My friend and I are just playing modern decks against each other I am not claiming to be a great magic player or anything. I'm just netdecking a few lists and seeing how they fair, getting an idea of the format.
Tron is something like 20-0 right now, maybe a few losses in there. I can't seem to beat a turn 3 Karn. And that seems to happen every game.
How does Jund beat Tron without drawing a Tarmogoyf?
How does pod beat Tron?
Spreading seas seems ok to delay, but decks that play spreading seas still take too long. By the time I've got Karn locked out, he just finds an Emrakul and I can't come back.
It seems this deck is ridiculously consistent. I'm bouncing around decks so I'm also not as consistent, but what is the trick to beating the deck? What are the cards out of the side board that are beating it right now? Cause Thoughtseize aint working.
Example, Turn 1 IoK I nabbed a map. He plays a power plant and passes, turn 2 I'm still rocking not bad, I lay down a deathrite and a thoughtseize and nab a chromatic star.
He then draws into a star, into an ancient stirrings into another piece and passes. I hit a bloodbraid into a lightning bolt on the next turn. On his turn he puts his 3rd piece out and draws into more card draw. I drew a another thoughtsieze on my turn and hit it, he's got a wurmcoil and a karn and a friggin star. I nab the karn, he plays the wurmcoil and shuts my attacks down. Then he maps into an eye which he just holds in his hand cause all he has to do is wait to find the emrakul and it's game.
Please don't hate on me cause I'm not a pro player or anything! I'm just trying to find out what the trick is to beating this consistency. Every time I think I've got him disrupted he's drawing another piece of voltron, every time I think I've got him out aggroed he drops a Wurmcoil with the potential of an emrakul back.
well, "go faster" (play combo) is the best advice I can give if you're dead-set on beating tron. Karn is a glorified stone rain against most combo decks. I have no trouble against tron using Storm or Eggs. I've got to get a pretty bad draw to lose. I would think twin and scapeshift would have similarly good matchups.
Siding in some Ghost Quarter goes a long way, that said. Tron is like the scissor to Junds paper. They got the odds stacked against you.
It seems so consistent though, I always feel like I've landed a huge blow if I thoughtsieze a Karn or blow up a piece of the Tron. All to have it washed down the drain next turn when they draw another!
If the advice is to change decks, what I don't understand then is how is Tron not just winning every tournament?
If Jund seems like THE deck to beat, why is Tron having a hard time finishing in the top? What must they go through that puts them out of the running? It seems in a large tournament a Tron deck might face combo once, or maybe twice. But that probably doesn't put them completely out of the running.
I understand that if Tron has Jund's number, and jund is prepared to give up that matchup to win everything else. But just saying that is tough since Modern decks are not something I can just whip up. I've got components to some but they are far from complete. I've got money in a few cards, I have a pod deck, I've got an affinity deck and I've got most of a UW style build. Affinity goes well vs Tron, but I find there's a lot of hate such that my affinity deck isn't winning as much as it used to.
I guess I'm venting a bit of frustration, but Tron seems so ridiculously consistent every time I face it.
Jund is the deck to beat, but that doesn't mean it is the majority (>50%) of the metagame. Combo is certainly present, in many forms, almost all of which beat Tron pretty handily.
There are also other decks that are on people's radars and do see play, though they have not shown huge results yet that happen to be very favored against tron, like Death and Taxes and that new U/R tempo/control that maindecks 4x Blood moon.
I play RUG loam with 3 Ghost Quarter MB and a 4th in the sideboard. With Life from the Loam I can blow up their lands fairly consistently and keep them off of the combo.
Sowing Salt goes a long way to shutting them down post board with other decks. Or you can just deal with the spells they play like any other spell. Counter spells and removal for creatures and walkers. Maybe dreadbore or something of the sort. Emrakul is annoying but an aggressive Jund hand should be able to keep pressure on the opponent. The white in the new Jund version opens up the option of Path to Exile to deal with Wurmcoil efficiently. Getting your beaters through.
I'm not going to go into great detail, since it's already been noted elsewhere, but fast combo decks crush Tron. For argument sake, when I say Tron, I mean RG Tron.
Tron is now generally playing 4 MB Relics. It's not the egg they'd like to play, but it really helps their combo matchup. They used to straight up fold to a deck like Storm. How do they beat a turn 3 or 4 win? Sure, Karn can hit a card in hand, or a land, but exactly how good is that? Not great, actually, they don't care too much. Relic is how they manage it, and it's not even that great for them since that's all the interactions they have.
