So I'm new to the Frontier format and I'm still getting an idea of how the format plays. After some research, I found Jund Delirium to be an interesting sounding deck and I started looking for articles and such on the deck. However, most sources I found were a year or more old which I figured wouldn't be an accurate representation of the current meta especially given that none of them address M19. Are there any more recent guides/articles on the format, Jund Delirium in particular, out there?

Old-Growth Champion is the textbook example of a card that seems good cause its undercosted and hits for a bit. But the truth is that the card is straight up terrible. You never want to give your opponent a land for free because that would basicly mean that your opponent would "be on the play", and how impressive would a vanilla 3/3 for 2 mana be? (if you were on the draw they would have 2 lands when you have 2 so its like being on the draw if you play one on turn 1 = 2 mana vanilla 3/3) also drawing multiple of these is also very bad as it puts the opponent closer to their bristling hydra, glorybringer, fumigate, supreme verdict, Jace the mind sculptor or whatever it is that your opponent is playing towards anyway. Because of that i would not recommend playing that card.

I'm thinking about getting into Frontier just as an online format. I see you guys use Untap.in and I've been having a lot of fun on there so I thought it might be fun to do. I'm hoping to build my own deck but before I do I was wondering if there was a good idea as to how the meta stands. In modern, the format has mostly resolved into a lot of turn 3.5-turn 4 decks. Legacy, as I understand it, is much closer to a turn 2-turn 3 format. Where would you place Frontier in that sense? If possible I would love to see any combo decks that are running around right now, particularly decks that use artifact combos, as that's probably where I will start in designing my deck.

Thanks for your help, GLHF!

Guilds of Ravnica is slowly coming along and with it a whole range of new cards for Frontier. Here's the first batch of cards:

1. Shocklands! - these iconic dual lands are coming back and will for sure shake up Frontier's manabases. Guilds of Ravnica is bringing the 5 color combinations in the picture (GW, UB, BG, UR, RW) and the rest will be included in the next set - Ravnica Allegiance. How will these affect deckbuilding and viable color combinations considering we'll only have the Khans fetchlands available?

2. Narcomoeba - this jellyfish is well known for enabling certain builds of the Dredge archetype; can it bring a different graveyard strategy into the forefront of Frontier or will the absence of payoff cards not allow that?

And a whole lot more - a new 5-drop cookie cutter Ral Zarek; long-awaited two-drop Emmara that seems alright in Vehicles; Legion Warboss (extra copies of Rabblemaster?) and new variations on Cancel; Duress etc.

Feel free to discuss!

Seriously. All of the lists are at least around 6 months old, and the tier list is pretty inaccurate. For example, why is Ramunap Red in tier 1 and things like Abzan, Ascendancy, Marvel, Cat and Bant Company (of those, I only think Ascendancy, Cat and maybe Bant really deserve tier 1, but they're all much higher tier) range from tier 2 to not even mentioned? We don't have mtgfrontier.net linked on the side either, which we definitely should.

With the new /r/spikes subreddit rules, Frontier content is no longer allowed to be discussed. The previously primary subreddit for Frontier, /r/mtgfrontier, is unfortunately moderated by inactive mods that have, from time to time, made publishing quality content much more difficult and have thus hindered the growth of the format.

Any ideas, suggestions and criticism regarding the improvement of this subreddit are welcome, please address them at me, /u/nascarfather, /u/Acc95 and /u/Blackout28.

Hey toast here , just walked by and saw that this place mostly Posted videos and stats and stuff , decide to help loosen this place up a bit , whats your favorite card in froniter? Mines gotta be ensoul

Hey there, everyone! My name is Acc95. For those that do not know me, I run the Cockatrice Frontier League. If you are looking to get into competitive Frontier, be sure to join our Discord server - we have a lot of events coming up in the next 5 days!

Upcoming Events

Open 4 - one-day event with timed Single Elimination rounds. Registration deadline is September 2nd at 12:29 CT.

Season 8 - weekly Swiss Rounds and cut to Top 8. Registration deadline is September 2nd at 23:59 CT.

