27 days left. April 4 is literally highlighted on my desk calendar, with a big red X drawn through a little Eldrazi caricature in the “Appointments” space. I’m not playing a single turn of sanctioned Modern until then, a resolution I believe many Modern players share. Who wants to even be at the same table as an […]

Detroit. Bologna. Melbourne. It is in these three cities that Modern players across the world will unite for a last stand against the Eldrazi apocalypse. From March 4 through March 6, all eyes in the Modern community will be fixed on the much-anticipated Grand Prix weekend. It has been one month since teams at Pro Tour […]

Welcome to week three of the Eldrazi Apocalypse! On Monday, I tried to distract us with promises of greener April pastures, but even the most indefatigable Modern optimist struggled to forget the weekend’s horrors. StarCityGames’ Louisville Classic was one of the ugliest Modern events I’ve ever seen. I described it as a “twisted, tentically nightmare” […]

Magic feels like it’s under attack. Reddit has gone ballistic with the so-called #vendorleak scandal, incensed by stunning (or not so stunning…) allegations of merchant misconduct from an anonymous tipster. Wizards announced Eternal Masters to the joy of many and dismay of many more, reigniting debate about the Reserved List, Legacy, Modern, and future Constructed formats. […]

Metagame diversity is my preferred measure of Modern health. More specifically, diversity as determined by the data analysis methods you’ve come to expect from Modern Nexus’ Top Decks and metagame breakdown projects. Let’s get this out of the way early: Pro Tour Oath of the Gatewatch does not meet those standards. No matter how you parse the Day 1, Day 2, or […]

Brace yourself: the Modern Pro Tour is coming. Between the Oath of the Gatewatch exposition, StarCityGames’ Regional blowout, and Super Bowl Sunday, I’m going to be glued to a screen for every waking weekend hour. Will Affinity, Burn, and Grishoalbrand run riot in Atlanta? Can Von MIller’s defense stuff Cam Newton’s offense on the Levi’s […]

It hasn’t even been a full week since Twin got buried on the Modern banlist, and although Exarch is still mourning, it’s time for players to buck up and dive into the new metagame. If you play paper Modern, the controversial January 18th announcement went into effect last Friday the 22nd. MTGO folks had to […]

This metagame update almost didn’t happen. With a banlist announcement coming up in just two weeks and a new midrange deck redefining the online metagame, it felt silly to analyze a format that is sure to be radically different before January even ends. I changed my mind after sitting down and going through the numbers. […]

I’m getting spoiled with all this Modern event data. November brought us the Regional Pro Tour Qualifier circuit, nonstop StarCityGames Qualifiers, and a massive North American Grand Prix in Pittsburgh. Those data-Scrooges at Wizards even started releasing MTGO League decklists! Between crunching those numbers, speculating about the new Grand Prix promo card, and sitting back […]

We are within two weeks of the next big United States Modern Grand Prix in Pittsburgh and if you are anything like me, you have a lot of preparation to do. For me, the biggest challenge before a big event like this is picking the right deck, making sure it is tuned properly, and I […]

With the tournaments now over for more than a week, I’m doing the last of my lazy Gerry Thompson impressions before everyone forgets about SCG States altogether. (Really) old rogue strategies like Blue Moon and Eternal Command saw some success at States, but I’m primarily interested in the tournament’s brand-new midrange decks. I’ve divided the decks in this article into two categories: […]

I’m deeply ambivalent about Modern these days. We’re seeing both one of the most open fields in the format’s history (Hulk Combo got T16 at an Open!), but also one of its most linear (Hulk Combo got T16 at an Open…). Whether at SCG States, the big events, or the smaller regional venues, aggressive decks […]

When I began paging through the results from StarCityGames’s State Championships, I didn’t expect much in the way of innovation. After all, Modern players are terrified of brewing, or at least of brewing diligently enough to perfect a recipe (Hoogland and Chapin are notable exceptions to this rule). So I was pleasantly surprised to find a host of novel […]