The SCG Modern Classic in Atlanta last Sunday signaled the end of Modern as we know it. Hour of Devastation is officially upon us, and with it, our reckoning has arrived. Armed with powerful new spells, creatures, and everything in between, the world’s best brought their collective knowledge to bear, shaking the foundations of our […]

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 […]

Death’s Shadow Jund’s metagame shares seem to have decreased a little since last week, indicating that Modern has the tools it needs to combat the new boogeyman. This reassuring development has been met with universal praise from the pro community and relief from the playerbase. The deck’s presence in Modern still changes its landscape, though, […]

The verdict’s all but in: new kid on the block Death’s Shadow Jund is Modern’s new deck to beat. Death’s Shadow’s ascent to boogeyman status carries metagame-wide implications and emphasizes some of Modern’s quirks. Today, we’ll explore why Death’s Shadow Jund is so good, what the deck means for the format, and whether other decks should recruit the massive Avatar for their own purposes. […]

Fresh off the back of a Modern-packed weekend in the form of the SCG Regionals, Modern lovers worldwide have been blessed (or cursed) with another weekend jammed full of Modern data to analyze. Grand Prix Brisbane, Grand Prix Vancouver, the SCG Modern Classic in Baltimore—we’re getting to the point where there’s almost too much information […]

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 […]

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 […]

It’s been an exciting week for Modern. Fatal Push was sanctioned last Friday, and the SCG Columbus Classic gave players a highly anticipated datapoint for the new metagame. A linear combo deck won that event, and a purely reactive control deck just missed the Top 8. Combo and control are famously underpowered archetypes in Modern, giving us […]

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, […]

The year is winding down. Players are looking forward to presents in the coming year. For many, that seems to include new bannings in Modern. Banlist mania always heats up as a new set release nears, but traditionally it’s been worst at the end of the year. Previously this was because the Modern Pro Tour […]

Happy All Hallows’ Day, Nexites! Hopefully your diabetic coma isn’t too severe. Otherwise you might miss out on the second part of my discussion of playing with and against Modern’s aggressive decks. Last week we dealt with the classic aggressive decks, linear aggro. Today we’ll be dealing with the less fair versions. That’s not to say […]

Last month we saw three major Modern Grand Prix around the world post a metagame breakdown that mirrored almost exactly the one established in July. Paradoxically, September had both far fewer high-profile events and much more significant shifts in share percentage. I believe these were the result of careful and systematic re-positioning by Modern players, with the intent […]