How Frontier Can Succeed in the Long Term

by SaffronOlive // Dec 19, 2016

It seems like everyone is talking about Frontier these days (if you're not familiar with the format, you can check out the What Is Frontier? video). Springing forth from the Japanese Magic scene, Frontier is a non-rotating format that is designed to fill a gap between Standard and Modern: a place where players can keep playing their recently rotated Standard cards, an accessible format of cards from high-supply sets, and a fun format that many have called a brewer's paradise.

I've had a lot of people ask me my opinion about Frontier, and while I have some reservations about the format itself and its card pool, I haven't yet had the opportunity to play the format, so until I do, I'm going to avoid talking about just how much fun (or unfun) the format may be, because I just don't know yet (I plan on making some playtest videos with Richard soon), and instead focus on something far more important: the long-term viability of the format. Most of the Frontier players I've talked to so far have said something along the lines of, "The format is a ton of fun right now, so I'm just going to enjoy it and not worry about the long term." And while this attitude is fine on an individual level, a more long-term mind-set is needed if Frontier is going to be a success and achieve its goal,

So today, we are going to do two things. First, we are going to look at three goals / benefits of the Frontier format and talk about how while Frontier is doing a good job of achieving these goals and granting these benefits right now, Frontier cannot succeed in its current form over the long term. Second, we are going to talk about how Frontier can succeed at achieving its goals, not just for the next year or two, but for the next decade with one easy change.

The Three Benefits / Goals of Frontier

#1: Frontier Is Comparatively Inexpensive

One of the biggest positives I've heard about Frontier is that the format is cheap—much cheaper than Modern. In fact, the cost of cards was one of the reasons Hareruya mentioned in its announcement of the format. Basically, many people think Modern is too expensive, and Frontier is a reaction to this perception. Let's start by talking a little bit about the cost of Frontier (and Modern) at the present, and then we'll move on to talking about what the future of Frontier looks like, assuming the format is a success.

First off, judging the cost of Frontier fairly is complicated by the fact that we simply don't have many deck lists for the format yet. I mean, if you look at the metagame, decks with a single finish in a small tournament are technically in the top tier of the format. The sample size is so small that it's essentially meaningless. Using the $97 price tag of a Starfield of Nyx deck that happened to Top 8 a tournament and calling Frontier cheap would be like looking at the SCG IQ results that contained the now infamous (and super-cheap) Mono-Blue Mill deck and declaring that Modern is cheap.

What we do know is that Rally the Ancestors is currently the best deck in Frontier (again, this is limited by a small sample size, but it has the most tournament finishes by a significant margin), and the price tag on the deck is somewhere between $350 and $450, depending on the specific build. There are a few other decks in the $400 range, including Abzan, Jeskai Black, and Jund Aetherworks; several cheap decks between $100 and $150; and a relatively large group in the middle, somewhere in the neighborhood of $250.

Meanwhile, people seem to have a major misunderstanding of the cost of Modern. While it's true that you're going to spend a lot of money on Tarmogoyf and Liliana of the Veil if you want to play Jund or Abzan, discounting these decks, the average price of the top eight most-played decks in the format is about $700, although you can get top-tier decks for as little as $400 (Ad Nauseam) and a few more for around $500 (Titan Shift, Tron, Dredge). So, absent a better way of calculating prices, the equation seems to be as follows. The cheapest tier Modern decks are roughly the same cost as the most expensive tier Frontier deck, and looking at the formats as a whole, it seems that the average cost of playing a competitive Modern deck is roughly a bit more than double (perhaps 2.5 times) that of the average Frontier deck. This probably sounds awesome, and a good clickbait headline could be "Frontier Decks Are Only Half the Price of Modern Decks," and while this is technically true, it's also a very simplistic look at the situation.

