In “Stitched Together: Early Successes from Horizons,” we looked at some of the breakout cards in Magic’s newest expansion. The month has now ended, and it’s left plenty of new developments in its wake. Today, we’ll look at the veritable explosion of tribal aggro strategies in Modern as well as a few novel takes on […]
Brewing
Modern Horizons has deeply affected the format, and Core 2020 is now poised to emerge and shake things up further. But behind all that ruckus, a storm has been brewing—rather, I’ve been brewing up a snowstorm. Today we’ll look at my adventures with Ice-Fang Coatl in Temur and Bant. Dreadhorde Snow This shell combined a […]
With Modern Horizons fully spoiled, brewing can get into full swing. So far, my experience has been guardedly positive. There are a lot of very interesting cards and restrained designs that should reinvigorate fringe Modern decks without upending the format. Still, other cards show frightening promise. Brewing in the Snow I’ll kick things off with […]
Between the impactful War of the Spark, the approaching Modern Horizons, the looming Core Set 2020, and the approved London Mulligan, now is quite a time to be a Modern player. But that’s not all—Modern’s continued period of adjustment to War is yielding more novel decks weekly than I can shake a stick at. It’s nonetheless my job […]
Attempting to home new cards in new decks is an exciting section of spoiler season, sure. But my favorite part of the process occurs when spells are spoiled that might slot into my current and past experiments. Certain Modern Horizons reveals have done just that, and revitalized TURBOGOYF, a deck I’ve been building on-and-off for […]
It’s been half a month since War of the Spark went live on Magic Online, and we’re already seeing the myriad effects it’s having on Modern—heck, on all non-rotating formats. But of course, being Modern Nexus, we’ll focus on just the one! While I enjoy the Friday writing slot, it occasionally has its detriments. In […]
One of the more exciting War of the Spark cards for me was Domri, Anarch of Bolas. The card didn’t appear especially powerful, but it did pique my interest as a potential role-player in a couple of my favorite decks: GR Moon and Temur Delver. As the static-ability walkers spoiled, I identified in them one […]
Another eventful week of War of the Spark spoilers is in the books, and with it, another batch of wrapped-up brewing projects. As always, I’ve got some insights to share on that front today; this time dealing not with planeswalkers, but utility creatures. Dreadhorde Arcanist, for all its Snapcaster/Confidant imitations, struck me as a potential […]
A new set is on the horizon, so it’s spoiler time again! War of the Spark is the first set designed as a planeswalker set, which means there are an unprecedented number about to drop. More interestingly, most of them have static abilities rather than the traditional plus, minus, and ultimate combo we’ve become accustomed to. […]
Is Modern solved? Is Modern stale? Any amount of time spent on a Magic forum or subreddit these days seems to offer countless arguments from both sides of the debate. Indeed, this Phoenix/Dredge/Stirrings (in that order) metagame has proven the most divisive I can remember since Siege Rhino briefly served as hyper-acting format manager in […]
While chatting with a friend who hasn’t played Modern in a while about mostly unrelated topics, I was asked whether Leyline of the Void could be a reasonable consideration for contemporary mainboards . He’d become interested in the topic after reading this article. “In what deck?” I asked, believing myself aware of the card’s niche […]
Halfway through last month, I published “Brew Report: Perfect Pairs,” picking out happy couples from among Wizards’ decklist dumps. As is common in Modern, more innovative decks were published in February’s latter half, including ones built around Standard-legal enchantments, age-old Modern artifacts, and even a few known staples. Today we’ll unearth and assess that tech. […]
Four weeks after proposing a UR Delver shell with Ptermanader, I’ve got some insights to share. And I also have more than a few words on Wizards’ newly-proposed mulligan rule, which has considerable implications for Modern—and for Colorless Eldrazi Stompy. ‘Manders As soon as “Salamander Drake” was spoiled, I set to work on UR Delver, […]
