It’s a crazy time to be a disruption-plus-clock player in Modern. The options seem limitless, even if they also seem to point back at Death’s Shadow. Messing around with Shadow in a Temur Delver deck for the last couple weeks has made me a slobbery wet one, nostalgic for the glory days of 4/4 tramplers and […]

Last week, I introduced a new build of Temur Delver that runs black for Death’s Shadow, the Avatar’s partner-in-crime Thoughtseize, and Modern’s shiny new removal spell, Fatal Push. With another week of experience testing under my belt, I have plenty more insights on the deck. This new experience has inspired a few changes to Temur Shadow, and even a new […]

I’ll be honest, this is not the article I was planning on for this week. I had planned to start rolling out my Jace, the Mind Sculptor results but I’ve run into a problem. Last time, a lot of you asked for more in-depth statistical analysis of the results and I decided to oblige. The […]

Goyf, Smasher, you name it—efficient beaters are really my thing. It shouldn’t surprise that I’ve put in a lot of reps with Death’s Shadow Jund, and the deck’s namesake Avatar definitely rules. Since even before the Probe ban, I’ve wondered about Shadow’s potential in fair blue shells, and my thoughts always come back to Delver. A threat […]

When I think of the affinity mechanic, the first color that comes to mind is usually blue. I suppose that’s mostly because of Thoughtcast’s traditional role in the older versions of the archetype, but for me it also recalls days past of grinding Pauper Dailies with Myr Enforcer into Rush of Knowledge. Artifacts-matter cards are […]

Modern has kept me busy lately. Fatal Push generated a metric ton of buzz, Dredge and Infect terrorized Modern and were subsequently nerfed, and most recently, I’ve had my heart set on building entire decks around the improvise mechanic or Smuggler’s Copter. All these developments have prevented me from writing about how Aether Revolt’s less obvious cards have worked their way into […]

I had initially intended to bring you the January metagame update today, but looking over the data and consulting with Sheridan, we decided to wait a week in order to incorporate more post-banning data, including Star City Games Regionals. Instead, we’ll be covering one of the early changes that has resulted from Wizards’ recent format shake-up. The […]

Forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest. No Ban List Modern and even Vintage have a certain allure to many players, myself included, as they promise the opportunity to play with the best cards ever. In Yu-gi-Oh, I spend most of my time playing Traditional Format, the unpopular Vintage analog wherein banned cards are restricted. And even today, I […]

Cost reduction mechanics are among Magic’s most powerful—delve and affinity have terrorized many a constructed format, and the legendary moxen remain among Magic’s most fabled examples of “Power” to this day. Granted, Enraged Giant is no Black Lotus. But improvise may very well be Modern-playable. This article is the one I had planned to write last week, before Wizards announced its […]

At some point last year I was killing time between rounds and a friend of mine asked if I wanted to jam some Modern. I didn’t have a deck on me, but he had both Jund and Blue Moon. “Gimme that Jund deck. I’ma smash you.” He was really into Blue Moon, but the deck […]

Kaladesh block has been very intriguing. There have been a lot of cards and even new decks that looked Modern-playable, and yet the impact so far has been limited. I’m not sure if that is the fault of misplaced expectations or the cards themselves, but only Blossoming Defense has had a noticeable impact. The enemy fastlands […]

When Wizards banned Gitaxian Probe on Monday, many players reached out to me to express their condolences and ask where Temur Delver goes from here. Probe was an integral part of my Monkey Grow deck, and starting games by paying 2 life for the sorcery was some of the most fun I ever had playing Magic. I will […]

This week, I’m dodging all the “Year in Review” and “Best of 2016” cliché topics, opting instead for pure, clean, fun craziness. 2016 has been a wild ride to say the least, and the hits just keep coming. For now, I’m throwing my hands in the air. No more theory, no more statistical analysis, no […]