Here's the thing: right now, the price of Modern is essentially at its peak. In fact, the price of the format has stagnated over the past year or two, and the prices of many Modern cards have dropped as Wizards has renewed its focus on reprinting format staples. Meanwhile, the price of Frontier is as cheap as it ever will be, as most of the format consists of cards that recently rotated from Standard and are at all-time lows. Taken as a whole, the equation is that Modern isn't getting any more expensive, while Frontier cards have no place to go but up in price.

Frontier people like to argue that the supply of the cards in Frontier is high enough that the format is immune to price increases, but this simply isn't true. Tiny Leaders—which was a much smaller and less hyped format than Frontier is today and without the support of major stores like Face to Face and Hareruya—had a major impact on card prices, and as opposed to popular opinion, it wasn't just super old, low-supply cards that jumped in price, as Ezuri, Renegade Leader exemplifies.

When Tiny Leaders came to be, Ezuri, Renegade Leader was not a low-supply card. Actually, quite the opposite—it had just been reprinted in a Commander deck a few months before, and if you wanted a copy, you could easily get one in a Commander deck at your local big-box store. Even so, Ezuri, Renegade Leader increased five times in price, going from $2 to $10, and despite the reprinting, it is still more than double its original price to this day (even though Tiny Leaders is long since dead).

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Am I expecting Frontier cards to increase five times in price? Not immediately (or even ever, for most cards), but they don't have to increase five times to make the format nearly as expensive as Modern. Take Abzan, for example. Siege Rhino is currently just over $1, Hangarback Walker is only $2.50, the mythic Anafenza, the Foremost is bulk, Dromoka's Command is just over $1, Sorin, Solemn Visitor is about $3.50, and the fetch lands that make up the Frontier mana base are still at rotational lows. If the non-land cards all shoot up into the $5 range—which is completely believable, considering what we've seen from birth of Tiny Leaders and, before that, Modern—then the cost of a Frontier deck will be close to that of a Modern deck.

And remember, we're not talking about the short term here. Frontier may be cheap for the next year or two, but what about in three years? Or five years? Or when the set has 15 years' worth of cards like Modern? Although Khans of Tarkir looks like a "high supply" set by 2016 standards, what about 2025 standards? This point of all this is that while Frontier has a price advantage over Modern today, this advantage is not sustainable over the long term, and as the price difference between Frontier and other formats diminishes, so does one of the goals of the format.

#2: Frontier Is a Brewer's Paradise

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The second thing I heard about Frontier is that it's an amazing format because it's ripe for brewing. Do you like Goblin Rabblemaster? You can build a deck around it and probably get some wins! Panharmonicon? Sure! A Khans wedge? Yep! Looking over the metagame page, this appears to be mostly true. While still limited by a lack of sample size, there have been some interesting brews to take down Frontier tournaments recently. The problem here is that people are misattributing this to being a feature of Frontier as a format, when being a "brewer's paradise" is actually a feature of most (and arguably all) new formats.

This is why people love Standard at rotation. Even formats that degenerate into two, three, or four decks like Kaladesh look like a brewer's paradise at first. Or, think of it this way: pick a random set in Magic's history and pretend that it's the starting point for a new format. Don't think that this imaginary format would be a brewer's paradise as well while people test out synergies that have never been played before with cards that are sharing a format for the first time? Of course it would!

Right now, only a very small group of players have really been brewing in the Frontier format, and the metagame is pretty much local at this point in time. But, let's assume that Frontier takes off and becomes the next Modern, with GPs and perhaps even a Pro Tour. Suddenly, you have a group of pro players who are incentivized to break the format, and based on our experiences with a very similar card pool, the format looks breakable. This is not to say it will end up like Tiny Leaders, with a single deck (Geist of Saint Traft) essentially killing the format, but the meta will solidify once the pros get their hands on the format, and there's no doubt that it will eventually happen if the format is a success. If Frontier organically grows to even half the size of Modern, you can bet that Wizards will want to get its hands on the format and monetize this part of the game.

