I feel like there should be more Walking Ballista here; otherwise the deck will just get run over by Copycat's combo game, despite being able to compete on Copycat's grindy axis.
Frontier Abzan is a true midrange deck that relies on the individual power of its cards to win games. While it does have some nuanced interactions among its cards it does not rely on synergy like Hardened Scales or feature a combo finish like Rally or Copycat. While it is not as fast as Atarka Red or as controlling as Grixis, it shines in its versatility and ability to play roles on both sides of the spectrum.
Pros/Cons of playing Frontier Abzan
Reasons to play Abzan:
It is the best true Midrange Deck in Frontier right now. It is always at least "pretty good"
It can switch between offense and defense quickly
It has great sideboard options giving it few truly bad or unwinnable matchups
It is a flexible deck that can be customized to fit your meta with powerful choices in all three colors.
Reasons not to play Abzan:
It plays lots of Answers - sometimes can be dead cards depending on the matchup
It plays grindy games and does not win "out of nowhere".
If you play Modern Abzan it will feel powered down. There are no real replacements for Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf, or Liliana of the Veil. The discard game is not on par with the older format making the Frontier version weaker to combo.
History
The combination of Green, Black and White has a long history in Magic. Originally the color combination was called Junk by the community, but with the release of Khans of Tarkir Wizards officially gave the color combination the name Abzan, and that is where the history of Frontier Abzan really begins. Not only did we get a name for the color wedge, much to the rejoicing of good-stuff Midrange players (and groaning from everyone else) we got an undercosted efficient creature in Abzan colors that would dominate Standard and have a huge impact on Modern: Siege Rhino.
While Siege Rhino was the best reason to play Green/White/Black, we also got two other important cards in those colors that further swayed players toward Abzan: Anafenza, the Foremost and Abzan Charm. Abzan became so ubiquitous in that Standard environment that complaints of the Siege Rhino Format and Abzan Fatigue were common talking points. It was so pervasive that when Frontier was created many players dismissed Frontier as a return to a Siege Rhino dominated format (though that is far from the truth). Here is a sample decklist from Khans-BFZ standard that the Frontier version is based upon:
Since then there have been some powerful additions to the Abzan shell that make the Frontier version even better that are explained in card choices.
Card Choices
Creatures:
1 CMC Warden of the First Tree The only 1 drop creature we would consider playing with our Midrange gameplan. Great mana sink that can take over the game if not dealt with.
2 CMC Sylvan Advocate Ability to play defense early aggainst aggro while also pressuring life totals due to Vigilance. We expect to go long to see Advocate become a 4/5 and also helps our manlands. Good late game top deck. Easy on the mana.
Grim Flayer If you care about delirium in general go with this guy. Worse against aggro than Advocate and harder on the mana, but filters your draws if he can get through. The choice between Flayer and Advocate (or both) will be the first choice you make and will influence how you build the rest of the deck.
Walking Ballista Listing as a 2 CMC card here (technically 0 CMC) because 2 is the earliest you would cast it. Scales with your mana and is a good way to fight Saheeli Combo.
Hangarback Walker In Standard Abzan lists this was used as a way to get extra value but has mostly been supplanted by Walking Ballista for the XX costing artifact.
Scrapheap Scrounger Recurring threat. Great against control, but bad against Aggro. Extra points for being very easy to cast.
3 CMC Anafenza, the Foremost Under-costed body with relevant abilities. Staple of Frontier Abzan.
Tireless Tracker Can take over the game with card draw and his ever-increasing size. Run him in builds with lots of fetchlands. Better when played on turn 4 to guarantee a clue token.
Nissa, Vastwood Seer Helps to stay on track with land drops to turn Advocate on. Takes over the game late, but can be a little slow.
Rhonas the Indomitable Undercosted, hard to remove threat. He wants more creatures in the deck than we typically run to make sure he turns on. New in Amonkhet but deserves some testing.
4 CMC Siege Rhino The reason we play these colors.
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet Helps turn off the opponent's graveyard alongside Anafenza. The lifelink really helps.
5 CMC Archangel Avacyn 5 cmc is high for this list, so play only 1 if you run her.
6 CMC Tasigur, the Golden Fang Efficient body and threat as we are usually casting this for much less than 6.
Planeswalkers:
3 CMC Liliana, the last Hope Our queen of grinding. Gets back all of our efficient threats. Best when the opponent is packing X/1s, but her +1 is still good even if it does not kill the opposing creature. Great follow-up to Advocate to ensure he wins in battle.
