It’s a crazy time to be a disruption-plus-clock player in Modern. The options seem limitless, even if they also seem to point back at Death’s Shadow. Messing around with Shadow in a Temur Delver deck for the last couple weeks has made me a slobbery wet one, nostalgic for the glory days of 4/4 tramplers and […]
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Since my article last week detailing why I think Esper Control is strongly positioned in Modern, I’ve been tweaking and tuning my list online. In the process I’ve learned a great deal about both the archetype and the current state of Modern. Today, we’ll be digging deeper into the archetype, discussing my current list, finer […]
And so it begins. I want to start with a general thank-you to everyone who helped out. This was an enormous undertaking logistically and took much longer than expected. Even considering the deck I was using for testing purposes. Thank you for putting up with this insanely ambitious project. And please, please, pleeeease be willing to […]
To my mind, few archetypes exemplify the spirit of Modern better than Eggs. For anyone not already familiar with the deck, just looking at a list is likely to induce head-scratching and incredulity. Just how, exactly, does this utterly insane pile of unplayable chaff win a game of Magic, our hypothetical newcomer to Modern may ask. […]
In my past articles, when talking about buying a given card, the concept of “risk” has frequently come up. I’ve seen some confusion in the comments about my use of this term, which has lead to misinterpretation of the information I’m trying to convey. Some people were under the impression that I was predicting, or […]
Last week, I introduced a new build of Temur Delver that runs black for Death’s Shadow, the Avatar’s partner-in-crime Thoughtseize, and Modern’s shiny new removal spell, Fatal Push. With another week of experience testing under my belt, I have plenty more insights on the deck. This new experience has inspired a few changes to Temur Shadow, and even a new […]
If you want to play control in Modern this week, Grixis is not the answer. Corey Burkhart has an excellent list that he’s been using to great success, and if you’ve read my articles over the past couple weeks by now you’re familiar with my thoughts on the archetype. Unfortunately the word is out, and […]
I’ll be honest, this is not the article I was planning on for this week. I had planned to start rolling out my Jace, the Mind Sculptor results but I’ve run into a problem. Last time, a lot of you asked for more in-depth statistical analysis of the results and I decided to oblige. The […]
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 […]
Goyf, Smasher, you name it—efficient beaters are really my thing. It shouldn’t surprise that I’ve put in a lot of reps with Death’s Shadow Jund, and the deck’s namesake Avatar definitely rules. Since even before the Probe ban, I’ve wondered about Shadow’s potential in fair blue shells, and my thoughts always come back to Delver. A threat […]
No, this isn’t a finance article—I leave those to the geniuses over at Quiet Spec (and Jim Casale of course). What I want to talk about today are individual cards whose “gameplay stock” is trending up or down based on recent trends in the metagame: “what’s hot and what’s not,” if you will. We’ve done […]
This is going to be a controversial month for my column. My banlist testing article series will return shortly, which will incite a firestorm even if readers like my results. Rather than run from this, I’m going to embrace it. Bring on Argument Month! I’m going to defy consensus and defend something many believe is indefensible. First, some background. […]
Greetings, Nexites. I’m deep in the middle of the late-February/early-March metagame update, which I will have for you by the end of the week. In the meantime, I’m highlighting an innovative take on the Eldrazi tribe that was taken to a 5-0 finish in an MTGO League. We’ve seen a large number of decks sporting Eldrazi creatures […]
