Welcome back for another metagame update. I’m calling today’s the “February update,” even though it encompasses a week-and-a-half of March data as well. As we had extended last month’s data, it made sense to do so this month too in order to avoid a three-week metagame with scant data. The astute reader will notice that […]

On January 9th, Wizards of the Coast brought the heavy weight of the banhammer down upon Modern, attempting to target several linear decks that ranked among the best-performing archetypes during 2016. On the one hand we had the aggressive, explosive creature combos with a gotcha! element, headlined by Infect. On the other hand we had Dredge, taxing […]

With so many new changes to Modern recently, every assumption we’ve previously held regarding the format as we know it is suspect to change. Mono-Green Stompy is back, Zur the Enchanter is finally poised to take the format by storm, so prepare yourself for Vexing Devil mirror matches every third round. Now that we’re all […]

Magic cards don’t take much to catch fire, huh? If you’ve been following along online, a bunch of people have been working on a new version of a combo deck called “Cheeri0s.” If not, let’s take a look at why this is one of the hottest new decks in Modern and what the most optimal […]

I had initially intended to bring you the January metagame update today, but looking over the data and consulting with Sheridan, we decided to wait a week in order to incorporate more post-banning data, including Star City Games Regionals. Instead, we’ll be covering one of the early changes that has resulted from Wizards’ recent format shake-up. The […]

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 […]

I knew they were going to take actions in Standard with the new banlist update—especially with it being moved up to this week. The pessimist in me expected that Modern would be left untouched. To be fair, I enjoyed Modern prior to this announcement, much unlike Miracles Legacy, though I’m very happy that action was […]

I’m very annoyed. I had an entire article on Aether Revolt’s Modern impact planned when, without warning, all my Magic-related social media exploded. Wizards had moved up the Banned and Restricted Announcement to Monday. Oh well, looks like all that effort was wasted—time to analyze some implications! Not that I’m actually complaining about the bans, […]

Today finally brings an update to the metagame breakdown, with data from December. I know many of our readers have been very disappointed to see these fall by the wayside—I want to explain briefly why I’ve been lagging on them, and reassure you that they will be back in full force for 2017. I recently began […]

Welcome to 2017! Hopefully you’ve recovered enough to actually face the new year, because we have a new set and a banlist announcement on the way. It’s time once again for wild speculation and unrealistic expectations to flood the internet. Brace yourselves. We at Modern Nexus will do what we can to temper this and provide more grounded opinions […]

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 […]

Last week I went against my better judgment and wrote about the Modern banlist. The piece seemed to be generally well received, though as one would expect, there were disagreements. Most seemed to be with regard to levels of understanding or differences of philosophy, though there was one commonly expressed sentiment that I felt deserved its […]

Banlist discussion has become all the rage in recent years. The people who manage the banlist understand that changes should be made rarely and with good reason, though as we all know you can’t please everybody. Players still complain about the banning of Splinter Twin, and there is plenty of discussion over what could be […]