Here’s last week recap:

Invitational 1 - Semifinals

Somnus21 (4C Ascendancy) beat Viperfang4 (WG Stompy) 3-1

Acc95 (Grixis Control) beat Loopholbrook (Atarka Red) 3-0

Invitational 1 - Finals

Somnus21 (4C Ascendancy) beat Acc95 (Grixis Control) 3-0

Season 7 - Round 5 Results

Xeddrezz (WU Humans) and Csquared08 (Red Eldrazi) drew

Xahhfink6 (4C Energy) and Njg901 (Abzan Control) drew

Soos (Mardu Vehicles) and StormCrow (BG Elves) drew

Masinmanc (Atarka Red) and Viperfang4 (WG Stompy) drew

Acc95 (Grixis Control) beat Cone3357 (Atarka Red) 2-1

Filthyc4sual (Saheeli Green) beat Loopholbrook (Esper Vehicles) 2-0

Somnus21 (Red Eldrazi) beat Awenna (Esper Flash) 2-0

Razorclaws (WG Angels) beat DenialMa (Temur Marvel) 2-0

Johansson (Blue Eldrazi) beat Aerial (Esper Control) 2-0

Season 7 - Final Standings

1. Xeddrezz (WU Humans) 11 pts

2. Xahhfink6 (4C Energy) 11 pts

3. Csquared08 (Red Eldrazi) 10 pts

4. Soos (Mardu Vehicles) 10 pts

5. Njg901 (Abzan Control) 10 pts

6. Masinmanc (Atarka Red) 10 pts

7. StormCrow (BG Elves) 10 pts

8. Viperfang4 (WG Stompy) 10 pts

9. Filthyc4sual (Saheeli Green) 9 pts

10. Acc95 (Grixis Control) 9 pts

11. Somnus21 (Red Eldrazi) 9 pts

12. Razorclaws (WG Angels) 7 pts

13. Cone3357 (Atarka Red) 6 pts

14. Jankhub (Sultai Dredge) 6 pts

15. Bovine073 (Ramunap Red) 6 pts

16. Loopholbrook (Esper Vehicles) 6 pts

17. Johansson (Blue Eldrazi) 6 pts

18. Awenna (Esper Flash) 4 pts

19. DenialMa (Temur Marvel) 4 pts

20. Maple (Atarka Red) 3 pts

21. Diamond (Ramunap Red) 3 pts

22. Aerial (Esper Control) 1 pt

23. Awesomemrj (Saheeli Black) 0 pts

24. Griffin888 (Bant Walkers) 0 pts

Season 7 - Quarterfinals

Xeddrezz (WU Humans) against Viperfang4 (WG Stompy)

Soos (Mardu Vehicles) against Njg901 (Abzan Control)

Xahhfink6 (4C Energy) against StormCrow (BG Elves)

Csquared08 (Red Eldrazi) against Masinmanc (Atarka Red)

Congratulations to our Season 7 Top 8 players! They already got their invite for our 2nd Invitational event and will be playing the Top 8 matches in the next three weeks, so stay tuned! In the meantime, you can already sign up for our upcoming events using the following links: Season 8 and Open 4. Deadlines are in 5 days, don’t miss out! As always, I hope you enjoyed this installment of my weekly column. See you next time!

Season 5 Untap Open League

This is a collaboration piece between /u/filthyc4sual, /u/nascarfather and /u/rgevault.

Hello, /r/mtgfinalfrontier. Today I want to talk about the deck I’ve picked up for the Untap Open League’s fifth Frontier League, 4c Saheeli. This deck went 25-11 for me in testing, good for around a 70% win rate, including playing against, and beating, some of the best Frontier players in the world.

I was very interested in trying a variant of the Saheeli combo out after the Dark Jeskai variant was reintroduced by /u/awesome-mr-j earlier this year, when he piloted this list to a top eight in the Untap Open League and then a finals appearance in the fourth season of the Cockatrice Frontier League.

