My RG list posted on the previous page payed off yet again. Small Tournament today, 4 rounds of Swiss.
R1 vs UW Spirits - 2:0 (Ugin won it)
R2 vs Esper Control - 2:0 (Eldrazi Titans G1, Powerwalkers G2)
R3 vs BW Eldrazi'n'Taxes - 2:0 (Pyroclasm, Blood Sun and Walking Ballista)
R4 vs UW Control - ID for saving prizes for both
We played for fun and who gets first or second prize (UMA Goyf or M25 Moon in foil). I lost that 1:2, though I am sure I'd won it all if I played safer G3 and my opp wouldn't have cheated - though I mulled to 4 in that game.
So I won the foil Moon. For the UWx Control MU, I'd add some Boil to my SB - not gonna happen soon, because no other MU benefits.
Greetings
PS: keep some O-Stone in your 60 for post-board games, it kills any PW and stuff like Detention Sphere.
My RG list posted on the previous page payed off yet again. Small Tournament today, 4 rounds of Swiss.
R1 vs UW Spirits - 2:0 (Ugin won it)
R2 vs Esper Control - 2:0 (Eldrazi Titans G1, Powerwalkers G2)
R3 vs BW Eldrazi'n'Taxes - 2:0 (Pyroclasm, Blood Sun and Walking Ballista)
R4 vs UW Control - ID for saving prizes for both
We played for fun and who gets first or second prize (UMA Goyf or M25 Moon in foil). I lost that 1:2, though I am sure I'd won it all if I played safer G3 and my opp wouldn't have cheated - though I mulled to 4 in that game.
So I won the foil Moon. For the UWx Control MU, I'd add some Boil to my SB - not gonna happen soon, because no other MU benefits.
Greetings
PS: keep some O-Stone in your 60 for post-board games, it kills any PW and stuff like Detention Sphere.
I really don't like Stones vs. UW because how high your threat density needs to be to work through all their removal. You already need to bring in Claims to deal with Stonies that also deal with Spheres, and I'd much rather keep in 1 or 2 Wurmcoils if I wanted to pressure walkers. YMMV though, of course.
My boarding was:
-3 Pyroclasm
-2 Wurmcoil Engine (1 left)
-1 Sylvan Scrying
-1 Expedition Map (Stony Silence)
+3 Nature's Claim
+2 Blood Sun
+2 Thought-Knot Seer
It played out nicely G2, but G3 I mulled 7 with 4 Lands, then mulled to 4 to have any Land, then lost due to offensive plays into outs instead of deploying Planeswalkers and lost (also due to some cheating I didn't call the judge for - next time I will for sure).
My boarding was:
-3 Pyroclasm
-2 Wurmcoil Engine (1 left)
-1 Sylvan Scrying
-1 Expedition Map (Stony Silence)
+3 Nature's Claim
+2 Blood Sun
+2 Thought-Knot Seer
It played out nicely G2, but G3 I mulled 7 with 4 Lands, then mulled to 4 to have any Land, then lost due to offensive plays into outs instead of deploying Planeswalkers and lost (also due to some cheating I didn't call the judge for - next time I will for sure).
Why do you SB out the Map over a Sphere? I usually like going -1 Sphere to hedge vs Silence, personally.
It probably sounds contradictory after just talking about wanting to maximize threat count by not cutting Stones, but I find it difficult to SB out Scrying/Map, since running less than 8 affects mulligans so hard. I could also be wrong, though.
I choose to board one Scrying out because I board in 5 colored spells. Therefore I also board out one Expedition Map instead of an Egg for preserving all the coloured sources.
It cannot be correct to sideboard maps and scryings in the matchup. Those cards are better than oblivion stone and I don't think it's particularly close.
Relics can be useful to protect our tron lands from sugrical extraction, but as you run crucible of worlds there is a bit of a non-bo there so trimming a relic or two is fine. UW is one of the matchups to have crucible in your board for, you definitely bring it in.
For UW control with the sideboard 'user-23561543' linked, I would do this:
You could also bring in only 2 tks if you want to keep more relics in to protect against surgical. 3 claims will be enough, you don't want to get stuck with multiple in hand.
