As starved as many are for distractions in this day and age, distractions also abound, and got the better of me this time. Like a silent, scaled predator, this set crept up on me. I had to double-check if Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths was even slated to be sanctioned in Modern. Wait a minute… Behemoths? […]

As a new sets come out, the entire Magic writing world speculates on the spoilers. Why wouldn’t we? There’s not always much else going on during spoiler season, and brewing with new cards and ideas is a significant part of the game’s appeal. Plus, if Wizards is going to hand us easy content, it would […]

Happy New Year! I’ll be kicking off 2020 by leaping into spoiler season. Spoilers for Theros: Beyond Death began trickling in while everyone was on holiday break. Now, with our holiday hangovers but a painful memory, the flood has begun. There appears to be considerable potential for Modern cards, and given how 2019 went, I’m […]

All good stories must come to an end. Hopefully, they’ll be paced better than Game of Thrones’s was. The Throne of Eldraine prerelease is this weekend and the spoiler is finished, so it’s time to wrap up my set review. There haven’t been many interesting individual cards spoiled since my last article, but a number of […]

Thrones of Eldraine spoilers are rolling on, and I’m having more fun watching them than any other set I can remember. That’s not to say that  Modern Horizons was boring nor War of the Spark lacking content. Rather, there are more opportunites to make your own fun with Eldraine than the other sets. Rosewater showed how the cards […]

Throne of Eldraine spoilers are now fully underway. While David dissected the set’s mechanics earlier this week, today’s post reviews the cards themselves to see how they might fare in our shifting Modern format. It also revisits an old brew of mine using a certain exciting newcomer. Let’s dance! Certain Playables So far, four cards […]

This has been an utterly insane summer for Magic. Three set releases in close proximity, followed by Hogaak, and then a major banlist update. Modern players are struggling to remember what it means to have a metagame, much less investigate one. We’ve barely had time to catch our breath for the past four months, and […]

With all of Core 2020 spoiled and the prerelease looming, it’s time to wrap up spoiler talk. After the flood of clear playables in Modern Horizons, 2020 is back to being mostly about roleplayers and brewing opportunities. This is typical of a non-Modern-specific release, and much like a typical set, 2020 has plenty of interesting cards that need a […]

This is a bit sudden: Modern Horizons has only been out for two weeks, but here we are starting Core 2020 spoilers. The summer release schedule has ensured that Modern is utterly saturated with new cards, and it is struggling to absorb them all. There hasn’t been much time to determine the effects that War of the Spark  […]

Core Set 2020 spoilers are under way, and a couple cards have already caught my attention. The one we’ll discuss today is Elvish Reclaimer, a potential 3/4 for one mana… with upside! But can its drawbacks be mitigated effectively? Let’s find out by comparing Reclaimer to Modern’s other one-mana combat creatures, seeing in the process […]

With Modern Horizons now fully spoiled, it’s time to wrap up this series of spoiler articles. Last week, I said that the set was a bit underwhelming. At the time it looked like a Standard set with some added complexity. Immediately afterward, the most potentially powerful cards in the set were revealed, causing me to […]

It’s been less than a month since War of the Spark dropped, but since the extra product this year is Modern Horizons, we have more sets than normal to review. And then, about a month until Magic 2020 spoilers begin. 2019 is fast becoming Year of the Brewer. Today, I will be looking at some of the […]

Spoilers for the much-awaited Modern Horizons are finally underway. The expansion so far has exceeded my expectations, offering Modern playables without introducing busted eternal staples, and including a wealth of diverse mechanics and cute designs. Today, we’ll look at the most interesting cards from Horizons and muse about where the rest of the set will […]