As the year, for better or worse depending on your perspective, draws to a close, I find that I have unfinished business. Or rather, I have business I thought was finished but others disagree. Specifically, players just won’t accept that Bloodbraid Elf is not a serious consideration for unbanning. Despite addressing the issue several times, […]
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 RPTQ weekend is over and many players are now off to try their hand at achieving their Pro Tour dreams. I will not be one of them, unfortunately. Hopefully Jordan will be (I’ve heard nothing yet). The fact that the PPTQ system requires you to get lucky twice rather than once to actually get […]
Not every tournament is going to go your way. Sometimes no matter how well prepared you are or how well you play you just can’t win. That does not mean that the tournament is a failure as long as you utilize it well. Every game you play is an opportunity to learn something. Something about your […]
I just remembered something: the RPTQ I qualified for is next week. For some of you, it’s this weekend but for me, that’s GP Denver. As a result, Standard has unfortunately taken up almost all of my Magic time recently. I know many people think that Modern is broken and unhealthy, but I assure you: […]
The year is winding down. Players are looking forward to presents in the coming year. For many, that seems to include new bannings in Modern. Banlist mania always heats up as a new set release nears, but traditionally it’s been worst at the end of the year. Previously this was because the Modern Pro Tour […]
I’ll be honest with you. There’s a Standard GP coming up in my hometown and preparing for that has dominated most of my recent Magic time. I haven’t had time to come up with anything new for this week. What I do have are updates on several Modern projects that I just realized I’ve left […]
Happy/Miserable Election Day to all my US readers! Regardless of what actually happens tonight, the world is certainly ending for half of my readership. Before you celebrate or run off to join Jordan in Canada, I have some unfinished business to attend to. Two weeks ago I claimed that the problem with control wasn’t that […]
Happy All Hallows’ Day, Nexites! Hopefully your diabetic coma isn’t too severe. Otherwise you might miss out on the second part of my discussion of playing with and against Modern’s aggressive decks. Last week we dealt with the classic aggressive decks, linear aggro. Today we’ll be dealing with the less fair versions. That’s not to say […]
As promised, welcome back to the Beginner’s Guide. Back in August I explained the general types of Modern decks to explain why Modern is so proactive and diverse. Today we will start to unpack that riddle by examining how to approach playing and playing against Modern’s aggro decks. As I said last time, aggressive decks […]
My article about testing Stoneforge Mystic generated a lot of conversation, both here on Modern Nexus and elsewhere. Judging by the reaction, people really do want some actual data and scientific method brought into discussions of the Modern banned list. Which means that I’ve got a lot of work to do. But I also know […]
The start of every spoiler season brings the promise of a shakeup in Modern. Whether it’s Jund players speculating on Bloodbraid Elf (again), a new mechanic showing promise, or a single powerful-looking card, the Modern community always goes berserk trying to fit new cards into the format. And within a week of release most of that […]
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 […]
Here it is. The actual data from my investigation into Stoneforge Mystic. After well over 600 matches with my Abzan test decks, I can finally give a decidedly data-driven answer to whether or not Stoneforge deserves its place on the banlist and how it would impact Modern. I tried to be as clinical and scientific […]