Once this happens, instead of having 10 decks, the metagame page will be overloaded with Frontier decks, and when you show up to your next Frontier tournament, instead of playing some random pile of Goblins or Starfield of Nyx, you're going to play Jeskai Black, Abzan, Bant Company, or Rally the Ancestors (or whatever deck managed to Top 8 the last Frontier GP or Pro Tour) over and over and over again, because everyone will know those are the best decks in the format. Maybe these decks don't feel too oppressive yet, but remember that they are simply old Standard lists or lists built by local players. Once you get 20 pros in a room for a week trying to build the best version of Jeskai Black (or whatever other deck) possible, it will be much less beatable, and playing any other way will be wrong if the goal is winning the tournament.

Again, just like the financial advantages of Frontier, the "brewer's paradise" advantage is short term. It might last for a few months or even a couple years, depending on if and how the format grows and when Wizards takes notice, but sooner or later, Frontier will look just like Modern (and every other mature format). There will be a handful of best decks, and most random home brews won't be able to keep up.

#3: It Helps New Players Keep Playing Their Rotated Standard Cards

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While it is undoubtedly true that the birth of the Frontier format has given new life to Khans block cards and other recently rotated Standard staples, this only helps players who have just now started playing or started in the past couple years. This feature isn't unique to Frontier. Vintage, with its $30,000 decks, is cheap for players who started playing in 1993, and Modern is cheap if you were playing Standard in the mid-2000s. Of course, buying into Vintage, Legacy, and even Modern now is extremely expensive for new players. As such, getting into a format cheaply is more a matter of luck than anything else—you just happened to be playing at the right time to have the cards that are important to the format from drafting or playing Standard.

As a result, this benefit and goal of Frontier won't last for long. Assuming the format takes off, within two years, new players won't have the format staples because they will not have been playing when Siege Rhino, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, and the rest of the Khans-era staples were in Standard. So, for these players, there will be a significant barrier to entry to the format. To be able to compete on the tournament scene, they'll have to spend several hundred dollars, and potentially even more as the prices of format staples increase as the format grows.

Even beyond the price barrier, as the Frontier format grows as new sets are released, it will become harder and harder for new cards to break into the format. Theoretically, new players can simply keep playing their rotated Standard cards in Modern, but Modern has 15 years of sets, which means 15 years of very powerful cards, which means the odds that your random Kaladesh or Amonkhet cards are good enough to make a competitive deck are extremely low, so this doesn't actually work out in practice.

This same thing will happen in Frontier. I mean, it happens in Standard, which has a significantly smaller card pool. How often do we see a new Standard set release and, unless it comes along with a rotation, the top decks in the format remain more or less the same, with perhaps a new addition here and there? I'd argue that this happens more often than not. If this happens in Standard, with only a small handful of sets making up the card pool, it will happen in Frontier as well and grow worse as new sets enter the card pool, making the format more similar to Modern in size than Standard. The point of all this is that while it's true that Frontier helps new-ish players continue to play their cards right now, today, this benefit isn't lasting, and it will be gone altogether within a handful of years.

It's Modern, Again

Let me tell you a story. There was once a format that was unpopular with some portion of the community. Out of a grassroots movement, a new format came to be. The price of the format was cheap, and the newness of the card pool made it a brewer's paradise. As the format grew, Wizards eventually threw its support behind the format, giving it a Grand Prix, Pro Tours, and its very own supplemental products. More players joined the format, and prices spiraled out of control. Eventually, the pros started building degenerate decks, each one faster than the last, and the card pool, lacking the answers found in older formats, had few ways to defend itself. Eventually, some portion of the Magic-playing population decided they didn't like this format, and the process began again. This is the story of Modern, and it will be the story of Frontier as well.

While I really hate this quote because it's so overused, it's been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result, and by this standard, Frontier is the definition of an insane format. You don't fix the problems of the past by doing the exact same things done in the past, and this is the problem with Frontier in its current format.