Yeah, I'd also never cut any land tutors against UW. Mana is the main axis that matchup is fought on. Ostone conflicts with our plan of high threat density, and gets shut off by Stony. Depending on how much I have to board in, I cut up to 2 Chromatic Sphere in this matchup, along with the Ostones, Relics, and 2-3 Wurms.
The plan of high threat density makes me wonder - there is like 3-4 Tusks, 3-4 TKS, 2 Ballista, 1 Wurm and 1-2 Ulamog as creatures (10-13 total) plus 6 walkers (those need time to win). That is not a high density in my eyes, and thereby seems to be lackluster.
What actually does seem reliable is the Eldrazi Titans (honorable mention of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn). Casting one of them is often turning the tide as any of those win the game for sure within 2 attacks (old Emmy probably in one swing). The UWx Control player immediately needs to answer those.
So to cast any Titan, we surely need Tron online, but your plan is to have enough basics against LD-lands - then you can cast a Thragtusk on turn five.
Blood Sun at the very least stops those LD-lands if not winning on the spot because those fetchlands and manlands are also useless. Then you can deploy big mana, then you want cantripping eggs instead of even more landtutors, and then you want to win the long game while eventually killing any Jace or Teferi with O-Stone.
Let me show you this: if you can deploy an O-Stone and a Blood Sun with a fate counter, UW Control cannot win the game. Those two are a hardlock against their deck.
Let me show you this: if you can deploy an O-Stone and a Blood Sun with a fate counter, UW Control cannot win the game. Those two are a hardlock against their deck.
Greetings
I mean, O-Stone + BS is a soft lock at best. If UW lands a Jace 0 or Teferi +1, you're forced to pop the Stone and leaves you down 1 card (since they're threatening to drown you in CA). They can also Teferi -3 it or Blood Sun, D-Sphere it or Blood Sun, Cryptic bounce it or Blood Sun, Stony shut down Stone, or Disenchant it or Blood Sun. Thragtusk is a much better answer for the PWs since it sticks around after it takes them out, and can actually pressure your opponent so they can't just wait forever to draw into an answer. UW will win the waiting game if they stick a threat first.
Titans are great, but Ulamog often is double Vindicate + eat Path. If it comes down too late it's good, but not backbreaking. Emrakul the Promised End is an absolute MU breaker, but I personally have a hard time finding room in my 75 after the death of KCI and UW taking up less than 3% of the meta.
Prison brew with land destruction (win 2-1)
(I lost the first match because 1) mb bmoon and 2)although I got o-stone, he kept destroying my lands so in the end I only had 4 mana and he beat me down with his creatures.
Jund (win 2-0)
B/G Rock (Win 2-0)
Classic Affinity (Win 2-1)
Top 8 was: 2 mono-G tron (including me), GDS, classic affinity, Ponza, mono-blue living end, dredge and 1 other which I do not know.
Top 8
R1: Ponza (win 2-1): the one match up I didn’t want to face.
G1 I lost.
G2 I managed to cut him off of red early thanks to WB, which left him stranded with 3 BBE in his hand.
G3 was a nailbiter, we both made mistakes. My mistake was that when I was at 1 I should not have attacked with wurmcoil because he had 2 attackers (he had a bbe and tireless tracker). His mistake was after that he played bmoon but didn’t crack a fetch before playing it which would have generated a clue, he could’ve sac the clue for tracker and attack for lethal(after my swing with wurmcoil). I managed to get there in the end.
R2: Classic affinity (0-2)
G1-mulled to 6 but kept a hand with 2x ballista, tower, mine, scrying and o-stone. I kept because all I needed was either an egg, forest, map or even the 3rd tron piece. Lucky for me my opponent kept a slow hand. Unlucky for me I did not see any of those cards until 6 turns later and it was too late unfortunately. I only saw 1 other land and it was a GQ.
G2-I was steamrolled but that happens with affinity (he had the nut draw and I had to mull to 4).