In the more control-oriented Untap league, I decided I wanted to test the Green variant, which tends to be better into control due to its ability to grind out value as well as or better than many Midrange and Control decks. I started with my teammate Katie’s second place list from the first season of the XMage League, which after around 30 matches, turned into this list (thank you to /u/mussieftw and /u/nascarfather for help tuning it).

4c Saheeli

Lands

• 4 Wooded Foothills

• 4 Flooded Strand

• 4 Windswept Heath

• 1 Canopy Vista

• 2 Cinder Glade

• 3 Prairie Stream

• 1 Plains

• 1 Island

• 1 Mountain

• 1 Forest

Creatures

• 4 Satyr Wayfinder

• 3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy

• 4 Renegade Rallier

• 4 Felidar Guardian

• 1 Ishkanah, Grafwidow

Spells

• 4 Oath of Nissa

• 3 Lightning Strike

• 1 Abrade

• 3 Fumigate

• 2 Search for Azcanta

• 3 Dig Through Time

• 4 Saheeli Rai

• 1 Nahiri, the Harbinger

• 1 Nissa, Vital Force

Sideboard

• 1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

• 3 Arashin Cleric

• 1 Disdainful Stroke

• 1 Caustic Caterpillar

• 1 Settle the Wreckage

• 1 Dispel

• 2 Abrade

• 2 Negate

• 2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar

• 1 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

As mentioned, this list had around a 70% winrate in testing. The deck tends to be favored against grindy midrange and control decks, which are a lot of the field, and especially overrepresented in the Untap league. With this record over around forty matches played with the deck, I felt very prepared for the league, and was very close to locked on the list.

I didn’t want to be completely locked on the list and unable to play anything else, though. I also got testing in with Mardu Vehicles, Abzan Aggro, and Jund Delirium. Of these, the highest win percentage was Jund, which was around 55%. The choice, to me, was clear: I would play Saheeli in season 5.

In Frontier, Saheeli has two primary problems. The first is the awkward manabase. The deck has many double-colored spells, such as Fumigate, and it wants to be able to cast these consistently. It also runs only twenty-two lands, a problem somewhat mitigated by using Oath of Nissa, Satyr Wayfinder, Search for Azcanta, Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy, and Renegade Rallier. All of these cards either dig for extra lands, or simply play extra lands by themselves (and Search for Azcanta can do both). This means your twenty-two-land deck can often get more mana than a deck such as UBx Control which has anywhere from twenty-five to twenty-seven.

The second problem is the format’s aggro strategies. Atarka Red against Saheeli is possibly even more lopsided than Modern’s Jund vs Tron matchup; I’d guess that Saheeli has around a 10-15% chance to win the matchup, depending on the deck’s builds.

In general, Aggro is very underrepresented in the UOL League, leading me to not worry as much about it as I would have otherwise. This season over a third of the league was on some aggro variant; much more than usual, although BG Scales and Tokens decks aren’t as bad of a matchup as the other aggro variants, Wumans and RDW. I still think it’s very possible that I can top 8; the deck does very well against almost every other deck shown here, and Atarka is a surprisingly hard deck to play, as Aggro decks go. It’s definitely not the meta I was expecting, but I still think Cat was a good choice, and one I would make again in a heartbeat given the information I had.

Season 5 Metagame

Aggro (17)

Sligh / Atarka Red - 11

BG Scales - 2

Wumans - 1

Jeskai Ensoul - 1

Mardu Tokens - 1

BW Aggro - 1

Midrange (7)

UW Monument - 1

Temur Energy - 1

GR Monsters - 1

GW Value - 1

Grixis Thing in the Ice - 1

Zombies - 1

Spirits - 1

Combo (10)

4c Saheeli - 7

Ascendancy - 2

Elves - 1

Control (6)

UBx Control - 5

Jund Delirium - 1

Most Popular Deck : Atarka Red (11), 4c Cat (7)

So, what does this tell us about the online metagame? Well one quarter of the league is on one deck, Atarka Red. The second most popular deck is 4c Saheeli. As expected, the meta is dominated by Atarka Red, the aggressive, low to the ground red strategy which while one of the undisputedly strongest decks in the format has not seen as much play on UOL as its strength would have suggested. The UOL meta has been traditionally very control dominant, which clearly was predicted as the meta shifted to lower to the ground aggro strategies to combat the slow lists that have been popular. Clearly control has been abandoned in anticipation for this, with only 5 UBx lists registered this season. The amount of movement in the meta, with healthy servings of many possible archetypes, clearly shows a healthy and vibrant format with a shifting meta that reflects how many decks are really viable today in frontier.

