This week's community engagement challenge is about the newly released Frontier mode. It's essentially a F2P (free to play) mode where new (and old) players can compete against one another using the new Foundations set (which was introduced with the launch of the Campaign a month or so ago), but they can now not only use the base cards but also earn the whole set (53 cards) and level them to Silver level. Let's go over the basics of the new mode first.
So, as I've already mentioned - in order to play Frontier, you first need to complete the campaign (which generally takes about 15-20-30 minutes), in order for you to obtain the majority of the core cards in the Foundations set. As soon as you do that - you're good to go, and you can join the fun in battling against other people with similar decks. You don't need to own a spellbook ($10), however, you do need a spellbook if you want to transfer/sell/delegate the Foundations cards you earn. That's right you can actually sell the Foundations cards if you have a spellbook without having to unbind them or anything else - that's wild!
There are essentially 3 daily quests each day - to win 5 battles 3 times, so you need a total of 15 wins per day, which is not that easy actually, cause you only get 25 energy per day so you need a win rage of at least 15 out of 25 which is a bit over 50%. That's proven a bit tricky even for me - a person who regularly makes the top 50 Champ LB, as the battles with the new Foundation cards are very different than what I'm used to. You need to be very mindful of your positioning, and which Archon you choose for the given situation. So, a new player might actually not be able to do their daily quests each day. On the other hand, the more new players we have, the less battles they'll have against seasoned Frontier enjoyers.
Initially the quests grant 1 random card per completion (in Bronze III), then in Bronze II you start getting 2 cards per completion for a total of 6. I suppose you get a bit more when you advance further to Bronze I and Silver but I've not gotten there yet on any of the three accounts I'm playing Frontier with. :D You also get chests when you advance to a new league:
When you advance from Bronze III to Bronze II you get 5 minor chests. Then when you go from II to I, you get 10 minor chests.
As you can see from the screenshots above, the more you advance, the better rewards you get for each tier, and once you finally hit Gold I, the reward for that you get is 5 Major Chests and 10 Ultimate chests - that's great. I only need to max out my Foundations set and get there. Yeah, that won't happen today or tomorrow. Speaking of maxing the set, as I've already mentioned - the cards can be bought/sold on the marketplace or P2P, so if you just can't wait to earn them by playing the game for a longer period, you can head out there and buy the ones you use the most. Remember - you need to level your Archons first, since they are the ones which then summon the more powerful versions of the other cards.
I got lucky on one of my daily quest draws last night and got these two cards:
I figured that if there was a good time for me to try to sell them, it was now. So I listed them both. There were no Saltwater Mages on the market at that time so I listed her for $14.999 and she got immediately bought! That's mind-blowing for me cause the CA epics are being sold on the market for less than a dollar. I'm still trying to sell the Celestial Guardian, but if he doesn't sell, that's fine. I'll just keep it. Eventually I'll have a full collection so that's not an issue at all. Speaking of collection. Let's talk a bit about the second phase of the Frontier mode.
Here's the info we have on that officially released by SPL:
"🎁 THE FRONTIER RAFFLE IS COMING SOON! (PHASE 2)
As you play Frontier Format, you’ll start earning raffle entries — and very soon, 76 cards will be awarded every week from a massive 7,982-card prize pool.
Here’s how it will work:
🎟️ Earn entries automatically by playing
🏆 One prize per account each week
🔄 Entries go into the next weekly draw
📥 Log in after each draw to check and claim your prizes
⏳ Unclaimed rewards expire 90 days after the final drawing
With 105 weeks of raffles ahead, there are tons of chances to build your collection just by playing."
If this is not an incentive to play the Frontier Mode daily, I don't know what is. I think the fact that you get automatic entries to these raffles for just playing the game is great. You've got to bear in mind that while the stats on the cards are not great and they only go to max Silver level, the art on most of them is top notch, and I think they can be great collector's items. I, for one, would definitely love to obtain BFs of as many of them as I could so I am looking really forward to it.
Lastly, let's have a look at a few common teams I've been using on different occasions and for different rulesets:
This is a common Fire team I use for Explosive Weaponry and the Scattershot rulesets:
The thing I'm trying to take advantage of in this case is the +1 Speed cause if the units of your opponent die before they can attack, well, then they can't kill your units. Pretty straight forward I think.
For the Noxious Fumes ruleset I always use the Earth Element:
The Archon grants +1 Life, the humanoid Lion who acts as a main tank has Heal and the Magic-attack unit behind him has Cleanse.
When the Earthquake ruleset is active, I always use the Life Element:
The Archon grants +1 Armor to all units, and that's generally a good way to avoid dying to Earthquake quickly. Of course with all these low-health units at level 1, such battles end with a Draw more often than not.
Generally in all other cases I'm currently kind of spamming the Death Element. They seem to be very strong due to the fact that the Archon debuffs the enemy team by removing 1 Life point from all the units, and there's also a Death unit with the same ability. A general Death team looks something like this right now:
Well, this is for now. Go play the new Frontier Mode! ;-)
Over and Out,
Referral
