MTG Salvation

I do not see a Frontier thread yet.

It's exploded onto the scene at one of my two LGS out of nowhere. We went from nobody even talking about it to converting our Wednesday Night Standard tourneys (which were either failing to fire or barely firing) to it, with great success tonight at the inaugural event.

For those who don't know, Frontier is a new, unsanctioned Constructed format. Normal Constructed rules apply (max 4 copies of a given card, 60 card min maindeck size, 15 card sideboard). Format includes all cards printed in the Magic 2015 Core Set and beyond (so Khans of Tarkir, Battle for Zendikar, Shadows over Innistrad and Kaladesh blocks).

<<reserved for more proper OP later, in the event it's needed>>

I've been working on a couple lists. Most of my time went into Grixis Control, but I kept getting trucked by my friends' decks and finally set it aside in favor of my one true love.



I know roughly where I want to go with it going away.

I want a better creature than Selfless Spirit on 2. I think some number of Spirits could be right, but my creatures already generally do a good job of trading positively with removal, and the Spirit itself is really anemic. I don't really have more than a couple of creatures in play at a time, which makes Spirit pretty awkward since it can't really get the same mileage here that it does with aggro decks in Standard. The short of it is that I don't think people should play wraths against my deck, so I don't think Selfless Spirit belongs either.

I also need Hushwing Gryff in my sideboard because my buddy's Bant deck (built around Eldrazi Displacer) keeps crushing me and it's the only out, lol. My sideboard more broadly needs work, I threw the whole list together in a span of about an hour this afternoon and I know it could be much better in the SB at least.

Here's a link to a Frontier group I admin on Facebook. Feel free to join and help us get this format going!

https://fb.com/groups/344980805847974/?fth=1

Do you think a deck along these lines could work:

• Elvish Visionary
  
• Rattleclaw Mystic
  
• Den Protector
  
• Deathmist Raptor
  
• Whisperwood Elemental

I remember back when Theros rotated we lost the Elf at the same time and Whisperwood was less impactful. Here it's back up to speed, but I wonder if there's enough power to survive in a Frontier setting.

You definitely have good enough grind potential to go long against decks like Jeskai Black. The engine might be a bit slow and insufficiently interactive for the fastest aggro decks, like URx Ensoul Artifact, and you might need to make some concessions to Rally. But that core looks like it can grind with the best of them. I think you have enough raw power, the question is whether you can execute the gameplan undisrupted.

Early draft of a concept I love to run with.

A midrange deck that is happy to Wrath the board.

I was thinking about a similar deck, only going into blue for Jace, DTT and Prized Amalgam instead of the white mass removal approach.

I would also love to see a Devoid deck work...

Quote from scasseden »

I've been working on a couple lists. Most of my time went into Grixis Control, but I kept getting trucked by my friends' decks and finally set it aside in favor of my one true love.

[deck=Abzan Midrange]

Hey scasseden. Do you have a new list for this deck?

Yep, this is how I'd build Frontier Abzan right now:



Against aggressive decks: play to board, trade early, win with Rhino. Postboard, cut 3 Abzan Charm and 1 Gearhulk for 2 Sorin 2 Tendrils.

Against controlling decks: put the pressure on early, save Rhinos for when they tap out if you can. Gearhulk will get at least two bodies out of Languish range so you should have enough insurance against the formidable board wipe without jamming Rhinos into open mana. Your clock is quick so remember not to overextend! Postboard, out comes D-Command, Cut, and Gearhulk, in come Gideon, Nissa, Duress and Transgress.

Against the mirror: The vast majority of Abzan lists either go as big as you but don't play Elvish Mystic, or play Mystic and go lower than you. Against the former, push tempo as much as possible: Elvish Mystic is very hard for non-Mystic Abzan to beat, esp. on the play. All your cards want you to go on offense: Ana makes counters, D-Command is better, Gearhulk brings pseudo-haste dmg, etc. So do it. Against the latter, you want to look for windows to trade where possible because most Mystic Abzan decks don't play Rhino or Gearhulk. Trade early to buy time to play Rhino while you're not too far behind. Gearhulk will stabilize if you have bodies in play, so if your draw forces you toward Gearhulk then obviously don't trade as liberally. You can keep pace with them but play bigger cards so you should be ok. Postboard you want very little -- Gideon is good against the non-Mystic versions esp. on the play but that's about it.

Don't know what else the new set makes possible, but this deck just became absurd:

For those who don't know their Modern from their Standard, myself included, why is this new format so interesting, and what are you not getting from the other formats, please?

At present, it's a bigger standard. 11 legal sets. It lets people play their favorite recently-rotated decks, but slightly upgraded, and in a way fixed compared to standard, because there's a broader variety of answers about. Even though Reflector and Collected Company and Emrakul are legal, the format seems more sane than standard.

