Spoiler Highlight: United Battlefront on Standard, Pioneer & Modern

When it was released in Dragons of Tarkir, Collected Company permanently changed the way creature archetypes were constructed in Standard. Throughout its longevity in the format, the card was a mainstay of some of the most important archetypes in the Metagame, to the point where the design team later admitted that they should have banned Company, but didn't.

Outside the rotating scene, the card found its place in Modern, where it starred in archetypes around types like Spirits, or combo lists that needed only a few low-cost creatures to perform a loop - first with Vizier of Remedies and Devoted Druid, then with Heliod, Sun-Crowned. Today, Collected Company's main home is in Pioneer, where it's the centerpiece of an archetype based on ETB effects and cheap creatures, as well as being the glue that holds Angel creatures together.

After nearly a decade, a new version of Collected Company returns along with Magic's lore returning to the plane that originated the card in Tarkir: Dragonstorm - United Battlefront feels like a revamped version of the card that dominated Standard for years, from a new perspective: instead of caring about creatures, it puts other permanents onto the battlefield without paying costs, amplifying its potential for archetypes very different from those the original card starred in, but with deckbuilding concessions that make it difficult to build efficient lists.

United Battlefront has the same cost as Collected Company, but in a different color and with the “compensation” of removing the instant speed that made the original card so strong with the possibility of digging deeper, in addition to the obvious change in restriction for non-creature permanents, which require a bit more deckbuilding to work.

In a vacuum, the new spell is strong enough to cause some changes in specific archetypes, but there are some conditions that should be considered. For example, a Collected Company deck requires approximately 30 or more creatures to hit as much as possible. After all, the worst possible scenario with it is to pay four mana to find nothing or only one creature, failing to circumvent the mana costs.

The same goes for United Battlefront: the first step to building a deck around it is understanding the high number of nonland permanents you need to get the most out of it. Whether it's artifacts, enchantments, Planeswalkers, or Battles, you need to include as many of them in your deck as possible while still maintaining a consistent game plan with the new card serving as an accelerator.

To include more of these permanents, it's also necessary to reduce the number of Instants and Sorceries in the list. With them being the "glue" and interaction of many Midrange and Control lists, the space for United Battlefront is diluted when we think about traditional archetypes like Azorius Control, which even in formats where it has access to Teferi, Time Raveler and Narset, Parter of Veils, has a high number of nonpermanent cards that would make it difficult to make the spell an effective and consistent hit.

On the other hand, permanents have become increasingly important in Magic. With the current game design, where everything needs to come with an added benefit, it is natural that ETB effects become the main way to extract value from your cards, and if bounces like This Town Ain’t Big Enough or Fear of Isolation have become stronger thanks to this change, United Battlefront also gains more space in the competitive scene with it.

The first appearances of United Battlefront in Standard may start in already known archetypes: Bounce and Caretaker, but in both cases, it has challenges.

With the new card, you can dig deeper into the list to find the right answer or Stormchaser’s Talent to add more threats to the board. However, it competes with two staples in this slot - Kaito, Bane of Nightmares and Stock Up - and in both cases, the current version would need substantial changes since including it would mean reducing the number of creatures in the deck, which is counterproductive to the proactive game plan of the Bounce lists.

The idea of ​​casting United Battlefront and pulling Caretaker’s Talent and some token maker is the ideal plan, but how good is it compared to playing Beza, the Bounding Spring to stabilize a game, followed by a Sunfall the next turn to control the board?

Including the new spell means giving up the current setup in exchange for cards that, overall, can do very little compared to the current staples of Caretaker’s Talent lists, and the tradeoff of paying four mana to put two permanents into play may not be worth it when Beza offers more than that.

The best home for this card currently available in multiple formats might be alongside Simulacrum Synthesizer. There are several examples of permanents in this category that work with efficient ETBs, such as Glass Casket, Braided Net, and Assimilation Aegis, and the possibility of having three-mana artifacts to trigger the Synthesizer while they are found with United Battlefront.

Its most difficult challenge in this version, however, is that most Synthesizer lists today revolve around Repurposing Bay to search for permanents with higher mana value, and the number of artifacts with exactly three costs to make the “combo” between Simulacrum Synthesizer and United Battlefront is very focused on board interaction, but perhaps a variant with Cryptic Coat and even Urabrask’s Forge combined with other efficient ETB cards and/or means of ensuring pressure, such as Legion Extruder, is the right path.

Not unlike Standard, the best places for United Battlefront in Pioneer should revolve around archetypes that take advantage of efficient ETBs from enchantments, or that run Simulacrum Synthesizer and other cheap artifacts.

Artifact decks gain tools like Portable Hole and even Ensoul Artifact that can be found with the new spell, in addition to the aforementioned Cryptic Coat and Urabrask’s Forge as win conditions. It is also possible to use this artifact shell with other cards that care about them, such as Mendicant Core, Guidelight.

Pioneer Bounce lists usually play with 80 cards and Yorion, Sky Nomad, and while most of them are in the colors, the addition of occurs in some versions and including United Battlefront in them can be an alternative to having other spells for the same function. After all, bringing a Narset, Parter of Veils along with any other enchantment or Planeswalker already generates a lot of value for a single card and four mana.

United Battlefront can also hit for both Nine Lives and Solemnity, preventing the opponent from winning the game through combat while both enchantments remain on the board. Combined with other artifacts and enchantments that control the battlefield, such as Temporary Lockdown, it is possible to establish a new variant of Lock-Control around this combo, you just need to know how to protect it from interactions and/or how to win the game before the opponent finds answers.

for Modern is a considerably steep cost and some of the archetypes that would like United Battlefront may consider it too slow, but the number of permanents it hits in the format should be considered.

For almost all the cards mentioned above, the new card only works with a specific portion of the list and there are no deckbuilding concessions possible to improve its success rate. So, despite the wide range of permanents that United Battlefront can find, it should fall outside the top of the competitive chain.

It may be worth testing in two archetypes in the format today: Lantern Control can generate extra mana with Mox Opal (assuming it isn’t banned on March 31) to pay the card’s higher mana cost and find two key pieces to keep the “lock” on the opponent, but it competes for space with Whir of Invention, which despite technically costing more, has a lot of flexibility between searching for the exact card and also having its cost reduced by Improvise.

The other, perhaps likely, home is Enchantress. The archetype has a wide range of sources of card advantage, but all of them only work if its controller casts enchantments, while not allowing to bypass mana costs and dig deeper for the right cards. With Utopia Sprawl and Sanctum Weaver to ramp, paying its cost relatively easy, and the possibility of pulling two of the seven most relevant enchantments of the top makes this card a possibility for the archetype.

United Battlefront is comparable to Collected Company in cost and effect, but the deckbuilding restrictions to play it are significantly higher, and it requires a lot of building around it to make its maindeck slots worthwhile.

In the current Standard, Pioneer, and Modern Metagame, the new card doesn't seem to do much to change the competitive landscape much, but there are still many cards to be revealed from Tarkir: Dragonstorm, and it's possible that new artifacts or enchantments will make it more powerful, either with the release of the expansion, or as future sets introduce more cheap permanents that interact positively with it.

Thanks for reading!