Blog
Guides, deep dives, and community features for Premodern — strategy, history, deckbuilding, and everything you need to get into the format.
Premodern via Webcam: A Beginner's Setup & Etiquette Guide
Everything you need to start playing paper Premodern online: the software stack, a camera that won't blur your board, glare-free lighting, card legibility, audio, and the etiquette that keeps games smooth.
The Geography of the Metagame: Why Where You Play Decides What You Play
There is no single Premodern metagame. There are regional ones. A look across 3,909 events and 35,874 archetype-tagged finishes showing how the deck you should play changes by country, and why the online netdeck is a trap on paper.
Life Is a Resource: Decision-Making in Mono-Black Pox
A piloting masterclass for Mono-Black Pox: the rounding math on Pox, sequencing your disruption, the Cursed Scroll paradox, and knowing exactly when to pull the trigger. Built around the gameplay of Premodern's foremost Pox specialist, Life Is a Resource.
Premodern for Commander Players: Find Your Deck Without the Politics
EDH burnout setting in? Premodern is the 1v1 nostalgia format where the Gaea's Cradle and Survival of the Fittest in your Commander binder are already Tier 1. Here's how to map your EDH playstyle onto a 60-card deck.
From 93/94 to Premodern: How Old School's Iconic Archetypes Grew Up
Old School 93/94 gives you the nostalgia and the cardboard, but the deck costs as much as a car. Premodern keeps the retro feel, and most of the archetype names, while trading the Power 9 tax for ten extra years of cards. Here's the family tree.
In the Works
10 plannedThe Format's Most Notorious Exclusions
A closer look at Premodern's banned cards, from Necropotence to Yawgmoth's Will to Balance, and why they stay out for the health of the format.
Archetype Deep Dives: Mastering the Tiers
Authoritative deck-mastery guides covering sequencing, flex slots, and sideboarding for Premodern's Tier 1–3 decks.
Format Philosophy & History
The ethos behind Premodern: its origins, 6th-Edition rules sensibility, and the thinking behind the banlist.
Card Spotlights & Buyer's Guides
Staple checklists, buyer's guides, and market analysis for Premodern singles, from sideboard role-players to Reserved List chase cards.
Rules & Interactions: The 6th-Edition Engine
Judge-level deep dives into Premodern's archaic rules: damage on the stack, phasing, fading, echo, the old legend rule, and Humility layers.
The Premodern Metagame, Quantified: What 24,000 Tournament Results Actually Say
We aggregated 60,000+ decklists across five tournament databases plus webcam leagues to answer the format's oldest bar argument with data: there is no Tier 0, but combo overperforms its play rate and grindy control underperforms, and the signal holds across every independent source.
Unchained & Other Variants
The no-banlist Unchained format and playgroup variants like Highlander and Singleton, plus the previously banned juggernauts they set free.
Deckbuilding Clinic & Brewing
Crafting rogue and Tier 3 decks, building sideboards from scratch, and breaking underused engines.
Interviews & Community Spotlights
Features on the organizers, brewers, artists, and local scenes that make up the Premodern community.
Budget Premodern
Competitive decks without the four-figure price tag: cheap shells, staple swaps, and upgrade paths for new players.