Editor’s Note: The Twin ban remained highly controversial into 2019, especially among what I assume to be an extremely vocal minority of Modern die-hards. That sentiment pushed David to revisit Twin’s previous role in the format with a thorough, data-driven approach. Also included in this re-run are David’s thoughts headed into 2020, which deal with […]
David Ernenwein
David has been playing Magic since Odyssey block. A dedicated Spike, he's been grinding tournaments for over a decade, including a Pro Tour appearance. A Modern specialist who dabbles in Legacy, his writing is focused on metagame analysis and deck evolution.
The competitive season has come to an end, but that doesn’t mean that Magic just stops in December. Local tournaments and MTGO never end. And some competitive scenes don’t have official Wizards support or the backing of a massive store. Some are built by and for the local players. The Colorado Magic scene, deprived of Star City […]
The saying goes that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. In Modern, those who do not observe the metagame are doomed to be passed by. Applied to Magic, such proverbs encourage every player to duly note how the metagame evolves and develops over a competitive year. Having spent the […]
The competitive year has come to a close for Modern, and now it’s time to look ahead. This means it’s time once more to informedly speculate on the future of Modern’s banlist. It’s been a wild year for the list, and while I always hope that the metagame can adapt to new decks, I don’t […]
The end of the year is approaching, and with it a slowdown in competitive Magic. In fact, GP Columbus was the last Modern event of the year. As such, it is the final opportunity to look at the metagame before 2020’s SCG Columbus, so GP Columbus provides extremely important data. It not only defines the […]
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 […]
Urza is everywhere. As the latest it deck in Modern, it’s getting most of the attention when eyes can be torn away from Magic’s new baby, Pioneer. The deck’s impressive results do recall the banned Krark-Clan Ironworks deck. Today we’ll examining how to fight Urza, starting with the overall archetype and then looking at specific […]
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 […]
Unbannings always trigger a surge of interest, articles, and brewing. When the card’s utility and thus its home is obvious, the cards is quickly adopted, as was the case for Bloodbraid Elf. For those whose power is tougher to unlock, interest and visibility wanes while the hard work is done. Such is the case for […]
With a few weeks of online events and an SCG Team Event, the metagame is finally taking shape. It’s nowhere near enough for any real analysis to take place, but it is a good starting point. With SCG Indianapolis in the books it’s time to start pulling apart the data and contextualizing it. Modern has […]
Throne of Eldraine is officially out, and that means that data is slowly trickling in. Very slowly, to the point that I can’t draw conclusions yet. It will take a few more weeks of events and brewing before things settle enough to get an accurate view of the new metagame. Now is the perfect time […]
There’s an odd lull in Magic right before the set release. There’s no point discussing spoilers anymore; the set’s known and being tested. However, those testing results are questionable. There hasn’t been enough time to process the new cards and produce results, nor has the metagame adjusted to reflect these new cards. This means content tends […]
