Last updated on March 17, 2025
Collected Company | Illustration by Franz Vohwinkel
An intriguing spoiler from Tarkir: Dragonstorm dropped earlier today with the set's seventh story, and is a card that gives out strong Collected Company vibes.
It's worded similarly to the iconic instant, but differs in a number of key ways:
- Unified Battlefront costs rather than .
- It's a sorcery, not an instant.
- It looks at seven cards rather than six.
- It cheats in noncreature, nonland permanent cards (with mana value 3 or less) rather than creatures.
Note that this isn't the first spiritual successor to Collected Company that they've made; Collected Conjuring also exists, and has seen virtually zero play. Will fellow sorcery United Battlefront follow in its footsteps, or get there on the back of powerful noncreature permanents? Let's speculate!
United Battlefront in Standard
Repurposing Bay | Illustration by William Tempest
As with all Collected Company style cards, three is where you want to be with United Battlefront. If you are playing four United Battlefronts in Standard, then your goal will generally be to dump two powerful 3MV noncreature permanents into play. But what kind of options are there in current Standard? Here's a list of 3 CMC noncreature permanents that have seen at least some Standard play at one point:
- Caretaker's Talent
- Temporary Lockdown
- Braided Net
- Repurposing Bay
- Simulacrum Synthesizer
- Liliana of the Veil
- Urabrask's Forge
- Ancient Cornucopia
- Spelunking
- The Huntsman's Redemption
- Wrenn and Realmbreaker
- Assimilation Aegis
- Monument to Endurance
One thing about this list worth noting is how many Repurposing Bay cards this hits. Since Repurposing Bay decks are naturally jammed at the 3-drop slot, they could be an excellent shell for United Battlefront! It also helps that they are full of cheap backup hits like Grim Bauble, Chainsaw, Glass Casket, and so on. You'd likely want to cut Thran Spider for another noncreature spell, but otherwise current lists could likely just throw in four United Battlefront!
Other than Repurposing Bay, any Standard decks playing United Battlefront will be new ones. It doesn't quite fit in Esper bounce decks (which lean heavily on 1s and 2s), and doesn't seem any good in Mice, Domain, Oculus, Cage, or any other common Standard shells.
Lastly, note that this unfortunately doesn't hit Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber. While in your library, Annex has a mana value of 8 (3+5), so it's ineligible for United Battlefront.
Pioneer
One obvious pickup from Pioneer is Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, which has to be among the best 3MV noncreature permanents ever printed! It's not obvious what else to do there besides “four Fable of the Mirror-Breaker + four United Battlefront,” but that could be a good start to a sweet brew. You could also try building around cards like Solemnity and Nine Lives in a kind of prison shell.
Modern, Legacy, Vintage, etc
Sorceries that cost 4 or more in these formats should basically say “you win the game,” not merely get value. There may be some combo with two 3MV permanents to instantly win the game (the aforementioned Solemnity comes to mind), so if this ever sees Modern+ play, it will likely be on the back of that.
Commander
United Battlefront isn't a terrible Commander card, but definitely a fringe one. If your 99 is full of spicy cheap noncreature permanents, you should definitely play this, but most Commander decks will not be. Cheating out a Rhystic Study and Fable of the Mirror-Breaker with this sounds amazing, but having a density of 3-drops (and a commander that makes sense with them) will likely be a challenge.
Overall, it's difficult to say how good United Battlefront is without playing with it. Repurposing Bay and Simulacrum Synthesizer seem really powerful with it, but otherwise nothing immediate is jumping out for Standard. You'll have to wait and see how it fares once the community gets their hands on it. Looking forward to some sick brews built around it!
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