[Community Discussion]: Frontier Chat
The Kitchen Table forum
Posted on Dec. 22, 2016, 8:21 a.m. by EpicFreddi
This thread is dedicated entirely to Frontier. Feel free to post your thoughts on the meta, ideas for your next decklist, and just chat generally about the format!
Of course, you can always start a new thread if you're interested in discussing one particular aspect of the format; this thread should be used for the quick thoughts and informal questions about the format.
This discussion will be ongoing; you are free to post here as long as you're on topic.
This is NOT a deck help thread. Please do not spam deck help requests.
Fatal Push is now the premiere removal spell in the format
January 3, 2017 11:41 p.m.
VampireArmy says... #3
So everyone remember Ensoul Artifact and how disgustingly good it was? What if we crammed in some ub value cards from Kaledesh into it? Especially with Tezzys touch
January 4, 2017 1:13 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #4
It isn't disgusting anymore VampireArmy, due to premier removal being Stasis Snare, Dromoka's Command and Abzan Charm. The others being Ruinous Path, Lightning Strike, Stoke the Flames and Fatal Push.
It is still a good deck, just not entirely disgusting. Take a look at this for an example (and ignore the Day's Undoing.) Ensoul Me Now!
January 4, 2017 1:24 a.m.
Awesomesocks20 says... #5
@epicfreddi i actualy ran accross your 0-drop deck and modified it with aether revoult cards you should check it out
January 4, 2017 5:11 a.m.
Awesomesocks20 says... #6
@epicfreddi i actualy ran accross your 0-drop deck and modified it with aether revoult cards you should check it out
January 4, 2017 5:11 a.m.
EpicFreddi says... #7
... please link me to it? I dont know what deck you mean.
January 4, 2017 6:09 a.m.
Awesomesocks20 says... #8
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/02-01-17-Gdd-cheerios/
January 4, 2017 6:24 a.m.
VampireArmy I've already done that. Dark Jeskai or Grizis ensoul are the ways to go after Aether Revolt. And Femme_Fatale I would argue it is easily one of the top decks in the format, its speed and resiliency are unparalleled by other Aggro decks in the format.
January 4, 2017 7:26 a.m.
I currently have THIS deck that I am theorycrafting. I don't want to commit 25 dollars to it yet. Any obvious changes and help with the sideboard are welcome!
Good thing Theros isn't in frontier, because if Theros was around, Mono black control would run rampant (Erebos, Gary, Hero's Downfall, Drown in Sorrow).
January 4, 2017 11:58 a.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #13
Why would you run 4 colours in an aggro deck that only wants at most 3-4 lands, and absolutely must never miss the colours it requires on the turn it needs? I'm even hesitant to go grixis because you still have Darksteel Citadel as a 4 of.
January 4, 2017 7:41 p.m.
Femme_Fatale that is actually quite wrong, the deck can function easily without W or B (and the manabase shows this) and gets by with both Industrial Tower and Aether Hub complimenting the citadels. There are 4 white and 5 black cards in the deck, and no cards with any double devotion to a single color.
January 5, 2017 12:45 a.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #15
It's Izzet splashing 2 other colors. Even in a fastland and hub manabase, I didn't find too many mana issues when I ran it online.
Also, Baral seems stupid nuts in this format.
January 5, 2017 1:06 a.m.
I can't wait to brew Baral, Chief of Compliance... First he's going in a new standard deck, but I'm definitely holding onto that playset xD
January 5, 2017 1:11 a.m.
BlueMageBrandon says... #17
Hey, everyone! First time posting in this forum but I had a quick question: Which do you feel is better in Frontier, Lightning Strike or Shock?
January 5, 2017 6:18 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #18
BlueMageBrandon: Lightning Strike. Shock doesn't kill Smuggler's Copter. However, Fatal Push is better than either of them.
January 5, 2017 6:20 p.m.
SilverIronMan says... #19
While Fatal Push can kill more than Lightning Strike, Fatal Push can't go face. Thereby, if you aren't looking for reach, Fatal Push will normally be better, but reach is a rather important factor.
Shock can't kill Spell Queller, Smuggler's Copter, Reflector Mage, pumped Warden of the First Tree, or Sylvan Advocate. If you aren't worried about these guys, then run it. However, you will probably find Lightning Strike better overall.
