For anyone who doesn’t know who I am, my name is Dale Pon,
and I’m just an average Magic player with an avid interest in Modern. Most of you have probably seen my name on the
various Magic Facebook groups since I’ve been on an “academic sabbatical” and
have had a fair amount of time to troll/post comments on the
group.
group.
In light of the upcoming Modern PTQ as well as the
introduction of Modern FNM’s there is an increased interest in Modern, and when
I was asked to write an article introducing Modern I was rather keen,
especially since I’ve been trying to convince many Standard players to start
playing Modern for a while.
Modern is a very new addition to the constructed formats of Magic, only having
been officially designated in August 2011, thus it hasn’t become exceptionally
popular yet. It comprises cards printed
in the modern card frame from 8th Edition onwards (including Time
shifted cards), but excludes cards only reprinted in special sets such as Duel
Decks, Premium Decks and From the Vault sets.
The full list can be found at http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/resources.aspx?x=judge/resources/sfrmodern.
(Side note: One can use older versions of cards if they are Modern-legal, e.g.
one can use an Alpha Lightning Bolt if they really want to).
The main idea of Modern is to bridge the gap of Legacy and Standard, since many Legacy staples (such as Force of Will, Wasteland and the original dual lands) are very expensive and quite difficult to get hold of; while Standard rotates and changes every year. Thus you have Modern, which is a non-rotating format (i.e. cards that are Modern-legal will always be), and the staples are much easier to get hold, although a few are still rather expensive, such as Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant (but this will hopefully change after the release of Modern Masters later this year). Contrary to the popular belief of many Standard players, Modern is not a blazingly-fast format in which you lose on Turn 1 or 2 to some degenerate combo. Since there is a substantially larger card pool than Standard, Combo is viable but usually takes at least until Turn 4 or 5. In addition, there are numerous ways to disrupt or even out race a Combo deck.
There are some people who are apprehensive to get into Modern due to the regular additions to the banned list, but that is not likely to change significantlynow that the format has somewhat stabilised unless Wizards do something really stupid (like when they printed Mental Misstep) in future sets.
Modern is a very new addition to the constructed formats of Magic, only having
been officially designated in August 2011, thus it hasn’t become exceptionally
popular yet. It comprises cards printed
in the modern card frame from 8th Edition onwards (including Time
shifted cards), but excludes cards only reprinted in special sets such as Duel
Decks, Premium Decks and From the Vault sets.
The full list can be found at http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/resources.aspx?x=judge/resources/sfrmodern.
(Side note: One can use older versions of cards if they are Modern-legal, e.g.
one can use an Alpha Lightning Bolt if they really want to).The main idea of Modern is to bridge the gap of Legacy and Standard, since many Legacy staples (such as Force of Will, Wasteland and the original dual lands) are very expensive and quite difficult to get hold of; while Standard rotates and changes every year. Thus you have Modern, which is a non-rotating format (i.e. cards that are Modern-legal will always be), and the staples are much easier to get hold, although a few are still rather expensive, such as Tarmogoyf and Dark Confidant (but this will hopefully change after the release of Modern Masters later this year). Contrary to the popular belief of many Standard players, Modern is not a blazingly-fast format in which you lose on Turn 1 or 2 to some degenerate combo. Since there is a substantially larger card pool than Standard, Combo is viable but usually takes at least until Turn 4 or 5. In addition, there are numerous ways to disrupt or even out race a Combo deck.
There are some people who are apprehensive to get into Modern due to the regular additions to the banned list, but that is not likely to change significantlynow that the format has somewhat stabilised unless Wizards do something really stupid (like when they printed Mental Misstep) in future sets.
Since Modern is still a young format there is a lot of room
for creativity and innovation, even though several decks are emerging as popular
choices, such as Jund, Tron, and Affinity.
Ultimately, my goal is to try and promote Modern and get as
many Magic players, particularly Standard players, into Modern since the
Ravnica dual lands (aka Shocklands) are currently in Standard and are thus easy
to get hold of.
In the future I may write more articles about Modern,
looking at particular aspects more in-depth; but until then I hope you enjoyed
reading.
References & Further Reading:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/resources.aspx?x=judge/resources/sfrmodern
http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Modern
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=427518
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