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There is a significant contingent of players who dislike Modern as a format and/or who believe that the format is too expensive. These players would likely be interested in the Frontier format announced by Hareruy and BigMagic yesterday.
The original announcement is, of course, in Japanese, but you can check out the Reddit thread on the topic here. The format consists of all sets from Magic: 2015 forward, or any set with rares that have authenticator stamps.
The announced tournament is free to enter, and has some pretty solid prize support considering that. Players are excited about this format given that it likely isn't terribly expensive to play, though they're not as excited as dealers would be about this format taking off. A successful Frontier format would make a large chunk of cards into more valuable assets.
It's unclear exactly what will come of the Frontier format, and I definitely advise against investing in Frontier staples if you think that's a great idea. You'll recall that Mantis Rider was only a dollar during a point in time in which it was featured in the best deck in Standard. If I were to invest anywhere, it would be in important rares from the legal core sets. Specifically, this format would certainly balloon the price of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy // Jace, Telepath Unbound.
I'm curious to see if any interest in Frontier manifests in the United States, and I'm interested in trying it. I loved Extended, and this is kind of just Extended for now. Not to mention that I've been going through Treasure Cruise withdrawal for a while.
It does seem like a logical point for the next non-rotating format. Will be interesting to see how it develops. Do you plan to post results?
If there is substantial news I’ll be keeping up on this. Depends if this ends up being a one time thing or if it looks like it will take off. Or if a sweet Treasure Cruise deck wins I’ll likely post it anyway.
It’s a fun exercise to practice deck building.
I can see a hype coming, but isn’t this too difficult to launch on ?
You’re competing with events that offer invites that people care about when you try to create your own tournament. As such, you have to offer better EV on the non-invite prize structure, which is what they’re doing here. But yes, it’s an uphill battle. Producing content that informs people who might be interested is also very important. See Gavin Verhey’s work on Over-Extended.
“The format consists of all sets from Magic: 2015 forward, or any set with rares that have authenticator stamps.”
Modern Masters 2015, Eternal Masters, Commander Products, Duel Deck and other products have these stamps. Are these sets legal or is that an oversight?
FWIW, from the Google translated original announcement:
( “Leader 2015,” “Eternal Masters”
“Conspiracy: throne contention,” such as
special expansion is excluded)
I interpret that as, “Special Expansion sets are excluded.”
Darn… that might make a really fun occasional format.