Welcome to Gathering Magic's weekly quintet of Magic Online you should be aware of this weekend, whether you're playing a major online event, going to a Grand Prix, or hitting Friday Night Magic. In an era of big data, Magic Online provides some of the biggest data, so even a quick-and-dirty snapshot of recent activity gets you ahead of the competition. This week, with Dragons of Tarkir not yet digital, I'll cover Modern and a cool Vintage deck.

The primary change to Modern since our last look has been the ascension of Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Definitely this season's Rookie of the Year, Tasigur has been at home in blue-black and black-green decks of various types. Here's what 4-0'd on Sunday and Monday (Bold = won the Daily):

Twice:

Affinity

Jund

Once:

Dredgevine

Grixis Delve

Grixis Delver

Blue-Red Delver

Blue-Red Twin

Martyr of Sands

Storm

Gifts Reanimator

Jeskai Control

There are blue-red and black-green anchors to the format, but after that there are options aplenty - including a deck that's neither:

Affinity ? Modern | Ggb

• Creatures (27)
• 4 Arcbound Ravager
• 3 Master of Etherium
• 4 Memnite
• 4 Ornithopter
• 4 Signal Pest
• 4 Steel Overseer
• 4 Vault Skirge

• Spells (17)
• 2 Thoughtcast
• 1 Apostle's Blessing
• 4 Cranial Plating
• 4 Mox Opal
• 4 Springleaf Drum
• 1 Welding Jar
• 1 Ensoul Artifact

• Lands (16)
• 4 Blinkmoth Nexus
• 4 Darksteel Citadel
• 3 Glimmervoid
• 4 Inkmoth Nexus
• 1 Island

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Choke
• 1 Dismember
• 2 Etched Champion
• 1 Galvanic Blast
• 1 Nature's Claim
• 1 Slaughter Pact
• 1 Spell Pierce
• 2 Spellskite
• 2 Thoughtseize
• 1 Torpor Orb
• 1 Whipflare

Buy This Deck

One of the secret advantages of Affinity is that you're running a bunch of cards that can make mana of any color in Glimmervoid, Springleaf Drum, and Mox Opal. So while it's hard to find slots to bring in sideboard cards, you can in theory pull from anywhere. Choke, Whipflare, Slaughter Pact, and Spell Pierce rarely get to show up together, and if you're used to the Affinity plan you might not be ready for the counter-punch from the sideboard - especially since you can't predict what colors the cards might be.

_megafone_'s list was partly Tezzeret Affinity, running a single Talisman of Dominance to tilt the colors Dimirward. With Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, Cranial Plating, and Master of Etherium all leading to high-power creatures, _megafone_ put two Stubborn Denial in the sideboard, which seems like a great idea. Spell Pierce is good, but if you have ferocious Stubborn Denial is leagues better, and that could give a new dimension to an old deck.

Speaking of old decks:

Jund ? Modern | lickadonkey

• Creatures (16)
• 4 Dark Confidant
• 2 Huntmaster of the Fells
• 1 Kitchen Finks
• 3 Scavenging Ooze
• 4 Tarmogoyf
• 1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
• 1 Thundermaw Hellkite

• Spells (20)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 3 Thoughtseize
• 2 Abrupt Decay
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 3 Terminate

• Lands (24)
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 3 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Forest
• 2 Overgrown Tomb
• 3 Raging Ravine
• 1 Stomping Ground
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Treetop Village
• 1 Twilight Mire
• 4 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Damnation
• 3 Feed the Clan
• 3 Fulminator Mage
• 2 Leyline of the Void
• 1 Olivia Voldaren
• 1 Shatterstorm
• 1 Slaughter Games

Buy This Deck

There are a lot of familiar faces here - faces that couldn't come out to play before the January bannings. Jund is still the best one-for-one deck around, and no amount of Siege Rhino can give Abzan such a long Modern resume overnight - especially not when Jund can run a lower, Rhino-less curve and therefore rely on Dark Confidant to provide a stream of cards that only kill opponents instead of, say, Dark Confidant's controller. Huntmaster of the Fells, Kitchen Finks, and Scavenging Ooze help recoup Dark Confidant's life loss while being good generally.

The most important card to note in the sideboard is easily Leyline of the Void. There several traditional archetypes reliant on the graveyard, but Relic of Progenitus was fine against them. Leyline of the Void is the best at stopping delve decks from getting started, which appears to matter increasingly. More Gurmag Anglers in opposing maindecks might yield more Leyline of the Voids in sideboards.

As if on cue, the Zombie Fish was part of a winning deck this week:

Dredgevine ? Modern | ACG88

• Creatures (26)
• 3 Bloodghast
• 4 Golgari Grave-Troll
• 4 Gravecrawler
• 4 Gurmag Angler
• 4 Lotleth Troll
• 3 Satyr Wayfinder
• 4 Vengevine

• Spells (14)
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 3 Abrupt Decay
• 2 Darkblast
• 3 Grisly Salvage
• 2 Murderous Cut

• Lands (20)
• 4 Blackcleave Cliffs
• 2 Blood Crypt
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Forest
• 4 Overgrown Tomb
• 1 Swamp
• 4 Wooded Foothills

• Sideboard (15)
• 4 Ancient Grudge
• 3 Gnaw to the Bone
• 2 Golgari Charm
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 1 Spellskite
• 4 Thoughtseize

Buy This Deck

Dredgevine has been more Tier Nostalgia than Tier One, but the unbanning of Golgari Grave-Troll and the printing of Gurmag Angler gives the archetype more juice than it's had in years. The delve of both the Angler and Murderous Cut seems weird until you realize the deck is largely combo pieces and enablers. Delve's selectivity allows you to clear away the enablers and leave only the combos in your graveyard, meaning you can let both parts co-exist without much hassle.

