If you want to do well in Modern you have to master your deck. Everyone who ever gives advice about improving in Modern says exactly that. There’s no way around it—in the non-rotating formats you are much better off playing one deck every tournament. Higher deck diversity, power level, and complexity mean that raw play skill is insufficient […]

A sequence of unfortunate events and matchups quickly killed my ability to put together a good showing at SCG Orlando. I wouldn’t say it was all for naught, however. I got some valuable testing with unorthodox cards and had some of my inclinations validated by other top deck lists. Orlando was also another reminder that […]

With the conclusion of SCG Richmond last weekend, we are set up for a weekend of Team Sealed in Louisville. It’s not exactly the most exciting tournament for a reader of Modern Nexus. The following weekend, however, is a Star City Games Open in my home city of Orlando! I’m working on a tweak to an existing […]

I get a lot of questions and comments pertaining to Grixis Delver, with a lot of the focus being on the sideboard. My sideboard notably doesn’t take advantage of the sorts of hammers that you see in many Modern decks. I’m not about “destroy all artifacts” or “exile all cards in graveyards” cards, and instead have […]

Welcome once again to the Beginner’s Guide. Back in May I laid out some basic rules and recommendations for how to construct a Modern sideboard. The intention was to provide guidelines for building a sideboard in Modern. The time has come to explain how it’s actually done. Everyone likes to complain about Modern. I don’t […]

Another PPTQ last weekend saw me again go 4-2 with Monkey Grow. I beat Jeskai Control, Affinity, and two Burn decks, dropping matches to Delirium Jund and Bant Eldrazi. The matches were interesting, but I’m wary of writing too exclusively for one niche. So I’ll spare you the tournament report and unveil a new brew: […]

Treasure Cruise Modern was easily my favorite Modern format of all time—and my addiction to Delver of Secrets is well-documented. Given this, a lot of people have asked me about Bedlam Reveler since it was spoiled. I think it’s important to be open to the potential viability of new cards, as being the first to discover […]

Goryo’s Vengeance combo has something of a checkered history in Modern. On the one hand it’s a long-time mainstay with the requisite die-hard enthusiasts (and occasional irrational price spikes). On the other hand it struggles to put up consistent results, despite access to a two-mana Yawgmoth’s Bargain and its potential for turn two kills. The archetype’s […]

If you tuned into the Star City Games Invitational in New Jersey this weekend, you had the pleasure of seeing somewhat fringe contender Elves take down the Top 8. Elves is certainly not an unknown quantity, but it also doesn’t exactly make the list of decks Moderners expect to face at every tournament. Going into this weekend […]

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 […]

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 […]