Gideon of the Trials Seems good though untested. 3 CMC walkers have to be considered
4 cmc Gideon, Ally of Zendikar Probably the best planeswalker in the format (Saheeli combo notwithstanding) and an auto-inclusion. Run 3 or 4.
5 CMC Ob Nixilis Reignited Great abilities but probably too slow. Consider as a 1-of.
Liliana, Death's Majesty Reanimating a Siege Rhino makes her an enticing choice, but again probably too slow. Little Liliana seems a better choice on our curve.
Nissa, Vital Force Great abilities on a Planeswalker that compliment our gameplan but probably comes down too late. 5 CMC is just hard.
Instants and Sorceries
1 CMC Fatal Push We are a Midrange deck playing black, so we play 4. This does push the manabase to be more fetchland heavy.
Duress Creatures we can typically deal with better than non-creatures, so we run this over Despise. Its restriction mostly relegates it to the sideboard, but it can be considered for mainboard if you correctly predict the Meta.
2 CMC Dromoka's Command We take advantage of our large, efficient creatures by pumping them up and fighting with our opponents creatures. Also removes enchantments such as Hardened Scales and Jeskai Ascendancy and counters burn spells. Its utility makes it a definite include.
Collective Brutality Utility makes it appealing with the versatility to kill small creatures or cast a pseudo-duress. Now that Fatal Push is in the format it may be outclassed.
Grasp of Darkness Kills most things in the format, gets around indestructible.
Ultimate Price Great rate for a kill spell but its drawback is heavy in a format full of multi-colored creatures
Declaration in Stone Use this as a last resort against a problem card. We do not play a tempo game where we can afford to give cards to our opponent.
3 CMC Abzan Charm We will typically only use the first two abilities but those are good enough to include the card. Exiling is relevant against a lot of creatures. Run 1 or 2.
Painful Truths The best pure card draw in our colors. I would run this over Read the Bones due to our individual threat quality. Drawing a card is typically better than Scry 2 here.
Anguished Unmaking The lifeloss is substantial, but it is a catch all against everything but lands.
To the Slaughter Good option vs Planeswalker decks. In delirium based Abzan with Grim Flayer and Liliana, the Last Hope it will be much easier to turn on.
4 CMC Cast Out The flash and cycling make this card very interesting despite its high cost. Cycling can help turn on delirium and flash can help against CopyCat. It is a new card that deserves some testing.
5 cmc Murderous Cut I would choose between this and Tasigur to be a 1-of.
Lands:
Creating the mana base is difficult in Abzan and is influenced by how you want to build the rest of the deck. With Fatal Push and Tireless tracker in the deck we want to run more fetchlands though we only have one naturally in our colors.
Windswept Heath - Even in builds that choose not to go heavy on Fetches, run 4.
Canopy Vista / Scattered Groves Main Fetchland Targets for Windswept Heath. Each has its pros/cons. I would go with Canopy Vista due to its ability to come into play untapped, but this deck does not run a lot of basics.
Wooded Foothills Our second Fetchland of choice as getting green early is more important than white. Include Smoldering Marsh to fetch black if you run this.
Blooming Marsh / Concealed Courtyard Painfree early untapped mana fixing. It feels bad to draw one off the top on turn 4 needing to cast a Rhino, but the color fixing early in the game makes them a necessity.
Llanowar Wastes / Caves of Koilos In general the life loss on these makes the fastlands preferable but they do not have the drawback of coming into play tapped later in the game.
Shambling Vent The deck's manland of choice as lifegain is important especially with Advocate turned on. Hissing Quagmire is also an option but typically go with Vent as lifelink is better than deathtouch here.
Forest and Plains: There is no need to run Swamps unless you decide to run a black fetchland. There is currently very little non-basic hate in Frontier outside of Thalia, but running a singleton swamp is unlikely to help enough there. She will be a problem.
Sandsteppe Citadel The best color fixer but enters tapped. This is an option if you want to go light on fetchlands.
CopyCat has two main archetypes:
1. Control (Torrential Gearhulk + DTT) - often adds black for removal / Tasigur
2. Value (ETB effects) - often adds Green for Oath of Nissa
They could be put into the same primer for now.
Of the ones listed I play CopyCat, Abzan, and Esper Dragons
We would need permissions from a Mod to post those there and probably a justification on why those decks are selected.
It may help if we could get 10 really well written primers in the Proven section of the site to help legitimize it in the eyes of the competitive community.
I would suggest:
1. Grixis Control
2. Esper Dragons
3. Rally
4. CopyCat
5. Abzan Midrange
6. Bant Company
7. U/R/x Ensoul
8. R/x Aggro
9. G/B/x Scales
10. Aetherworks Marvel
Soul Sisters is one of the cheaper established decks in Modern (~$250) and you can make a decent budget version (~$50).