Gurmag Angler even pairs with Lotleth Troll to provide a critical mass of Zombies for Gravecrawler's constant re-casting. (Sadly, there is no Gravecrawler analog for the eight copies of Trolls in the deck. That fact feels like trolling of the worst kind.) At its best, Dredgevine provides large and fast creatures with synergies that let you go wide sometimes. What's not to like about that?

Yes, I listed Grixis Delve and Grixis Delver; that's not a misprint. Grixis Delve is the evolution Patrick Chapin's Esper Delve build, and it looks an improvement over the original:

Grixis Delve ? Modern | oRS

• Creatures (11)
• 4 Gurmag Angler
• 4 Snapcaster Mage
• 3 Tasigur, the Golden Fang

• Spells (29)
• 3 Liliana of the Veil
• 4 Gitaxian Probe
• 4 Inquisition of Kozilek
• 4 Serum Visions
• 2 Electrolyze
• 4 Lightning Bolt
• 4 Terminate
• 4 Thought Scour

• Lands (20)
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 4 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 4 Polluted Delta
• 3 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Steam Vents
• 2 Swamp
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 2 Watery Grave

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Darkblast
• 4 Dispel
• 2 Engineered Explosives
• 2 Izzet Staticaster
• 1 Jorubai Murk Lurker
• 1 Slaughter Pact
• 2 Spellskite
• 2 Vandalblast

Buy This Deck

In the same way that Modern Jeskai Ascendancy decks improved when they shaded closer to a control deck with a combo finish than an all-in combo deck, oRS scraps the Mishra's Baubles, drops Lingering Souls for Snapcaster Mage and Path to Exile for Terminate, and becomes a removal-heavy deck with huge finishers. The non-delve cards have strong Modern pedigrees, even as it's weird to see Liliana of the Veil in a blue-red Snapcaster Mage shell.

Those color commitments plus running only 20 lands is the one part of this deck I can't buy into; you need to run the cantrips aggressively to hit your lands, but I guess that's part of the plan. Still, this deck has a lot going for it, and I think this has more potential and staying power than the Esper build.

What if you want to play Vintage but don't own much Power?

Sultai Delver ? Vintage | Ghesizzi

• Creatures (12)
• 4 Dark Confidant
• 4 Deathrite Shaman
• 4 Delver of Secrets

• Spells (28)
• 1 Demonic Tutor
• 1 Time Walk
• 1 Treasure Cruise
• 3 Abrupt Decay
• 1 Ancestral Recall
• 1 Brainstorm
• 4 Daze
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Mental Misstep
• 4 Spell Pierce
• 1 Vampiric Tutor
• 3 Null Rod

• Lands (20)
• 3 Flooded Strand
• 3 Misty Rainforest
• 3 Scalding Tarn
• 1 Strip Mine
• 3 Tropical Island
• 3 Underground Sea
• 4 Wasteland

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Null Rod
• 2 Darkblast
• 2 Flusterstorm
• 4 Grafdigger's Cage
• 3 Snuff Out
• 2 Trygon Predator
• 1 Yixlid Jailer

Buy This Deck

This deck went 3-1 with Time Walk as its only Power and a bunch of Null Rods and cheap counterspells to deal with the rest. (Also, with so few restricted cards, it's a Vintage list I can understand when I read it, which is rare.) It's got the feel of a Sultai Legacy list but with Vintage-specific hate cards. It's straightforward in its approach, so I won't belabor the explanation, but I like this deck's mindset, and I'm impressed that it could 3-1 in a Daily.

Like any gaming community, Magic has several competitive people who game and several people who use gaming to indulge a competitive side. Both are vital to the community, but you can't have too many of the former working on the same thing unless it's a competition. Get too many competitive people together and egos will loom large while little cooperation occurs. If everyone at Wizards of the Coast competed as employees like they do as players, the work environment would be toxic and nothing would get done. That's no major revelation, but it's important to remember that the most visible faces of Wizards are largely people who cut their teeth on competition, and a whole company of them wouldn't work.

As I was writing this article, I found out that Magic's website copy editor, Mike McArtor, had suddenly passed away. Gaming communities skew young; the community doesn't deal with this often. Most things I could say have been said better by people closer to him. But from my nine months as his co-worker, I will say that he was one of the ego-free, level-headed, always helpful people that Wizards, just like the vast majority of endeavors, needs in order to deliver anything you enjoy. There are a lot of people at Wizards you'll never/rarely hear about who love the community and work tirelessly to give it the absolute best. There was no doubt that Mike was one of those.

Editors, since they deal constantly with writers, are constantly under pressure to be ego-free in a sea of egos. As a writer by night before becoming an editor by day (and as a former lawyer editing for lawyers), I try to fight this daily in order to be a good editor and a welcoming person, succeeding only sporadically. Mike had these things down pat.

Never take for granted the people who check their ego so that you can express yours, whether it's a cashier who let you vent about your hard day, a parent or partner who bit their tongue to give you another chance, or an editor who made you look good. You need them. Show them some love today.

On my last day at Wizards, just over three months ago, he saw me and asked about my new job. He was sad to see me go and wanted to get together for Commander sometime. And now I'm the one sad to see him go.