Compared to modern, it's not about crazy decks that don't interact much. It's slower which leaves more room to play a bigger strategy. But, it's far from solved because it hasn't been a mainstay of pro-level tournaments.

My friends and I have been pretty interested in the idea of Frontier for the past couple of weeks. Here's what I've been brewing (I'm only a couple of cards short of completing it in paper):



From testing, this format seems to be a turn 4 format, a bit like Modern. The aggro decks are fast and consistent. The control decks have great mana, therefore have access to the best removal and sweepers from each colour. Games are decided very quickly based on matchup and opening hands. I can see this format becoming very cutthroat.

As for my deck, I am heavily inspired by the Ascendancy deck that was around basically as long as Jeskai Ascendancy was in standard. Of course, a few extra sets gives us many more options to fine-tune the deck, so we don't need to run junk like Stratus Walk/Honored Hierarch combo just to go off.

My current deck still requires a lot of tuning I think, but it's capable of very regular turn 4 and 5 kills, regardless of the board state. The combo is very difficult to interact with; the opponent essentially needs either a counterspell (or several) or an instant-speed removal spell just to interact.

The most complicated choices concern the mana base; when to play which land and what to fetch can often determine when you can combo.

The most problematic deck so far has been Atarka Red. This deck is so fast and consistent and has just enough burn and reach that it is difficult to combo off in time. The sideboard is very much geared towards fighting that matchup. Everything else seems to be fairly easy to beat, provided that the deck doesn't just lose to itself.

Essentially, I just wanted a good deck that played both Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time!

Hey Upkeep, I see we both have been looking at Frontier!

My question about ascendancy is it it is good enough to justify playing over Nahiri-rul or copycat. Both of those take up a lot less of their deck on the combo, and can run a lot of counters/removal which keeps them alove better.

I'm not sure what you're talking about? Nahiri-Rul supposed to be Nahiri, the Harbinger + Something, but what is copycat?

Nahiri into emrakul, and copycat is Saheeli Rai with Felidar Guardian for infinite tokens. My phone is bad with tags, but basically its a weaker splinter twin.

Am I missing something with Nahiri-Emrakul? I see that it's a 13/13, but that's not necessarily an instant kill combo, not to mention you need to ultimate a Planeswalker... I can't see the control of the turn being that crazy either in a lot of scenarios. Is there something else that makes this broken that I'm missing, or am I just dreaming too big?

Saheeli Rai into Felidar Guardian seems pretty sweet!

I'm doing some strange zombie recursion deck. But it looks like Copycat will be the one to break Frontier.

Quote from Upkeep »

Am I missing something with Nahiri-Emrakul? I see that it's a 13/13, but that's not necessarily an instant kill combo, not to mention you need to ultimate a Planeswalker... I can't see the control of the turn being that crazy either in a lot of scenarios. Is there something else that makes this broken that I'm missing, or am I just dreaming too big?

Saheeli Rai into Felidar Guardian seems pretty sweet!

I don't think you are missing anything, Frontier just happens to lack good removal outside of white so landing Emrakul it is here to stay.

I'll post my copycat deck tomorrow.

I just finished making an Abzan modern deck that is built around Languish. All the creatures survive Languish, and the deck is a rock based deck with threats, removal, and card draw.



What do you guys think?

I like it, seems like a very potent form of midrange. You might need some discard in the main though to help with control decks.

Speaking of control decks I am at a quandry with countercat. The way it seems to me the deck can be built either as a traditional combo-control deck which casts a lot of counter spells and removal to stay alive until it wins, or it can be a midrange deck.

This would use spellqueller, reflector mage, cloudblazer, felidar guardian and Saheeli rai. Throw in Panharmonicon and you actually have two infinite combos: Copycat and Two Felidar guardians+ Panharmonicon. The latter combo would like as follows: Guardian enters the Battlefield, flickers both the other guardian and one of: Reflector mage, cloudblazer or wingmate rock. The other guardian comes back into play and flickers the first guardian and the value creature again, making an infinite loop.

Anyone done any experiments with control? I was looking at making a BUG control deck based around the weird interactions between Day's Undoing and Brain in a Jar. It can cast it on your opponents end step, or cast it off of an expertise to wipe the field and then immediately restock your hand.

Day in a Jar Control

I can tell you the local control deck with Dig Through Time and Torrential Gearhulk is very much a thing. It's much more conventional control than what you're trying.

I have in the past had success running UW flash with Day's Undoing, and in Frontier I could see UWG flash doing its thing effectively. I like the anti-control aspect of this play. If you can clear their graveyard from all the recursion and cost-reducing effects, that's a good thing for you. And you'll probably still have 2 mana left to counter their play and/or flash in a creature.

I would love to test how this goes, is anyone interested in cockatrice testing for Frontier?