I’ve been doing a lot of theoretical work over the past few months. With Dominaria’s release there was plenty of need—and opportunity—to explore and brew. During this process I was constantly underwhelmed by Modern’s ostensible top deck, Humans. It was a fine deck, but it didn’t really shine. As I explained last week, this left me perplexed about […]

Humans is currently the best deck in Modern. The data is very clear about this: Humans is on top everywhere and has been for most of the year. This is causing a kind of dynamic stability to take over the format. The top decks have remained relatively the same for some time while the rest […]

Merfolk has always been my workhorse Modern deck, but I haven’t written about it in months. The metagame has shifted to a place I don’t like with Merfolk, and so I’ve been playing other decks; as such, I had nothing much to say. However, I’m finding the deck’s potential new includes from Dominaria promising enough to get […]

Dominaria has many solid Modern candidates (and some questionable ones) but none have generated quite as much buzz as Damping Sphere. The hysteria may have died down, but many players are still high on the card. Given the context of the card, this is hardly surprising. However, I am not convinced. There are a number […]

Now that Dominaria’s Prerelease is over, the brewing season has begun. Players are plugging in likely candidates, looking for the missing pieces in their decks. While there are plenty of interesting new cards in Dominaria, I’m still stuck on a reprint. I’ve been working on verifying my belief that Skirk Prospector is the real Modern standout. The […]

Modern decks may fade away or rotate, but they never really die. They linger on in the hearts of adherents and their competitive records. Every time a card that might make the old deck return to glory is printed, you can bet the resurrection machine will be rolled out again. This time it’s Goblins’s turn, […]

I fully intended to play in SCG Milwaukee last weekend. I’d been practicing and preparing for weeks, tuned my deck, and even made the travel arrangements. Then the two great powers of plan ruination, unexpected work and bad weather, derailed my plans. However, I’m not one to let all that work go to waste. Instead […]

The phrase “I know it when I see it” is rather cliché and typically unhelpful. It is also frequently true: there are phenomena that are easy to observe and record, but actually defining them is a struggle. For instance, physicists cannot agree on a Grand Unified Theory despite broad agreement on its components; philosophical debates […]

There is a reason that games have rules: without them, everything would just be Calvinball. Rules provide structure, cohesion, and comprehension. To mess with them is to risk your game flying apart. Magic is no different. Draw one card, play one land, each land produces one mana, use that mana to pay the cost of […]

Another weekend, another major event to review: this time, GP Phoenix. The paper metagame continues to be hard to pin down. There are significant changes from SCG Dallas which muddy the waters and makes any projection difficult. There appear to be some trends forming but anything can be a trend when you only have two […]

With SCG Dallas in the books, the process of deciphering the metagame can commence. True, there have been plenty of MTGO results to pore over, but selected lists don’t form a random sample. It’s curated with a goal in mind, and so not every deck has an equal chance of being included. In large tournaments, […]

It’s been three weeks since Jace, the Mind Sculptor was unbanned. For the past three weeks, I have struggled with the card; the power is there, but an optimal shell has proven elusive. Judging by the lack of articles around the greater internet, it seems that most brewers are having similar problems. Today, I will […]

Since last Monday, it seems like Jace and Bloodbraid are everywhere. This should hardly be surprising. Exciting, powerful cards promote similarly excited brewing, and as the decklists reveal, players are actually following through. But this isn’t Eldrazi Winter, and the new decks aren’t obviously overpowered. There’s more going on. It will take a few months before […]