From the response to last week’s article, it seems the Nexus readership shares my interest in discussing the parameters and strategic relevance of Modern archetypes. Our community raised some insightful points in the comments, so today I’ll address those and expand a little on my theory – especially delving into my thoughts on spectrums. “Theory” is the operative […]

This weekend, the SCG Open Series descends upon the beautiful city of Charlotte, North Carolina. In my unbiased opinion, Charlotte is an incredible city, full of beautiful architecture, delicious food, and generally acceptable people, as far as cities go. I may be a little biased, as I’ve been living near Charlotte for the past 10 […]

Merfolk is a relatively upstart archetype in the modern metagame. Relegated to tier 2 for almost its entire life in Modern, it only recently has had notable showings and started to command a respectable share of the field. So why should you play Merfolk in Modern? It’s not as fast as Affinity, consistent as Burn, […]

Editor’s note: John recently placed 14th at the SCG Premier IQ in Washington, D.C. with his White Weenie list. In this spotlight article for the Nexus, he discusses the deck itself, his tournament experience, and ways to improve White Weenie for the future.  White Weenie is at its best when it’s at its worst. For those […]

Everyone has a pet card (or three) they want reprinted in a Modern legal set. For me, that card is Goblin Bombardment. Combo power? Check: who didn’t love Enduring Renewal and Shield Sphere (except your opponent). Value power? Check again: Gravecrawler must have been a Goblin in a previous life, because he was made for […]

A few days ago, my buddy commented on Jeskai Control’s baby-renaissance. “Why are people hopping back on UWR?” he wondered. “It looks worse than Grixis. It seems slower, too.” I dropped some serious knowledge on him: “It’s not a question of ‘worse’ or ‘slower.’ UWR Control has a great Grixis Control matchup, since Grixis Control is really a midrange deck. Midrange decks […]

A few weeks ago, we talked about the potential viability of Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy in Modern. To summarize, we were intrigued by Jace’s low opportunity cost and high value ceiling in a format full of graveyard enablers (fetchlands and Thought Scour) and cheap, powerful spells (Lightning Bolt and Serum Visions). The unique capability of Thought […]

Burn in Modern has had its highs and lows. It has bounced between tier 1 and tier 2 for almost the entirety of the format, finally cementing itself as a tier 1 strategy as of late on the backs of new additions from recent sets. The deck is a combo deck that doesn’t have a […]

Battle for Zendikar promises to bring a lot of new toys to Modern. RG Tron stands to gain new colorless targets for Ancient Stirrings while Through the Breach decks could get some new monsters to cheat into play. Burn players might benefit from a Goblin Guide reprint (or maybe not with Goblin Piledriver in Standard…). […]

If Modern cards are doomed to constant reprints and the future of Legacy is uncertain, how do we approach long-term investments? David Schumann looks at some of the options.

I’m a big believer in using metagame data to inform tournament decisions. Whether you use the information to guide your deck choice, change around some maindeck cards, or determine your sideboard bullets, players who are aware of metagame trends are much better prepared than those who are not. Unfortunately, it’s not always clear how a […]

This week’s article contains some Day’s Undoing theory and unveils a new brew. But before we begin, let’s address the Trained Armodon in the room. I hyped Day’s Undoing as the best card in Magic Origins and predicted it would completely turn Modern on its head. I expected the virtual end of midrange decks (not containing […]

This past weekend I traveled to beautiful Vancouver to play Magic competitively at the highest professional stage. The format: Magic Origins Standard and Booster Draft. While not Modern, the Pro Tour is still the Pro Tour, and I figured a report from the perspective of a wide-eyed first timer would make for an interesting read. […]