Cost reduction mechanics are among Magic’s most powerful—delve and affinity have terrorized many a constructed format, and the legendary moxen remain among Magic’s most fabled examples of “Power” to this day. Granted, Enraged Giant is no Black Lotus. But improvise may very well be Modern-playable. This article is the one I had planned to write last week, before Wizards announced its […]

When Wizards banned Gitaxian Probe on Monday, many players reached out to me to express their condolences and ask where Temur Delver goes from here. Probe was an integral part of my Monkey Grow deck, and starting games by paying 2 life for the sorcery was some of the most fun I ever had playing Magic. I will […]

Many factors determine creature playability. When a format’s most popular removal spell is damage-based, toughness becomes one key yardstick. In Modern, x/3 creatures that don’t trade with Lightning Bolt at parity, or that can’t fulfill one of a few other roles like casting a spell, are said to fail the Bolt Test. As such, they possess limited use […]

Since the rise of Dredge, Modern has undergone some frightening changes. Linear aggro-combo decks have experienced a renaissance to fight off the Grave-Troll menace. Toting Eldritch Moon sleeper Grim Flayer, Jund has secured additional metagame shares as it combats these strategies. And Tron, never a favorite against pump-based aggro, has experienced perhaps more shifts than any of Modern’s archetypes […]

There’s a lot to love about Modern, including its incredible deck diversity, large card pool, and plethora of powerful interactions. An often-understated quality of the format is its dynamism. Modern metagames shift subtly at a much faster rate than sites like Modern Nexus can document—a rise in Infect leads to a rise in Jund, which […]

Last weekend I played in my first RPTQ. What a tournament! I’d never played in a room full of players on or above my level before, and to say I was underprepared is a huge understatement. My car full of Boston grinders left after the third round, all of us beaten to shreds by the competition. […]

Every few weeks after a Modern Nexus metagame update, I start to get a little restless. I spend nights prowling sites like mtgtop8 trying to form my own metagame picture. Even if local metagames are slow to change, and those are the ones I play in the most thanks to their ubiquity, I always like […]

I’m preparing for an RPTQ, but it’s hard to stop brewing. Whipping up decklists full of pet cards is just too fun. Even when those pet cards are literal pieces of trash. Ross Merriam’s recent Legacy article reminded me of one pet card I’d long forgotten, four copies languishing in my Modern collection with the other rejects. I don’t expect to break […]

Looking solely at the Top 16s of recent events, observers might argue that Modern has become shockingly interactive. Todd Stevens’ Sun and Moon, a white-red prison deck with a midrange slant, just won a Star City Games Open in Knoxville, headlining a Top 16 packed with more Sun and Moon, Skred Red, and Jund. Earlier this month, […]

I’ve written on a variety of different topics since August, including Kaladesh standouts, brews, and Temur Delver. But each week I’ve brought the same exhilarating deck to my weekly locals: Colorless Eldrazi Stompy. I introduced that deck’s Eyeless update three months ago and have been tuning it since. With Pascal Maynard’s recent blurb renewing interest in […]

America was watching, riveted. Eyes glued to screens across the nation. All signs pointed to a win for blue. But Modern is a strange beast. During the tournament’s final hour, its rust belt of Lightning Bolts exploded into a sea of crimson. Cries of “how did this happen?” and “where did we go wrong?” echoed around the […]

In an article last month, I looked at a couple of my unsuccessful concoctions to see what went wrong. One deck I dissected was a Jeskai Aggro deck that used Honor of the Pure to get around Mantis Rider’s measly 3 toughness. My conclusion was that the deck would be better off with Mutagenic Growth and a […]

Modern’s claim to fame is its diversity. I’m not alone in feeling like a notable portion of the format’s card pool is playable, and Wizards themselves push this narrative heavy-handedly. For many players, though, Modern is less about openness than it is about linearity. There are indeed plenty of options—so long as you’re not set on […]