Definitely proxy a bunch of decks and play them a lot to find out what you like. What seems great in your mind may not be that great when you are playing with it game after game as your main deck.
Radiant Flames has the upside of being able to deal 1, 2, or 3 damage instead of a fixed 3 which means you can run it alongside your own x/2s and x/3s. I run the sweeper as a sideboard card and in those games I would never want to cycle the card. That said I expect Sweltering Suns to be played more and is a better option for main board.
Rhonas the Indomitable seems to immediately be a staple creature in the format and the best of the Amonkhet gods. The others are harder to evaluate so I am interested in seeing what brewers are able to come up with there.
I love the design of Nissa, Steward of Elements. You can play her early as her Scry 2 feeds naturally into her middle ability. Later on she can ultimate immediately for 10 damage. I hope to see her in some kind of UG ramp strategy.
In a perfect world for me Frontier would stay a non-rotating format that begins with M15 as it is now. A more slowly rotating format doesn't sound appealing to me as I prefer idea of getting excited about little upgrades here and there to the decks I already have built. Standard is enough for me as far as rotating formats go.
A 'rotation' to me would be to create another new format in another 6 years or so while keeping the other non-rotating formats intact.
Legacy - starts in 1993
Modern - 2003
Frontier - 2014
"Outback" - 2023
What I think will happen is Frontier will be effectively replaced and renamed by Wizards in a couple years and start with Origins. I'll miss my fetchland / Khans build but inevitably will move on and enjoy that format too.
In the meantime I'll push/play this format because I enjoy it.
I think new eternal formats are inevitable and should be embraced. I got into Modern because I loved some of the cards I played in Standard but they were not close to even fringe playable in Legacy - cards like Blade Splicer and Restoration Angel.
Same thing with Froniter. A lot of the format staples are not close to playable in Modern but I get to use Savage Knuckleblade and Thunderbreak Regent without feeling silly for not playing Tarmogoyf.
While Frontier in general costs about half of what Modern does the lower cost argument is overblown. The price of Magic is what it is and prices of staples will go uper over time as demand increases.
I play and enjoy Standard, Frontier, Modern, Legacy, Pauper, Commander because they give me a different but enjoyable experience. The difference with Frontier with me is I was there playing from the beginning so it feels like my format. I hope it lives. The next standard rotation is big for the format - how much will people still want to play with BFZ and a SOI cards?
New Gideon - As a three mana walker I would be shocked if he didn't fit somewhere. In Midrange / Aggro he is an indestructible 4/4 beater and in Control he blanks your best creature forcing you to over-commit into a sweeper. His emblem seems least likely to be used but can be a nice roadblock in some matches. I would love to see someone live the dream and use every version of Gideon possible in the same deck.
New Liliana - Personally I am in love with the card and have to play her somewhere but objectively I think she will have a tough time. Is she a mid-range value walker (Abzan) where you make value plays getting Siege Rhino and company back? This might be where Liliana, the Last Hope outshines her.
Or is she part of a dedicated reanimator deck where you try to cheat out discarded fatties? Right now Marvel does the same thing and still lets you use cast triggers - which are important to the top end creatures. Maybe there is deck out there that wants to do both.
I do love Mardu Dragons as a deck that always gives me trouble.
As someone who also plays a Dragon list, I originally played Draconic Roar out of habit. After it failed me one too many times I replaced it with Lightning Strike and have never looked back. The consistency of doing what you want when you want it to beats out the upside of Roar.
Glorybringer should be a planeswalker murderer, although tapping out for it when Saheeli is in the format is a bad idea.
Glorybringer seems decent against CopyCat as it potentially kills both halves - Saheeli with 4 attack power in the air and Felidar Guardian with exert.
Aven Mindcensor could be the base of a new Hatebears deck in Frontier.
We do have the new Thalia to pair with it as well. Other than fetchlands I can't think of another prominent strategy it hoses though. Chord of Calling hasn't taken off yet.
Walking Ballista and to a lesser extent Hangarback Walker should be included in the Card Choices. I'll add them.
It is the best true Midrange Deck in Frontier right now. It is always at least "pretty good"
It can switch between offense and defense quickly
It has great sideboard options giving it few truly bad or unwinnable matchups
It is a flexible deck that can be customized to fit your meta with powerful choices in all three colors.
Reasons not to play Abzan:
It plays lots of Answers - sometimes can be dead cards depending on the matchup
It plays grindy games and does not win "out of nowhere".
