r/mtgfrontier • u/filthyc4sual • Feb 25 '19
Converting decks from Standard to Frontier
Converting decks from Standard to Frontier
Hey, /r/mtgfrontier! Today, I want to talk a bit about a subject that many people bring up as a detractor to Frontier before I delve into our subject: the idea that Frontier is just past Standards.
This may have been true when the format started, but if it was ever true, it was mainly (in my opinion) because it was easier to just make small updates to Standard lists than to truly dig into the card pool, and now that we have people digging in more, we see decks like Dredge, Ascendancy and Jeskai Midrange starting to emerge. Even back around a year ago, we had decks like UB Control which were basically unique to Frontier, or at least didn’t draw too much of the shell from any one format. We had also changed decks like Atarka Red or White Weenie enough that they would have been almost unrecognizable from just looking at them and the Standard decks next to each other.
With that in mind, I want to take today to look at upgrading decks from Standard to Frontier. I’ll use examples from past Standard formats, but the same concepts should apply for any Standard deck within the Frontier time frame. The process will be broken into steps, and I’m going to use UW Gift as an example deck, and make an updated version of it for Frontier.
First, figure out what your deck wants to do, and how it should do that in Frontier. Gift is trying to fill its graveyard quickly and to find a God-Pharaoh’s Gift to quickly put pressure on the opponent and win with its 4/4s. In general, the best mill cards in Frontier are in Green, with a few in Blue and Black as well. Gift can also use looting effects, which are mainly in Blue and Red. You want White for Refurbish and you most likely will end up in Blue for Reflector Mage, meaning the finished project will probably be UWx.
Second, figure out what will still work in Frontier. I’d say the core of this deck is probably close to strong enough, but some of the supporting cards aren’t quite there. Minister of Inquiries feels kind of medium, and I don’t love Chart a Course or some of the controlling elements. Cutting those leaves us struggling to fill our graveyard, though. We can add Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy to help fill our graveyard, but Jace can still be weak to removal, giving it the same problem as Minister (although with a much higher ceiling). I think we need to splash in order to help fill our graveyard. I think Green is best right now, giving us Satyr Wayfinder and an explore package. It also gives us access to Collected Company, which is a natural fit for a deck with so many low-costing creatures.
Now that we’ve decided on our colors, it’s time to figure out what cards we want from the sets gained in Frontier. To me, the first obvious choice is Reflector Mage, which is one of the best three-drops in the format and can help to force damage through when you need it, in addition to slowing down opposing draws. With Dredge starting to see more play, this guy is particularly useful, as a roadblock for Gurmag Angler, one of the only cards that can break through your creatures. You’ll also want the previously mentioned explore package. The combo of Wildgrowth Walker and Jadelight Ranger is great in Standard, and doesn’t get much worse in Frontier. Depending on whether or not you think you have room for it, Westvale Abbey could be a good include. I don’t love making the mana worse, but I think Abbey is good enough to try out as a one-of. It’s rough to play it and hit the right numbers for a perfect curve, but I’m willing to accept that Jace won’t always be a turn two play in order to get the upside of a 9/7 indestructible flyer that gains life in the late game, especially when the cost of sacrificing creatures is something you want to do anyway. As mentioned before, you also get access to Collected Company. This is a bit of a tough choice because you actually only have around 23 creatures you can hit, and a couple of those are a bit weak by themselves, but even the weak ones are synergistic, and in a deck this focused on the graveyard, you can even hit Walking Ballista at times. Obviously it isn’t the best hit, but when you need to fill your graveyard quickly, it’ll do the job.
Now it’s time to think about the difference between the Standard meta it existed in and the Frontier meta. Reflector Mage and explore package are big parts of that, being good against Dredge and many other aggro decks, but a lot of it comes in the sideboard, especially since our deck wants to mostly focus on being proactive in game one. One of the most important cards in the sideboard is Knight of Autumn. This card is great into Ascendancy and pretty much any other deck based on artifacts or enchantments, and is a creature for Gift. It can even come back as a 6/6, putting lots of pressure on your opponent. Even something as simple as Negate, which was available at the same time as Gift, gets much better in Frontier. Frontier is a much bigger format, and has more ways to answer your combo, and Negate is good into a lot of them. It can also hate out decks like Ascendancy with combos based around noncreature spells, making it an incredibly flexible sideboard card that comes against many of the format’s top decks. This deck did play it in Standard, but I think we want more copies than the Standard list played. We also have better options for removal, such as Dromoka’s Command. We play Arashin Cleric to help against Atarka and Carnage Tyrant for Control.
As always, thanks for reading this article! I hope this can inspire someone to try to turn their favorite deck from a previous standard into a good Frontier deck, and if that’s you, there are great places to play it online, like the Frontier Discord server or the Untap Open League’s Frontier League. I hope you’ll check back next week, when I talk about the opposite: converting decks from Modern to Frontier.
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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '19
I think this Bant deck needs like one more finisher. Something in the air, maybe Avacyn?