Feel free to join us in our Discord if you’d like to talk with us in real time, or in the comment section below!

Lists

Dominaria brought us a few key pieces for Cheerios - [[Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain]], [[Mox Amber]] and [[Board the Weatherlight]]. Here's my very rough decklist. The manabase is still in the works and the sideboard are only cards I wanted to save to take a look at again.

Jhoira serves as 5th-8th copy of Sram but also triggers off of legendaries ([[Sram, Senior Edificer]] and [[Jace, Vryn's Prodigy]] ) and maybe more importantly, off of Mox Amber.

Mox Amber ramps this deck by at least a turn, serves as a free spell to draw cards, gain extra life with Aetherflux Reservoir and can be recast for free the same turn if returned to hand.

Board the Weatherlight is this deck's Ancient Stirrings. It finds all the key pieces - free artifacts, the engine in legendary creatures and the wincon in Aetherflux Reservoir.

[[Paradoxical Outcome]] and [[Leave // Chance]] are crucial to this deck's victory. Resolve them with a draw engine and a few 0 CMC artifacts in play and you are suddenly a lot closer to winning this turn. Don't forget to count them into Aetherflux Reservoir's storm counter. In a pinch, these instants can also serve as protection for your Sram/Jhoira.

I chose [[Aetherflux Reservoir]] as the wincon because it's easily tutorable as an artifact and also draws cards with Jhoira in play. Other wincons that I had in mind were Jeskai Ascendancy and Monastery Mentor but those aren't as good. Mentor could be ok in the SB though.

Because Mox Amber is key in this deck, I had to look at different cheap legendary creatures in Jeskai colors. Kytheon, Zurgo, Kari Zev and Baral all seemed like bad options so I went with Jace, Vryn's Prodigy which can at least loot (very important in a combo deck) and flash back Opt/Board the Weatherlight or Paradoxical Outcome and Leave // Chance.

I just brewed this in the past half hour but I would love to hear your thoughts on this deck and perhaps even see people develop this idea further. The combo is still very brittle to disruption but with the right kind of tuning, it could be a fun option to play in Frontier!

His decklist (Mono Red Eldrazi)

Maindeck

• 4 Matter Reshaper

• 4 Thought-Knot Seer

• 2 Reality Smasher

• 2 Glorybringer

• 4 Dire Fleet Daredevil

• 2 Pia and Kiran Nalaar

• 1 Hazoret the Fervent

• 1 Etali, Primal Storm

• 4 Lightning Strike

• 3 Abrade

• 2 Magma Spray

• 4 Ramunap Ruins

• 7 Mountain

• 4 Evolving Wilds

• 1 Wastes

• 2 Sea Gate Wreckage

• 2 Mirrorpool

• 3 Bloodstained Mire

• 1 Hanweir Battlements

• 1 Endless Sands

• 1 Chandra, Flamecaller

• 3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

• 2 Sweltering Suns

Sideboard

• 2 Aethersphere Harvester

• 2 Scab-Clan Berserker

• 2 Dragonmaster Outcast

• 2 Hangarback Walker

• 2 Ire Shaman

• 1 Abrade

• 2 Roast

• 2 Hour of Devastation

The games, for those who missed them

The rest of the lists, for those not on the UOL Discord server

Join here to play in the upcoming UOL Frontier League, and here for the XMage and Cockatrice Leagues!

EDIT: Made the maindeck/sideboard distinction more clear in /u/CSquared08's list, set the Frontier Discord's invite link to never expire

Hey everyone, today I just finished my first match in the UOL Frontier league, and I decided I’d do an interview with the winner to accompany our video feature match. Well, without further ado I bring you, Matt McTavish.

