Got into a debate at my LGS tonight. What’s everyone’s opinion on our matchup with G/W Value Town? I smashed it last week 2-0 easy peasy and then lost to it 2-1 this week. My feelings are, it’s an okay matchup. They have to GQ us and have disruption otherwise it’s lights out. Thoughts?
Got into a debate at my LGS tonight. What’s everyone’s opinion on our matchup with G/W Value Town? I smashed it last week 2-0 easy peasy and then lost to it 2-1 this week. My feelings are, it’s an okay matchup. They have to GQ us and have disruption otherwise it’s lights out. Thoughts?
I think the deck has the tools to keep us off tron, and knight presents a great clock for them, but the deck has little filtering so it tends to lose in a blowout when it doesn't find quick land destro. It's been a while since I've played against it but when a deck has a good clock and ghost quarter recursion, it will always have a chance against us. I think it's a good matchup for them but the decks lack of filtering gives us enough of a window to resolve a single walker or o-stone and it's lights out. Last time I played the deck I remember they led with a t2 knight, which is what they want to do, and I just spatialed it and they no longer had a way to slow tron and it was a blowout. If they let us get tron active they are toast so they rely heavily on a good opener.
It's not a deck I ever really see these days, but in the past I didn't particularly like getting paired against it. Knight of the Reliquary and Ramunap Excavator with a bunch of GQs is a good plan against us. On the other hand, they can easily just draw the wrong half of the deck - we aren't particularly worried about Courser of Kruphix or Voice of Resurgence. Because of that I'd say we're probably favored game 1 in the dark, but if they know we're on Tron from the get-go and know to mull for the relevant cards it's tougher. They would improve post-board more than we do as well, with Stony Silence and Knight of Autumn throwing wrenches into our would-be best plan O-Stone, and Surgical to go with all those Ghost Quarters. Normally in grindy midrange matchups where the opponent is attacking our mana Thragtusk would be great, but Knight easily outclasses it. Spatial can be good if you can snipe it early, but that window passes quickly. This is a matchup where Dismember would shine, or even Pithing Needle/Spyglass.
Is anybody using Urza’s Factory with success? I had a couple games last week where I couldn’t find a threat but could search for all the land I needed and then some. I was thinking about giving it a shot and cutting the 5th forest. Thoughts?
Is anybody using Urza’s Factory with success? I had a couple games last week where I couldn’t find a threat but could search for all the land I needed and then some. I was thinking about giving it a shot and cutting the 5th forest. Thoughts?
Yeah that, or buried ruin. Either way you get to do something productive with your lands
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
I'm liking Warping Wail a bit more as a sideboard choice going forward:
-With KCI banned, there's a chance TitanShift sees more play, since that bad matchup is now gone.
-With RNA bringing Skewer the Critics, we're also likely to see an up-tick in Burn, and those lists will have a higher sorcery count accordingly.
-Electrodominance will be experimented with early, and most of the suspend spells people will be abusing are sorceries (AV, Wheel of Fate, Restore Balance).
-It can go from relevant to total blowout against several popular decks, and in many matches where we're unfavored. Storm, Dredge, Infect, Living End, and most Company builds come to mind, and this is far from a comprehensive list.
Looking for some advice on my next list for SCG Baltimore. Open to any suggestions.
Land (19)
4x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Sanctum of Ugin
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Tower
Sorcery (8)
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Sylvan Scrying
Artifact (19)
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Chromatic Star
4x Expedition Map
4x Oblivion Stone
3x Relic of Progenitus
Creature (8)
2x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2x Walking Ballista
1x World Breaker
3x Wurmcoil Engine
Planeswalker (6)
4x Karn Liberated
2x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Sideboard (15)
1x All Is Dust
1x Grafdigger's Cage
3x Nature's Claim
2x Spatial Contortion
2x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Thragtusk
2x Warping Wail
My thoughts on card choices:
1 Horizon Canopy MB - Actually has done a lot of work for me but with the uptick in red based Phoenix/Burn, I'm reconsidering the 5th Forest.
