Many remember the new Pod-less, Cruise-less Modern as one of the format’s golden ages. In those days, the Twin vs. BGx metagame was defined as much by its helming midrange decks as by the “Big Three” aggro-combo strategies that forced players into so much interaction at all: Infect, Burn, and Affinity. Affinity has always boasted […]

Mardu Pyromancer and Ironworks are wildly successful Modern decks right now, and for good reason: the former attacks from multiple angles while making excellent use of the format’s premier abusable resource, the graveyard; the latter is an artifact-based combo deck that’s at once tricky to disrupt and unintuitive to play against for most opponents. So […]

Modern experienced a relative lull in new blood a little after Dominaria’s release. But the format appears to be bouncing back, as the last couple weeks have yielded some great decklists. In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the more intriguing candidates. Culling the 5-0s Brews often pop up in the 5-0 […]

It’s been awhile since I last discussed GRx Moon, one of my darling archetypes. Sarkhan, Fireblood inspired me to return to the deck for the first time since the Bloodbraid Elf unban, itself an episode that ended up frustrating me as I tried and failed to integrate the hasty 3/2 into the deck. M19’s new […]

Wizards designing core sets again is an exciting prospect for Modern players. This decision allows the company to print cards that answer problems in non-Standard constructed formats, or otherwise supply those formats with new toys, unfettered by the flavor restrictions a given world imposes. For Wizards’ part, they’ve seemingly jumped at this opportunity, for the […]

Dominaria’s been Modern-legal for almost two months, and a host of players have tried their hand at brewing with Mox Amber, including yours truly. While more aggressive lists than mine have put up 5-0s here and there, the card has mostly fallen flat, as many expected. But the few results Amber has scored inspired me to […]

Another SCG Regionals is in the books, and SCG Con is just days away. It’s an exciting time to be a Modern player, or at least a Modern data hound. Today, we’ll look at some of the cooler lists from Regionals, and I’ll give my thoughts both on the recent success of Colorless Eldrazi Stompy […]

With Humans the de facto best deck in the format, now’s an exciting time to be interacting in Modern. The control renaissance offers players plenty of options when it comes to picking their poison. Whether they’re zapping Champion of the Parish with Lightning Bolt or Fatal Push, or closing out games with Tarmogoyf or Celestial […]

Experienced Magic players stress the importance of testing matchups sideboarded—after all, more than half of all games in a given tournament are played sideboarded. So too must I stress the importance of mastering the main phases, of which there are two per turn! Just a Phase focuses on the nuances of priority and phase manipulation […]

Modern has at times been described as a format hostile to Spike, the player demographic in search of winning at any cost. Indeed, “spiking” tournaments as players do in other constructed formats—by playing the best deck and understanding the mirror—isn’t a reliable path to success in Modern. Rather, this format rewards players for picking a […]

I wasn’t kidding last week when I revealed needing to halve my tech article. Modern’s been a brewer’s paradise ever since the Jace and Bloodbraid unbans, and the last couple weeks of 5-0s have proven especially fruitful. This past week adds another smattering of interesting candidates to the fray. A Whole New Jund(s) First, let’s […]

While I’ve been durdling around writing theory pieces on phases, Modern has been chugging right along… with a vengeance. The last week alone has showcased so much piping-hot technology I had to split this article down the middle while writing it. Today, we’ll take a look at six of the most exciting decks to emerge […]

Combat is one of Magic’s densest and most misunderstood areas. After all, the combat phase alone contains five separate steps! While much of what makes players “bad” at combat has to do with role analysis, game state awareness, board management, and simple arithmetic, understanding how combat functions on a technical level is also critical to […]