Unstable Frontier

Land

Tap: Add {{1}} to your mana pool.

Tap: Target land you control becomes the basic land type of your choice until end of turn.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (17)

DuTogira on What's the minimal number of …

2 years ago

If you want to run it, build your mana base without the snow cards in mind.
Then replace every possible land (all the basics, all the lowest power dual lands) with their snow counterparts. And yes run Unstable Frontier to turn other snow basics into snow mountains

StopShot on What's the minimal number of …

2 years ago

Cards: Glacial Crevasses, Snow-Covered Mountain.

I've had my eye on possibly running Glacial Crevasses in my EDH decks for quite some time now as I feel it makes an excellent combat deterrent. By having this card on the field the whole table knows I can completely negate an attack thrown at me even when tapped out which can help keep combat-oriented decks from wanting to waste their combat step on me.

The problem is this card only works if I have Snow-Covered Mountains. If I have none Glacial Crevasses means nothing to my opponent, if I have one Snow-Covered Mountain my opponents might try to fish me into sacking it and if I have three Snow-Covered Mountains my opponents will likely not bother with me until the game reaches a 1-versus-1 state.

This card is easier to run in mono-red decks, but I want to put it in 3-color decks which means I don't want to flood my entire manabase with Snow-Covered Mountains especially if I'm not going to draw into Glacial Crevasses certain games.

Additionally would you count fetch-lands towards your Snow-Covered Mountain count, such as Arid Mesa , Ash Barrens , Bloodstained Mire , Prismatic Vista , Scalding Tarn and Wooded Foothills? (My 3-color red decks usually run all 6 of these fetches just to color fix with Ravnica shock lands if needed.)

Also how good would you evaluate Unstable Frontier as a utility land? If I'm running Snow-Covered Forests, Snow-Covered Islands, Snow-Covered Plains or Snow-Covered Swamps, I can use Unstable Frontier to turn any of them into a Snow-Covered Mountain and as a color fixing source if I have too many Snow-Covered Mountains, but I don't know if it would be better to just use another Snow-Covered Mountain over it instead.

Lastly, should I run cards like Alpine Meadow, Highland Forest, Sulfurous Mire and Volatile Fjord? I already run all the Modern fetch-lands that could tutor for lands such as these, so I could hit them very consistently, but I don't like the fact they're tap-lands. Given I run only three colored decks I can only ever fit any of two of them at a time. Would they be worth an inclusion?

Thank you for your insight.

Lanzo493 on

3 years ago

In order to idealize this a bit more, I would suggest altering your mana base. You have 10 lands that tap for colorless mana. This will definitely get in the way of casting your commander as soon as possible, as well as making it difficult to cast cards out of your hand. Arcane Lighthouse and Detection Tower are great in control decks, but not so much in aggro decks. For an aggro deck, the best removal is player removal. Forge of Heroes , Opal Palace , and Unstable Frontier aren't really that good either. You don't need your commander to be big since she's flying and probably won't die in most combat situations. I would suggest more dual lands, if you have them, or at least Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds . You won't have much fun if you can't cast your commander or any of the color heavy cards in your hand.

Kazierts on Monoblack Infect [Competitive]

3 years ago

Apollo_Paladin, I appreciate the suggestions, though there are a few problems with them.

• Unstable Frontier is, honestly, nothing more than a meme. Yes, it makes the third mode of Funeral Charm better, but just that. The last mode is nothing more than an added bonus. Giving swampwalk is just a cute trick that can help close a game. If I wanted to go down this route, I'd just run more copies of Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth .

• Witch's Vengeance can be kinda useful. Still, it's a bit too situation. If I were to swap my boardwipes, I'd just run Damnation , as it's more effective. The ability to leave my creatures intact is a decent upside, I just don't know if I'd rather have a boardwipe, in the sideboard, that's good against any board or that's good against some decks.

• Inscription of Ruin is completely off the table. While it's technically correct to say all of its modes are useful, at 3 CMC they aren't good enough. Making an opponent discard two cards of their choice for three mana isn't good, hence why something like Mind Rot has basically never seen play and Hymn to Tourach is an insanely powerful card. The Unearth "effect" also isn't good. It does seem nice to reanimate some of the cheap creatures but this list has only eight targets that cost two mana. Honestly, I don't want to spend three mana for a two mana creature. The last mode is just a worse Fatal Push or Bloodchief's Thirst . On the other hand, Collective Brutality gives me knowledge about my opponent's hand while also allowing me to pick the card, which could, and probably will, be a removal spell, thus being better than an effect similar to Unearth . It's decent removal that bypasses indestructibility and regeneration. And last, but not least, the drain mode can actually help against burn/aggro matchups and minimises the the lifeloss from Castle Locthwain and Thoughtseize . The cherry on top of all of that is I don't need to pay extra mana for extra modes, which is great considering this deck caps out at four mana.

