Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Michael Rapp”
Over the last couple of weeks, Rakdos Shadow has made a name for itself in Modern, putting up some solid results in challenges, and even picking up a win. While I believe Rakdos Shadow is a good deck, I think it also has some exploitable flaws, namely card quality and perhaps being too low to the ground. Before we can …
Zendikar Rising has shown that it has a number of cards that are Modern-playable, and many of them are already bearing results. While I wrote about how premier decks such as Amulet Titan and Death’s Shadow were getting new toys, it was the dark horses of Modern that had the most to gain. Death and Taxes, Dimir Mill, and Belcher …
Wow, I can’t believe that Zendikar Rising is already here! Naturally, as I do with each new set, I sat down and found what I believe are the best five cards for Modern. Zendikar Rising was a bit tougher than previous sets, as the party and kicker mechanics don’t translate well into eternal formats. That left two categories: cards that …
I can’t think of a new Magic card in recent memory that has excited me as much as Scourge of the Skyclaves. Black has certainly taken a back seat in recent sets when it comes to Modern-playable cards, especially aggressively-slanted creatures. But Scourge of the Skyclaves looks a lot like Death’s Shadow if you squint hard enough, and as a …
If you were playing Modern before the release of War of the Spark and Modern Horizons, you may not think that putting Cryptic Command in your deck is a winning strategy. Modern decks have long been built for speed and efficiency, and tapping out for a Cryptic Command could often leave control players in a tenuous spot. You’d usually be …
Wait! Before you close this tab, yes, this is a Modern Niv to Light article. Many of you may know Niv to Light from its success in Pioneer, but it’s been making the rounds in Modern, too. If, like me, you’ve played the Pioneer version of this deck, it’s worth giving the Modern equivalent a look — especially if your …
Chances are if you’re a Death’s Shadow fan, or in tune with the movements of Modern, you’ve noticed a certain divide between Jund Shadow and Four-Color Shadow. Naturally, when two variations of a deck are close in power, there will often be questions about which version they should play, and today I’m going to make a case for Four-Color Shadow. …
For a long time, Ponza wasn’t considered a competitive Modern deck. It emerged in an environment with strong combo decks, where it was often at a disadvantage, and lacked the card quality to keep up with other midrange decks. But now, Ponza — more commonly known as Gruul Midrange — is among the best-performing decks in Modern. What happened? How …
Over the last few months, red-based prowess decks in Modern have adopted a variety of secondary colors. The first stop was white, largely to use Path to Exile to gain some advantage in the mirror and against Eldrazi Tron and Primeval Titan decks. Then came Lurrus of the Dream-Den, and the prowess decks moved to black to incorporate Fatal Push …
Patrick Chapin once said that every creature in your deck should either be a Mulldrifter or a Baneslayer Angel. Of course, he didn’t mean that literally. Mulldrifter is a classic example of a creature that generates a resource advantage the turn it comes into play. Baneslayer Angel, meanwhile, has high stats for its cost and a generally powerful ability. Each …
