Modern’s detractors have long cast the format as a writhing mess of linear decks, all ignoring each other or skillfully opening sideboard hosers all the way to each hyper-aggressive Top 8. But until recently, Modern’s pound-for-pound fairest deck—Jund—has commanded more metagame shares than almost anything else. That deck’s resignation as king gave way to a variety […]

SCG Charlotte is in the books. Grixis Shadow and Eldrazi Tron were the tournament’s clear winners, both in terms of representation and apparent power. But while everyone was distracted by that onslaught of under-costed threats, a smaller tournament was underway. Despite being won by Grixis Shadow, the Charlotte Classic yielded a few especially sweet brews, […]

Immediately following its mainstream introduction to Modern by Josh Utter-Leyton and his crew at GP Vancouver, Death’s Shadow gained significant footing in the metagame. The explosion of Jund Shadow onto the paper scene at roughly 10% has since cooled, with the deck taking a more reasonable 8% share when lumped in with Abzan Shadow builds. Part of the reason for […]