3 Relics MB - With KCI gone, I expect an uptick in graveyard decks.
1 All is Dust SB - Wild card. Could be Emrakul. Haven't seen great success with Emrakul so I'm throwing an extra sweeper on turn 3.
2 Warping Wail SB - Again, expecting an uptick in decks like Titanshift. Works well against Thing. Has game against new burn like Rakdos with overwhelming number of sorceries.
4 Thragtusk SB - I probably like this card more than most. Board it in against Humans, UW Control, Jeskai Control, Tron, BGx, Burn among others.
Solid list. I've been eyeing up Wail as well mostly for the reasons you said - the new Burn configurations plus being good against Phoenix. I'm not particularly anticipating more Titan Shift but yeah it's good there too. Also has utility against Electrodominance brews, to the extent that you see them. I've only seen the matchup once since the card was released, somewhat surprisingly.
All Is Dust is interesting, but maybe not the most impactful. I'd like it more alongside multiple copies of Cage/Surgical for a more mana efficient way of putting the boots to the graveyard decks.
I like Dismember more than recently as well. Grixis Shadow does seem to be getting more popular now, despite one of its best matchups, KCI now being dead. Though maybe now Humans resurges which would repress Shadow. Either way, I've always seen the Shadow matchup as very good but it seems like 2 Disdainful Stroke is becoming the norm in their SB, as opposed to 0-1 before. This is actually a fairly big deal as it allows them to counter Thragtusk more often which is the key card post-board. So Dismember is a card I would be looking at to keep the matchup favorable. It's also good against TiTi, Counters Company and any Prime Speaker Vannifar brews people will be trying out.
I like Dismember more than recently as well. Grixis Shadow does seem to be getting more popular now, despite one of its best matchups, KCI now being dead. Though maybe now Humans resurges which would repress Shadow. Either way, I've always seen the Shadow matchup as very good but it seems like 2 Disdainful Stroke is becoming the norm in their SB, as opposed to 0-1 before. This is actually a fairly big deal as it allows them to counter Thragtusk more often which is the key card post-board. So Dismember is a card I would be looking at to keep the matchup favorable. It's also good against TiTi, Counters Company and any Prime Speaker Vannifar brews people will be trying out.
I agree with your last two posts for sure. My most recent sideboard actually looks like this (first one I've made post KCI ban):
I like more wail than dismember becauee I think more often I want to play 2 wails in a game than 2 dismember and I think wail helps more <50% matchups. This is with 3 relics and 2 ballista maindeck as per usual.
I'm still not sold on Wail as a card. I've never had it be impactful enough to warrant one of my precious sideboard slots, and I've tried it numerous times. Definitely willing to accept the greater crunching power of the collective Tron playerbase but honestly despite following the herd on Wail it's never been great.
My sideboard is currently:
2x TKS
3x Thragtusk
3x nature's claim
2x grafdigger's cage
1x emrakul, the promised end
1x crucible of worlds
2x spatial contortion
1x flex
It's been a good sideboard. Each card has, in one matchup or another, proven to be worth its weight in gold and won matches for me.
Worth mentioning I run a 3/1 split maindeck o-stone and all is dust, in order to have an additional out for Stony silence and a third-turn sweeper. It's surprising how often it matters and that split wins me lots of matches too. So many, in fact that I can't really go back to 4x o-stone. Not until something changes in the modern meta.
I run 2x maindeck relics, 1x world breaker and 3x walking ballista. Been an excellent split for me in that regard too.
And finally, still on 5x forest. I'm planning on incorporating a buried ruin, but again the more consistent access to green mana has been a big benefit for me over many matches so it's hard to let go of the consistency. I've had an absurd run with this current version of the deck and it's barely changed for months. Something like 44-6-0 with the deck at GP side events and pptqs this season. Best ratio I've had with any deck in modern.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
I'm most of the way with you on your thought processes, k0no. I too prefer five Forests main, especially since I don't feel Crucible is currently worth a slot where I am playing. A one-shot of Horizon Canopy without Crucible just doesn't seem worth the trade-off, especially with Burn looking to be more popular with Skewer in the short term.
