This week I wanted to do something a little bit different from my past couple articles. Leave it to me to propose a tonal shift to my article topics, and then immediately afterwards break from the mold to do something different. Still, a couple personal/opinion pieces in a row suggests a shift every now and […]

Last week, I wrote a very personal opinion piece titled “Getting Disillusioned – What Magic Is Missing”. In the article, I put forward my perspective on Modern Magic, how I feel playing the game, and what sort of experience I find myself craving that Magic hasn’t been able to provide for me recently. I received […]

It is inevitable. Every time a new Banned and Restricted Announcement comes out, speculation runs rampant. Everyone has their pet cards to advocate for or against, everyone is utterly convinced they’re right, and they take offense to disagreement. Every single time. It’s really tiring. I’ve written about this problem before. I have no problem discussing possible […]

Yesterday, our own Trevor Holmes published “Getting Disillusioned—What Magic Is Missing.” That piece describes the allure of other games while exploring motivation and writer’s block. I don’t agree with everything he wrote—opinion pieces are like that—but I think Trevor raised some interesting points, and his article got me thinking about my own motivations and the […]

This one will be a little off the rails. A couple weeks ago, I highlighted an opportunity I saw for Wizards to do something risky but with the potential to change Modern forever. The feedback I received was… voluminous, and well appreciated, even though most everyone disagreed with me. Regardless, I learned something through the […]

Once again, it is time to start rolling out my results from the latest Banlist Test. As usual, I will start with the experimental setup and the unquantifiable results. I know that what most readers care about are the hard numbers, but I’m not done gathering the data yet. That will be coming sometime in […]

Modern Top 5: Utility Spells kicked this series off, and in my eyes, it was hugely successful. Not only did it present a measurable way to analyze cards that I’m quite proud of, but the article also inspired a lively debate in the comments. Today, we’ll revisit the series, focusing on some of Modern’s most […]

This week, I’m doubling down. Modern is returning to the Pro Tour, and with that, banned list discussion is certain to resurface. I’ve chosen to get out ahead of it; my article last week speculated on a potential opportunity for Wizards of the Coast to “solve” the banning problem once and for all. Unsurprisingly, this […]

Modern Magic’s history under the lights has been… complicated. As a format, it was born into fire in 2011 with Pro Tour Philadelphia, and since then, the format has bounced from darling to redheaded stepchild to orphan and back, faster than strobe lights at a Skrillex show. Bannings, Pro Tours, more bannings (as a result […]

Modern’s had some year. Star City Games kicked off its Modern-heaviest SCG Tour schedule yet, Modern Masters 2017 dropped containing a slew of much-awaited reprints, and multiple pros came around on the format (with some even calling Modern the “The Greatest Format”). And—most recently—Wizards of the Coast announced Modern is back on the Pro Tour. Wait, […]

The “Death’s Shadow is the best deck” narrative we saw emerge in force around Grand Prix Vancouver has now split, with some claiming Eldrazi Tron is in fact the best deck. I tend to agree with the former, and will softly make a case for that inclination in this article. Regardless, we can surely agree […]

Preparation means something unique to everyone, and each player has their own pre-tournament ritual. Mine tends to vary depending on how invested I am in the format, and what other stuff I have going on. The SCG Roanoke Invitational will be underway by the time this piece goes public. In this article, I’ll describe how […]

I was planning to write a general guide to beating the top decks in Modern, as alluded to last week. However, my discussion kept circling back to Death’s Shadow. Every time I talked about how various decks were constructed, it inevitably involved Shadow. The strategy discussion? Even as I described picking apart Counters Company with Lightning […]