Hello again, GatheringMagic readers. This is Harrison Greenberg back after a week off for vacation, as well as a rebirthing of my article after a long discussion with Trick. I come back this week with a new concept for my article, and it is going to rely on all of you.

The concept of this article series is that I am going to bring a topic or question to you every week, and you are going to reply on the discussion boards with your opinion on the matter. I am then going to be writing my responses to your posts, and am going to check back every day to see what you all think and answer any questions.

This concept is a new one, and is meant to be very reader-friendly, as it allows the GatheringMagic readers to write the article with me as we create an opinion of not just one, but of all of us. Magic is not based on the opinion of just one person, but rather of the collection of the community, and uses that idea to its very core in R&D. Even those guys work together to make sure that the game that we all love stays fair.

With the format laid out and your knowledge of what you need to do to help, I give you the first topic for all of us to discuss:

In the past few weeks, Wizards has announced that the recent success of its new Modern format in the Community Cup has inspired them to change Pro Tour: Philadelphia from the Extended format to Modern. While many players are now going to feel stressed over the lack of preparation time for such a change, others are much more relieved to see Extended get the boot. This change occurred due to the lack of attendees at Extended tournaments all over the world over the past few years, as well as the lack of interest in the format. There were rumors that Wizards was going to change the format to Legacy or “hyper-Extended,” but when the dust settled, this new Modern format was greenlighted. While Wizards has not announced whether this format is going to stick around for next season’s Grand Prixes and PTQs, we do know that this Pro Tour is going to be a fun and interesting one, with many decks that have been played for the past few years as well as some new ones.

As soon as the format was announced, I was on the front line of people who had to help out qualified friends to start testing the format and figuring out what deck to play at the Pro Tour. Here are some of the numerous decks in our testing gauntlet:

• Zoo
• Dragonstorm
• Hivemind
• Melira-based combo
• U/W faeries
• U/x Tron/12 post
• G/x Tron/12 post
• Merfolk
• Red Deck Wins

While there have been many more decks tested, these are just some of those that we felt were good enough to keep testing.

With the facts laid out for you, it is now your turn to tell us all what you think of Modern. Here are some questions to get the discussion started:

What were your initial thoughts on the format?

Do you like it more than Extended?

Do you want to see it as a new Grand Prix/PTQ format?

What do you think the top decks are going to be?

I am excited to see what all of you think on this subject, and I look forward to reading and responding to all of your posts. Make sure you check back throughout the week to see where our discussion is going and to see what other people in the GatheringMagic community think about this subject.