If you're not fond of them playing Relic, try something like Infect or Nivmagus combo. They should easily beat RG Tron. They're far too fast for it to do much, since they can easily win before Karn, or even after Karn depending on circumstances.
To be honest Junds worst matchup is Tron by far. You will want to pack extra SB hate to help give you a better game. While the matchup isn't unwinnable you are fighting an uphill battle against tron as is
Infect (thought it seems to have gone away) has a ridiculous matchup against Tron. Also I'm surprised you said Tron beat Kiki-pod since Kiki-pod can just combo out long before Tron gets Emrakul and all of Tron's removal is sorcery speed.
I just got back from my LGS and saw 2 players have a few test games of Kiki-Pod vs Tron. I was rooting for the Pod player, but the Tron player smashed him so hard it wasn't even funny. Karn destroys Pod if they don't have the god hand.
hmmmm.... by Karn tron you mean RG tron? (I think both RG and UW play Karn)
Strictly better, no. Better, yes. They are different things. RG tries to get tron online ASAP (expedition map, sylvan scrying, eggs, ancient stirrings) and win from there, whereas UW is more of a control deck that uses tron to play expensive control cards at reasonable land numbers and win with tron pieces.
hmmmm.... by Karn tron you mean RG tron? (I think both RG and UW play Karn)
Strictly better, no. Better, yes. They are different things. RG tries to get tron online ASAP (expedition map, sylvan scrying, eggs, ancient stirrings) and win from there, whereas UW is more of a control deck that uses tron to play expensive control cards at reasonable land numbers and win with tron pieces.
Yes sorry, I meant RG tron. I know they run 4x Karn.
If you want to beat Tron, play infect. My son makes me look silly every game we play against each other.
Sideboard does help the Tron player come back though.
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Vintage! Where the early game is Shuffling, the midgame is Mulliganing, and the Late game is turn 1
Yeah, Infect is hysterical against Tron, at least Game 1. Game 1 isn't unwinnable, but the Tron player needs some darn good luck to do it. Though there's good cards to sideboard against Infect, but then again there's good cards for Infect to sideboard to counteract that.
If I see a first turn Glistener Elf while on the draw and I don't have at least a Pyroclasm or Spellskite in my hand, I wonder if it's better for me to just scoop on the spot so I can sideboard for them without them knowing what I'm playing. (of course, if I do scoop that quickly, it might tip them off...)
I play RUG Delver and I don't often lose to UW and RG tron. In this match-up, the trick is to land early threats while they build up. Then, I keep mana up to defend against aggressively played Karns or something (which get hit by Leak and Pierce). Usually when their first two bombs get countered (or Clique + counter), you can close the game with a Bolt + Snapcaster (this would be turn 5 or 6). On the play, I sometimes get to use Cryptic Command to counter and bounce a land. That hurts them too, because your Leaks and Pierces will probably still be effective. Clique is also very good against them. Still, game one is difficult as they can sometimes power through if my clock is slow or they clasm me out of the game (double Delver draw with the Serum Visions set-up answered with unexpected Pyroclasm, it happens). Even if you only draw creatures, when they assemble tron, boldly represent counters. Usually they can't afford to just throw their bombs out there when you have blue lands open. Best case scenario is when I get to deprive (1-of) something in game one. I found that opponents would be very wary of it for the remainder of the match. They would wait until the last moment, or bait with inferior spells and then they might get blown out by Bolt, Snap, Bolt, untap, attack ftw.
After boarding I have four Blood Moons in my deck. While it isn't a guaranteed win, it slows them down long enough for me to get the job done.
Tron decks have their weaknesses. They prey on midrange and control decks. They lose to combo and they have problems against affinity, burn and tempo.
I tested the Tron match up to death with my Junk'd deck (Jund with more White cards.) The match up is tough, but winnable depending on how many sideboard cards you want to commit to it.
These worked:
More Maelstrom Pulse instead of Abrupt Decay (hits Karn and breaks up Wurmcoil)
Ghost Quarter into Extirpate (use Extirpate instead of Surgical because Tron can pop a Relic of Progenitus in response otherwise)
a full set of Thoughtseize into Extirpate
Sudden Spoiling (turns Emrakul into a 0/2, remember to do this before declare attackers or the Annihilator trigger still goes on the stack)
Tribute To Hunger (same deal as Sudden Spoiling)
Ensnaring Bridge (this kind of worked, but could blow up to a Oblivion Stone. Use this with Stony Silence)
Stony Silence (helps, but not enough on its own. You still need some good answers for multiple Wurmcoils because Tron can just use the green search spells to get Tron that way.)
