Decks come, and decks go. The metagame has no sacred cows. A deck must find its niche and then hold it to maintain relevance. Strength in a vacuum doesn’t matter, nor does the dedication of the player base. Three years ago, Grixis Death’s Shadow was an absolute monster of a deck, to the point that […]

August seems like the Month of Stoneforge, with recent format adjustments suddenly favoring the once-banned underdog. At the same time, blue mages lacking a taste for steel are finding their way in this shuffled metagame. Read on to explore the more exciting developments in Modern this month! Blade Runner 2020 As David noted last week, […]

In case you haven’t noticed, Magic can be weird. I’m not just talking about cards or mechanics, though mutate, Goblin Game, and Raging River are certainly out there. I’m talking about how counter-intuitive the game can be. Again, not in the Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth still works under Blood Sun sense (though that absolutely qualifies). I […]

I’m a firm believer in playing what you love in Modern, and in Magic. For me, that often means Tarmogoyf, although I do occasionally try other flavors. Among my Goyf-related pet projects is Rogues, a longstanding deckbuilding challenge with a simple rule: run 4 copies each of Thieves’ Fortune and Tarmogoyf. Creating and holding to […]

Another month gone in quarantine. At least, I think it’s been a month. Time is steadily losing all meaning to me. What even is this year, and what was I talking about? Oh yeah, it’s August now, so I need to take another look at Modern’s metagame. Fire up the spreadsheets and break out the […]

Last week I unveiled Delirium Delver, my latest pile featuring Tarmogoyf and Serum Visions. It was Stormwing Delver that got me brewing again, and apparently I wasn’t alone. Today, we’ll explore Modern’s latest spell-attack renaissance by looking at what the tempo heads are slinging online. Clearly, there’s no shortage of options! Flipping the Table That’s […]

There are many old sayings about plans going awry. Even when it seems like everything lines up perfectly, there’s always a chance for something to go wrong. Throw in a global health crisis, and everything goes out the window. The shutdown seemed like the perfect time to run another banlist test. It’s been over a year […]

A trend I’m seeing in the published results from July is a marked uptick in spell-based aggro-control strategies. Most of those are of the UR Prowess variety, but plenty of Delver of Secrets decks are making the rounds, too. We’ll cover those more academically next week. Today, I’d like to unveil the build I’m currently […]

The greatest problem I face as an article writer is finding something to write about. Inspiration is fickle, as motivation can also be. This is made especially difficult by the pandemic choking off my easiest content source: actual Modern tournaments. Without much happening in greater Modern to discuss and limited source material, I find myself […]

Well, I’ve dutifully done my snooping, and am proud to present some of Modern’s new directions in a Snow-less world! Chomping at the bit for more? Ready the sails… if you dare! Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang “One, two, three and to the four / Boggart Harbinger and Conspicuous Snoop is at the door.” In […]

But for copyright concerns, I would have led off this article with the lyrics to “Another One Bites the Dust.” I hope perfectly reasonable intellectual property law is happy with itself. There’s been another B&R Announcement. This time something actually is banned in Modern. So that’s nice. Even if it does moot a number of […]

The July 13, 2020 Banned and Restricted announcement is live!

Earlier this week, David dissected RG Ponza, the format’s sleeper centralizer that may well overtake other Modern decks in the numbers soon. The deck exploits a peculiar vulnerability of Modern manabases: their softness to turn two Blood Moon. Of course, reliably powering out Moon effects isn’t something any old deck can do with great consistency. […]