Recently, there’s been a lot going on in the world “non Magic-wise.” The Cubs finally overcame the hundred-year curse, South Korea got really weird, and America proved that polling actually is absolutely worthless. If you’ve been too busy staring at supermoons and lamenting the end of society as we know it, fret no more. Everything […]

Modern’s claim to fame is its diversity. I’m not alone in feeling like a notable portion of the format’s card pool is playable, and Wizards themselves push this narrative heavy-handedly. For many players, though, Modern is less about openness than it is about linearity. There are indeed plenty of options—so long as you’re not set on […]

Oath of the Gatewatch significantly changed the face of Modern upon release. Even after the deck that the set spawned was hit by the ban-hammer, the Eldrazi have found a way to claw back to the top of the format. If you checked out the most recent Modern Metagame Breakdown then you no doubt noticed […]

Every spoiler season, you can catch me looking over the new cards and imagining how they line up in Modern. “I wonder if this card could work?” Invariably, I’ll make a bunch of lists and bring them to battle on Cockatrice. I lose. I fix the list. I lose some more. After a full day of […]

Many years ago, Mike Flores wrote an article titled “Who’s the Beatdown?” and the theory contained within this piece has been referenced time and again for nearly two decades. If you want to be successful at competitive Magic, you have to understand how to assign your role in a given matchup. This is no less […]

I see players agonize a lot about what deck they’re supposed to be playing in Modern. I get asked questions pertaining to what’s good in Modern at the moment, though when it comes to the deck registration sheet, the biggest mistake you can make is not being familiar with the strategy you’re bringing to the […]

If you want to do well in Modern you have to master your deck. Everyone who ever gives advice about improving in Modern says exactly that. There’s no way around it—in the non-rotating formats you are much better off playing one deck every tournament. Higher deck diversity, power level, and complexity mean that raw play skill is insufficient […]

It’s that Friday again: the one where a new set becomes legal. The reception I’ve seen for Kaladesh has been surprisingly divisive, with some panning vehicles and others lauding the cycle of Inventions. For me, excitement surrounding a new set generally has to do with its constructed implications. My major takeaway from the Kaladesh spoilers was that for the […]

Modern is a format with plenty of decks, and many of those decks have multiple names. This problem becomes apparent as we move down the tier list, and rampant at the very bottom. There are many ways to name a deck, and this article explores some of the possibilities. It also introduces a three-level archetype system […]

The banned list is one of the hot Modern topics whenever a new set is released. Everyone is speculating about what, if anything, will get the ax or be unleashed upon the world. Speculation this time is focused on Infect and/or Dredge taking a hit and Bloodbraid Elf coming off the list. I’m not here […]

In last week’s article, I considered a Death’s Shadow Zoo variant that gave up some speed for Modern’s most efficient interactive spells. The question at the heart of that project: what does a deck gain from leaning further towards interaction or linearity, in relation to the overall metagame? Even obviously linear decks like Infect and Affinity […]

With Kaladesh spoilers starting to come in, it’s about that time again for my quarterly voice of reason article. Even though we know better, there’s something about spoilers that causes us to throw all our inhibitions to the wind, drizzle ourselves in chocolate sauce and run around on the beach without a care in the […]

Last week we checked in on Kentaro Yamamoto’s finish with Goryo’s Vengeance in GP Guangzhou. Today I have another less established deck from the same Top 8 for you. This is a deck I’ve been meaning to feature here at Deck of the Week since I first ran across it while going through the MTGO […]