Editor’s note: 2019 was perhaps Modern’s wildest year ever, featuring such meta-defining decks as UR Phoenix, Hogaak, and Whirza thanks to monumental shakeups in the form of Modern Horizons and other expansions. That chaos wasn’t without its constants, including one critical element of new spoilers: card evaluation. In this re-run of my favorite self-published article […]

Core Set 2020 spoilers are under way, and a couple cards have already caught my attention. The one we’ll discuss today is Elvish Reclaimer, a potential 3/4 for one mana… with upside! But can its drawbacks be mitigated effectively? Let’s find out by comparing Reclaimer to Modern’s other one-mana combat creatures, seeing in the process […]

Lightning Bolt once set Modern’s high-water mark: the most efficient and flexible removal spell at its price point, Bolt dictated which creatures did and didn’t see play in Modern almost single-handedly. Today, Bolt’s no longer the end-all-be-all of Modern kill spells. Instead, a diverse array of removal contributes to a colorful patchwork of playable creatures. This […]

Combat is one of Magic’s densest and most misunderstood areas. After all, the combat phase alone contains five separate steps! While much of what makes players “bad” at combat has to do with role analysis, game state awareness, board management, and simple arithmetic, understanding how combat functions on a technical level is also critical to […]