If you play Modern Abzan it will feel powered down. There are no real replacements for Thoughtseize, Tarmogoyf, or Liliana of the Veil. The discard game is not on par with the older format making the Frontier version weaker to combo.
While Siege Rhino was the best reason to play Green/White/Black, we also got two other important cards in those colors that further swayed players toward Abzan: Anafenza, the Foremost and Abzan Charm. Abzan became so ubiquitous in that Standard environment that complaints of the Siege Rhino Format and Abzan Fatigue were common talking points. It was so pervasive that when Frontier was created many players dismissed Frontier as a return to a Siege Rhino dominated format (though that is far from the truth). Here is a sample decklist from Khans-BFZ standard that the Frontier version is based upon:
4 Anafenza, the Foremost
3 Den Protector
2 Hangarback Walker
4 Siege Rhino
3 Sylvan Advocate
4 Warden of the First Tree
2 Wingmate Roc
Planeswalkers
4 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Spells
4 Abzan Charm
2 Dromoka's Command
2 Murderous Cut
1 Silkwrap
2 Canopy Vista
4 Flooded Strand
2 Forest
1 Hissing Quagmire
1 Llanowar Wastes
2 Plains
3 Shambling Vent
1 Smoldering Marsh
1 Sunken Hollow
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Den Protector
4 Duress
2 Self-Inflicted Wound
3 Transgress the Mind
2 Ultimate Price
2 Virulent Plague
1 Hallowed Moonlight
Since then there have been some powerful additions to the Abzan shell that make the Frontier version even better that are explained in card choices.
Warden of the First Tree
2 CMC
Sylvan Advocate
Grim Flayer
Walking Ballista
Hangarback Walker
Scrapheap Scrounger
3 CMC
Anafenza, the Foremost
Tireless Tracker
Nissa, Vastwood Seer
Rhonas the Indomitable
4 CMC
Siege Rhino
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
5 CMC
Archangel Avacyn
6 CMC
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 CMC
Liliana, the last Hope
Gideon of the Trials
4 cmc
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Sorin, Solemn Visitor
5 CMC
Ob Nixilis Reignited
Liliana, Death's Majesty
Nissa, Vital Force
Fatal Push
Duress
2 CMC
Dromoka's Command
Collective Brutality
Grasp of Darkness
Ultimate Price
Declaration in Stone
3 CMC
Abzan Charm
Painful Truths
Anguished Unmaking
To the Slaughter
4 CMC
Cast Out
5 cmc
Murderous Cut
Windswept Heath
Canopy Vista / Scattered Groves
Wooded Foothills
Blooming Marsh / Concealed Courtyard
Llanowar Wastes / Caves of Koilos
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Shambling Vent
Forest and Plains: There is no need to run Swamps unless you decide to run a black fetchland. There is currently very little non-basic hate in Frontier outside of Thalia, but running a singleton swamp is unlikely to help enough there. She will be a problem.
Sandsteppe Citadel
Hallowed Moonlight: Bring in versus token generators, Collected Company, and Rally the Ancestors
Flaying Tendrils: Our best sweeper vs Aggro
Tormod's Crypt: Anti-Graveyard
Scarab Feast: Anti-graveyard card that cycles
Duress: Great discard vs heavy non-creature decks such as control, ramp, combo, and mill
Transgress the Mind: Good vs CopyCat and decks that go big
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet: If not used in the main he is good in the side to further help shut down graveyard shenanigans
Virulent Plague: Permanent answer to token strategies
Surge of Righteousness: Good against aggressive red decks
Matchups
In general Abzan has good matchups against Aggro and other Midrange decks. It is built to out-grind other fair decks.
Control and Ramp are difficult as their top end threats outsize ours. A resolved Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or Ugin the Spirit Dragon against us is lights out
Combo can be problematic as discard is not good enough to be included in the main board.
Sample decklists:
Decklists vary from build to build as there are a lot of considerations and cards that are borderline between sideboard and main board.
Current Sample Decklist
4 Warden of the First Tree
4 Sylvan Advocate
3 Anafenza, the Foremost
4 Siege Rhino
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Planeswalkers
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Spells
4 Fatal Push
2 Abzan Charm
2 Painful Truths
2 Dromoka's Command
3 Shambling Vent
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
1 Canopy Vista
2 Blooming Marsh
3 Concealed Courtyard
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Plains
3 Forest
1 Llanowar Wastes
1 Smoldering Marsh
2 Hallowed Moonlight
3 Flaying Tendrils
4 Duress
2 Manglehorn
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Virulent Plague
2 Surge of Righteousness
1. Control (Torrential Gearhulk + DTT) - often adds black for removal / Tasigur
2. Value (ETB effects) - often adds Green for Oath of Nissa
They could be put into the same primer for now.
