As most of u know by now, Frontier is the new kid on the block when it comes to formats in Magic the Gathering. Originally developed by Hareruya Games, more so formally known as the Star City Games of Japan. They are well known for making interesting decks in Modern and Standard that produce noteworthy results in both GPs and various SCG tourneys. Although this time round Hareruya has came up with something unique, by inventing a new format with their own rules - otherwise known as Frontier. Now in this series of a 2 Part article, I will be focusing on the strengths of Frontier in this article, then on to it's weaknesses in the next. Now before we go in I know you might have a burning inquiry... "WHAT IS FRONTIER?"

First off, Frontier is a solution as a post-Modern eternal format that only allows cards from M15 and onward to be played in this format. Thus, Frontier allows players to play their previous Standard decks in Frontier. Frontier is also still very new, thus it will find itself improving with new decks and archetypes for every new set being released.

In this article, I’ll be going through the strengths of Frontier and why you should be wanting to play Frontier, for the weaknesses of Frontier, I’ll be going through them in the 2nd part of this article. But for the main point of both articles, I will compare Frontier to it’s bigger brother Modern and other eternal formats such as Pauper and Commander.

Frontier is cheap!

Well, it’s no surprise that Frontier is actually quite a cheap format, now this is true for 2 reasons. One would be that the most of the cards that are legal in Frontier have already rotated out of Standard and are very low costed. Another reason is due to the decks that people keep even after they have rotated out of Standard, many popular or powerful archetypes in Frontier are the predecessors of their previous Standard forms, decks such as Abzan, Jeskai, Rally, as well as Atarka Red. Thus, many who wish to build into Frontier can do so at a very low cost. 

Frontier is somehow a good alternative to Modern

Now many would agree that Modern has actually hit it’s peak, and it has somewhat looked “solved” by many players alike. Also, with a handful of decks dominating Modern and it’s high driving cost, most new players would not want to be building into Modern as an eternal format at a time like this. Thus, a new option opens up in the form of Frontier. Frontier might have a small pool of cards which limits the variety of decks in the format, however it is due to grow and expand with the release of every new set. Many would argue now that it is not worth it and it would end up like Modern, but that will happen after a couple of years and the establishment of a ban-list.

Modern isn’t a very friendly place now for new players, from a monetary and power-level standpoint :/

Frontier allows players both new and old to play a “powered” version of their previous Standard decks.

As many players have played certain variants of decks in Standard before, they often look at newer, released sets and many wished they coud fit aew cards into their decks(which by the time, they ave been rotated out of Standard). Thus, Frontier would somehow solve this problem. For example if a player was playing Abzan back in the Khans block era, they would have access to powerful cards in Shadows over Innistrad/Eldritch Moon. Now you might deem the changes to the deck being relatively minor, but do note, cards such as Liliana, the Last Hope, Grim Flayer, Smuggler's Copter, Sorin, Solemn Visitor and many more cards as well. So you can see why Frontier has been getting quite an amount of attention lately, it is a format that breathes creativity and life into many former existing archetypes, and is sure to continue this trend as new sets are being released.

Wizards has somewhat given the green light for Frontier

Now, Wizards doesn’t officially give their full commitment towards formats outside of Standard, Modern and Legacy. Thus, you would find it rather common to see formats such as Pauper and Commander not having official sanctioned events at your local game store. However, Wizards does seem to have been paying particular attention to Frontier. Various Channel Fireball Grand Prix have offered Frontier as a side event. Now side events aren’t that big and all, but not only does Frontier feature in a GP as a form of a side event, many will tend to forget, side events also provide Planeswalker Points to players who participate as well. So, despite Frontier being younger than Pauper and Commander, Wizards does seem to be paying close attention to it and making it feature in side events does mean Frontier does have an edge closer to becoming the next Modern. But during this period of time...

Will Frontier really be a new hope for Modern and the future of eternal formats?

For what we know, nope it’s not going to be the next Star Wars thriller but it definitely raises some amount of attention. Eternal formats such as Modern and Legacy currently are stale in the their meta-game as well as flow of new decks. Both formats are also under immense pressure of god-tier decks, in which a handful of decks are extremely hard to beat and other decks have difficulty beating them. Frontier does give some hope of a fresh new eternal format, what many have described and predicted to be what Modern was when it first came out. A format full of exciting new decks, creativity and room for awesome homebrews. Though it might grow to be like it’s elder brothers, Frontier for now does show some potential. 

