New Year’s resolutions are the high point of every January 1st celebration. Or maybe that’s just champagne. Or bowl game blowouts so outrageous they make Jeff Hoogland’s weekend loss to Bobby Fortanely’s Amulet Bloom look fair. Whether you prefer the booze or the club bashes to the boring promises, I’m sure you made at least […]
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Welcome to 2016! Or, should I say, welcome to the Year of the Eldrazi! Cthulhu’s brood has been assimilating the Modern masses for about a month now, starting with EternallyRamza’s inconspicuous showing in an MTGO League on November 30 and culminating in Matthew Dilks’ 10th place run at the recent StarCityGames Open in Cincinnati. Every online Modern […]
I thought about marking up my work calendar with a countdown to January 18, but that felt too nerdy even for me. It’s just so hard not to get excited about the upcoming January 18 banlist update and its probable impact on Modern. Since last week, ban and unban speculation has been relatively quiet throughout […]
All I want for Christmas is the Oath of the Gatewatch spoiler season to start. That and insider information on the upcoming banlist announcement. Plus an eventual Innocent Blood reprint when we take a trip back to Innistrad. Maybe the Santa Claus’s at Wizards are listening, but if not, we still have a few Oath spoilers to get us through […]
Hello Modern Nexus! I’m Peter Niemeier and I’m here to talk about the aggressive, red prison deck I designed and piloted to a 15th place finish in the StarCityGames Modern Classic event in Las Vegas on December 13th. I had never played Modern before and the first game of Round 1 during SCG Las Vegas […]
The January 18 banlist announcement is now a month and a day away. If you play Modern, there’s an excellent chance the inquisitors of the Modern community will scrutinize at least one of your decks. Probably all of them. Since December 1Â alone, I’ve seen serious ban discussion aimed at Burn, URx Twin, BGx Midrange, Affinity, […]
Star Wars comes out this week. It’s been hard to think of anything else. If you’re coming for more deep insights then you should probably close the browser now. I was planning on another deep analysis piece like the last two weeks but, well…I couldn’t focus because Star Wars comes out this week. I couldn’t […]
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The holiday season? Nope. Oath of the Gatewatch spoiler hype and rage? Try again, but you’re getting warmer on the “hype” and “rage” business. With 2015 wrapping up and January 2016 right around the corner, ’tis the season of endless debate, discussion, and delirium about arguably the […]
When I predicted Scapeshift would hit the Top 8 of Grand Prix Pittsburgh, I expected a traditional Temur shell built around the namesake finisher. Thien Nguyen skipped the countermagic and went right for the kill. Piloting an explosive, linear, and focused Scapeshift list, Nguyen blasted his way to a 7th place finish at the Grand Prix. Was […]
Friday, I began chronicling a Mana Deprived Super Series 3K tournament in Montreal. I piloted Monkey Grow to a 6-2 finish. This article concludes the report and gives some closing thoughts on the deck. We ended Chapter 1 on a high note, following an embarrassing loss to Grixis Twin with a triumphant victory over Abzan Midrange. That match ended […]
Between bouts of jamming Traditional Yu-Gi-Oh! and maniacally sleeving up unplayable cards like Desperate Ritual and Peppersmoke, I haven’t played much competitive Modern lately. In my eyes, participating in two small local tournaments a week doesn’t count, and the last “real” Modern event I played in was a WMCQ in Toronto. As more local gamers started asking me if […]
Last week, I wrote an article detailing the history behind Modern’s extensive banlist, complete with Wizards’ official announcements and an analysis of each. This was, by far, my most popular article to date in the almost six months that I’ve been writing for Modern Nexus. This week, I plan on approaching another Modern topic in similar […]
I’m getting spoiled with all this Modern event data. November brought us the Regional Pro Tour Qualifier circuit, nonstop StarCityGames Qualifiers, and a massive North American Grand Prix in Pittsburgh. Those data-Scrooges at Wizards even started releasing MTGO League decklists! Between crunching those numbers, speculating about the new Grand Prix promo card, and sitting back […]
