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Prologue
Frontiers is my favorite mode at the moment. After Modern being invaded by "liquidity bots", and my bot playing Wild, the new mode has caught my attention. I haven't had much luck yet, nor am I accustomed to the new cards and their combinations yet, but I'm learning.
One thing that struck me was that cards can be bought and sold directly. That might sound like "yeah, sure, normal", but is not. Because we do not need a Spellbook to play neither the Campaign, where we get the first cards, nor the Frontier mode. We can sell the cards we never play, and buy those we want to enhance. Question is - what does that cost?
Commons
Though all common cards are available in the Campaign, there are some significant differences in their utility and hence what they cost on the market.
Nature takes the cake as the Dread Talafarian with Heal is not only great for Frontier, but can help in Modern, too, especially in the Poison-Rulesets. Life is the least appreciated common-tier, with only $0.22 worth of cards.
Rares
Rares include the summoners, and those make the big chunk of the costs for these. Interestingly, the most expensive one is Thalgrimore, the Death Summoner. I guess that's because it's the most played one, at least in Frontier, as the Death Team has a pretty strong set of abilities.
The Water-Summoner, Singariel, is one that I sometimes encounter in Modern, and that although the Foundation cards are restricted to half the level that regular cards are, meaning, a level 4 Singariel allows you to play only Intermediate level cards. But the +1 Magic Damage is worth that from time to time.
Another interesting part is that some of the rare cards are a lot cheaper than the common cards. For now, utility beats the rarity, and as we get one CC of each in campaign, the supply is somewhat equal.
Epics
Now it gets interesting. Here we can easily see what cards are available in the Campaign, and which aren't.
Neither water nor Life epics are available in Campaign, and the Water-Splinter has a very useful Magic-Attack card in their Epic rows. Both Fire epics and the one neutral epic are available in the campaign, and they're not super powerful, hence the set price is very, very low.
Legends
Same as with Epics - the Legends available are cheap, like the Little Sister for Death Splinter, and the Bear Druid in Neutral.
Again, Water wins this one with yet another card that has magic damage - that Splinter is incredibly powerful and only stoppable by the Death card that has Void.
The Total
Death is the cheapest. By far. And that although it is also a very useful Splinter.
Fire is next cheapest, mostly because the cards are just not that convincing. And Water is very, very OP. The amount of magic attack combined with the +1 magic attack summoner is a little over the top, and I guess quite hard to beat, especially with the sneak-magic-monster.
Conclusion
Imagine playing for free and pulling a Scaleweaver! Suddenly, you have made $25 - if you decide to sell. But you could use that card to advance even further. Use new tactics. Dominate your League.
And just like that, you're absorbed into the game. Pulling a high value card is an incredible dopamine rush, and I bet that very few people can pull themselves out of that, on the contrary, they will want more. And then there are those Conclave Arcana cards...
For gameplay, the sets do not seem as well balanced as CA. Water is too OP, at least at higher levels. At lower levels, it's still very balanced, which is great. I'm not sure if I'm going to buy any cards, I guess I'll just play like it is. It's fun enough, and I do not have much ambition in Frontier.
Thank you very much for reading, I hope you enjoyed it at least as much as I enjoyed writing :-D If you have any comments or feedback - please let me know! And don't forget to leave your own posts for me to curate. Thank you very much!
If you don't play the game yet, you can use my referral: Click here for referral :-)