I’m preparing for an RPTQ, but it’s hard to stop brewing. Whipping up decklists full of pet cards is just too fun. Even when those pet cards are literal pieces of trash. Ross Merriam’s recent Legacy article reminded me of one pet card I’d long forgotten, four copies languishing in my Modern collection with the other rejects. I don’t expect to break […]

I’ve written on a variety of different topics since August, including Kaladesh standouts, brews, and Temur Delver. But each week I’ve brought the same exhilarating deck to my weekly locals: Colorless Eldrazi Stompy. I introduced that deck’s Eyeless update three months ago and have been tuning it since. With Pascal Maynard’s recent blurb renewing interest in […]

I’ll be honest with you. There’s a Standard GP coming up in my hometown and preparing for that has dominated most of my recent Magic time. I haven’t had time to come up with anything new for this week. What I do have are updates on several Modern projects that I just realized I’ve left […]

Well, I realize it’s been a long hiatus since our last Deck of the Week, but we’re back nonetheless. I spent much of the weekend tuned into coverage of Grand Prix Dallas, and if most of the on-camera archetypes were boring mainstays and known quantities, the deck that took it down most certainly was not. […]

In an article last month, I looked at a couple of my unsuccessful concoctions to see what went wrong. One deck I dissected was a Jeskai Aggro deck that used Honor of the Pure to get around Mantis Rider’s measly 3 toughness. My conclusion was that the deck would be better off with Mutagenic Growth and a […]

Every time spoiler season rolls around, I eagerly pore over the commons, searching for Modern-playable… Rogues. Everyone has their guilty pleasures, their sick addictions. When it comes to Modern, mine is the interaction between tribal spells and Tarmogoyf. And my favorite tribal spell? A one-mana Impulse called Thieves’ Fortune. Just as Ancient Stirrings, powerful as it […]

Every spoiler season, you can catch me looking over the new cards and imagining how they line up in Modern. “I wonder if this card could work?” Invariably, I’ll make a bunch of lists and bring them to battle on Cockatrice. I lose. I fix the list. I lose some more. After a full day of […]

When players talk about Modern’s “high power level,” they are generally referring to how hard it is for Standard-legal cards to break into the format. After receiving archetype-spawning hits in Oath of the Gatewatch (Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher), Shadows Over Innistrad (Nahiri, the Harbinger, Prized Amalgam), and Eldritch Moon (Eldritch Evolution, Bedlam Reveler), it’s a little disheartening to leaf […]

I’ve been tweaking Temur Delver variants, especially my beloved Monkey Grow, for well over a year now. The archetype does everything I want to be doing in Modern: it throws Bolts, it attacks with efficient threats, it counters spells, it cantrips, and it steals games with Blood Moon. For a long time, it also struggled […]

With no recent major Modern events to analyze, no exciting Kaladesh spoilers to drool over (yet), and no community controversy to argue (give it time), I’m left struggling to find a topic this week. Theory pieces are great, but I don’t like to do two back to back that often as I need a weekly […]

When it comes to Delver decks in Modern, Snapcaster Mage is the most obvious second creature to feature, though over the years I’ve rounded out the threat base in a lot of different ways. Tasigur has been great for me as of late, though I’ve put Young Pyromancer, Monastery Swiftspear, and even Vedalken Shackles to […]

Last week we checked in on Kentaro Yamamoto’s finish with Goryo’s Vengeance in GP Guangzhou. Today I have another less established deck from the same Top 8 for you. This is a deck I’ve been meaning to feature here at Deck of the Week since I first ran across it while going through the MTGO […]

Triple Modern GP weekends are both exhilarating and intimidating for me. On the one hand it’s great seeing how the format is developing and growing. Watching strong players play my favorite format while the commentators (almost) understand what is happening are the only reasons I ever watch video coverage. The flip side is that the amount of […]