The January 18 banlist announcement is now a month and a day away. If you play Modern, there’s an excellent chance the inquisitors of the Modern community will scrutinize at least one of your decks. Probably all of them. Since December 1 alone, I’ve seen serious ban discussion aimed at Burn, URx Twin, BGx Midrange, Affinity, […]

Star Wars comes out this week. It’s been hard to think of anything else. If you’re coming for more deep insights then you should probably close the browser now. I was planning on another deep analysis piece like the last two weeks but, well…I couldn’t focus because Star Wars comes out this week. I couldn’t […]

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! The holiday season? Nope. Oath of the Gatewatch spoiler hype and rage? Try again, but you’re getting warmer on the “hype” and “rage” business. With 2015 wrapping up and January 2016 right around the corner, ’tis the season of endless debate, discussion, and delirium about arguably the […]

Recently, the public has been reminded that Modern exists. This has naturally reignited discussion about bannings. GP Pittsburgh featured a lot of fair, powerful decks battling for fame and glory. This was generally fun, exciting, and interesting. GP Pittsburgh also featured Amulet Bloom. This was controversial, upsetting, and bordering on taboo. Parents were covering their children’s […]

Hello Nexus readers! Due to all the holiday travel and plans, particularly among our North American staff and audience, we’ll be taking the rest of the week off. Here’s wishing everyone a happy and safe Thanksgiving. If you’re not celebrating, here’s a video of all the holiday-week fun you’re missing out on. [wp_ad_camp_1] Also, as a […]

I started mulling over predictions for this article all the way back on November 3 when I posted my October metagame breakdown. I’ll be honest: Modern wasn’t looking too hot. Twin was back, but linear aggro, combo, and ramp (oh my!) commanded worrisome metagame shares. Jund and even Abzan kept respectable format slices, but were […]

Praise be to Wizards! The 9/28 B&R Announcement went live this morning, yet again demonstrating Wizards is a competent and conservative manager for our beloved format. As in the July 2015 announcement, this is easily one of the best “No Changes” updates we could have asked for. Hopefully Wizards keeps these updates coming because I […]

So let’s get the cold hard truth out of the way early; Battle for Zendikar stinks. Not in a “reminiscent of Innistrad scenario, where every card looks poor on paper but incredible synergies prove us all wrong” kind of way. Almost half of the cards in this set are giant, hulking Eldrazi Limited bombs. Most of […]

My expectations weren’t high when I went to open the full Battle for Zendikar image gallery. Like Jordan, I wasn’t thrilled to see the first half of BFZ over the past few weeks, and was worried about what the rest of the set would hold. After seeing all 274 cards, I’m officially joining Jordan in […]

As a competitive player and avid brewer, I always look forward to spoiler season. I check the spoiler page at midnight and then again at 5 AM even though there’s almost certainly nothing new. Some moments of elation justify this diligence; I remember my head exploding when Hooting Mandrills was spoiled. So it hurts to say that Battle for Zendikar’s […]

It’s spoiler season once again and the Battle for Zendikar previews are trickling in. While there are many interesting cards for Limited and Standard that are coming out of the woodwork, what about for Modern? Thanks to the Eldrazi theme, Battle for Zendikar has a lot of high cost spells and creatures. As I’ll talk about later, […]

Since I opened the Nexus discussion on Modern archetypes a couple weeks ago, community members have congregated in the comments section to share their opinions. The biggest argument against the theories I’ve proposed comes in the form of varying definitions of “fair” and “unfair.” Today, I’ll address those concerns more closely. (This article is the […]

In my reprint article last week, I promised more reprint coverage if the article was popular and well-received. With almost twice as many comments as other articles on the site, thousands of views, and tons of positive press, the readers have spoken: Modern players love reprint articles. On the one hand, this could suggest an underlying dissatisfaction […]