Why’d You Start Playing Frontier?

Matt:

Well, I started off playing formats like Modern and Standard, and I had no clue Frontier existed, up until, Nascarfather, aka Thomas Snodgrass, introduced me to it. I fell in love with the format almost immediately, because it reminded me of my first game day where I played a sweet budget u/b control list with cards like Dig Through Time and Ashiok. Mostly it just had a sweet nastalgia feel, and let me play a variety of strategies with a bigger card pool than something like standard.

How Did You Come Across the UOL?

As with how I started playing Frontier, Monsieur Fast and Loose introduced me to the Discord. Thomas has probably been the reason I come back to the site so often and without him or the discord I might’ve gone elsewhere, but he has made me feel welcome and has made the environment great to be apart of. At the start I just felt out of place and in the shadow of these great players, but he has done wonders and made untap feel like my home away from home.

How Has the UOL Impacted You?

Honesty I’m a teenager who faces/faced depression and was at one point suicidal, and I never felt like I fit in anywhere and was always out of place, but being apart of the UOL has given me at something happy to look forward to each day and it’s finally somewhere I feel that I fit in.

Why Bring Dimir Control?

Ok, so people know me to be a player who likes to play slow grindy decks, i play u/w in Modern mostly, Lands and Twinblade in Legacy (thanks soos for getting me hooked on Twinblade) and in Frontier I have tried many a control deck such as the mardu walkers list I took to the finals before losing to the eventual winner Glasseschan. So when I saw Vraska’s Contempt, Search for Azcanta and Opt I knew there was opportunity for a great control deck to be born. I initially was on Jeskai Cat with Monsieur Fast and Loose, but decided to go on the route of control with my personal favourite card in frontier, The Scarab God, shelled into a u/b grindfest of a deck.

What Were You Expecting From Our Match?

Matt:

From our match I was expecting to play some good magic with someone I can call a friend and at the end of the day that’s all that mattered, win or lose it was fun to talk with soos and play at a competitive level at the same time.

Did You Feel Favored In the Match-up?

Matt:

No, in this matchup i feel it's a 60-40 for cat in the pre-board game and after board it becomes a 55-45 to even matchup so I was very glad to win the first game as well as the series.

What’s Your Outlook For the Rest of the League?

I feel that I got one of the more tricky matchups out of the way early and I feel confident in my decks ability, but I feel I may struggle vs the red aggro burn decks and that is why a good portion of my sideboard is dedicated to hating out these decks.

Anything You’d Like To Tell the Viewers?

Matt:

I hope you all enjoy the new UOL content, and I hope to be of service in the booth soon!

Where To Find Us

Links:

Email: [email protected]

Find us on Twitter: twitter.com/mtgfrontier

On Instagram: www.instagram.com/mtg_frontier/

UOL Discord: discordapp.com/invite/MH6Xdzg

So, we all know that the new set is coming out soon, and it's got some pretty sweet Frontier cards in it. What are you all excited to brew when it's released? I personally will be adding cards to Elves and will be experimenting with new blue decks thanks to some sweet reprints. Link some spicy lists down below!

This is the official discussion thread for Magic, the Final Frontier, Episode Two.

Link: https://soundcloud.com/kevin-finkle-142656842/final-frontier-podcast-episode-2

Hey there, everyone! My name is Acc95. For those that do not know me, I run the Cockatrice Frontier League. If you are looking to get into competitive Frontier, be sure to join our Discord server - we have a lot of events coming up!

Upcoming Events

Open 4 - one-day event with timed Single Elimination rounds. Registration deadline is September 2nd at 12:29 CT.

Season 8 - weekly Swiss Rounds and cut to Top 8. Registration deadline is September 2nd at 23:59 CT.

