Raise your hand if Goblin Piledriver was your favorite Magic Origins reprint. What about favorite Origins card? What about favorite reprint period since Modern’s birth (sorry Scavenging Ooze)? Goblin Piledriver is that rare card which inspires current spikes, old Magic veterans, and newer players who have heard legends of tribal Goblins in action. Wizards’ inclusion […]

Modern prices have been rising since the format’s birth, but 2015 brought these spikes to new levels. The last six months since the January ban announcement have seen price jumps across the format, both on staple effects and on wild speculation targets. Liliana of the Veil climbed from about $55 to a TCGPlayer average of […]

I’ve always been a fan of Gerry Thompson’s Daily Digest column on StarCityGames, especially when he highlights a Modern deck. Because most Modern players don’t sit at their computer spamming F5 to refresh the MTGO Daily at noon every day, Gerry’s articles are a great way to get the scoop on cool new Modern decks. […]

Magic Origins hit tournament floors this past weekend with mixed results across multiple formats. Although cards like Hangarback Walker, Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy, and Thopter Spy Network made a big impression in Standard events like SCG’s Premier Qualifier in Chicago, Origins’ Modern impact was much more modest. We’ll need more time to see how Origins performs […]

I don’t remember the last time a “no changes” banlist announcement was met with so much contention and disagreement. Although some players have expressed satisfaction and relief at Wizards’ decision last week, others have done the opposite, questioning Wizards’ understanding of Modern, challenging the banning of some cards and not others, and overall doubting Wizards’ ability […]

I’m out on vacation this week, so with the exception of my banlist article yesterday (I couldn’t even have left the house without writing that!), I’ll be doing some shorter tech-oriented articles for this week. You can expect more discussion and processing of the banlist next week, as well as some metagame discussion as we […]

An hour ago, Wizards released their 7/13 Banned and Restricted Announcement to an eagerly awaiting Modern community. I’d been refreshing pages for about two hours by that point, so I hope you join me in taking our collective hats off to Wizards as we applaud them for the Announcement’s decision: no changes. I’m not just […]

The most frustrating part about the Modern banlist isn’t always the bans themselves. In fact, I haven’t really disagreed with a ban since Seething Song/Bloodbraid Elf bit the dust back in January 2013. For me, the most frustrating part can be lack of player understanding about Wizards’ banning criteria, and Wizards’ lack of transparency in how they discuss […]

The last time I had such an exciting month of Modern was March 2014, back during GP Richmond. And that was just a single GP without any major set releases co-occurring. June saw not one, not two, but three Grand Prix tournaments, along with the Magic Origins spoiler, the MTGO Modern Festival, an SCG Modern Open, and […]

Magic Origins has arrived! Origins is the last of the Core sets (6th Edition, 10th Edition, M15, etc.), which marks the end of an era for how sets are released. It’s fitting that a set like this will have some high-impact Modern playables, but the bar was already set high in Khans block. Maybe a […]

We’ve seen some interest in Saturday articles for a while now, and with the MTGO Modern Festival Finals coming up on Sunday, July 5, there hasn’t been a better time to fire off a pre-event article to prepare players for Sunday’s showdown. The tournament winner goes home with one copy of every single Modern-legal set, […]

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 […]

Spoiler and preview seasons always have ups and downs. There are the ups of amazing cards and the downs of Limited fodder. There are also the ups of instant recognition of a format staple (hello, Atarka’s Command), and the downs of embarrassing card evaluation failures (“Treasure Cruise = overcosted jank gg wizards”). Magic Origins, the […]