Confession time: I’m a Cheeri0s guy. No, not the cereal, although I’ve been known to start off the day with a bowl of Honey Nut goodness. I’m talking about Modern Cheeri0s, the speediest combo deck in the format. The blistering fast engine combo has been my back-burner deck since 2013 when Paladin was running solo. Then Aether […]

With so many new changes to Modern recently, every assumption we’ve previously held regarding the format as we know it is suspect to change. Mono-Green Stompy is back, Zur the Enchanter is finally poised to take the format by storm, so prepare yourself for Vexing Devil mirror matches every third round. Now that we’re all […]

I have a secret to tell about the Aether Revolt prerelease a few weekends ago: I didn’t play. Sure, the format was Limited, and I didn’t know the cards, and the days are getting longer—we can sit here and make excuses all day. What I was actually doing was playing Star Wars: Destiny, which, as […]

Kaladesh block has been very intriguing. There have been a lot of cards and even new decks that looked Modern-playable, and yet the impact so far has been limited. I’m not sure if that is the fault of misplaced expectations or the cards themselves, but only Blossoming Defense has had a noticeable impact. The enemy fastlands […]

When Wizards banned Gitaxian Probe on Monday, many players reached out to me to express their condolences and ask where Temur Delver goes from here. Probe was an integral part of my Monkey Grow deck, and starting games by paying 2 life for the sorcery was some of the most fun I ever had playing Magic. I will […]

Happy new year, Moderners! It’s good to be back to the Nexus, even if I expect I’ll do far fewer articles in 2017 than I did last year. Between personal and professional developments, it’s been a very busy few months for me, but I’m excited to return and plunge into Magic’s newest set. No promises […]

Everything we talk about today will be controversial. No, we’re not discussing if Donald Trump’s political appointees will kill us all, or whether more credit is owed to chocolate or peanut butter, or whether the Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be destroying or getting destroyed by the Dallas Cowboys this Sunday Night under the lights. I […]

Modern breaks from time to time, and there was significant concern in recent months that the format had become dominated by linear aggressive decks. If you weren’t beating down, you weren’t trying. More and more articles and tweets have been popping up calling for bans, unbans, and even overhauls, though recent Modern results have demonstrated […]

I’ll be honest with you. There’s a Standard GP coming up in my hometown and preparing for that has dominated most of my recent Magic time. I haven’t had time to come up with anything new for this week. What I do have are updates on several Modern projects that I just realized I’ve left […]

As promised, welcome back to the Beginner’s Guide. Back in August I explained the general types of Modern decks to explain why Modern is so proactive and diverse. Today we will start to unpack that riddle by examining how to approach playing and playing against Modern’s aggro decks. As I said last time, aggressive decks […]

The start of every spoiler season brings the promise of a shakeup in Modern. Whether it’s Jund players speculating on Bloodbraid Elf (again), a new mechanic showing promise, or a single powerful-looking card, the Modern community always goes berserk trying to fit new cards into the format. And within a week of release most of that […]

When players talk about Modern’s “high power level,” they are generally referring to how hard it is for Standard-legal cards to break into the format. After receiving archetype-spawning hits in Oath of the Gatewatch (Thought-Knot Seer, Reality Smasher), Shadows Over Innistrad (Nahiri, the Harbinger, Prized Amalgam), and Eldritch Moon (Eldritch Evolution, Bedlam Reveler), it’s a little disheartening to leaf […]

It’s that Friday again: the one where a new set becomes legal. The reception I’ve seen for Kaladesh has been surprisingly divisive, with some panning vehicles and others lauding the cycle of Inventions. For me, excitement surrounding a new set generally has to do with its constructed implications. My major takeaway from the Kaladesh spoilers was that for the […]