• Call of the Death-Dweller is basically in the same spot as the Inscription, so I'll just talk about what's unique to it. Giving menace and deathtouch isn't really worth the cost. I could just run another equipment that gives something similar.

• There are quite a few reasons why Fatal Push is better than Bloodchief's Thirst . Chief among those is the fact it's an instant. Aside from Thoughtseize and the singleton Raven's Crime , the deck has no true turn one play. Funeral Charm is something that can be played turn one but isn't really wanted. Fatal Push allows for a better use of my mana on the first turn, whereas the Thirst forces me to wait until turn two unless I'm on the draw. That being said, I'm actually considering swapping one copy of Yahenni's Expertise for one Thirst.

Sorry I took so long to reply and my reply seems like I shitting over your suggestions. I do appreciate the time and effort you took to comment.

Apollo_Paladin on Monoblack Infect [Competitive]

3 years ago

Neat build! Mono-color decks tend to be highly underrepresented in my experience & they are also a favorite of mine.

• Some Unstable Frontier s could help you more reliably use Funeral Charm 's swampwalk for guaranteed poison hits. (Mana-free no less!) These can also be used strategically in certain instances to prevent opponent's from having the color mana they require to cast a spell.

• Witch's Vengeance might make a good Sideboard replacement for use against Tribal builds over Yahenni's Expertise . This lets your limited Infect creatures remain in play and it's also less mana to cast.

• Even though it's 1 more CMC, you might consider Inscription of Ruin over Collective Brutality since the options themselves aren't as limiting, and I struggle to see situations with this build where you'd actually want to be discarding from your own hand to pay for additional costs on this. A little "graveyard to play" for some of your cheap CMC Infect creatures certainly isn't an awful thing to have with a construction like this.

• Call of the Death-Dweller might make the list too; at least on the Sideboard since it can fish out any creature in your current build. I notice you already touched on this topic above, which is why Inscription of Ruin might interest you; just the option among many, rather than mono-effect spells like Unearth .

• Bloodchief's Thirst is superior to Fatal Push in my opinion, because options. Fatal Push isn't all that great as a mid-to-late game draw. Plus, Planeswalker hate = good.

Hope some of this helps, but either way I like your direction!

StopShot on Ctrl-G | Fear the Forest

4 years ago

@Profet93, actually Unstable Frontier does have some utility in this deck. You can use it with Arbor Elf to untap an nonbasic land such as Maze of Ith , Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Gaea's Cradle . Furthermore if Vernal Bloom or Nissa, Who Shakes the World is on the battlefield you could tap the Frontier to turn either Maze of Ith or Glacial Chasm into a forest which could then be used as ramp. These are only two very small interactions, but there are other green spells that can have interesting interactions with Unstable Frontier turning non-basic lands into forests such as Quirion Ranger who can also be used to effectively untap non-basic lands in tandem with the Frontier as well as bounce lands before they receive flood counters without the Unstable Frontier . Nothing too crazy, but not necessarily useless either.

StopShot on Ctrl-G | Fear the Forest

4 years ago

@Profet93 Ah yes. I misread Null Rod 's effect. You are correct.

While Unstable Frontier doesn't do much outside of fountain, the fact it's a land makes it easier to slot in than if it were a nonland permanent, plus it is easily tutor-able in green. You'd have to consider what advantages this interaction brings in comparison to what the other lands bring to the table. If any of them start under-performing it may be worth swapping them to test how good this synergy may be worth utilizing.

Profet93 on Ctrl-G | Fear the Forest

4 years ago

StopShot

Those are very good points, curiou more so! Null rod doesn't stop curio or fountain, but titanias song does. That small anti-synergy seems worth it for the huge upside. Only issue with Unstable Frontier is that it doesn't do much itself outside fountain.

EDIT: Realized Curio can also save your targetted creature from removal if you use emergence zone or winding canyons