Overall I’m happy with how it turned out! I picked up a scalding tarn and got a sweet play mat.
Thoughts:
Maybe I need to shuffle better because it seems that I was either drawing all lands or all non-lands during the tournament (one of the matches I had 3 of each of the urza lands out lol). Urza factory helped a lot when I was facing jund as I was drawing nothing but lands but I was able to chump block tarmogoyf until I found a threat.
I’ve been thinking of replacing the 3rd ballista with a 4th wurmcoil but I’m not 100% sure yet.
Finally I would like some advice on how I should SB against U/W control. I see some discussion earlier but it seems to be RG tron while I’m mono-G.
You can read it in your own post @Slivortal, it is a must-answer situation for UW. And both cards (Blood Sun and Oblivion Stone) have impact on the game; disabling Field of Ruin, Celestial Colonnade and any fetchland is huge (while it cantrips at least) and O-Stone deals with any PW. A 1-for-1 trade with either Jace or Teferi is acceptable, because like you said, both generate CA.
It being a "must-answer situation" doesn't really say very much - they're the control deck, literally all our threats are must answer. When you consider that Blood Sun + O-Stone + Fate Counter is a clunky and time-intensive 2-card combo that they have many ways of breaking up(and that Stony Silence makes look ridiculous), it doesn't sound very impressive.
Obviously Blood Sun is a good card against UW, I don't think anyone is arguing that. And O-Stone is fine, if you don't have a lot of threats, such as your list. Obviously you like your configuration and are sticking with it, so these arguments are kind of moot.
The argument I would make (and I think others are in agreement with this) is that the standard build with Thragtusks is a better plan, not just in the UW matchup, but against the field. The lack of Thragtusks and such minimal graveyard hate are significant holes that Pyroclasm and Blood sun can't plug, nor do they provide enough against the field to make up for the losses - I don't think there's any denying this.
Like I mentioned before, local metas are a thing and different versions can be better positioned as the case may be, but I don't think you're convincing anyone that against the Modern meta at large, your configuration has merit. If that's not your goal, then my bad.
@Avatardante: Nice job on the top 8. Look again at this page, some of the discussion has been for Mono G vs UW. Also there is a sideboard guide in the OP.
You can read it in your own post @Slivortal, it is a must-answer situation for UW. And both cards (Blood Sun and Oblivion Stone) have impact on the game; disabling Field of Ruin, Celestial Colonnade and any fetchland is huge (while it cantrips at least) and O-Stone deals with any PW. A 1-for-1 trade with either Jace or Teferi is acceptable, because like you said, both generate CA.
The problem is that O-Stone doesn't trade 1-for-1 with Walkers; it trades 1-for-2 since both Jace and Teferi generate a free card before you have to 1-for-1 them with Stone (and slightly worse vs. Jace, thanks to the Brainstorm). The only real way to answer walkers in a neutral fashion is via creature combat, since the creature that sticks around makes up for the free card they get with the first activation (or with a cast trigger, of course). Answering a walker via Stone on a 1-for-1 basis is sometimes necessary, but not really something you actively want to be doing.
Prison brew with land destruction (win 2-1)
(I lost the first match because 1) mb bmoon and 2)although I got o-stone, he kept destroying my lands so in the end I only had 4 mana and he beat me down with his creatures.
Jund (win 2-0)
B/G Rock (Win 2-0)
Classic Affinity (Win 2-1)
Top 8 was: 2 mono-G tron (including me), GDS, classic affinity, Ponza, mono-blue living end, dredge and 1 other which I do not know.
Top 8
R1: Ponza (win 2-1): the one match up I didn’t want to face.
G1 I lost.
G2 I managed to cut him off of red early thanks to WB, which left him stranded with 3 BBE in his hand.
G3 was a nailbiter, we both made mistakes. My mistake was that when I was at 1 I should not have attacked with wurmcoil because he had 2 attackers (he had a bbe and tireless tracker). His mistake was after that he played bmoon but didn’t crack a fetch before playing it which would have generated a clue, he could’ve sac the clue for tracker and attack for lethal(after my swing with wurmcoil). I managed to get there in the end.
