How do you measure the health of a metagame? Is the Modern metagame healthy right now? David attempts to unpack these questions, and what their answers mean.
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It’s time for spooky season in the US, and for the monthly metagame update. Can anything challenge the boogeyman that is HammerTime?
We all thought Consider and Faithful Mending would see Jeskai Phoenix rise again from the ashes. Why hasn’t it, and what will it take for the bird to fly again?
The pandemic persists, and consequently Wizards has yet to restart their premier paper events. Which might not be a bad thing. Considering how badly the MPL went and the lack of clarity over what comes next, it’s better to give them time to figure it out. However, that does mean that many players with the […]
The paper Prerelease and the digital release of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt is this weekend. Subsequently, the entire set has been spoiled. In turn, this means that I can evaluate the remaining cards with better context. And there’s… mixed news. IMH has some gems for Modern, but it’s mostly misses. Which isn’t a bad thing after MH2. And […]
And here we are again. Another spoiler season. One that will barely be over before the next one begins, because for some reason, Wizards is doing a dual set this fall. Innistrad is such a popular setting that I imagine they’ll do well, but it feels like Wizards is pushing our wallets to the breaking […]
How apropos that the Metagame Update is falling on the same day that Innistrad: Midnight Hunt spoilers begin. It’s a perfect transition from the metagame we knew to the new one to come. However new it actually is or isn’t is irrelevant. The addition of new cards creates new possibilities which alone change the metagame dynamics. And […]
Being unable to play with your cards sucks. No one will dispute this. What is also unequivocally true is that cards need to be banned. Sometimes Wizards makes mistakes while making cards, and the likes of Oko, Thief of Crowns proceed to wreck their havoc. Other times new cards interact with old ones in unexpected […]
Nobody enjoys performance reviews. Even if they’re positive. There’s just something existentially distressing that comes with being assessed, aside from any professional implications stemming from said review. And they’re also frequently boring for everyone involved. (From personal experience.) However, they can be useful for fostering improvement. Especially when they’re self-administered in a public setting, so […]
What’s Magic’s most popular format? I realize this is the sort of question most ask around the gaming table just to have an argument, but I’m actually curious. The problem is that I can ask 100 players and get 100 different answers. It will frequently come down to what they last played and how much they […]
New month, new metagame update. It is the way. And I’d like to kick this one off by tempering expectations. The near-perpetual spoiler season we now inhabit did spit out another set. However, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms is no Modern Horizons 2, and did not have that much impact on Modern. The resulting July metagame […]
There’s a reason that stories tend to follow a certain structure. And similarly why studios seem to favor reboots and retreads over actually new movies. Humans are creatures of expectation and habit. We are used to certain things happening a certain way, especially once they’ve been socially reinforced, and when those expectations aren’t met it […]
It’s summer. There’s not much happening on the Magic front. And I’ve got summer things to do. So I’m giving in and doing a list article. At least the algorithm will be satisfied. And I still have my professional pride preventing me from doing it in a nonanalytical way. The Online Metagame An explainer/disclaimer before I […]
