Playtest! Frontier Battle
Frontier has been a hotly debated format in the Magic community over the past few months. Some people love it, some people hate it, and some people don't even know what it is. Personally, I've been skeptical of the format, but I'd never really given it a fair shot—until last week, when streamer and content producer Mrs. Mulligan and I battled it out on stream with three different Frontier decks! Today, we have videos of those matches, so if you're interested in the format and want to see what the games actually look like and how they play out, make sure to check them out below!
Anyway, let's get to the videos, but first a quick reminder. If you enjoy the Frontier Battle and the other video content here on MTGGoldfish, make sure to subscribe to the MTGGoldfish YouTube Channel.
Special thanks to Mrs. Mulligan for helping us test out Frontier. Be sure to check out her stream over at https://www.twitch.tv/mrs_mulligan.
Frontier Battle: Intro and Deck Overviews
Frontier Battle: Jeskai Black vs. GB Snek (Match 1)
Frontier Battle: Ensoul Artifact vs. Esper Control (Match 2)
Frontier Battle: Grixis Tutelage vs. GW Tokens (Match 3)
Frontier Battle: Ensoul Artifact vs. GB Snek (Bonus)
Our Decklists
Mrs. Mulligan's Decks
Wrap-Up
All in all, the format was actually pretty fun to play. While it did have a noticeable "ghosts of Standards past" feel (actually, apart from the Winding Constrictor deck, all of the decks were, more or less, adaptations of old Standard decks), there were enough new cards that it didn't feel exactly like Standard. While I was updating the deck I played, I was also struck by the fact that it was actually worth considering a lot of cards, which makes brewing interesting. Maybe the best example is Reverse Engineer. In Modern, the card pool is big enough that it's outclassed by Thoughtcast, but in Frontier, the card pool is small enough that Reverse Engineer is the best card for the slot. As such, it seem like a lot of new cards have at least some potential in the format. Of course, this will change as the card pool grows, but for right now, Frontier actually seems like fun. Whether or not it becomes a real format remains to be seen, so there is still some Tiny Leaders-like risk that you end up building a deck and then have no place to play it, but if you are bored with Modern and not a fan of Standard, you could do worse than trying out Frontier. You might even end up liking it!
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments. As always, you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