There is enough Affinity (both HS and EF) locally for me to not like All is Dust much, but I still hang on to a pair just in case things switch up. I use a third TKS instead of the second Grafdigger's Cage, and my last two slots go to the pair of Wails until I'm sure I can handle faster decks with sorceries and cheap creatures without them.
Nothing looks particularly good from RNA for us, but that's not surprising with a deck like this. It's honestly a bit refreshing to not have a handful of new hate cards to deal with. On the other hand, if Burn ticks up, we need to be prepared.
On the other hand, if Burn ticks up, we need to be prepared.
It's maybe not as relevant as I'd like it to be, but if affinity ticks up and burn becomes more popular, I always had positive win percentages against those decks with GR Tron. I attribute some of this to my playstyle but a lot to the card pyroclasm.
It's a bit old-tech now, in a lot of ways, so understand that it may not translate well to the current meta (humans, spirits etc just kinda laugh at this card after turn two), but pyroclasm was an absolutely huge game against those two decks. Burn particularly, would dump a couple of creatures, get swept, then have to somehow deal 12-ish damage with a couple of cards in hand and no on-board threats. A resolved TKS or Thragtusk over the next turn or two is complete game over. Had an undefeated run (mentioned it here at the time) at GP London side events and faced a large number of burn decks in a row. I wouldn't call it a positive matchup by any means but with my play patterns and sideboard choices I found it to be winnable and was able to replicate my success over a lot of matches.
Still I'm on the mono Green path at the moment. It'll probably take a significant shift in the meta to push me towards splashing a second colour again. With kci gone, I'm banking on UW control rising back up a certain amount. Dredge is making some gains as well. Who knows. I'll keep on tronning and see how things shake out.
Pyroclasm would be an awesome card to have access to against Burn, that's for sure. Probably the single best card to be honest - it definitely would increase the winrate. And it's even better against Affinity. But yeah, on the other hand it looks pretty silly against most of the other decks in the format, and unless UW really dies down somehow (and probably even if it did), I don't think we're in a place where splashing a color is a good plan.
I am still on the green-red version whenever I choose to play green Tron. Pyroclasm is one argument, and Blood Sun is the icing on the cake.
Current list for reference:
This version has quite some game into it for several MU's, and with KCI gone now, I think it has even more.
Control decks tend to rely on their utility lands to beat Tron, and a playset of Blood Sun puts an end to that while also sometimes just manascrew'ing them out. With a lot of land-driven MU's, I'd probably get some World Breaker into it (also wonderful for BGx).
I think that list would struggle against decks like Dredge, Phoenix, Grixis Shadow, Hollow One, etc. So many of the top decks are centered around the graveyard and so I think it's pretty hard to justify not playing at least 2 Relics in the main plus more hate in the side or you'll just get run over a lot. Pyroclasm and Blood Sun in contrast are very narrow cards against the field. The majority of decks will just laugh at them. Maybe your local meta is weird though and that configuration is good, in which case go nuts.
My meta is competitive enough - there's usually UWx Control, Wx Hatebears, Affinity and Tribal Aggro. Sometimes Scapeshift and other Combo (Ad Nauseam). All tiered Decks and many are hindered a lot by Blood Sun and Pyroclasm.
To beat GY-centered decks, I still have Relics for the post-board games. Shadow decks have a hard time against Groves and Wurmcoils.
And when Combo shows up more frequently, I prefer my midrange version of U Tron overall (that's what I prefer to play currently) - that's a different threat though.
Got to fetch my fifth forest last night against a RW prison/taxes deck and it was relevant for having enough mana to cast a wurmcoil which turned the tide. I know that's results oriented thinking but for a while now I've been appreciating the added consistency of an extra basic for finding green mana and it's not too often you get ghost quartered a million times but there we go.
Im still thinking of dropping one for a buried ruin, but haven't got round to it yet. I'll keep you posted, it's an easy enough change but I need to find one in Japanese (whole deck is on the way to being Japanese or Chinese)
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
Please,how sideboarding versus U/W Control and U/W/R Jeskay Control
Sideboard
4 Natures Claim
2 Surgical
3 Through not Seer
2 Spatial contortion
3 Thraghtusk
1 Crucible of world
¿4 claim and 3 Thraghtusk or 3 Claim and 4 Thraghtusk?
