Sometimes I marinate for minutes (no, tens of minutes) on clever article titles, but today’s came naturally. After months of turning Eldrazi Temple sideways, I’ve returned to my beloved Temur Delver, and fetching out basic Island has never felt more right. I guess you don’t know how dirty some things are until you stop doing them. To […]
Jordan Boisvert
Jordan is Assistant Director of Content at Quiet Speculation and a longtime contributor to Modern Nexus. Best known for his innovations in Temur Delver and Colorless Eldrazi, Jordan favors highly reversible aggro-control decks and is always striving to embrace his biases when playing or brewing.
Let’s clear the air. I want to write about a pet card 1,000 times (Ă la Day’s Undoing) about as little as you want to read about it. To quote one of the funnier comments on my umpteenth Day’s Undoing article, “This series is like watching a bubble burst in slow motion.” Funny, yeah, but fun for no […]
Some play Magic to win, and others play to have fun. Most players move up and down the spike scale depending on context—the casual nature of certain tournaments provides a perfect backdrop to test wacky ideas. With this principle in mind, I good-naturedly brought a neutered Eldrazi deck to FNM last week that splashed blue and green for playsets of Tarmogoyf, […]
By now, we’ve all rejoiced at the Eye of Ugin banning and rejoiced even harder at Wizards’ reparations. It seems the banlist moderators understand that actions speak louder than words, so instead of issuing a plodding “we messed up!”, they actually gave us some new toys. Apology accepted! Readers know I’ve spent some fine afternoons […]
I’m sure I speak for many when I say my favorite part of spoiler season is paging through new cards and looking for ones that fit into my pet decks. The leaked Shadows over Innistrad spoilers revealed Invasive Surgery and the delirium mechanic. As a Tarmogoyf enthusiast, this keyword spoke to me on a competitive and […]
Spoiler season is brewing season, and this one has me deliriously joyful. Last week, some enticing cards from Shadows over Innistrad inspired me to revisit and introduce an old brew of mine: Wx Tallowisp. I also alluded to another of my longstanding projects, a UGx Rogue tribal deck. Exactly zero commenters inquired about that pile, but I’ve […]
It’s the most wonderful time of the year: spoiler season! Shadows Over Innistrad is packed with intriguing card designs and eerie flair. Best of all, Wizards is pushing big-hit, casual tribal archetypes like Spirits and Vampires. We’ve heard rumors about Emrakul being on Innistrad, but I can’t be the only one relieved to not see colorless mana symbols […]
The triple Eldrazi Grand Prix weekend has come and gone, and with it went my final shreds of hope for this Modern format. Luckily, Aaron Forsythe confirmed at GP Detroit that Eldrazi was “DEFCON 1” for Wizards, and we’ll certainly see a metagame correction in April. While I won’t play much Modern until then, I still have a […]
Eldrazi this. Eldrazi that. I feel like all I’ve read in the last month about Modern has to do with Eldrazi. Oh wait, that’s because it does all have to do with Eldrazi! Because Modern is an Eldrazi format. Grand Prix Detroit begins early tomorrow morning. I and a bunch of other Modern players will […]
This format has become as hostile as Zendikar. Testing Eldrazi online makes everyone ragequit, and testing anything else leaves me with bruises. Last week, I took a deck I’d already worked on profusely and tweaked it into a hate-machine for the format tyrant. The deck showed initial promise, but soon Eldrazi opponents adapted to my strategy, and […]
Sheridan’s Eldrazi checkup article from Wednesday linked to a reddit post about Modern’s “canaries in a coalmine:” cards and strategies whose presence in a format should set off red flags of obvious metagame issues. I also find the idea “fascinating,” but could not believe the inanity of the post’s replies, which suggested Spell Snare, Ensnaring Bridge, […]
For all the moaning about the Pro Tour and its lack of diversity, did anyone not have fun watching it? I had a blast. The whole thing felt very surreal. We knew Chalice of the Void and colorless Eldrazi made a perfect match in Modern, but had no idea they would crush the format. I couldn’t do anything this week without faintly […]
Modern has always been a creature format. That’s why, despite a lull in play last year, nobody’s ever doubted Path to Exile as a perennial staple. And why dumb beaters like Tarmogoyf find their way to the top tables in the face of Goryo’s Vengeance and Ad Nauseam. Cheap, large bodies command a premium in Modern, and Oath […]
