The October 17 banlist announcement came and went, and no changes were made to Modern. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to glean. Wizards dropped some juicy information this announcement, and today we’ll deduce which cards the company has their eye on unbanning. Wizards’s latest “No changes” gave us some valuable insight into how they’re […]
Jordan Boisvert
Jordan is Assistant Director of Content at Quiet Speculation and a longtime contributor to Modern Nexus. Best known for his innovations in Temur Delver and Colorless Eldrazi, Jordan favors highly reversible aggro-control decks and is always striving to embrace his biases when playing or brewing.
If you’re like me, most of the excitement surrounding Standard revolves around which of its cards break into Modern. The worlds-apart nature of both formats guarantees that many Standard all-stars don’t make it over this way, and some Standard duds boast impressive utility in Modern. Every so often, though, a card makes a big splash […]
My Ixalan spoiler review covered cards leaked back in June, and was published well before Wizards revealed the full expansion. As such, it didn’t discuss Chart a Course, a spell spoiled during the Magic: Arena unveiling that has me giddier than anything else in the set. Chart a Course has shown promise in my go-to Delver […]
When Opt was spoiled for Modern, I wrote a piece about how I didn’t think the card would see much play. That didn’t stop me from putting together a bunch of decks with the card. During those experiments, I took a literal “walk” on the wild side, following a tangent deep down the rabbit hole […]
Confession time: one of my pet cards is Smallpox. That might seem weird coming from an attacks-loving aggro-control enthusiast such as myself, but Smallpox has a lot of the elements I prize in a card: its symmetry makes it innocuous; its floor is low, and its ceiling miles high; its conditions ask pilots to build […]
I’ve been a little distracted from Magic lately, and not even grinding the PPTQ season as planned. But all it takes for that to change is a well-timed spoiler from Wizards. Ixalan’s been delivering plenty of those, and between the dripping-with-flavor new cards and the juicy-looking Magic: Arena, I’m back on the proverbial horse—the brewing […]
This week marked some big news for Modern: Opt is finally entering our card pool. I’ve heard some decry the card as a worse Visions that will only see play in draw-go and tempo decks, and others still call Opt a change to our card pool nearly on par with Fatal Push’s impact. For me, […]
Two months ago, a foil rare sheet from Ixalan was illegitimately posted online. Most of us glanced over the fuzzy pictures and then returned to the hi-res Hour of Devastation spoilers. But then Hour came out, and the fuzzy pictures beckoned from the abyss. Fortunately, Wizards didn’t make the more patient among us wait too […]
Yesterday, our own Trevor Holmes published “Getting Disillusioned—What Magic Is Missing.” That piece describes the allure of other games while exploring motivation and writer’s block. I don’t agree with everything he wrote—opinion pieces are like that—but I think Trevor raised some interesting points, and his article got me thinking about my own motivations and the […]
When a bunch of events come around, I always plunge right into the decklists. That’s how I get a sense for what Modern looks like, and especially for what kind of innovations are right around the corner. Someone always has the great idea first, and by actively looking for trends and tech, we can be […]
Modern Top 5: Utility Spells kicked this series off, and in my eyes, it was hugely successful. Not only did it present a measurable way to analyze cards that I’m quite proud of, but the article also inspired a lively debate in the comments. Today, we’ll revisit the series, focusing on some of Modern’s most […]
In The Bolt Test: Modern’s High-Water Mark, I revisited an old Mike Flores article on toughness. Flores claimed a format was often defined by the amount of damage its red removal spell dealt. Burn spells generally serve as some of the most efficient—and versatile—removal spells in a given card pool, for their cheap costs and ability to […]
Modern’s had some year. Star City Games kicked off its Modern-heaviest SCG Tour schedule yet, Modern Masters 2017 dropped containing a slew of much-awaited reprints, and multiple pros came around on the format (with some even calling Modern the “The Greatest Format”). And—most recently—Wizards of the Coast announced Modern is back on the Pro Tour. Wait, […]
