Greetings students, and welcome to the first week of Strixhaven spoilers. As this is the first week, I’ll be keeping things simple by going through the set’s mechanics. I’ve made this a tradition for all new set spoilers, and it’s particularly appropriate this time as the new mechanics are a both surprisingly straightforward and annoyingly indirect. […]
David Ernenwein
David has been playing Magic since Odyssey block. A dedicated Spike, he's been grinding tournaments for over a decade, including a Pro Tour appearance. A Modern specialist who dabbles in Legacy, his writing is focused on metagame analysis and deck evolution.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled metagame analysis. Let me just take a look at what’s been winning… oh. MTGO’s reporting system is bugged; there’s been no new data since March 10. Huh. Ok, well, let me just see what’s happening in the community… wait, really? Heliod Company is considered the best deck now? […]
The time after a set release or a major ban is always exciting. The format is in flux, the metagame undefined, and everything seems playable. This is even more true right now, thanks to the ban taking away a metagame pillar. This has in turn renewed interest in Modern, bringing an influx of players and […]
And now, to wrap things up. I’ve talked about the setup and the hard data, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. It’s usually the intangible or at least unquantifiable observations that most inform decisions. I made a number of observations and ancillary impacts during my testing that changed how I see Hypergenesis. Today, I’ll […]
Having finished the appetizer, it’s time for the main course: the data from my Hypergenesis test. This is the hard, quantitative data, and I’ve done statistics on them to determine the validity of the test. For the stats people out there, I do a multiple significance test, but will report the z-test here. There’s never […]
It’s been quite a while, but your eyes do not deceive: this is another full banlist test series! It’s been almost two years since I did one of these. Not for lack of trying, mind you, but there are only so many viable test subjects in the first place, and I’ve done a few already. […]
Wow. There are bannings, and then there are bannings. This was definitely the latter. Wizards looked at non-Standard Constructed, saw that it was poor, and nuked it. All of it, Historic, Pioneer, Legacy, and most importantly, Modern. Vintage also saw an unbanning. Because somebody had to get thrown a bone. Monday morning, Wizards dropped the largest […]
It’s always interesting to see how spoiler predictions play out. You can have all the experience in the world with which to judge a card, but miss some corner interaction that just blows up. Or there’s an application that you never considered. The only constant is that predictions will be off and there will be […]
Hot on the heels of my practical examination last week, it’s time to formally close the books on the old metagame. Or at least that expression of the old metagame. Who knows how Kaldheim will actually affect Modern, but regardless, the old metagame will see turmoil and change. I expect whatever emerges from Kaldheim to be similar […]
As January comes to a close, it’s time to start looking forward to the new Modern. Kaldheim hits shelves next Friday, and while its impact on Modern will be muted, there will be new brews and deck adjustments which will cause some turbulence. The only question is whether there will be a major change, either from a […]
It’s an odd set where there doesn’t appear to be anything amiss. As I’m writing this sentence, there is nothing that even vaguely resembles anything dangerous. Which is not a bad thing. It’s just weird, given that we’ve had the companions, Astrolabe, Uro, Oko, and Hogaak in the past two years busting everything. And that’s […]
It’s time for that quarterly tradition of reviewing the latest spoilers! Which for the past few iterations has been oddly trepidatious. Prior to 2019, Modern never had to worry about a new set coming out. We maybe had one or two cards make lasting impressions, which kept the format stable. Then Wizards seemed to lose […]
And now, to formally close the books on a terrible year. Yes, it is in fact 2021; time did truly progress, and we’re not trapped in a Doctor Who-style loop. However, a new month means a new metagame update, which means that I must remind everyone of the past year. Sorry! The data set is […]
