As promised, welcome back to the Beginner’s Guide. Back in August I explained the general types of Modern decks to explain why Modern is so proactive and diverse. Today we will start to unpack that riddle by examining how to approach playing and playing against Modern’s aggro decks. As I said last time, aggressive decks […]
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Every time spoiler season rolls around, I eagerly pore over the commons, searching for Modern-playable… Rogues. Everyone has their guilty pleasures, their sick addictions. When it comes to Modern, mine is the interaction between tribal spells and Tarmogoyf. And my favorite tribal spell? A one-mana Impulse called Thieves’ Fortune. Just as Ancient Stirrings, powerful as it […]
Last week I introduced my new submission for Grixis Control, Fall 2016 style. My reasons for revisiting the archetype were simple: Modern is polarizing, Grixis hasn’t been putting up results lately, and the deck is freakin’ awesome. If you missed last week, be sure to catch up to speed first. That article framed most of the discussion […]
Oath of the Gatewatch significantly changed the face of Modern upon release. Even after the deck that the set spawned was hit by the ban-hammer, the Eldrazi have found a way to claw back to the top of the format. If you checked out the most recent Modern Metagame Breakdown then you no doubt noticed […]
My article about testing Stoneforge Mystic generated a lot of conversation, both here on Modern Nexus and elsewhere. Judging by the reaction, people really do want some actual data and scientific method brought into discussions of the Modern banned list. Which means that I’ve got a lot of work to do. But I also know […]
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 […]
Every spoiler season, you can catch me looking over the new cards and imagining how they line up in Modern. “I wonder if this card could work?” Invariably, I’ll make a bunch of lists and bring them to battle on Cockatrice. I lose. I fix the list. I lose some more. After a full day of […]
With no SCG events to analyze, and the next Modern Grand Prix in Dallas still almost a month away, I’m left with a “free” topic of sorts this week. Unchained of the duty of analyzing set impact, as Kaladesh appears to be making only a minor impression in Modern, the sky’s the limit as to […]
Every three months a new set is released and people get really excited for Standard. Moderners get excited too, but not for the same reasons—each set release brings the possibility of an update to the Banned and Restricted list. Most of the time the entire article amounts to “no changes,” but every once in a while […]
Many years ago, Mike Flores wrote an article titled “Who’s the Beatdown?” and the theory contained within this piece has been referenced time and again for nearly two decades. If you want to be successful at competitive Magic, you have to understand how to assign your role in a given matchup. This is no less […]
The start of every spoiler season brings the promise of a shakeup in Modern. Whether it’s Jund players speculating on Bloodbraid Elf (again), a new mechanic showing promise, or a single powerful-looking card, the Modern community always goes berserk trying to fit new cards into the format. And within a week of release most of that […]
When players talk about Modern’s “high power level,” they are generally referring to how hard it is for Standard-legal cards to break into the format. After receiving archetype-spawning hits in Oath of the Gatewatch (Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher), Shadows Over Innistrad (Nahiri, the Harbinger, Prized Amalgam), and Eldritch Moon (Eldritch Evolution, Bedlam Reveler), it’s a little disheartening to leaf […]
As Magic players we all end up with cards we don’t want or need. Turning these into cards we can use can be difficult. That’s unavoidable and really part of the reason why Magic cards have any value at all. It’s pretty easy for people to look at a pile of cards on each side and […]
