and I'd never want to take it away from anyone, but it certainly does look like a grim investment at this point.
It's young and the strength of frontier is based on how strong modern is doing. It also depends on how much support modern actually receives and if the costs of modern drop. I wouldn't call a format dead with attendance at those numbers when it was only started recently. A lot of the people the format is popular with probably don't attend GPs to begin with as it's basically a middle of the road budget format for people looking for a cheaper non-rotating format than modern.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I kinda wanna build a deck that uses dig through time, as frontier is the only format besides vintage I can play it in.
I guess it can't really be banned if Frontier isn't an official format yet
Jeskai Black, various 3-color control decks (Esper, Grixis etc.) and Esper Dragons play Dig Through Time. Most of them also play Jace, Vryn's Prodigy because it helps fuel the graveyard. If you believe Frontier is going to take off one day, I recommend purchasing Jaces soon since his price has fallen since the initial hype spike.
I ended up getting a JVP the other day, mostly because he's a good card and I didn't have to give up much to get him. Only thing really holding me off from getting into Frontier right now is that it's not that popular in my area, I'd have to go to Toronto to play it
You get rid of fetches, you give up any 3 color decks. I would be happy with no shocks, and you have to play with Battlelands and tangolands.
Why ban fetch lands? Without the Ravnica lands what is there to fetch that you can't get with Evolving Wilds? The Battle for Zendikar lands are ok, but not fast...
EDIT:
For a time frame perspective. I'm not sure why we are trying to create a new modern. Let's say for a minute that the format doesn't start at at magic origins. Let's say we create a new legacy with the 16x proxy rule as a pillar rule of the format. Wizards prints all kinds of special products that aren't allowed in modern but are allowed in legacy. All commander products are legal, conspiracy is legal, every dual deck, all special products are legal. That is another problem that modern has. What if Frontier started at Starter 1999. The last set with cards on the reserved list is Urza's Destiny. I excluded Portal 3 kingdoms to made for an easy time line for people to follow. Frontier could start right after the reserve list ends. The resulting card pool would be huge. The number of cards combinations very complex. That would be a very good selling point. There would not be a cost issue either with the 16 proxy rule.
I personally would like to see frontier to be the equivalent of old extended. Something like between four to six years of cards. Otherwise, what is the point of the format apart from being modern light? The rotation element would be a key difference between Modern and Frontier. It would bridge the gap between Modern and Standard, allowing archetypes last longer but having the ability to be always accessible to new players.
The problem is we don't know what cards are going to really break diversity at the moment. Everyone playing frontier is doing so in small pockets, with some playing decks like GB elves and mardu aggro while others are going all in on Ensoul being the new artifact aggro deck. Also Azorious control has started to bubble up in places as well, but over all I just haven't seen a huge prevailance of Coco or DTT that people are worried about.
If the format starts getting major tournaments in the US that is when bannings would start really making sense. Otherwise, all that will happen is casual players getting upset that they lost a good card they could play.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
on the other hand, I feel that banning lands as simple as fetches could be dangerous/risky, since while they enable 3/4 colour mana bases, they don't really do anything broken.
I guess it would be interesting to say the least
I'll be sure to try and check it out, though being the release weekend for the Nintendo Switch and the new X-men movie, that might be a bit difficult.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I'm not sure what is the card pool, yet players seemed to make deck lists. M15 or Origins?
As for ban list, I would assume that Emrakul, the Promised End, Reflector Mage and Smuggler's copter are banned because they are recently banned in standard (that's because Frontier is close to Standard format)
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
It is everything starting with M15 and moving forward. This was chosen because it was the first set with the hologram marking on rares/mythics. No, it is not a "real" format as in sanctioned by wizards. It was mostly made by stores trying to make obsolete standard product valuable again. And no, there are no cards banned in this format regardless of changes to standard bans.
Thanks. I wanted to know was this something I should seriously look into.
I do think the Frontier name is odd. And since I have been playing Magic in 1996, I feel that in 5 years and we'll have players looking for a Frontier 2 (and it'll be based on all the same reason why they made Frontier at the first place).
Thanks.
In his Second 100 days - Yawgmoth's Bargain is unrestricted in Vintage.
What is going to happen in the Next 100 days!!!
do we know if there are any tiers/decks that are just better than everything else?
I've been playing it since the format was announced with around 250 games logged. Like many people who picked it up it was because I missed my recently rotated standard deck and was very interested when I heard of the format. So far I am liking it a lot. Despite not playing something classified as top tier I find the format very diverse with nothing overpowered. Much like Modern it feels like there is something for everyone.
