Once again, it is time to start rolling out my results from the latest Banlist Test. As usual, I will start with the experimental setup and the unquantifiable results. I know that what most readers care about are the hard numbers, but I’m not done gathering the data yet. That will be coming sometime in […]

This is a very frustrating week for me. You see, I have a very good result to report on and an embarrassingly bad one as well. It’s not the ideal result, but much better than previous weeks. I almost got there, but that just isn’t good enough for me. I’m massively competitive and will never be […]

Another week, another PPTQ, and another failure to qualify. On the one hand, this is nice: I don’t have to actually think about my article week to week. On the other, I’m still not qualified for the RPTQ. With the good comes the bad, I suppose. Anyway, before I get into my tournament, lets talk […]

Another week, another PPTQ, another time I didn’t get there. Which is good news for this article series, bad news for my desire to get back on the Pro Tour. Especially considering the announcement about the PT this season is feeding. Modern is back on the Pro Tour, and I’m elated. Not only will I get […]

It’s Modern season, time to grind for the Pro Tour! I’ve spent most of my career on the grind and this year is no different. Therefore I will be documenting my attempt to climb back to the Pro Tour for the rest of the summer. If my past experiences are an indication, this will be […]

For most players, this week is the start of the Modern PPTQ season. Technically it started last week, but many of those PPTQs were Sealed to coincide with Hour of Devastation’s release. Hopefully you have chosen your deck and are getting in the reps you need. This is Modern, master your deck—you’ve heard this before. What […]

Everyone is fixated on Grixis Shadow. And rightly so—the deck is very powerful and has been sitting at the top of every metagame chart since April. And I think this is incorrect. I have some reason to believe that Shadow is a symptom of the metagame, not the cause. The Modern PPTQ season starts at […]

Note: This article was supposed to go up yesterday. Our server troubles prevented that. I really liked the opening I wrote. Pretend it’s still July 4th for me, please. Happy Fireworks Day, America! As you celebrate America’s birthday through the medium of smoldering craters as Ben Franklin intended, remember: safety first. The Founding Fathers spent […]

I was planning to write a general guide to beating the top decks in Modern, as alluded to last week. However, my discussion kept circling back to Death’s Shadow. Every time I talked about how various decks were constructed, it inevitably involved Shadow. The strategy discussion? Even as I described picking apart Counters Company with Lightning […]

Grand Prix Las Vegas was massive. You knew that from the coverage, but numbers don’t have the same impact as being there. I had to elbow my way to the match slip box past hundreds of players milling around the Vintage Magic and Quiet Speculation booths while over half of the actual GP contestants played […]

I originally planned for this article to be about planning for a tournament in an open metagame. The results from the Kobe and Copenhagen GPs and from the SCG Baltimore Classic indicated that the metagame was very open and unpredictable. Results from MTGO confirmed this, although Death’s Shadow decks, particularly the Grixis version, were clearly at the […]

By the time this article goes live, it will be just over a week and a half until the Modern portion of Grand Prix Las Vegas. To close a previous thread, yes, I am going and yes, I did win two byes. Not because I actually won a GPT (I have a habit of getting […]

Welcome back to the Beginner’s Guide. Once again, it is time for some general advice for those making the transition from Standard to Modern. As always, my intention is to provide a foundation for newer players to build on. Once this is established, only then are you ready to talk about all the nuance that aficionados […]