Are you a Quiet Speculation member?
If not, now is a perfect time to join up! Our powerful tools, breaking-news analysis, and exclusive Discord channel will make sure you stay up to date and ahead of the curve.
Happy Friday, Modern Nexus community!
About a month ago, we celebrated our one-year birthday at Modern Nexus. And what a year it's been! I've loved being a part of the site and engaging with the Modern community, and if even one more Moderner has been using our Top Decks statistics to justify format decisions, I'm calling our mission accomplished. As part of that celebratory article, I laid out four goals we had for 2016 and beyond: thanking readers for their loyalty and support, expanding our staff to improve content-delivery, adding more video coverage, and developing a real deck and metagame database to inform the format. After lots of discussion and number-crunching, I realized it would be quite challenging to fulfill these promises alone, both from a resource perspective and due to changes in my personal and professional life. This would be a disservice both to the site and the Modern community as a whole.
Based on this, I'm turning over the management reins to a larger Magic website and stepping down as Editor in Chief, effective Monday. Going forward, Jason Schousboe from Quiet Speculation will be coming on as Editor in Chief, and Modern Nexus will fall under the Quiet Speculation content umbrella. I'll stay on board as both a writer and a site adviser for the foreseeable future.
I'm as pumped by these changes as that bro in Might Beyond Reason is jacked up on Emrakul (or #TeamMaritLage) mojo, and you should be too. Modern Nexus is going to thrive under Quiet Speculation's management and Jason's editorship. Back when I started thinking about partners months back, Quiet Speculation was the first website I approached and the only group I ended up negotiating with. I've written for Quiet Speculation since September 2015, and I've been consistently impressed with their data-driven philosophy and their focus on evidence-based analysis. They also run a tight website with great features and content. As a whole, their methods are a perfect fit for Modern Nexus' mission, which makes me confident they are the best partners to maintain and grow the site.
Change is hard. We play Modern so we should all know this by now: I still haven't fully recovered from Wizards banning my beloved Seething Song in 2013, to say nothing of more recent decisions! Whenever websites undergo these kinds of changes, there's always a worry about declining content, unfulfilled promises, and mission-drift. Personally, I'm not worried. I selected Quiet Speculation as my "successor," so to speak, because I am confident they would uphold the site's core aims, honor our readership, and build Modern Nexus to where it deserves to be.
Editor's note: Just to clarify an important question we've received, there are no plans to put Modern Nexus behind a paywall! Free content will continue for the foreseeable future, so you can save all your hard-earned dollars for teching out your decks and investing in the latest Modern spike.
Just in case you're still worried, remember I'll also be sticking around to help Jason manage the transition and blaze new trails. We're keeping the same address, server, domain, and Modern Nexus feel. All current authors will be given an opportunity to stay on board too, so don't think you've seen the last of David's Merfolk, Trevor's Jaces, or Jordan's Delvers and Tarmogoyfs. On top of that, I'll continue writing Modern Nexus articles, especially the in-depth metagame analyses you've come to expect. This will include maintaining our Top Decks page and spreadsheet, and transitioning us to a more formal data-tracking system. I may not be Editor in Chief beyond next Monday, but I'll still live up to my MTG Salvation handle of "The Mad Statistician" as long as I'm a Nexus affiliate!
If anyone has any questions about the changes, the road-map, the staff, or anything else related to Nexus or Modern, either ping me in the comments or shoot me an email at sheridan@quietspeculation.com. I'll do my best to answer, and I'm sure Jason will be watching as well to chime in. Look for Jason to post an announcement next week introducing himself.
See you all after the jump and after our first weekend of post-Ancestral Vision and Sword of the Meek metagame. Keep brewing, keep crunching numbers, keep running tests for statistical significance, keep down the ban mania, and keep on playing Modern!
Sheridan
-Editor in Chief
Is Modern Nexus going to be under the QS paywall going forward? That’s the only problem I have with them. I already pay a crap ton for cards, why do I want to pay for content??! Hope this stays free to read as the content is quite good. Love the articles and have read everyday since release. Don’t go changing 😉
As far as I know, no, we are staying free for the foreseeable future. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of premium content PERIOD (it could happen eventually, like it does on many sites), but I know of no immediate plans to change this.
