You don’t need to play a tier 1 Modern deck to win a major tournament. Michael Malone knew this back in June when he led his company of Elves to victory in Charlotte, taking down a field of Affinity, Burn, and Jund. Gerard Fabiano’s Sultai Control was another entry in the list of rogue tournament finishers, […]
Tournaments
Five hours. That’s how long it would take me and a band of Modern-loving francophones to reach Toronto in Milkman’s big van. It took much longer. After an airport shuttle from the hotel, a busride from the airport, and a yellow-line subway jaunt, I arrive at my buddy’s Chinatown apartment five hours late. He’d hit the town without me, so […]
Another week, another giant leap forward. This past weekend Modern was showcased at the SCG Open Series in Cincinnati. This is very timely since this weekend is an even bigger Modern event in Grand Prix Oklahoma City. You would think that players looking for an edge would be pouring over the results looking for new tech […]
This past weekend was an exciting one for Modern. While the SCG Invitational was Standard/Legacy, and the World Championships was what felt like every format invented ever (sidebar: really hoping for a Tiny Leaders/Commander Pro Tour next year) Modern still got some love in the form of four rounds of the 24 best players in […]
One of the biggest challenges we face in metagame analysis is understanding the importance of a Magic World Championship. These events see a mix of wild innovation and time-honored strategies, of Modern experts with years of practice, and format dabblers who are more at home in a draft or Standard. By a similar token (Thopter? Spirit? Elemental? […]
Going into Day 2 of Grand Prix Charlotte, I was 7-1-1, playing at the top of my game and in a solid position for a high finish. Five rounds later, I was checking the drop box after going 1-4 and wondering where it all went wrong. SCG Charlotte was in many ways a challenge of […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 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. […]
Effectively tuning a deck requires multiple avenues of testing. Last week, I wrote about minor tweaks to my iGrow shell implemented during friendly testing sessions. A day after that article was published, the real testing began, as I took the deck to a pair of ~25-player Modern PPTQs. I made Top 8 in both events […]
If you are like me, one of your biggest June disappointments was the lack of GP Singapore video coverage. After all the awesome GP Charlotte and GP Copenhagen footage and commentary (minus the ridiculous Amulet Bloom questions out of Charlotte), I really wanted to finish the month with the Affinity and Jund showdowns in the Singapore […]
I didn’t get to tune in to GP Copenhagen this weekend, but from what I’ve seen of the Day 2 metagame, the Top 8/Top 16, and the archived coverage, it was summer Modern at its finest.  Last weekend, we were treated to GP Charlotte with Ad Nauseam in the Top 8 and Elves winning the whole […]
