Code of the Cardboard Samurai

While it seems like the Professor over at Tolarian Academy Community College has come around to the idea of a new non rotating format between standard and modern, about 2 years ago he wasn't convinced by the Frontier format. While talking about some supplemental products he made some statements that weren't 100% accurate about Frontier, so the crew over at the Magic the Final Frontier podcast took it upon themselves to record a response to what he had talked about in in video about Frontier, as well as educate people about the format.

A few weeks into the Ixalan Frontier format, the Magic the Final Frontier hosts and a member of their online league team talk brews that hit and missed at they prepared for a new season, what and how they've been testing, as well as what they expect to see that season. Another great episode for people looking to learn more about the possible cards of Historic as it covers more of the technical side of the Frontier format.

At the height of Frontier interest, events were firing all over North America and Japan. No place outside of Japan was bigger than Toronto, and after Face to Face games slowed down their support of it, another store rose up to take its place and keep the games coming. Hear which store took over the mantle of Frontier leader in North America, as well as how the metagame was shaking up in Canada near Toronto.

This ended up being a regular series on the podcast whenever a set made a big impact on the metagame. In episode 9, the cast took at look at the standard decks popular during Ixalan standard, and updated them with Frontier cards. This ended up being a good mental exercise and should prove helpful for people to refer to when they end up building Historic decks. You get a chance to see how the older cards in Frontier interacted with those currently in standard, as well as the reasons you should use them.

The Magic Final Frontier podcast might be the longest running Frontier podcast out there, but it wasn't the first. Episode 8 of the podcast brings back the original Frontier hypemen, Tony Cameron and Matt Mealing. I listened to their Frontier podcast back when I was first getting into the format and they got my really excited about the format. They brought a unique gravitas and excitement to Frontier that has been hard to duplicate since. The Final Frontier podcast crew and them had an great conversation on the state of the format and shared some spicy card interactions and deck ideas.

With over 70 people in attendance, the 10th God of Frontier tournament at Hareruya in Tokyo, Japan was a great look at what what the format had the potential to do. The podcast crew uses their deep knowledge of the Frontier format to compare competitive decklists between Japan and North America and to discuss what they liked and didn't like from the God of Frontier tournament.

There are quite a lot of playable tribes in Frontier, but which are the best? The podcast crew talks about decks like Bant Humans in today's episode and they debate which tribe is the strongest in the format. Good building blocks for future Historic decks if you're looking for where to start with your favorite tribe as well. 

As a bonus, the hosts also discuss the numbers of Ixalan cards that showed up in decks at a recent Frontier tournament in Japan to give you an idea of what made the biggest impact.

The hosts take a break from talking about the Frontier metagame in Episode 5 of the podcast to talk all about sideboarding. They cover what cards work against the best decks in the format, as well as what the best sideboard cards were in Frontier at the time. While not all of the cards or advice might be viable depending on where the Historic format starts set wise, there are some valuable nuggets of information from 3 very accomplished Frontier Magic players.

In episode 4 of the Frontier podcast, the crew pours over recent tournament results and talks about various deck types and card choices in the popular and winning decks. The focus is definitely more on the competitive nature of Frontier, and if you're looking to get some ideas on deck building for Historic later this year, this is another great episode that helps you to evaluate what cards are playable after Ixalan was introduced to the format.

It's important to know that unlike Modern and Legacy which are self sustained in terms of metagames, Frontier is more like standard and influenced by new sets as they come out.

By the time the 3rd episode of the Magic the Final Frontier podcast came out, the full Ixalan spoiler had just been released. While it usually takes weeks for cards to be fully tested in order to gauge their impact on the format, the podcast crew come up with a list of what cards they thought would change the Frontier format. 

Since the new Historic format will be starting from Ixalan, this would be a good episode to listen to get an idea as to what's playable from the set and whats not. While not all of the picks might have panned out, the guys were right on quite a few of them.