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 […]

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 […]

Today’s deck can perhaps most accurately be described as a motley pile of stuff. If you were paying attention last week, you may have seen this bizarre little deck pop up in the Top 8 of the Star City Games Columbus Classic in the hands of Jack Rumpf. Michael Kinney certainly took notice—he decided to run a list […]

13 months ago I wrote my second-ever article for Modern Nexus, focused entirely on a then-rogue strategy called “Suicide Zoo,” or Death’s Shadow Zoo.  (I also did a Video Tech, which you can watch here!) Championed strongly by Frank Karsten and Fabrizio Anteri, the deck put up splashy results in Magic Online Dailies (yes, those forgotten things) […]

It’s finally here, folks! I know everyone has been waiting patiently for the June metagame report, and I’m extremely happy to bring it to you today. I’ve undergone something of a crash course over these last few weeks familiarizing myself with Sheridan’s methods (and mammoth Google Docs spreadsheet) that allow us to operationalize the tiers in […]

Good news, everyone! Modern PPTQ season starts this week, and we have metagame data to work with! Jason has promised that the June update will happen tomorrow, but for today lets examine the first results from our new post-Eldritch Moon metagame. Frankly, I don’t expect much to have changed, mostly because it was the release weekend […]

This week’s Deck of the Week hails from the SCG Classic in Worcester from two weeks ago. Eli Kassis is a name some of you might recognize as one of the principle deckbuilders who has worked to put Retreat to Coralhelm combo on the map. He helped Bant Knightfall break out to much fanfare at the Invitational in […]

With Modern PPTQ season on the horizon, players round the world are turning their attention to our beloved format. Standard fanboys and Limited snobs alike will force themselves into our happy place, challenging our dominance and superior format knowledge as they attempt to wrest Regional PTQ invites from our deserving arms. In their ignorance, they […]

If you’ve been paying much attention to the Modern metagame or spending a reasonable amount of time in the MTGO Leagues, you’ve almost certainly already run up against Modern’s newest boogeyman, Dredge. I recently pulled the trigger and bought into a Modern deck on MTGO (Infect, for those interested) and made the portentous decision to scrimp […]

Rejoice Nexites, for the Modern PPTQ season fast approaches! The Modern Pro Tour may be gone but at least we still have an entire season to grind away for our shot at the big stage. While the season doesn’t actually kick off for most until the end of the month, I got a taste of […]

I’ve always been more of a paper player than an online one, but that changed a few weeks ago when I bought myself an MTGO deck as an early birthday present. Can you guess my purchase? Hint: if you’ve seen “ktkenshinx” around the tournament practice tables, chances are you’ve been eating Lightning Storms with Pact […]

This week in Magic, everything is freakin’ awesome. Seriously, I have not been this excited about a Modern metagame since before Splinter Twin was a deck (so, like the format’s conception). Recently, Modern has experienced a roller-coaster of shifts, with Amulet Bloom/Splinter Twin’s bannings and Eldrazi’s swift rise and fall. Today, we’ll look over the […]

Two weeks ago I called Abzan Company one of the top decks of the format. Last weekend, in Indianapolis, Abzan Company failed to even crack the Top 32. Instead, the top tables were overrun with copies of Infect and R/G (Tron and Valakut), while Jeskai Control took home the trophy. Today, we’ll analyze the results of […]