Well if so, do stay tuned in the next few days for the 2nd part of this article of Frontier, where I will analyze the few weaknesses of Frontier, as well as come to a conclusion of whether I feel Frontier is a format worth investing into, and how it’s inclusion into the game will affect Magic in the near future.

And we’re back at it again! Welcome to the second article of this 2 part series where I will review Magic’s latest format, Frontier! If you missed the first article. You can check it out here. Moving on, this article will be focusing on what I feel are Frontier’s weaknesses. And how these weaknesses might make Frontier fail like many other formats have over the years. Without further ado, let’s dive right in!

There’s no banlist

Yes..starting it off with a bang and straight to the point. Frontier has been a few months old and yet no banlist has been created by it’s founders or the community. This looks like the format might crash at any given moment. Considering the amount of pressure being mounted to format with every new set. Frontier has to have a banlist ASAP. If not, the consequences would be devastating. The secondary market following this newborn format would crash, collector’s would see their collections plummet and new players would find it difficult to play in a format full of uncertainty - no control over the top decks, and a “solved” meta. That is certainly not what we want to happen for Frontier.

Could you imagine any non-rotating format without a banlist? Yes, Frontier could go down a very nasty route..

Tier 0 decks?

Now for a lot of people, Tier 0 is a very very rare occurrence. So much only a few decks were Tier 0 at one point of time. Such as examples were: 1996 Necropotence, 2004 Affinity, Combo Winter 1998. Though Frontier does not match the power level of any of the decks mentioned above, there are complaints of certain decks/archetypes being somewhat unbeatable. Such examples include Rally and Jeskai Black, both decks have been so powerful that it is already drawing massive amount of hate/counters from sideboards and even more surprisingly mainboard! Some Abzan lists run 4 Anafenza’s mainboard, Jeskai Tempo/Aggro list running full of counters specifically for instants in their side and many decks that could run white have 2-3 Hallowed Moonlights in their side among other threats. All of this is actually causing a sideboard war in the format. Which I feel generally leads to an unhealthy meta in which lower-tier/equal tier decks are meant to run hate for 1-2 specific broken decks in the entire format. This might lead to bannings of a few archetypes but at the very least it ensures some variety and playability for new and experienced players alike.

Flashbacks...literally

Frontier is filled with full of things that people hate to see. Well if you haven’t played Standard in the past..well here’s what I mean.

Yeah...people used to have bad experiences with these specific cards and many others back in Standard. And getting to see them again in Frontier is the last thing they would want. Sadly, with no banlist, these cards/decks are free to fit into any deck that would support their overall strategy and playability. This is often quite serious for many experienced players, even more so worse for new players. As they would see how old decks operated at such a level back then in Standard are somehow legal in Frontier. Don’t get me wrong, but some of these cards should never be in Frontier.

“It’ll never be like Modern”

This is sadly true to some extent. When Modern was created, it allowed cards from 8th Edition onwards to be played in the format, Frontier being newer only allowed cards from M15 and onwards. Though many might argue the format is new and thus has a smaller timeline of decks, Modern actually has a large pool of cards to play with while Frontier doesn’t. Thus, this could lead to players being uninterested in the format as the speed of growth is slow. Players won’t want to play a waiting game in which they wait for every new set, in hopes of watching it’s meta grow. If Frontier were to be a successful and consistent format like it’s bigger brother Modern, Wizards would need to put themselves in the driver’s seat and change the entire policy of the format.

My opinion?

Being someone who played Modern and realizing I couldn’t afford it’s increasing cost and competitiveness, I always look forward to something that could bring me a game of 60 card constructed and wouldn’t cost me a bomb. So far I like to refer to Pauper as my alternative to Modern, but Frontier does give me some hope. Where it would be like Modern’s earlier days where the variety of decks were wide, there was no known top tier deck and there was room for homebrews. However, Frontier does come with it’s own dangers and challenges in the future. Which also makes me nervous to properly invest into a format, such an example would be Tiny Leaders, one of the biggest reasons for it’s failure was due to the secondary market taking advantage of the format. Where there would be buyouts of cards that were only good in Tiny Leaders causing a lot of confusion in the market. Frontier might actually fail due to the same reason, greedy investors buying out a couple of cards that are only good in Frontier. This would cause a lot of players feeling that Frontier is only a cash-grab just like Tiny Leaders, which would eventually make it fall out of popularity and it would slowly die out.

Overall Rating of Frontier:4/10

I believe this is a fair rating for Frontier as it isn’t fully established format. It does has it’s strengths but at the same time, it has some alarming issues that need to be solved immediately to prevent the fall of the format. I would advise players to not yet invest into it yet, but instead watch and observe it’s progression with the release of new sets, until a banlist is enlisted or Wizards making a major change to the format is announced. Other than that, I do hope this has been a good read for the viewers. Do stay tuned for the next article and goodbye!