Sure, it's great for new players now, because they have most of the important cards from Standard, but what about new players three years from now? They'll have a barrier of entry, just like Modern. Yes, it's a brewer's paradise now, but what happens once (if?) the format succeeds and the pros are incentivized to start building in and eventually breaking it? Of course prices are cheap right now, but what happens as the format grows and Khans block—the foundation of the format—is five years in the rear-view mirror?

What I'm trying to say is that everything you love about Frontier today is fleeting. In fact, I'd argue that you don't love Frontier, but that the things you think you love about Frontier are simply byproducts of the newness of the format. It's essentially a honeymoon. Every marriage looks great during the honeymoon, but expecting the honeymoon to last forever is a sure way to end up dissatisfied over the long haul.

This is not to say that you shouldn't play Frontier. If you enjoy the format, play it! However, all of the benefits of Frontier that are being sold to the community are short term and / or only help a very small segment of the player base. Over the long term, Frontier will have essentially all of the same problems as Modern. As I mentioned earlier, Frontier players often say, "I'm having fun now, so it doesn't matter what happens in the future." This attitude is fine on an individual basis but dangerous over the long term, as players will get burned and be far less likely to support the next new format.

With this in mind, many of the issues that Frontier was designed to addressed are legitimate, and having a format designed to fix these problems is a worthy idea. It does cost a lot for new players to get into Modern, and most new cards are valueless and unplayable once their rotate from Standard. While reprints can help, Modern will never be accessible for everyone, and as more sets enter the format, it does become harder and harder for new cards to make it into the format.

What I'm trying to say is that the goals of Frontier are worthy and having an additional format between Standard and Modern is a reasonable goal, but Frontier itself is fool's gold and a short-term solution to the problem. The good news is that there is a way to fix these issues over the long term.

How Frontier Can Succeed in the Long Term

Before explaining the solution, here's a quick refresher on the main goals of Frontier, along with the things players currently like about the format. After each goal, there's also a reminder of why this goal or benefit is only achieved by Frontier over the short term.

It's comparatively inexpensive. This won't be true if the format succeeds because it's not that cheap, so even small price increases will ruin this benefit. It's accessible to new players, giving them a chance to continue playing rotated Standard cards. This is only true for new players from right now (or the past couple of years). Three years from now, there will be a significant barrier to entry, and even more so in five or ten years. So, just like Modern, this is a benefit only for those who happened to be playing Magic at the right time, so if you're reading this article, it's probably awesome for you but actually does nothing to help new players over the long term. It's a brewer's paradise. This benefit diminishes by the day as the format solidifies. If new sets can't shake up Standard with any regularity, why would a random set be able to shake up a format with three, six, or 10 times as many sets? It won't.

So, how do we go about fixing these problems in a sustainable way and make sure that the benefits continue over the long haul? The answer is rotation. While we can keep the foundation of Frontier if that's what people think is best, the only way to achieve the goals of Frontier for the next decade, rather than for the next couple of years, is to have a built-in rotation mechanism.

While rotation was different back in the old days, in modern times, Magic players think of formats in one of two ways: they either never rotate, like Modern, Legacy and Vintage, or they rotate quickly, like Standard on a yearly basis. If we need a format in between Modern and Standard, the "in between" isn't in card pools or power levels; it's in the time it take for the format to rotate.

Here's my proposal: the in-between format players create needs to rotate once every four years. Ideally, we could just build this mechanism into Frontier, since the format is already getting support and being hyped by community members, but if needed, an entirely different format could be created. Here's how it would work: every four years, we drop four years' worth of sets from the format, which leaves us with a format that at its smallest is essentially four years (or two complete Standard formats) of sets and at its largest would contain eight years' worth of sets (making a format that is roughly half the size of the current Modern format).