R2: Classic affinity (0-2)
G1-mulled to 6 but kept a hand with 2x ballista, tower, mine, scrying and o-stone. I kept because all I needed was either an egg, forest, map or even the 3rd tron piece. Lucky for me my opponent kept a slow hand. Unlucky for me I did not see any of those cards until 6 turns later and it was too late unfortunately. I only saw 1 other land and it was a GQ.
G2-I was steamrolled but that happens with affinity (he had the nut draw and I had to mull to 4).
Overall I’m happy with how it turned out! I picked up a scalding tarn and got a sweet play mat.
Thoughts:
Maybe I need to shuffle better because it seems that I was either drawing all lands or all non-lands during the tournament (one of the matches I had 3 of each of the urza lands out lol). Urza factory helped a lot when I was facing jund as I was drawing nothing but lands but I was able to chump block tarmogoyf until I found a threat.
I’ve been thinking of replacing the 3rd ballista with a 4th wurmcoil but I’m not 100% sure yet.
Finally I would like some advice on how I should SB against U/W control. I see some discussion earlier but it seems to be RG tron while I’m mono-G.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Hello! I was the other Tron player that made the top 4 of this tournament. It was great that I beat the ponza player in the swiss and you beat them in the first round of the top 8; it shows that the matchup is not as terrible as people think because outside of stormbreath dragon the deck just cannot pressure us fast enough. Warping wail was really good for me in game 3.
My loss in the top 4 was to the mono U living end player, on the back of Nimble Obstructionist countering an Ulamog trigger and an O-stone activation. Lesson learned: if they have 2U up, play around the stifle effect if you can afford to.
For UW, refer to a comment I made within the last page for what my sideboard plan is. Crucible helps a lot (more than emrakul IMO because the card effects the game much earlier) if you really want to shore up that and the BGx matchup. I was watching your loss to UW in round 1 and in the final game your opponent landed an early stony silence and you drew 4+ artifacts in a row right after. That is how like 1/2 of my game losses to UW go, the other half are when I miss multiple land drops in the first 5-6 turns of the game. To lower the artifact count I would suggest cutting ostones and trimming relics before touching the chromatics. The chromatics are key to a turn 2 scrying and they cantrip into cards late game to dig for threats and threats and threats.
Hey guys, I am old-ish player who used to play tron back in the day when it was not only green but red! Now, I am a aggro player through and through. And, back then, it was a coin flip if my aggro deck could slide under or bounce back after a board reset, becasue tron packed sooo many board reset options. In those days I feared and respected tron. Now, its a free win for me, every day all day every game, due to the lack of interaction till turn three. I can reason red was removed to better the odds against non-creature based decks i.e. control and combo, but with the meta being more aggro based I am surprised tron refuses to pick up its old tried and true battle axes - engineered explosives and pyroclasm. There are newer "battle axes" to use now days, but you get the point.
Hey guys, I am old-ish player who used to play tron back in the day when it was not only green but red! Now, I am a aggro player through and through. And, back then, it was a coin flip if my aggro deck could slide under or bounce back after a board reset, becasue tron packed sooo many board reset options. In those days I feared and respected tron. Now, its a free win for me, every day all day every game, due to the lack of interaction till turn three. I can reason red was removed to better the odds against non-creature based decks i.e. control and combo, but with the meta being more aggro based I am surprised tron refuses to pick up its old tried and true battle axes - engineered explosives and pyroclasm. There are newer "battle axes" to use now days, but you get the point.
Unfortunately for pyroclasm, threats have changed and 2 damage is now no longer the catch-all that it used to be. Engineered explosives also wasn't ever a major player in Tron decks because of the heavy colour requirements. If you came across it back in the day, that would have very much been an exception rather than the rule.
Without pyroclasm being too effective, without eye of ugin for a dependable crushing late-game, and in an environment where field of ruin sees lots more play, Tron has had to adapt to stay relevant. It's had to speed up its larger threats, in order to circumvent the now real potential for a long game to swing in an opponent's favour. And it's had to run more basic lands, and rely more on cards like walking ballista as an early road-block instead of pyroclasm.