Here’s last week recap:

Open Winners

Open 3 - Acc95 (Mardu Vehicles)

Open 2 - Csquared08 (WB Midrange)

Open 1 - Acc95 (Atarka Red)

Season 7 - Round 4 Results

Xeddrezz (WU Humans) and Xahhfink6 (4C Energy) chose to ID

Csquared08 (Red Eldrazi) beat Njg901 (Abzan Control), 2-1

StormCrow (BG Elves) beat Cone3357 (Atarka Red), 2-1

Viperfang4 (WG Stompy) beat Acc95 (Grixis Control), 2-0

Masinmanc (Atarka Red) beat Loopholbrook (Esper Vehicles), 2-0

Soos (Mardu Vehicles) beat Bovine073 (Ramunap Red), 2-0

Filthyc4sual (Saheeli Green) beat Maple (Atarka Red), 2-0

Somnus21 (Red Eldrazi) beat Johansson (Blue Eldrazi), 2-0

DenialMa (Temur Marvel) and Awenna (Esper Flash) chose to ID

Razorclaws (WG Angels) beat Diamond (Ramunap Red), 2-0

Jankhub (Sultai Dredge) beat Aerial (Esper Control), 2-1

Bovine073, Diamond, Jankhub, and Maple dropped

Season 7 - Round 4 Standings

1. Xeddrezz (WU Humans) 3-0-1

2. Xahhfink6 (4C Energy) 3-0-1

3. Csquared08 (Red Eldrazi) 3-1

4. Njg901 (Abzan Control) 3-1

5. Soos (Mardu Vehicles) 3-1

6. StormCrow (BG Elves) 3-1

7. Masinmanc (Atarka Red) 3-1

8. Viperfang4 (WG Stompy) 3-1

9. Jankhub (Sultai Dredge) 2-2

10. Bovine073 (Ramunap Red) 2-2

11. Cone3357 (Atarka Red) 2-2

12. Acc95 (Grixis Control) 2-2

13. Filthyc4sual (Saheeli Green) 2-2

14. Loopholbrook (Esper Vehicles) 2-2

15. Somnus21 (Red Eldrazi) 2-2

16. Awenna (Esper Flash) 1-2-1

17. Razorclaws (WG Angels) 1-2-1

18. DenialMa (Temur Marvel) 1-2-1

19. Maple (Atarka Red) 1-3

20. Johansson (Blue Eldrazi) 1-3

21. Diamond (Ramunap Red) 1-3

22. Aerial (Esper Control) 0-3-1

23. Griffin888 (Bant Walkers) 0-2

24. Awesomemrj (Saheeli Black) 0-3

Season 7 - Round 5 Pairings

Xeddrezz (WU Humans) against Csquared08 (Red Eldrazi)

Xahhfink6 (4C Energy) against Njg901 (Abzan Control)

Soos (Mardu Vehicles) against StormCrow (BG Elves)

Masinmanc (Atarka Red) against Viperfang4 (WG Stompy)

Cone3357 (Atarka Red) against Acc95 (Grixis Control)

Loopholbrook (Esper Vehicles) against Filthyc4sual (Saheeli Green)

Somnus21 (Red Eldrazi) against Awenna (Esper Flash)

DenialMa (Temur Marvel) against Razorclaws (WG Angels)

Aerial (Esper Control) against Johansson (Blue Eldrazi)

I’ll be back with the Season 7 Top 8 Announcement - those players will also qualify for our 2nd Frontier Invitational. In the meantime, you can already sign up for our upcoming events using the following links: Season 8 and Open 4. As always, I hope you enjoyed this installment of my weekly column. See you next time!

Here's the full visual spoiler. We've had a similar discussion thread when a part of the set leaked but many new cards have been revealed since then.

What new cards are you trying out in Frontier? Do you see any new additions to existing decks; pieces that could enable new archetypes or just pet cards you want to build around?

A lot has been discussed in the Frontier Discord channel but reposting some of the main analysis here can come handy to those who only frequent Reddit.

This is just a quick announcement that our normal /r/spikes articles will be appearing at /r/mtgfinalfrontier going forward. Despite recent controversy, I just want to reiterate that /r/spikes has always been incredibly supportive towards me as a writer and I'll continue to write there on other formats. For spikey Frontier content by me and others, though, you don't need to go farther than /r/mtgfinalfrontier!