Please,how sideboarding versus U/W Control and U/W/R Jeskay Control
Sideboard
4 Natures Claim
2 Surgical
3 Through not Seer
2 Spatial contortion
3 Thraghtusk
1 Crucible of world
¿4 claim and 3 Thraghtusk or 3 Claim and 4 Thraghtusk?
3 Claim/4 Tusk. You're far more likely to use the 4th Tusk than the 4th Claim. As for SBing vs UW, bring in Thragtusks, Thought-Knots, Claims, and the Crucible. Take out Stones, Wurmcoils, and Relics.
I think the deck has the tools to keep us off tron, and knight presents a great clock for them, but the deck has little filtering so it tends to lose in a blowout when it doesn't find quick land destro. It's been a while since I've played against it but when a deck has a good clock and ghost quarter recursion, it will always have a chance against us. I think it's a good matchup for them but the decks lack of filtering gives us enough of a window to resolve a single walker or o-stone and it's lights out. Last time I played the deck I remember they led with a t2 knight, which is what they want to do, and I just spatialed it and they no longer had a way to slow tron and it was a blowout. If they let us get tron active they are toast so they rely heavily on a good opener.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
Yeah that, or buried ruin. Either way you get to do something productive with your lands
-With KCI banned, there's a chance TitanShift sees more play, since that bad matchup is now gone.
-With RNA bringing Skewer the Critics, we're also likely to see an up-tick in Burn, and those lists will have a higher sorcery count accordingly.
-Electrodominance will be experimented with early, and most of the suspend spells people will be abusing are sorceries (AV, Wheel of Fate, Restore Balance).
-It can go from relevant to total blowout against several popular decks, and in many matches where we're unfavored. Storm, Dredge, Infect, Living End, and most Company builds come to mind, and this is far from a comprehensive list.
Land (19)
4x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Sanctum of Ugin
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Tower
Sorcery (8)
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Sylvan Scrying
Artifact (19)
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Chromatic Star
4x Expedition Map
4x Oblivion Stone
3x Relic of Progenitus
Creature (8)
2x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2x Walking Ballista
1x World Breaker
3x Wurmcoil Engine
Planeswalker (6)
4x Karn Liberated
2x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Sideboard (15)
1x All Is Dust
1x Grafdigger's Cage
3x Nature's Claim
2x Spatial Contortion
2x Thought-Knot Seer
4x Thragtusk
2x Warping Wail
My thoughts on card choices:
1 Horizon Canopy MB - Actually has done a lot of work for me but with the uptick in red based Phoenix/Burn, I'm reconsidering the 5th Forest.
3 Relics MB - With KCI gone, I expect an uptick in graveyard decks.
1 All is Dust SB - Wild card. Could be Emrakul. Haven't seen great success with Emrakul so I'm throwing an extra sweeper on turn 3.
2 Warping Wail SB - Again, expecting an uptick in decks like Titanshift. Works well against Thing. Has game against new burn like Rakdos with overwhelming number of sorceries.
4 Thragtusk SB - I probably like this card more than most. Board it in against Humans, UW Control, Jeskai Control, Tron, BGx, Burn among others.
All Is Dust is interesting, but maybe not the most impactful. I'd like it more alongside multiple copies of Cage/Surgical for a more mana efficient way of putting the boots to the graveyard decks.
I agree with your last two posts for sure. My most recent sideboard actually looks like this (first one I've made post KCI ban):
3 Claim
3 thrag
2 spatial
2 surgical
2 TKS
2 wail
1 dismember
I like more wail than dismember becauee I think more often I want to play 2 wails in a game than 2 dismember and I think wail helps more <50% matchups. This is with 3 relics and 2 ballista maindeck as per usual.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
My sideboard is currently:
2x TKS
3x Thragtusk
3x nature's claim
2x grafdigger's cage
1x emrakul, the promised end
1x crucible of worlds
2x spatial contortion
1x flex
It's been a good sideboard. Each card has, in one matchup or another, proven to be worth its weight in gold and won matches for me.
