Forging the Frontier

 Hi all and welcome back to Forging the Frontier!  This week we had 18 people register to play in the second ever "Battle on the Frontier" tournament. As excitement for the format and tournament continue to grow, so do the variance of decks.  This week we saw quite a few new decks to the tournament and welcomed a lot of new players as well to the fold. A special shout out to all who attended and continue to build the new frontier!

The Finals was a series of extremely exciting matches with Littlefield on his "mono R goblins" deck and our champion of the week, BelcherMage playing his version of "Ensoul Artifact".

[[deck: 17933]]

This deck proves that you don't necessarily have to play with all of the fetch lands. While it would make the deck better, it is still a viable budget version as it is here.  This deck went 6-1 against a good variety of decks in the tournament.

Let's get into exploring some of the choices.

This deck basically revolves around having either a lot of artifact creatures from cards like [[card_link: Pia and Kiran Nalaar]], [[card_link: Pia Nalaar]] and [[card_link: Thopter Engineer]], or by having a quick artifact down on turn 1 like [[card_link: Darksteel Citadel]] or [[card_link: Bomat Courier]] and dropping a turn 2 [[card_link: Ensoul Artifact]] on one of them to instantly start hitting with a 5/5.  [[card_link: Darksteel Citadel]] is a great card to enchant with ensoul because it becomes a 5/5 with indestructible.  [[card_link: Pia and Kiran Nalaar]] is great because it gives you the ability to burn out any pesky creatures that may be in your way and [[card_link: Pia Nalaar]] adds value by possibly making your 5/5 unblockable for a turn.

[[card: Pia and Kiran Nalaar]] [[card: Pia Nalaar]]

The other half of the deck focuses more the the control aspect of board state. This is where we get into removal and burn cards like [[card_link: Lightning Strike]], [[card_link: Wild Slash]] and [[card_link: Shrapnel Blast]]. These cards add a bit of versatility to the deck as oppose to going with a straight aggro route.

[[card: Lightning Strike]] [[card: Wild Slash]]

[[card_link: Ghostfire Blade]] is a great all around creature pump for all of your pesky thopters, costing only 1 colorless to equip. One of the coolest interactions in the deck that some people didn't even notice would work has to be when you enchant [[card_link: Smuggler's Copter]] with [[card_link: Ensoul Artifact]]. Not only does it become a 5/5, but it's also a creature on its own now that doesn't need to be crewed anymore and it also keeps all of its text abilities.

[[card: Ensoul Artifact]] [[card: Smuggler's Copter]]

As far as budget decks go this one has proven itself to be a viable option in a shifting meta. The raw power this deck has along with it's ability to deal with multiple creature threats makes this one a deck to beat in the comming weeks.

If you are interested in competing in this tournament and taking your shot at glory, join us here at http://battleonthefrontier.weebly.com/ every sunday at 12pm est.

Thanks for reading and see you next week for another edition of Forging the Frontier!

 [[preview_image: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpC8ovSWbaLWoKWAiLNfbctLqFmAtnc7euk5LIkuNNB2Ii2Miru5tRaM0Ajoa8UuWr7-y4Hl8xPj1IB30yTneR__hoNToUSohw8781QDbkA5WdkUmgKGpBW4MBtEPAUzlPLj7eROMsL8M/s1600/ensoul_artifact_by_jaspersandner-d7r8ot9.jpg]]
 [[published_at: 27 Feb 2017, 1:30 pm]]
[[category: article]]
[[preview_content:A write-up following another great event and focusing on another cool deck!]]