Of the ones listed I play CopyCat, Abzan, and Esper Dragons
We would need permissions from a Mod to post those there and probably a justification on why those decks are selected.
I would suggest:
1. Grixis Control
2. Esper Dragons
3. Rally
4. CopyCat
5. Abzan Midrange
6. Bant Company
7. U/R/x Ensoul
8. R/x Aggro
9. G/B/x Scales
10. Aetherworks Marvel
Esper undead Venser is coming blinking unblockable zombies and exiling everything.
Or he's just my favorite card.
I hope we go back to calling it Red Deck Wins (my favorite deck name ever)
Definitely proxy a bunch of decks and play them a lot to find out what you like. What seems great in your mind may not be that great when you are playing with it game after game as your main deck.
Rhonas the Indomitable seems to immediately be a staple creature in the format and the best of the Amonkhet gods. The others are harder to evaluate so I am interested in seeing what brewers are able to come up with there.
I love the design of Nissa, Steward of Elements. You can play her early as her Scry 2 feeds naturally into her middle ability. Later on she can ultimate immediately for 10 damage. I hope to see her in some kind of UG ramp strategy.
A 'rotation' to me would be to create another new format in another 6 years or so while keeping the other non-rotating formats intact.
Legacy - starts in 1993
Modern - 2003
Frontier - 2014
"Outback" - 2023
What I think will happen is Frontier will be effectively replaced and renamed by Wizards in a couple years and start with Origins. I'll miss my fetchland / Khans build but inevitably will move on and enjoy that format too.
In the meantime I'll push/play this format because I enjoy it.
I think new eternal formats are inevitable and should be embraced. I got into Modern because I loved some of the cards I played in Standard but they were not close to even fringe playable in Legacy - cards like Blade Splicer and Restoration Angel.
Same thing with Froniter. A lot of the format staples are not close to playable in Modern but I get to use Savage Knuckleblade and Thunderbreak Regent without feeling silly for not playing Tarmogoyf.
While Frontier in general costs about half of what Modern does the lower cost argument is overblown. The price of Magic is what it is and prices of staples will go uper over time as demand increases.
I play and enjoy Standard, Frontier, Modern, Legacy, Pauper, Commander because they give me a different but enjoyable experience. The difference with Frontier with me is I was there playing from the beginning so it feels like my format. I hope it lives. The next standard rotation is big for the format - how much will people still want to play with BFZ and a SOI cards?
Gideon of the Trials
Liliana, Death's Majesty
I found an article ranking the Frontier-legal planeswalkers: https://thejapanhobbyist.com/2016/10/28/a-new-frontier-power-rankings-planeswalkers/
Ironically enough the two highest rated are Gideon, Ally of Zendikar and Liliana, the Last Hope and the earlier (better?) versions may be what keep the Amonkhet versions from seeing more play.
New Gideon - As a three mana walker I would be shocked if he didn't fit somewhere. In Midrange / Aggro he is an indestructible 4/4 beater and in Control he blanks your best creature forcing you to over-commit into a sweeper. His emblem seems least likely to be used but can be a nice roadblock in some matches. I would love to see someone live the dream and use every version of Gideon possible in the same deck.
New Liliana - Personally I am in love with the card and have to play her somewhere but objectively I think she will have a tough time. Is she a mid-range value walker (Abzan) where you make value plays getting Siege Rhino and company back? This might be where Liliana, the Last Hope outshines her.
Or is she part of a dedicated reanimator deck where you try to cheat out discarded fatties? Right now Marvel does the same thing and still lets you use cast triggers - which are important to the top end creatures. Maybe there is deck out there that wants to do both.
As someone who also plays a Dragon list, I originally played Draconic Roar out of habit. After it failed me one too many times I replaced it with Lightning Strike and have never looked back. The consistency of doing what you want when you want it to beats out the upside of Roar.
Not sold on Mardu Charm but modal spells can be very good if you use them right. Personally I'd go with hard removal like Murderous Cut, Murder, or Unlicensed Disintegration.
Glorybringer seems decent against CopyCat as it potentially kills both halves - Saheeli with 4 attack power in the air and Felidar Guardian with exert.
We do have the new Thalia to pair with it as well. Other than fetchlands I can't think of another prominent strategy it hoses though. Chord of Calling hasn't taken off yet.