Worth mentioning I run a 3/1 split maindeck o-stone and all is dust, in order to have an additional out for Stony silence and a third-turn sweeper. It's surprising how often it matters and that split wins me lots of matches too. So many, in fact that I can't really go back to 4x o-stone. Not until something changes in the modern meta.
I run 2x maindeck relics, 1x world breaker and 3x walking ballista. Been an excellent split for me in that regard too.
And finally, still on 5x forest. I'm planning on incorporating a buried ruin, but again the more consistent access to green mana has been a big benefit for me over many matches so it's hard to let go of the consistency. I've had an absurd run with this current version of the deck and it's barely changed for months. Something like 44-6-0 with the deck at GP side events and pptqs this season. Best ratio I've had with any deck in modern.
There is enough Affinity (both HS and EF) locally for me to not like All is Dust much, but I still hang on to a pair just in case things switch up. I use a third TKS instead of the second Grafdigger's Cage, and my last two slots go to the pair of Wails until I'm sure I can handle faster decks with sorceries and cheap creatures without them.
Nothing looks particularly good from RNA for us, but that's not surprising with a deck like this. It's honestly a bit refreshing to not have a handful of new hate cards to deal with. On the other hand, if Burn ticks up, we need to be prepared.
It's maybe not as relevant as I'd like it to be, but if affinity ticks up and burn becomes more popular, I always had positive win percentages against those decks with GR Tron. I attribute some of this to my playstyle but a lot to the card pyroclasm.
It's a bit old-tech now, in a lot of ways, so understand that it may not translate well to the current meta (humans, spirits etc just kinda laugh at this card after turn two), but pyroclasm was an absolutely huge game against those two decks. Burn particularly, would dump a couple of creatures, get swept, then have to somehow deal 12-ish damage with a couple of cards in hand and no on-board threats. A resolved TKS or Thragtusk over the next turn or two is complete game over. Had an undefeated run (mentioned it here at the time) at GP London side events and faced a large number of burn decks in a row. I wouldn't call it a positive matchup by any means but with my play patterns and sideboard choices I found it to be winnable and was able to replicate my success over a lot of matches.
Still I'm on the mono Green path at the moment. It'll probably take a significant shift in the meta to push me towards splashing a second colour again. With kci gone, I'm banking on UW control rising back up a certain amount. Dredge is making some gains as well. Who knows. I'll keep on tronning and see how things shake out.
Current list for reference:
12 Urza Lands
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Forest
1 Mountain
[Engine]
8 Chromatic Eggs
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Expedition Map
4 Sylvan Scrying
[Interaction]
3 Pyroclasm
3 Oblivion Stone
2 Blood Sun
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
[Creatures]
2 Walking Ballista
3 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
3 Nature's Claim
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Abrade
3 Spellskite
2 Blood Sun
2 Thought-Knot Seer
This version has quite some game into it for several MU's, and with KCI gone now, I think it has even more.
Control decks tend to rely on their utility lands to beat Tron, and a playset of Blood Sun puts an end to that while also sometimes just manascrew'ing them out. With a lot of land-driven MU's, I'd probably get some World Breaker into it (also wonderful for BGx).
Greetings
To beat GY-centered decks, I still have Relics for the post-board games. Shadow decks have a hard time against Groves and Wurmcoils.
And when Combo shows up more frequently, I prefer my midrange version of U Tron overall (that's what I prefer to play currently) - that's a different threat though.
Im still thinking of dropping one for a buried ruin, but haven't got round to it yet. I'll keep you posted, it's an easy enough change but I need to find one in Japanese (whole deck is on the way to being Japanese or Chinese)
Sideboard
4 Natures Claim
2 Surgical
3 Through not Seer
2 Spatial contortion
3 Thraghtusk
1 Crucible of world
¿4 claim and 3 Thraghtusk or 3 Claim and 4 Thraghtusk?
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW