It’s 2016, and I feel like brewing. I’m not sure why, as usually I leave that business to the Sam Blacks of the world. Regardless, an overabundance of creativity resulting from the potent combination of Christmastime and copious amounts of free time off from architecture has put me in an interesting mood, and I just […]
Brewing
All I want for Christmas is the Oath of the Gatewatch spoiler season to start. That and insider information on the upcoming banlist announcement. Plus an eventual Innocent Blood reprint when we take a trip back to Innistrad. Maybe the Santa Claus’s at Wizards are listening, but if not, we still have a few Oath spoilers to get us through […]
I once lamented the long waiting periods between metagame shifts. Innovation takes time, I thought. Eye-catching technology doesn’t ceaselessly flow from premier events. Except, it seems, in Modern. UBx Faeries has always seen some amount of play among the tribe’s dedicated fanbase, but nothing could have prepared the Modern community for Anthony Huynh’s shocking 13th-place finish at GP Pittsburgh. Faeries has historically sucked in Modern, but Huynh […]
We’re revisiting our weekly article structure throughout December, so we’re bringing back the “Deck of the Week” spotlight we ran earlier in the summer and fall. This will hopefully give brewers some new sources for inspiration, veterans some neat tech (or a couple of laughs), and Modern players format-wide a chance to see original decks. […]
A few weeks ago, I brought up Ryuuta Igarashi’s GR Aggro deck, which grew prodigious Tarmogoyfs and powered out Blood Moon with Pyretic Ritual. The combination of Moon and Goyf so intoxicated me that I built GRx Moon decks all last winter, and had some success with them last summer. When I designed Abzan Moon, I figured I’d optimized the strategy […]
Every once in a while technology appears, not with a flash and a bang, but quietly, calmly, and patiently, waiting to strike from the shadows. Armed with such technology, a prepared competitor could easily leap from these shadows, crushing the field and standing victorious on the mountaintop of his enemies, basking in glory. We saw […]
They key to brewing successfully is to work with cards you love. My enduring fascination with Tarmogoyf and Blood Moon led me to develop a strategy that gets the most out of both cards. Last week, we saw the birth of TURBOGOYF and the deck’s first draft. This article tracks the deck’s development, which culminates in a build with Siege […]
My love affair with Tarmogoyf began while I wasn’t playing Magic at all. But “you never really quit,” and as winter ebbed in 2009, I found myself pouring over Legacy decklists to see how the game had changed since I’d begun my hiatus triggered by Kamigawa block (specifically Umezawa’s Jitte) leaving Standard. Anyone who played a […]
Battle For Zendikar is finally live on Magic Online, which means two things. 1) I’m out of tickets, and 2) we can finally grind some matches with new updates! I’ve got a lot of things in the works, and expect some B/W Tokens and Bring to Light articles and videos coming soon, but for now […]
Greetings Modern Nexites! I have seen most of you before, but unless you pay attention to the comments you have no idea who I am. I am David Ernenwein and for the past several months I have been the content editor of this illustrious site. Normally I stay behind the scenes but today I have […]
In “High Water Fire Mark,” Mike Flores pays respects to the great unsung quality of quality creatures: toughness. He identifies toughness as supremely important to successful deckbuilding designs, writing, “In many constructed formats, we can point to a particular number, say two or three, with the knowledge that that number represents the amount of damage done […]
Last month, Patrick Chapin went 8-1 on Day 1 of GP Oklahoma with Temur Prowess, and the deck hasn’t been talked about much since. I find this very odd, since The Innovator’s decks usually see much press and emulation. Not so this time. I thought this was odd enough that my video series this week […]
Last weekend was the not-so-eagerly awaited Modern debut of Battle for Zendikar. Man-oh-man did it meet its lack of expectations. Although the SCG Standard Open in Indianapolis saw some exciting performances by Bring to Light and five-color manabases, Modern was much less hospitable for our newest set. Only two of the Top 16 decks played any cards from […]
