By Max Magnuson. In his first article for Modern Nexus, Max shares some Affinity tech that provides a massive boost to the archetype: The Antiquities War.

And now, back to the grind. I skipped last week due to the travel distance involved, but I wasn’t about to miss this week. That said, I want to call out that both PPTQ’s last week were at stores that I didn’t know existed, and one was in a town that as far as I […]

Another missed PPTQ means more time to test. In addition to refining my own decks, I’ve been looking into Modern’s hot discussion topics. We’ve seen time and again that Modern’s cardpool hides monstrous decks just missing a piece or two to become major players. Several such decks have recently emerged that appear to have found […]

After a week off, it’s time to get back on the grind. While there were PPTQ’s last week, they were well outside my willingness to travel. I instead used that time to refine my decks and  get a feel for where the metagame was going. I intended to hit both Modern PPTQ’s this weekend, but […]

I’ve spoken about Krark-Clan Ironworks on several occasions now, but continued testing has reinforced my belief that many Modern players don’t really understand how it works. The combo itself is incredibly complicated once it gets going, and as a result, players frequently misplay. But the strategy’s true strength isn’t its density, but how much Engineered […]

Another PPTQ season, another few months trying to claw my way back to the Pro Tour. Or another opportunity to really analyze my game and try to find new areas to improve upon. I’ve been grinding a long time, and have come to adjust my expectations while maintaining ambition. Usually, PPTQ seasons begin in central […]

Another new set, more new cards, and more chances for hope to spring eternal. As always, players are wildly speculating on their playability and trying to fit new cards into everything. I’m not immune, and especially now that the full spoiler is out I have been looking for and testing Modern playable cards. Two in […]

Dominaria’s been Modern-legal for almost two months, and a host of players have tried their hand at brewing with Mox Amber, including yours truly. While more aggressive lists than mine have put up 5-0s here and there, the card has mostly fallen flat, as many expected. But the few results Amber has scored inspired me to […]

Experienced Magic players stress the importance of testing matchups sideboarded—after all, more than half of all games in a given tournament are played sideboarded. So too must I stress the importance of mastering the main phases, of which there are two per turn! Just a Phase focuses on the nuances of priority and phase manipulation […]

I’ve been doing a lot of theoretical work over the past few months. With Dominaria’s release there was plenty of need—and opportunity—to explore and brew. During this process I was constantly underwhelmed by Modern’s ostensible top deck, Humans. It was a fine deck, but it didn’t really shine. As I explained last week, this left me perplexed about […]

Humans is currently the best deck in Modern. The data is very clear about this: Humans is on top everywhere and has been for most of the year. This is causing a kind of dynamic stability to take over the format. The top decks have remained relatively the same for some time while the rest […]

While I’ve been durdling around writing theory pieces on phases, Modern has been chugging right along… with a vengeance. The last week alone has showcased so much piping-hot technology I had to split this article down the middle while writing it. Today, we’ll take a look at six of the most exciting decks to emerge […]

Dominaria has many solid Modern candidates (and some questionable ones) but none have generated quite as much buzz as Damping Sphere. The hysteria may have died down, but many players are still high on the card. Given the context of the card, this is hardly surprising. However, I am not convinced. There are a number […]