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You can't always win, and just because you lose doesn't mean you played badly.
Even if you lose, it is important to remain confident in your ability to make good plays and decisions. Lose that and you are truly lost.
Testing is great, and the better the testing is, the better off you'll be.
It is impossible to tilt and play well.
It is possible to make no mistakes and still lose.
As a pod player, I'm not super worried about tron. Sowing salts in the SB go a long way, plus the ability to combo kill on turn 4-5 fairly easily.
Plus every anecdote on this page is just like "they always have turn 3 tron and a karn, can't win!" The deck is like, 25% to have a turn 3 karn. In the other 75% of games, you have several turns to interact and find answers / win outright.
Pod (Naya) is about 50-50 with tron in my experience. Either they can pyroclasm your dudes, or they cant. (Or you're playing dorks/early creatures that survive pyroclasm).
Also, when playing vs. Pod, Tron NEEDS to play karn to destroy any offending pods/combo pieces. If all they have is Wurmcoil Engine, its gg right there.
And yeah, people overestimate the percentage of T3 Karns. I'd say its more like 33%, but even so, Naya Pod can often just race Tron and win (going first, a T4 win is easy to do).
My friend and I are just playing modern decks against each other I am not claiming to be a great magic player or anything. I'm just netdecking a few lists and seeing how they fair, getting an idea of the format.
Tron is something like 20-0 right now, maybe a few losses in there. I can't seem to beat a turn 3 Karn. And that seems to happen every game.
How does Jund beat Tron without drawing a Tarmogoyf?
How does pod beat Tron?
Spreading seas seems ok to delay, but decks that play spreading seas still take too long. By the time I've got Karn locked out, he just finds an Emrakul and I can't come back.
It seems this deck is ridiculously consistent. I'm bouncing around decks so I'm also not as consistent, but what is the trick to beating the deck? What are the cards out of the side board that are beating it right now? Cause Thoughtseize aint working.
Example, Turn 1 IoK I nabbed a map. He plays a power plant and passes, turn 2 I'm still rocking not bad, I lay down a deathrite and a thoughtseize and nab a chromatic star.
He then draws into a star, into an ancient stirrings into another piece and passes. I hit a bloodbraid into a lightning bolt on the next turn. On his turn he puts his 3rd piece out and draws into more card draw. I drew a another thoughtsieze on my turn and hit it, he's got a wurmcoil and a karn and a friggin star. I nab the karn, he plays the wurmcoil and shuts my attacks down. Then he maps into an eye which he just holds in his hand cause all he has to do is wait to find the emrakul and it's game.
Please don't hate on me cause I'm not a pro player or anything! I'm just trying to find out what the trick is to beating this consistency. Every time I think I've got him disrupted he's drawing another piece of voltron, every time I think I've got him out aggroed he drops a Wurmcoil with the potential of an emrakul back.
UR Storm WUBRG Sunnyside Up W Death+Taxes BR 7->0:60 Discard
EDH
GU Vig RWU Zedruu BR Olivia
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It seems so consistent though, I always feel like I've landed a huge blow if I thoughtsieze a Karn or blow up a piece of the Tron. All to have it washed down the drain next turn when they draw another!
If the advice is to change decks, what I don't understand then is how is Tron not just winning every tournament?
If Jund seems like THE deck to beat, why is Tron having a hard time finishing in the top? What must they go through that puts them out of the running? It seems in a large tournament a Tron deck might face combo once, or maybe twice. But that probably doesn't put them completely out of the running.
I understand that if Tron has Jund's number, and jund is prepared to give up that matchup to win everything else. But just saying that is tough since Modern decks are not something I can just whip up. I've got components to some but they are far from complete. I've got money in a few cards, I have a pod deck, I've got an affinity deck and I've got most of a UW style build. Affinity goes well vs Tron, but I find there's a lot of hate such that my affinity deck isn't winning as much as it used to.
I guess I'm venting a bit of frustration, but Tron seems so ridiculously consistent every time I face it.
There are also other decks that are on people's radars and do see play, though they have not shown huge results yet that happen to be very favored against tron, like Death and Taxes and that new U/R tempo/control that maindecks 4x Blood moon.
UR Storm WUBRG Sunnyside Up W Death+Taxes BR 7->0:60 Discard
EDH
GU Vig RWU Zedruu BR Olivia
Play Magic online free with GCCG!
Download it here -- (My Username is ShinkyP)
Trade Thread: Here!
