Summer 2016 has been a hostile season for the Urzatron. I’d been rolling over online opponents with RG Tron for months, but starting in late May, I detected a shift. More Infect and Death’s Shadow Zoo. More Through the Breach and Valakut. More crazy optimists thinking their new Shadows Over Innistrad tech would make Dredge […]
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In case you missed the news yesterday, Inquisition of Kozilek is back! Yes, IoK is being upgraded to a rare for its printing with brand-new art in Conspiracy: Take the Crown, aka Conspiracy 2. While cards from this set are not usually Modern-legal, this time we have a reprint that is obviously geared toward the Modern crowd. Moderners have […]
Good news, PPTQ grinders! We have data for you. As if the monthly metagame update wasn’t enough for you, this week we have the SCG Syracuse Open to look at, and Jordan will be talking about his PPTQ experience later in the week. Here’s to making informed decisions based on actual data! Dredge won the […]
Here at Deck of the Week we’ve focused, mostly by design, on the no-tier dregs and the brewers’ oddities. Today I wanted to highlight a deck that, having fallen from its Tier 2 showing in May, has nonetheless still been making the rounds in competitive play. The deck I’m calling RG Valakut looks to have some real chops in Modern. Over the last four […]
Move over, Shiloh—It’s Modern season! The next few weeks in my calendar are full of Modern PPTQs, Opens, and GPs, and I think I finally know what to sleeve up. Two weeks ago, I introduced Traverse Delver, a mid-game-focused, Traverse the Ulvenwald/Bedlam Reveler-powered grow deck that finally solved Temur Delver’s miserable Jund matchup. It did so for a hefty […]
Last week, I introduced you to UW Blink, the archetype I brewed on stream with Spell Queller from Eldritch Moon. In that article, I discussed my philosophy behind the deck, analyzing card choices and discussing particular interactions Spell Queller has with the deck and the format in general. I was then, and still am, convinced […]
Well, you know what they say: the more things change, the more they stay the same. The month of July saw some metagame shifts portended the month before take concrete form, as the paper shares adjusted to more closely resemble MTGO results. Death’s Shadow Zoo, Dredge, and Eldrazi ascended to Tier 1, replacing Abzan Company and […]
Welcome back to the Beginner’s Guide to Modern, the article series where we help Standard players make the transition to Modern. It’s been a while since my last entry in this series (far longer than intended), but now I’m back to deal with what I hear is the most interesting, frustrating, and intimidating aspect of […]
Hey guys! You might have noticed that I’m new here. As outlined here, I’ve been brought onto Modern Nexus to write a weekly column, and I want to take a little of your time to introduce myself. My name is Jim and although I’m originally from New York City, I live in Orlando, Florida. I […]
Soul Sisters has long been one of those established, lower-tier decks in Modern that attracts its share of fans and die-hard pilots who take it to battle regardless of the metagame prognosis. The fact that a deck built around lifegain exists in Modern should remove any doubts you had about the format’s capacity to support the bizarre and discarded […]
Wizards loves touting Modern as “wide-open,” a claim bolstered by the format’s incredibly diverse pool of viable decks. With so many options available to them, deckbuilders are bound to ask broader questions about archetype superiority. Is Allies just a worse Merfolk? Goblins, a worse Zoo? Bubble Hulk, a worse Grishoalbrand? Whatever the answers to these questions, someone will play those […]
Sometimes, innovation takes time. Endless nights of preparation, countless hours of practice, hundreds of games contributing to spreadsheets of statistics that inform close, calculated changes. In Magic (and Modern especially), this is the most common form of innovation we see. Death’s Shadow Zoo lists tend to fall in one of two camps, but within those […]
Few would disagree that the banned list in Modern is a net benefit to the format, facilitating its legendary diversity and ensuring games remain more or less interactive. There is, however, a certain curiosity that’s hard to shake off—just what would our beloved format look like completely freed from all its shackles? No-banned-list Modern tournaments […]