Looking for (multiple copies of): Monastery Swiftspear, Abbot of Keral Keep, Pia’s Revolution, any Battle Lands, Shadow lands, m15 Painlands, Knight of the White Orchid, Thalia’s Lieutenant, Goblin Rabblemaster, Bedlam Reveler, Westvale Abbey, Kytheon Hero of Akros, and Thalia Heretic Cathar

KTK Standard was one of the most expensive Standard formats in history just with the KTK Fetchlands, flip Jace, Gideon, etc alone. With that in mind, people don't seem to discuss the fact that good or powerful cards in Standard will likely effect Frontier and thus become in demand in two formats instead of one. The format will grow stale and formulaic quickly as every deck is the 4-5 color goodstuff.dec that The Prof. mentions in his video, but another problematic thing about Frontier is it will inflate the cost of Standard. 

Many cards are good in Standard go for $15-20+ that don't see play in any other format until they rotate out of Standard. Many don't make it into Legacy or Modern decks because their power level isn't high enough to compete, but Frontier is a weaker format and will be more likely to demand new Standard cards at the same time as Standard itself. During the time these cards are in Standard, there is a high chance that they will also become in demand in Frontier, doubling the demand for those cards and further increasing the cost of playing Standard. This isn't even considering that we will likely see a reprint of things like the Zendikar Fetchlands eventually. Upon Frontier being granted access to these, they will be sought after for use in every format, and Frontier serves as a further barrier and burden to the market's ability to absorb and lower the cost of obtaining these because of the demand. Frontier is not good for Magic, and I disagree with The Professor's statement of encouragement that anyone should play this format just because it's good to play Magic. This format is and will be parasitic and unhealthy for the game in the end. 

I think Frontier is a good idea, personally. Modern is growing to be very large and in a way is almost cannibalizing Legacy, and Legacy is almost becoming the new vintage. As the game grows, these bigger formats become inaccessible as Wizard’s is unable to print staples in reasonable quantities, or in some cases not at all thanks to the Reserve List. And so Frontier offers a new broader format as an in between for Modern and Standard with a less intimidating power level but many more options than Standard.

That being said, Frontier isn’t without its problems. In recent years, Wizards has been more cautious with the strength of the cards they print. However, Khans of Tarkir block, especially the set Khans, have some very pushed and powerful cards. The issue with this, is that many of the strongest cards are wedge colours, in a format where the mana fixing doesn’t quite support them, at least not in the way people would like. What ends up happening is fetch-land city and the need for 4 colour decks rooted in allied pairs splashing a fourth colour for the powerful wedge cards from Khans. Enter Dark-Jeskai. The biggest potential problem the format currently has is that it’s very top heavy in favour of Khans block and to some extent M15. Wizards needs to do a couple things to remedy this if Frontier is to flourish. 

1. Reprint enemy fetches and/or finish the tango cycle from BfZDoing this will balance out the mana distribution, in some ways fixing the very set but roundabout means such as the way Dark Jeskai does. The issue is that 4c Rally is still a very intimidating deck, but with more deck options, there’s a solid chance that other decks can rise to power thanks to a more stable mana base, allowing more ways to beat the boogyman decks of old.

2. Raise the power-level of standard, just a bit.We can hope that Amonkhet block will bring more powerful cards with it. Kaladesh has its share of strong cards, but in general is somewhat diamond in the rough. If Amonkhet brings more diverse and strong cards, it could lead to weaker decks getting a boost, or entirely new decks being born.

One thing people need to keep in mind though… Yes we’ll see Dark Jeskai again. Yes we’ll probably see Bant Company again. But keep in mind that there are more options as the format is, BIG SURPRISE, more broad than standard. There are more things these decks will have to deal with, and the biggest thing to note is we don’t know the meta yet. We don’t know how different decks from different standards will actually interact because we’ve never done it before.

As for the format banning fetch lands, I honestly completely disagree with this move. Partly because I love using fetches, so I have a bit of a bias, but I think that fetch lands are important to allowing a lot of other decks thriving. Using them in delirium decks seems wonderful for example. And a preemptive ban seems incredibly excessive. Rather than hampering down the format by doing away with fetches, we should look forward and hope that they get balanced out with the completion of the cycle in the format along with the duals they can fetch, although that may take some time to get both, getting at least one could do a lot of good.