Let's pretend this started in the past. The current Frontier (or whatever we call it) format would contain all the cards from Zendikar to present, making the format just about as large as it can ever be. While this wouldn't feel exactly like Modern, eight years of sets is a lot of cards and should offer extremely deep gameplay. Then, next fall, when the yet-to-be-named big set releases, all of the sets between Zendikar and Return to Ravnica block would rotate together, leaving us with a format that looks almost exactly like the current Frontier card pool (with the addition of Theros block). This would be the smallest the format would ever be, and over the next four years, new sets will join the format every three months as they release. Then, in 2021, we'd be back up to eight years' worth of sets in Frontier, and once again the four oldest years would drop from the format, bringing us back down to four years and repeating the process once again. So, what does building this four-year rotation into the format achieve? Let's go back to our list of benefits from Frontier and see how this simple rotation mechanism can make them sustainable over the long haul.

It's comparatively inexpensive. Without rotation, sooner or later, the old staples from Frontier will be expensive. Cards like Siege Rhino, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, and the fetch lands will be the Tarmogoyf, Liliana of the Veil, and Snapcaster Mage of Frontier five or 10 years from now. While it's not to say they will be $100 a copy, they will be much more expensive than they are today. With a four-year rotation, these cards will never get a chance to become unbelievably expensive. Just as their supply starts to dry up and prices start to increase, they'll rotate from the format. This would allow the format to remain comparatively inexpensive forever, rather than just for the next couple of years. It's accessible to new players. Having a four-year rotation means that every few years, there will be a window for new players to get into Frontier with their old Standard cards. Without a rotation, Frontier only benefits players who were lucky enough to buy into the format at the right time (just like Modern), but with rotation, it can be a safe haven for new players for years to come. Brewer's paradise. As we talked about before, the brewer's paradise aspect of Frontier is a product of the format's newness rather than the format's card pool. Having one big rotation after four years will create that experience over and over again. It will be difficult for any of the old best decks to survive losing four years' worth of cards, which means that every so often, the format once again becomes a brewer's paradise. This will also help the format withstand the impact of its own growth. For the format to be truly successful, it will need Wizards' support, a Grand Prix, and perhaps even Pro Tours. Having a large but rotating card pool will help keep pros from breaking the format and offer a metagame reset every so often.

Nearly everyone I've talk to about Frontier who really understands the format admits the format needs a rotation to really achieve its goal (or expects that in X amount of years, the community will simply give up on Frontier and creature a new post-Frontier format), but for some reason, this isn't being talked about openly. Instead, it's just whispers on podcasts, Reddit, and Twitter. If we, as a community, think it's worthwhile to put in the time and effort needed to make a brand new format succeed, we need to make sure that the format is viable over the long term, and not just for a year or two. Building a rotation into Frontier is the best (and perhaps the only) way to make this happen.

The bottom line is this: the problems that Frontier is attempting to fix, while worthy, are not actually problems; they are characteristics of non-rotating formats. As a result, creating another non-rotating cannot fix the problems over the long term. No matter what set you start with, if the format is successful, it will deal with these issues because they are not bugs but are features. As a result, to really create an in-between format that truly is a brewer's paradise and a home for new players to keep playing their rotated Standard cards that is financially accessible, the only solution is to create a rotating format.

The good news is that Frontier can be this format. The format is still new, exciting, and different, and nothing is set in stone, which means there is still time for the people supporting and playing the format to decide upon a rotation and build it into the format. While Frontier can work for a year or two in its current form, players must make it rotate for the format to be everything it can be and succeed over the next decade, and they need to come to this decision soon. Don't leave the players who are supporting the format holding the bag with a hidden rotation (or the plan to simply give up on Frontier and make another post-Frontier once the characteristics of eternal formats rear their heads). Make it known and do it now, before it's too late.

Conclusion

I'm not claiming to have all of the answers. I can't say for sure whether four years is exactly the right time frame for rotation, but this is a conversation that the community, and especially the leaders of the Frontier movement, needs to be having. With a rotation, Frontier could be the solution its supporters are seeking, but without it, it may be fun for the short term but its goals will go unmet over the long terms.

Anyway, that's all for today. Leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.