Welcome back to the Beginner’s Guide to Modern, the article series where we help Standard players make the transition to Modern. It’s been a while since my last entry in this series (far longer than intended), but now I’m back to deal with what I hear is the most interesting, frustrating, and intimidating aspect of […]

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) […]

Enough theory, enough lists. I’m back from Rome, (and back to streaming!!), which means I’m back to playing a whole lot of Magic. Today we’ll be talking about Jeskai Control with Nahiri, the Harbinger, breaking down the decklist, exploring variations, and discussing its strengths and weaknesses in Modern. Let’s get to it! Jeskai Control in […]

It’s remarkable to think how far both the game of Magic and the culture around Magic have grown recently. What was rare and remarkable yesterday is common today, and old technology and edges are just part of the game. Likewise, old lessons have become integral to how we understand the game, but you’d be hard-pressed […]

When I began tuning Monkey Grow, the biggest surprise among peers and opponents was my sworn dedication to Disrupting Shoal. Certain players couldn’t believe that countering a spell was worth losing a card, citing Force of Will’s status in Legacy as a check to degenerate combo decks that usually gets boarded out against fair strategies. But […]

In my continuing effort to simplify and explain the complicated nature of sideboarding in Modern, I’ve fielded a number of questions about techniques and specific strategies. This makes me happy, since it shows that my readership is engaged, thoughtful, and inquisitive, everything that I could ask for as an author. What has made me less […]

Before Ancestral Vision was unbanned in Modern, it struck me as one of the more deserving cards on the list. Given the choice between playing against Jace, the Mind Sculptor in a format where tapping four mana at sorcery speed can often just leave you dead, and a Treasure Cruise analog that required an investment […]

In the Pro Tour: Oath of the Gatewatch quarterfinals, the Eldrazi-toting Luis Scott-Vargas mulliganed to four against Pascal Maynard’s Affinity. The match announcers were baffled when Luis shuffled away an admittedly unexciting five of Ghost Quarter, Blinkmoth Nexus, Wastes, Matter Reshaper, and Endless One, but after some thought, realized Luis had correctly identified that hand as too slow. The ability to take […]

Sideboarding is a skill-intensive and essential component of competitive Magic. While it isn’t an “Easy to learn, hard to master” skill, it feels very close. Sideboarding guides can be useful to overcome this learning curve, but they can also become a crutch and actively harmful to your chances of improving. Last week I went over the basics […]

It’s become a perennial fixture of spoiler season. Some card with a variant of the “punisher” mechanic (the classic example being Browbeat) is spoiled and the collective Magic community flips their lid. Forum posts are awash in bold claims about its greatness, labyrinthine explanations of how “both sides are good,” and wild overestimations of the card’s […]

Welcome to the second edition of Beginner’s Guide, the article series where we help Standard players make the transition to Modern. Two weeks ago I talked about the importance of choosing and then mastering your deck. This week we discuss sideboarding, easily the hardest and most essential part of Modern. In my experience, players moving […]

Modern is often referred to as a “wide open” format, where deck choice is based more on preference than the “correct metagame choice.” This mentality can at times lead to poor decisions based around pet cards, favorite strategies, or simply stubbornness. It can overwhelm any player looking to prepare for tournaments without a preset idea of […]

Delver of Secrets catches a lot of flak in Modern. I’m no stranger to being teased for my deck choice, so when I was preparing for the Indianapolis Open the stigma of potentially scrubbing out with a fringe deck didn’t bother me too much. Throughout the various eras of Modern, it’s hard to say which of […]