Fresh off the heels of the Modern Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings (but not yet into Wilds of Eldraine season), we have a wonderful time of year: Banned and Restricted Limbo! On Aug. 7, Wizards of the Coast will announce their first eternal format focused yearly banning update. So, we’re going to do what any good Magic player …
Pro Tour The Lord of the Rings will bring together a collection of the game’s best players in Barcelona this weekend, leaving us asking the question “who will come out on top?” I’ll start by saying that every player in this tournament has accomplished something great to be there, but at the end of the day there can only be …
Last week I spoke about how desperation breeds creativity, and as Modern adapts to the changes brought on by The Lord of the Rings, this has proven to be true. Over the last few weeks I’ve noticed some interesting new innovation in existing Modern decks, and even new decks all together put up strong tournament results. So much of competitive …
Since the release of The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-Earth, Modern has received a few powerful, new options. Those include The One Ring, Orcish Bowmasters and cards that line up well against those cards, with players trying to gain an edge before Modern settles into its new metagame. I’ve been playing a lot of Modern to try and …
The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth brings us the newest Magic mechanic “The Ring Tempts You.” Naturally, once players saw the ring tempts you in stages on a track that exists outside the game, comparisons to the Initiative mechanic started flowing. Is being tempted by the ring going to be as format defining in Modern as taking the …
Death’s Shadow decks haven’t had a meaningful addition in some time, which contributes to a decline in both play rate and success, as of late. However, I’m not here today to bemoan the performance of Shadow — I actually have good news! Not only did Death’s Shadow win an MTGO challenge last week, piloted by xfile, but it is a …
The current Regional Championship season has just begun, and it is the first of the format locked seasons. This means every constructed RCQ for the next few months will be Pioneer. In many areas, Modern RCQs have had higher attendance than Pioneer RCQs during the last couple of seasons, so there is certainly a contingent of players who are looking …
As we rapidly approach the release of March of the Machine, it is time once again to break down the best cards for Modern. This set has a lot of cards with a ton of text and power, but also an above average set of mana values. Normally that might be a conversation-ender, but higher mana values matter less right …
When Phyrexia: All Will be One released, it looked as if Grixis Midrange was not only going to be the de facto Midrange deck, but also the best deck in Standard. Yet Standard is as cyclical as every constructed, competitive format, which has resulted in what is often referred to as the Midrange arms race. This occurs when the default …
Aggression has always been a common play style in Modern, but it has outgrown hyper-linear decks that “try to kill your opponent as fast as possible without interacting” — decks like Burn. That’s why you won’t see the famous archetype on this list of the best Aggro decks in Modern despite the fact that it’s still around and seeing play. …