January 5, 2017 6:48 p.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #20
Am I the only one who's super pumped about Hope of Ghirapur? It might not be great, but it's a sweet little card. I love a lot about it. And it's sweet in Vintage/Legacy Bomberman as a pseudo-wincon.
Also, whoever in Wizards thought it would be sweet to make a Legendary Thopter, I want to give you a hug and tell your boss to give you a raise.
January 5, 2017 8:58 p.m. Edited.
Kari is going to be my new best friend. 3 toughness to dodge Flaying Tendrils, attacks as kind of a 3/3 and is a red Human to go into my RW Humans list, probably.
January 6, 2017 1:36 a.m.
Serra_Sentinel says... #22
I just want to say that I'm super pumped about this format (and that tokens can still be a thing!) and it makes me happy that we have a community chat dedicated to it!
January 6, 2017 4:18 a.m.
EpicFreddi says... #23
Gheez, I've built so many decks I want feedback on, but I can't post them all here. What do you all think, should we open a "advertise" thread, much like we have one for modern and legacy?
January 6, 2017 5:57 a.m.
EpicFreddi says... #25
We could also make a "Collection Deck". Everyone makes a folder for there brews and then we link those folders in a deck. This way you could always check out the lists, link new decks and maybe comment on each other?
January 6, 2017 9:24 a.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #26
I don't know how to evaluate Kari. What a weird set of stats and abilities.
On one hand, you're probably getting through with Kari. On the other, the monkey will be mostly chumped. So its kinda a 1/3 with keywords and plenty of upside?
I think my inclination is she's good, especially against opponents who play only a couple smallish value creatures.
January 6, 2017 10:10 a.m.
EpicFreddi says... #27
Kari would be great in Atarka Red. She brings two creatures to the field, has evasion of some kind and with 3 toughness doesnt die directly if blocked.
January 6, 2017 11:02 a.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #30
I'm pretty sure Felidar Guardian is basically going to be one of those cards that people will eventually look at on the official Fronier Banlist and ask "Why is this card here?" and a more experienced player will have to say "Wizards don't like no splinter twins"
As for now, it's probably safe for some amount of time. Eventually, I think it will get banned tho, just because frontier interaction is pretty bad.
January 6, 2017 8:05 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #31
Frontier interaction is actually hella good SwaggyMcSwagglepants. I'd say a hell a lot better than what modern is. Revolt and vehicles really make for some interesting plays between each other that have to be considered. I find it a lot harder to playtest frontier decks than modern decks due to the varied amounts of responses to plays that can be done.
January 6, 2017 8:11 p.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #32
Sorry, I meant interaction as in interactive spells ie Removal, Countermagic, Hand attack, other forms of disruption. I should have used disruption.
With creature combat actually being a thing in this format as opposes to other eternal formats, this automatically makes it the most interactive eternal format
January 6, 2017 9:44 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #33
That actually goes to Vintage as the most interactive eternal format I do believe. You are constantly thinking about what your opponent is doing even by turn 1 due to Power 9 and FoW. In terms of interactivity, I would rate the formats as such:
- Vintage
- Frontier
- Legacy
- Pauper
- Highlander
- Standard
- Modern
- EDH
January 7, 2017 2:18 a.m.
Doro's Frontier Folder is where I'm at with this format so far.
January 7, 2017 3:15 a.m. Edited.
Duskmantle says... #35
4 color rally is the best deck in the format and it is a special kind of miserable to play with and against. Company needs to go.
January 7, 2017 1:58 p.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #36
Personally, I think Turn 1 combos steeply decline the interactivity of a format (even with the presence of FoW), but how I rank interactive formats is just my humble opinion. I mean, all I've really seen of Vintage are the occasional VSL episodes, and as for legacy, some YouTube videos from Paul Cheon, Reid Duke, and Caleb Durwald.
January 7, 2017 6:06 p.m.
I think that Frontier is really just trying to solve two problems with modern: the staleness and expensiveness of Modern. The upbringing of this format really reminded me of extended in the way that Frontier just seems like a rotated Modern. I recently started thinking about implementing something like a 4 year extended without standard cards. 4 years would mean that the card pool would be 1 year's worth of cards larger than Frontier(this is a mostly arbitrary length), and no-standard sets means that this would probably be more affordable than Frontier is now(but it really depends on the format's popularity). This format would probably rotate every 2 sets(so the two newest sets come in and the two oldest sets rotate out), so that people have quite a bit of time to play their decks before they need to change(at current speeds, this means half a year to play with the same cardpool). I think a format like this would be cheaper than modern and would be a more constantly changing format to keep it from getting stale. Even better would it be if something like this was played alongside modern so that you would have more choices, if you want a rotating format but think Standard has too little cards play this, if you want an eternal format and think Legacy is too expensive, play Modern. But that many different formats as a possible GP format might be too many. Anyways, would you play a format like this over Frontier, do you think that this format, if it would gain popularity, would replace Modern or be played alongside Modern?
