With Battle for Zendikar hitting tournaments in October, it’s important that Modern players invest in the old staples that are sure to rise with BFZ’s release. This article gives you the five pickups you need to check out.

You don’t need to play a tier 1 Modern deck to win a major tournament. Michael Malone knew this back in June when he led his company of Elves to victory in Charlotte, taking down a field of Affinity, Burn, and Jund. Gerard Fabiano’s Sultai Control was another entry in the list of rogue tournament finishers, […]

Modern offseasons lead to weird metagames. Following the nonstop action in the June Grand Prix circuit, Pro-level Modern mostly wound down for the rest of the summer, a lull broken only by the SCG Modern Open in Charlotte. August saw a ton of PPTQs, IQs, and other regional events, but each had a different local flavor and […]

One of the biggest challenges we face in metagame analysis is understanding the importance of a Magic World Championship. These events see a mix of wild innovation and time-honored strategies, of Modern experts with years of practice, and format dabblers who are more at home in a draft or Standard. By a similar token (Thopter? Spirit? Elemental? […]

When you think of Modern powerhouse blocks, you probably think of Return to Ravnica, Khans of Tarkir, or Scars of Mirrodin. Theros block? I imagine more Modern players would be excited about going back to Homelands (Barons of Ulgrotha anyone?) than seeing more Theros. The Greek and Roman-themed set was not the strongest addition to our Modern […]

You don’t need a Grand Prix to make it a Modern month. The SCG Charlotte Modern Open came to a close this weekend, with just over 500 players battling for the prize. Even though the Open was significantly smaller than the GPs we saw earlier in June (and smaller than the last SCG Modern Open […]

In my reprint article last week, I promised more reprint coverage if the article was popular and well-received. With almost twice as many comments as other articles on the site, thousands of views, and tons of positive press, the readers have spoken: Modern players love reprint articles. On the one hand, this could suggest an underlying dissatisfaction […]

Everyone has a pet card (or three) they want reprinted in a Modern legal set. For me, that card is Goblin Bombardment. Combo power? Check: who didn’t love Enduring Renewal and Shield Sphere (except your opponent). Value power? Check again: Gravecrawler must have been a Goblin in a previous life, because he was made for […]

Battle for Zendikar promises to bring a lot of new toys to Modern. RG Tron stands to gain new colorless targets for Ancient Stirrings while Through the Breach decks could get some new monsters to cheat into play. Burn players might benefit from a Goblin Guide reprint (or maybe not with Goblin Piledriver in Standard…). […]

I’m a big believer in using metagame data to inform tournament decisions. Whether you use the information to guide your deck choice, change around some maindeck cards, or determine your sideboard bullets, players who are aware of metagame trends are much better prepared than those who are not. Unfortunately, it’s not always clear how a […]

We don’t get a Modern Grand Prix until September; if you were as pumped about summer Modern as I was, GP Oklahoma City can’t come soon enough. Thankfully, Modern has continued to evolve in the wake of our June GP gauntlet, and the metagame hasn’t looked this open in years. Since our last metagame breakdown […]

Following the success of last week’s article comparing Legacy to Modern prices, I want to take a look at some other questions about Modern finance. We had a lot of requests in the comments, both on this site and on others where the article appeared, but one stood out as more important than the rest: rising Modern […]

Delve is one of the more broken mechanics in Magic. It cheats mana costs, dodges cost-specific removal like Abrupt Decay, and rewards you for doing nothing else beyond playing a game of Magic. Mark Rosewater may have given delve a mere five on his “Storm Scale” back in 2014, but I am sure the mechanic […]