Aggro: UR Ensoul, Atarka Red, Goblins, Abzan Constrictor
Control: Grixis, Jeskai, Esper - with or without Dragons, but almost all play Torrential Gearhulk
Midrange: Abzan, Jeskai Black, Jund, Mardu - most any 3-color good stuff decks
Combo(ish): Rally, CopyCat, Elves, Jeskai Ascendancy
Ramp: Marvel
Other (Johnny): Sphinx's Tutelage, Aetherflux Reservoir
The top consensus according to MTFrontier's podcast is Atarka Red, Grixis Control, Rally, and Abzan Midrange - I've played against all of them and none feels overpowered. Right now there is no "real" meta based on sanctioned events so the data is coming from Cockatrice leagues and large community run events.
As far as bans I don't think any of the most mentioned candidates should be banned: Fetch lands, Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise all seem fine here as they were in standard. Dig and Cruise will certainly depend on what is printed going forward and should be closely watched.
For the banned Standard cards:
Smuggler's Copter - everywhere in standard but not nearly so in Frontier. Lightning Strike polices creatures the same way Bolt does in Modern/Legacy. We also have Reclamation Sage in the format and Thunderbreak Regent (very common) to outclass it in the skies. Fatal Push is also here now.
Reflector Mage - Dies to Lightning Strike, is really only played in Rally Combo - and not even that much.
Emrakul - Good but fair. Aggro decks mostly keep her in check. Ensoul vs Marvel is the Frontier version of Infect vs Tron in Modern.
We'll see if interest picks up at the next rotation. It will depend on how attached people are to BFZ and SOI blocks as those are next to go. I'm hopeful since I tend to get attached to my Standard decks.
I was looking at some Grixis lists and all I'd really need to do is re-buy Jaces and a set of DTT. other than that I think I have most of it
1. Wizards WILL officially endorse Frontier eventually
2. They will do so with a nod to the online Magic Duels platform
3. They will apply the card # limits present in Magic Duels (commons: 4, uncommons: 3, rares: 2, mythics: 1)
4. They will make a special fuss of retro-actively adding the Khans block to Magic Duels
5. They will instantly ban any cards that are not available in Magic Duels
All five of these (if I'm not mistaken) would be required to make these two formats identical, but I think an additional reason for this course of action is that endorsing Frontier is a bad look after Extended failed and as, many have argued, Modern is failing as well. Frontier needs to have some radical change that sets it apart from the others. You can call it circumstantial, but the fact that we have four rarity levels and a four-copy maximum lends itself very well to this new use of the rarity system. Especially when you consider the fact that we have "unplayable" mythics contrasted with "unprintable" commons like Lightning Bolt, Dark Ritual, and countless others, it's thrown the whole game into a weird gray area of nobody really agreeing on what each rarity should mean...
So I'm theorizing out muh butthole here, but it's hard for me to imagine them doing this differently.. it just seems like too perfect of an opportunity to tie up so many loose ends and to make the addition of Mythic rarity feel truly "at home" with the rest of MTG
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Agreed here. A format with forced variance by limiting mythics...gross.
Spirits
Having to say something like this doesn't really feel like a good justification. That's nothing against you, I just fear for the players of this format. This format was created by game stores, so it *feels* like, to me anyway, that it was a ploy just to sell old standard cards that weren't good enough for Modern.
I really don't mean to bash the format; I'm happy for those that play it and I'd never want to take it away from anyone, but it certainly does look like a grim investment at this point.
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
I kinda wanna build a deck that uses dig through time, as frontier is the only format besides vintage I can play it in.
I guess it can't really be banned if Frontier isn't an official format yet
I ended up getting a JVP the other day, mostly because he's a good card and I didn't have to give up much to get him. Only thing really holding me off from getting into Frontier right now is that it's not that popular in my area, I'd have to go to Toronto to play it
Why ban fetch lands? Without the Ravnica lands what is there to fetch that you can't get with Evolving Wilds? The Battle for Zendikar lands are ok, but not fast...
I personally would like to see frontier to be the equivalent of old extended. Something like between four to six years of cards. Otherwise, what is the point of the format apart from being modern light? The rotation element would be a key difference between Modern and Frontier. It would bridge the gap between Modern and Standard, allowing archetypes last longer but having the ability to be always accessible to new players.