eldrazi tron | Quiet Speculation

A Building Wildfire: April ’21 Metagame Update

David Ernenwein — Mon, 03 May 2021 16:00:48 +0000

The new month brings a new metagame update. And this time, there's nothing disruptive to report. No bannings, no weird and still-unexplained data gaps; just a perfectly normal bit of data gathering. Which means that I'll be delivering a straightforward metagame update. Which will be nice, since there's another Modern Horizons coming, and that might […]

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Trending Away: Modern’s Metagame Muddle

David Ernenwein — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 16:00:38 +0000

It's the end of June. Normally that wouldn't feel weird to say, but this is a rather unusual year. Where has it gone, and simultaneously why does it feel like it never goes at all? Without paper events as a guide and work disrupted, time is losing meaning to me. Fortunately, I keep being reminded of […]

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To Be Continued: Post-Ban Snapshot

Jordan Boisvert — Tue, 17 Mar 2020 16:00:23 +0000

It's been just over a week since Once Upon a Time got the boot in Modern, so we don't have a lot of information with which to decisively answer the question on everyone's mind: where does the format go from here? We do, however, have some data points. Today, we'll look at a few decks […]

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December Brew Report: A Story to Tell

Jordan Boisvert — Fri, 03 Jan 2020 17:00:16 +0000

Full bellies? Droopy eyes? Scrolling and clicking? It's the new year, all right! But why focus on the future when we could dwell on the past? Read on for an after-holiday treat: the spiciest brews to come out of 2019's death throes. Technologic Urza and Oko might be hogging the spotlight, but artifacts have a […]

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Metagame’s End: GP Columbus Analysis

David Ernenwein — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 17:00:33 +0000

The end of the year is approaching, and with it a slowdown in competitive Magic. In fact, GP Columbus was the last Modern event of the year. As such, it is the final opportunity to look at the metagame before 2020's SCG Columbus, so GP Columbus provides extremely important data. It not only defines the […]

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The Metagame Experience: MCQ Report

David Ernenwein — Tue, 23 Jul 2019 16:00:21 +0000

This is an odd feeling for me. For all its flaws, the PPTQ system meant that grinders like me always had competitive level events to grind and keep our skills sharp. The MCQ system is functionally the same as the old PTQ system, which means very few events and very spread out. Since I'm a […]

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Hold ‘Em & Fold ‘Em #9

Edward Eng — Fri, 07 Sep 2018 14:51:33 +0000

This week has a nice focus on lands, but we're not referring to the Legacy deck. Eddie also starts touching on Guilds of Ravnica spoilers.

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Hold ‘Em & Fold ‘Em #8

Edward Eng — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 20:44:51 +0000

This week Eddie circles back around to rotation to highlight Standard and Modern. He also provides a new way to keep tabs on cards he mentions in his articles with a public spreadsheet.

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King of the Hill: Using Your Flex Slots in an Open Meta

Roland F. Rivera Santiago — Tue, 07 Nov 2017 19:00:42 +0000

If you’ve been playing Modern over the last few months, you may have noticed an interesting trend in the metagame results: no one deck is top dog. While a familiar cast of characters inhabits the top of the charts, it seems as if any one of them can do well in a given tournament, all […]

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What’s Winning, Why, and How to Beat It

Trevor Holmes — Thu, 19 Oct 2017 16:00:57 +0000

The Star City Games Charlotte Open results are in, and there are numerous other Modern events on the horizon. In a few short months, we’ll have a Modern Pro Tour on our doorstep as well. Summer is over, fall is here, and Modern is back in the spotlight. It is time. This week, I’ll be […]

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Testing Preordain: Qualitative Results

David Ernenwein — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 16:00:37 +0000

Once again, it is time to start rolling out my results from the latest Banlist Test. As usual, I will start with the experimental setup and the unquantifiable results. I know that what most readers care about are the hard numbers, but I'm not done gathering the data yet. That will be coming sometime in […]

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Metagame Predictions Five Weeks Out – Gauging the Results

Trevor Holmes — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 18:17:02 +0000

Five weeks ago, I made some bold predictions about where I thought Modern was headed for the summer of 2017. Fresh off SCG Baltimore, Modern was firmly in the grasp of Grixis Death’s Shadow, as the format was just beginning to warp around it. Today, we’ll look at those predictions to determine what I got […]

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Jund’s Demise: The Hidden Metagame Warp

David Ernenwein — Tue, 11 Jul 2017 18:00:28 +0000

Everyone is fixated on Grixis Shadow. And rightly so—the deck is very powerful and has been sitting at the top of every metagame chart since April. And I think this is incorrect. I have some reason to believe that Shadow is a symptom of the metagame, not the cause. The Modern PPTQ season starts at […]

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Four-Event Recap: Metagame Shifts

Trevor Holmes — Thu, 06 Jul 2017 17:19:41 +0000

Modern tournament decklists are flooding in to the point where the phrase “too much of a good thing” is starting to come to mind. Nah, who am I kidding. I love this stuff. I hope you do too, because today we’re going to dive right in. I plan on recapping and analyzing high-level Magic tournament […]

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Enemy Sighted: GP Vegas Metagame

David Ernenwein — Tue, 13 Jun 2017 16:00:27 +0000

I originally planned for this article to be about planning for a tournament in an open metagame. The results from the Kobe and Copenhagen GPs and from the SCG Baltimore Classic indicated that the metagame was very open and unpredictable. Results from MTGO confirmed this, although Death's Shadow decks, particularly the Grixis version, were clearly at the […]

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A Look Ahead: Predicting Modern Five Weeks From Now

Trevor Holmes — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 16:27:03 +0000

This week, I plan on doing something unique. Event analysis has long been my preferred approach when it comes to writing—and reading—about Magic, and I feel strongly that my skills in methodically sifting through data, testing hypotheses, and arriving at conclusions is one of my biggest strengths in Magic, both as a writer and as […]

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A Curious Trend: GP Vegas Prep

David Ernenwein — Wed, 07 Jun 2017 16:00:14 +0000

By the time this article goes live, it will be just over a week and a half until the Modern portion of Grand Prix Las Vegas. To close a previous thread, yes, I am going and yes, I did win two byes. Not because I actually won a GPT (I have a habit of getting […]

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Three Archetypes to Attack the MTGO Metagame

Trevor Holmes — Thu, 04 May 2017 16:14:19 +0000

I’m not one to play the “best deck." Usually, that’s because I’m packing some form of control, tempted by the cruel mistress that is card advantage. Oftentimes, this obsession translates directly into uphill battles and short Saturdays, but that’s neither here nor there. Still, my time spent attacking the format from the outside has given […]

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Financial Deck Tech: Eldrazi Tron

Jim Casale — Wed, 03 May 2017 16:34:19 +0000

Back-to-back deck techs!? You betcha! I've been putting some more thinking into what Iconic Masters means for Magic, and how Wizards of the Coast could have approached it. I think there could be some pretty important reprints in that set that will help Eldrazi Tron the most, and I want to talk with you about them! Overview Eldrazi […]

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Modern Metagame Breakdown: 2/6/17 – 3/12/17

Jason Schousboe — Mon, 20 Mar 2017 21:49:45 +0000

Welcome back for another metagame update. I'm calling today's the "February update," even though it encompasses a week-and-a-half of March data as well. As we had extended last month's data, it made sense to do so this month too in order to avoid a three-week metagame with scant data. The astute reader will notice that […]

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