The concept of personal preference heavily influences how I see the world, and subsequently, Magic. So I’m no stranger to writing about playing what you love. Nonetheless, I have felt a bit lost in Modern for the last few months: my colored pet decks lost a key card in Faithless Looting, and the second coming […]
An analysist goes to work with the data he’s given. With Modern on the competitive backburner for the past few weeks, I’ve lacked the means to properly dig into the metagame ahead of GP Columbus this weekend. As a result, I am looking a bit further afield into events that I normally wouldn’t analyze. Fortunately, […]
It’s been an odd year for Magic. Modern struggled through a series of bans while Standard was doing well. Once things started looking up for Modern, Standard began its collapse under the weight of Throne of Eldraine. Some of those effects are now leaking into Modern, with uncertain implications. Urza may be the talk of […]
It has been a frustrating year for analyzing the Modern metagame, as multiple bannings and an influx of new cards have churned its natural state. Things are finally starting to stabilize, which means that a reasonable picture is forming. We’ve got a burst of new data to thank for that quieting down. Nonetheless, the new […]
Another event-filled weekend, another data dump, another chance for Modern to adapt and contain the arisen menace. It may not be likely, but as someone locked into making the trip to GP Las Vegas, I feel the need to hope. Barring a sudden abandonment of Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis in Birmingham, I was also hoping against […]
In terms of data, it seems Modern is at a crossroads. This is the problem I found myself with last week. Half the data said that Hogaak was a busted, dominate deck. The other said that it was successful, but only as a function of its popularity. The narrative coming out of last weekend is that […]
For the first time in quite a while, I have a massive data dump to analyze! The past weekend contained a Modern GP, an SCG Open, and the Mythic Championship. With all the shocks finally wearing off, we can start to get a handle on the new metagame. But not without first noting that this […]
With Core 2020 and the London mulligan finally legal, the metagame can begin to take shape. Begin being the key word there. So much has changed in Modern over the past month that it is impossible to predict what exactly is changing. At the end of this week, GP Denver looms. I’m not playing the main […]
I had planned to spend today’s article discussing Hogaakvine: what it does, how it does it, how to play against it, and how I’d build decks given Hogaak’s rise. However, that article was mooted this morning by Wizards. Instead, let’s examine what’s happened and where it leaves Modern. Also, once again, nothing got unbanned. This […]
Last week, I unveiled the first part of my Punishing Fire test. With the data compiled and revealed, it’s time for the less-concrete part. The data is the data and speaks for itself. However, that’s not the whole story. Magic isn’t just a numbers game; there are a lot of intangibles. For instance, it’s also supposed […]
At last, we’ve got the Mythic Championship results. It’s been quite the build up between the ongoing saga of Izzet Phoenix and questions over the proposed mulligan change. We were all looking for definitive answers from London, and while I didn’t get all of them, I think there’s enough evidence to answer some of them. […]
A new set is on the horizon, so it’s spoiler time again! War of the Spark is the first set designed as a planeswalker set, which means there are an unprecedented number about to drop. More interestingly, most of them have static abilities rather than the traditional plus, minus, and ultimate combo we’ve become accustomed to. […]
Modern is vast and diverse enough to make metagaming a frequently terrible idea. However, sometimes it is warranted. With Izzet Phoenix, followed by Dredge, consistently dominating the big tournaments in a way that Modern hasn’t seen in years, it makes sense for the first time in a long time to actively target the top decks. How to […]