January 8, 2017 11:33 a.m.
Harashiohorn says... #38
I think even bigger than the issues of Modern, Fronteir is in response to the fact people hate the current standard. People got tired of Collected Company's dominance, and when that finally ended it was replaced by our current situation where Smuggler's Copter is in 62% of decks, Gideon in 62% of decks, Thraben Inspector in 50% of decks, not to mention that a playset of paper gideons will set you back the same as a playset of Inkmoth Nexuses or a Tarmogoyf. I think that modern is "too expensive" is a bit of a misnomer, because tier 1 modern is a lot cheaper than it has been in quite a while, with Dredge being fairly affordable, Tron getting cheaper, and Skred Red knocking down a GP. That being said, the traditional set of "budget" modern decks has kind of disappeared, with infect and burn, two traditionally "budget" decks, becoming relatively pricey indeed.
As to Psuedo extended, I don't think WOTC will do anything of that nature, since Extended became so loathed and problematic that they killed it, and replaced it with modern.
January 8, 2017 12:25 p.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #39
To be fair, the reason people hated extended was because Standard was Jace + Stoneforge, then those cards got banned. Then the extended pro tour came up, and it was more Jace + Stoneforge. So everybody was just done with Jace and Stoneforge, then Aaron Forsythe came forward with an idea he and R&D and Patrick Chapin came forward with, which was modern.
January 8, 2017 2:32 p.m.
magicarp03 says... #40
I'm all for Frontier. However, I am a 13 year old with no allowance, so building a frontier deck will take a while (I'm looking at you, Flooded Strand andSmuggler's Copter.)
January 8, 2017 9:34 p.m.
The question is what is the critical mass of sets/blocks in a format to allow decks to be played that weren't only good in their format. For frontier, we are not quite there, although many of the decks are different than their standard counterparts, they are just adding a few cards from other sets that are upgrades to their original list(s). Take Ensoul for this point, for example.
January 8, 2017 9:54 p.m.
Bovine073 While it is true that old decks have gotten new upgrades, it is also true that Frontier as a whole has gotten more responses to those upgrades. Removal and other spells to counter-act decks like ensoul have since been printed, making it slightly more balanced. No longer is the only responses to that deck unravel the aether, dromoka's command, and smash to smithereens. Declaration in stone, fatal push, anguished unmaking, blessed alliance, immolating glare, lightning axe, natural state, fragmentize, I could go on all day. So really, as the level of creatures and planeswalkers and the like go up, so too does the responses to them.
January 8, 2017 10:24 p.m.
prices for Copter and Emmy are tanking!
DIVE DIVE DIVE!!!!
January 9, 2017 6:57 p.m.
If you want to buy into a Frontier deck, this ban may be your best chance to do so lol
January 9, 2017 7 p.m.
Now is going to be a good time to get my copters for Abzan due to this announcement.
January 9, 2017 7:21 p.m.
SwaggyMcSwagglepants says... #47
Theyve takned less than expected.
STILL TANK THROW CASH AWAY FOR CARDBOARD!!!!1!!!11!!!11!1!!!
January 9, 2017 11:11 p.m.
CanadianShinobi says... #48
Hello friends. I was surprisingly not abducted by the Yakuza on my trip to Japan in October. Anyway, since my return I've been silently stalking everyone and have been wondering about Frontier. If I were to desire to play a game or two, where would the best place to get a feeling for it? And would anyone be willing to play?
January 10, 2017 12:48 a.m.
Cockatrice is normally a good place to play, if you have it.
January 10, 2017 1:08 a.m.
Cockatrice, Xmage, MTGO, and whatever stores are doing paper right now.I play on mtgo.
Femme_Fatale says... #1
Okay, so, I retract my previous comment about posting all the results here for me to categorize and everyone to see, it is much easier to just post the results onto MTGgoldfish, as they have a frontier format.
January 3, 2017 6:06 p.m.