Sowing salt for lands
Olivia Voldaren steals wurmcoil
Stony Silence against eggs and O stone.
Blood moon?
T1 hand disruption is extremely important.
Fulminator mage, Molten rain, Magus of the moon are rather weak compared to Sowing salt.
Tron is a tough MU for jund. Not impossible but tough!
How does Pod do it?
By being faster than a tron deck. I play Melira pod with Phyrexian revoker, Aven Mindcensor, fulminator mage, Sigarda, Host of Herons and thoughtseize for that MU.
Kiki pod is more explosive imho.
WU Resto Blade
RUG Tron
BUG Infect
WBG Melira Pod
WBRG White Jund
Sowing Salt goes a long way to shutting them down post board with other decks. Or you can just deal with the spells they play like any other spell. Counter spells and removal for creatures and walkers. Maybe dreadbore or something of the sort. Emrakul is annoying but an aggressive Jund hand should be able to keep pressure on the opponent. The white in the new Jund version opens up the option of Path to Exile to deal with Wurmcoil efficiently. Getting your beaters through.
Tron is now generally playing 4 MB Relics. It's not the egg they'd like to play, but it really helps their combo matchup. They used to straight up fold to a deck like Storm. How do they beat a turn 3 or 4 win? Sure, Karn can hit a card in hand, or a land, but exactly how good is that? Not great, actually, they don't care too much. Relic is how they manage it, and it's not even that great for them since that's all the interactions they have.
If you're not fond of them playing Relic, try something like Infect or Nivmagus combo. They should easily beat RG Tron. They're far too fast for it to do much, since they can easily win before Karn, or even after Karn depending on circumstances.
Grixis Death's Shadow, Jund, UW Tron, Jeskai Control, Storm, Counters Company, Eldrazi Tron, Affinity, Living End, Infect, Merfolk, Dredge, Ad Nauseam, Amulet, Bogles, Eldrazi Tron, Mono U Tron, Lantern, Mardu Pyromancer
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Legacy love.
Strictly better, no. Better, yes. They are different things. RG tries to get tron online ASAP (expedition map, sylvan scrying, eggs, ancient stirrings) and win from there, whereas UW is more of a control deck that uses tron to play expensive control cards at reasonable land numbers and win with tron pieces.
UR Storm WUBRG Sunnyside Up W Death+Taxes BR 7->0:60 Discard
EDH
GU Vig RWU Zedruu BR Olivia
Play Magic online free with GCCG!
Download it here -- (My Username is ShinkyP)
Trade Thread: Here!
Yes sorry, I meant RG tron. I know they run 4x Karn.
Sideboard does help the Tron player come back though.
If I see a first turn Glistener Elf while on the draw and I don't have at least a Pyroclasm or Spellskite in my hand, I wonder if it's better for me to just scoop on the spot so I can sideboard for them without them knowing what I'm playing. (of course, if I do scoop that quickly, it might tip them off...)
Any more of this, and Team Troll will be more than just a name.
I know where you post.
After boarding I have four Blood Moons in my deck. While it isn't a guaranteed win, it slows them down long enough for me to get the job done.
Tron decks have their weaknesses. They prey on midrange and control decks. They lose to combo and they have problems against affinity, burn and tempo.
These worked:
More Maelstrom Pulse instead of Abrupt Decay (hits Karn and breaks up Wurmcoil)
Ghost Quarter into Extirpate (use Extirpate instead of Surgical because Tron can pop a Relic of Progenitus in response otherwise)
a full set of Thoughtseize into Extirpate
Sudden Spoiling (turns Emrakul into a 0/2, remember to do this before declare attackers or the Annihilator trigger still goes on the stack)
Tribute To Hunger (same deal as Sudden Spoiling)
Ensnaring Bridge (this kind of worked, but could blow up to a Oblivion Stone. Use this with Stony Silence)
Stony Silence (helps, but not enough on its own. You still need some good answers for multiple Wurmcoils because Tron can just use the green search spells to get Tron that way.)
~ Brian DeMars
Plus every anecdote on this page is just like "they always have turn 3 tron and a karn, can't win!" The deck is like, 25% to have a turn 3 karn. In the other 75% of games, you have several turns to interact and find answers / win outright.
Also, when playing vs. Pod, Tron NEEDS to play karn to destroy any offending pods/combo pieces. If all they have is Wurmcoil Engine, its gg right there.
And yeah, people overestimate the percentage of T3 Karns. I'd say its more like 33%, but even so, Naya Pod can often just race Tron and win (going first, a T4 win is easy to do).