Hey hey. Tyler from QS here: nothing to fear. 🙂 Things will continue as they have been, and we don’t plan on implementing any sort of paywall in the foreseeable future (as in, we don’t have plans or plans to have plans about it).
As you may or may not know, a couple of years ago QS “acquired” MTGCast as it faced going under. Our goal as a site and company is never to suck money out of assets, but rather sustain and grow communities. You could say that QS’s Insider subscriptios (which include forums and Trader Tools, in addition to Insider content) allow us the flexibility to do so.
So don’t worry. There won’t be any reimaginings of MN. The reason we decided to follow this path is that we like what Sheridan and the community have done, and disrupting that would be… Well, silly. 🙂
Is this site mostly shutting down and we now must go to there site for most articles? Will we still have volunteer contributors?
Site is keeping the same server, domain name, look, etc. In fact, I’m going to add this to the article as an edit because it’s important to clear up. As for volunteer contributors, yes! Those will just go to Jason and/or a future editor position at Jason’s discretion.
Will we have to pay to view certain “premium” modern articles now? I know quiet speculation has a column of Insider articles that only paying members can access. Will the same thing happen to Modern Nexus?
To my knowledge, there are no plans for any Modern Nexus to go premium in the foreseeable future. As I said in an earlier post, I wouldn’t 100% rule it out for the site’s entire existence, but it’s not in the immediate cards as far as I know.
This is the best site by far for modern-related content and I’m glad to see it grow but I hope this doesn’t mean that there’s going to be content locked behind a paywall.
Wow, this is pretty unexpected (to me, at least). I’ll echo what herkamurjones says — I hope this site is not headed for the QS paywall system. I’ll hold off on other judgments until we learn more, but I’ll admit I am not immediately thrilled. Not to be a Debbie Downer, but buyouts just don’t tend to result in everything staying the same even if old management stays around, and I really like where the site is at right now. Perhaps it would allay fears if we can get some specific examples of how this will benefit the site and its readers.
I don’t want to steal any of Jason’s thunder or that of the QS team’s, but I gave some pretty concrete examples in my announcement above. For instance, I do not have the capacity or resources to make a formal deck/metagame database happen. This is a critical point for Nexus’ development, and I know QS is interested in doing this and making it happen in a way that would make any Nexite proud. They can also bring on more authors, particularly data-driven authors and not just people who want article clicks with sensational claims. Those are just two examples of where I see a QS transition really benefiting the site and our readers.
Good to know, thanks! I look forward to hearing more next week.
As far as I understand, there’s no plan for a paywall on content in the foreseeable future.
Official QS person here!
No paywall, no premium content, no changes here. Can’t say never but we didn’t jump in to MN to juice y’all for money. It’s because we really like this site, we find the content valuable, and it’s cheap to maintain. We’ve got existing QS resources, like large-scale hosting plans, that allow us to reduce the overhead. We’ve got existing editors to put on the job here. We get an advantage because if a writer who loves Modern also wants to write about finance in addition to MN, we can offer them a shot at QS for that.
The only change is that the bills for everything are now coming to us, which is a change nobody else is likely to see! The benefit to readers is “everything looks the same except someone else (who still isn’t you) is footing the bill for all of it.”
Honestly the paywall model only works for very specific niches, and we don’t think Modern is one of them.
Can I be the voice of reason? Much of the content here is top notch, I would happily pay for it. I used to buy SCG premium and pretty much gave up that when I found this site as modern is what I actually want to read about.
I’m sure you guys will figure out something that works for readers and the company, and I’m sure you already know that there are consumers out there who will gladly pay for good content. It just looks bad when every comment so far is freeloaders acting like paying anything for written content is blasphemy. These people probably also still pirate music with napster.
Dr. Mr. Hartwick,
In direct response to your comments, you do have some point in saying that quality content deserves to be paid for. However, I disagree intensely that the people who are against paying for the top notch articles are free loaders. If I could, I would pay for Modern Nexus articles, but I am 15 years, have no method of payment, and could not in a million years convince my mother to allow me to pay for this.
I have not missed an article for 10 months, and I do not intend to miss anymore.