As of this writing, a playset of Ancestral Vision will set you back 140 tickets on MTGO. Sure, some of that is finance garbage due to Snapcaster Mage and fetches being in MM3, but even before that the card was 25+ tickets. Corey Burkhart (and now Shaheen Soorani) have been in the spotlight in recent […]

The verdict’s all but in: new kid on the block Death’s Shadow Jund is Modern’s new deck to beat. Death’s Shadow’s ascent to boogeyman status carries metagame-wide implications and emphasizes some of Modern’s quirks. Today, we’ll explore why Death’s Shadow Jund is so good, what the deck means for the format, and whether other decks should recruit the massive Avatar for their own purposes. […]

Here we are, the final category of decks! Well, I say category but it is actually categories. You see, there are a number of archetypes that are either rare or derivative of the other ones and so don’t really require separate articles. This is not to deride their value to Modern or their power. It is simply […]

After finishing 4th in an SCG Regionals tournament with Eldrazi Stompy, I’ve been excited to take the deck to more competitive events. I had that opportunity last weekend, and cracked Top 8 at a monthly TJ Collectibles Modern tournament. My only loss of the day was to the dreaded Bant Spirits, which landed turn-three Geist of Saint Traft into […]

Nearly there! Welcome to the penultimate entry in the deck guides. Next week I’ll finish up with the remaining deck types and we’ll finally be done with all the archetypes of Modern! Then I’ll finally be free to write about other, more topical things again. Ramp decks occupy a weird place in Magic. Arguably the […]

It’s been an exciting week for Modern. Fatal Push was sanctioned last Friday, and the SCG Columbus Classic gave players a highly anticipated datapoint for the new metagame. A linear combo deck won that event, and a purely reactive control deck just missed the Top 8. Combo and control are famously underpowered archetypes in Modern, giving us […]

Many factors determine creature playability. When a format’s most popular removal spell is damage-based, toughness becomes one key yardstick. In Modern, x/3 creatures that don’t trade with Lightning Bolt at parity, or that can’t fulfill one of a few other roles like casting a spell, are said to fail the Bolt Test. As such, they possess limited use […]

When you talk to players about their Modern decks, most of them can tell you why they like their deck. Perhaps the play patterns fit their style or they have good things to say about the deck’s relative power level. This is good information to have—but identifying a deck’s weaknesses is more important when it […]

As the year, for better or worse depending on your perspective, draws to a close, I find that I have unfinished business. Or rather, I have business I thought was finished but others disagree. Specifically, players just won’t accept that Bloodbraid Elf is not a serious consideration for unbanning. Despite addressing the issue several times, […]

Last week I found myself playing a head’s-up Cube match against my friend Mike. I was handily crushing him (obviously) and our other friend Kevin asked me, “Do you always just draft blue/red?” It’s not my fault! They’re the best cards, after all. Throughout the history of Magic there is some truth to there being […]

Last week I went against my better judgment and wrote about the Modern banlist. The piece seemed to be generally well received, though as one would expect, there were disagreements. Most seemed to be with regard to levels of understanding or differences of philosophy, though there was one commonly expressed sentiment that I felt deserved its […]

Looking solely at the Top 16s of recent events, observers might argue that Modern has become shockingly interactive. Todd Stevens’ Sun and Moon, a white-red prison deck with a midrange slant, just won a Star City Games Open in Knoxville, headlining a Top 16 packed with more Sun and Moon, Skred Red, and Jund. Earlier this month, […]

Banlist discussion has become all the rage in recent years. The people who manage the banlist understand that changes should be made rarely and with good reason, though as we all know you can’t please everybody. Players still complain about the banning of Splinter Twin, and there is plenty of discussion over what could be […]