That said it's meta dependant. Clasm can still swing a game, but it ain't what it used to be. I love it against burn and weenie decks, but everywhere else it's pretty useless.
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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
Ah, I see. That clears things up a bit for me. Since I play a weenie rush I fear pyro. But, trim is having to deal with much larger problems than weenies. lol It’s crazy how some of the King Kongs of modern have been eroded i.e. tron, robots, jund...I think the only deck to not only survive, but improve is RDWs. <_<
Ah, I see. That clears things up a bit for me. Since I play a weenie rush I fear pyro. But, trim is having to deal with much larger problems than weenies. lol It’s crazy how some of the King Kongs of modern have been eroded i.e. tron, robots, jund...I think the only deck to not only survive, but improve is RDWs. <_<
Well thank you
That's pretty true although for what it's worth, most of the last year has seen burn being pretty unplayable too. It's just the natural pendulum of the metagame. Tron has actually been in a very nice spot recently and it took me to a couple of top 8s in the pptq season. Also gave me the longest win-streak I've ever had at GP side events this year which helped win me a dual land (tundra) and... I dunno five-ish booster boxes or something.
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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
Just came across a 5-0 list that was playing 3 Wall of Roots SB. Weird choice, but I guess it seems decent with all the cheap 2-3 power creatures running around.
R1 vs UW Spirits - 2:0 (Ugin won it)
R2 vs Esper Control - 2:0 (Eldrazi Titans G1, Powerwalkers G2)
R3 vs BW Eldrazi'n'Taxes - 2:0 (Pyroclasm, Blood Sun and Walking Ballista)
R4 vs UW Control - ID for saving prizes for both
We played for fun and who gets first or second prize (UMA Goyf or M25 Moon in foil). I lost that 1:2, though I am sure I'd won it all if I played safer G3 and my opp wouldn't have cheated - though I mulled to 4 in that game.
So I won the foil Moon. For the UWx Control MU, I'd add some Boil to my SB - not gonna happen soon, because no other MU benefits.
Greetings
PS: keep some O-Stone in your 60 for post-board games, it kills any PW and stuff like Detention Sphere.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
-3 Pyroclasm
-2 Wurmcoil Engine (1 left)
-1 Sylvan Scrying
-1 Expedition Map (Stony Silence)
+3 Nature's Claim
+2 Blood Sun
+2 Thought-Knot Seer
It played out nicely G2, but G3 I mulled 7 with 4 Lands, then mulled to 4 to have any Land, then lost due to offensive plays into outs instead of deploying Planeswalkers and lost (also due to some cheating I didn't call the judge for - next time I will for sure).
It probably sounds contradictory after just talking about wanting to maximize threat count by not cutting Stones, but I find it difficult to SB out Scrying/Map, since running less than 8 affects mulligans so hard. I could also be wrong, though.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Relics can be useful to protect our tron lands from sugrical extraction, but as you run crucible of worlds there is a bit of a non-bo there so trimming a relic or two is fine. UW is one of the matchups to have crucible in your board for, you definitely bring it in.
For UW control with the sideboard 'user-23561543' linked, I would do this:
IN: 3x tks, 3x claim, 3x thrag, 1x crucible
OUT: 4x ostone, 3x wurm, 2x relic
You could also bring in only 2 tks if you want to keep more relics in to protect against surgical. 3 claims will be enough, you don't want to get stuck with multiple in hand.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
What actually does seem reliable is the Eldrazi Titans (honorable mention of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn). Casting one of them is often turning the tide as any of those win the game for sure within 2 attacks (old Emmy probably in one swing). The UWx Control player immediately needs to answer those.
So to cast any Titan, we surely need Tron online, but your plan is to have enough basics against LD-lands - then you can cast a Thragtusk on turn five.
Blood Sun at the very least stops those LD-lands if not winning on the spot because those fetchlands and manlands are also useless. Then you can deploy big mana, then you want cantripping eggs instead of even more landtutors, and then you want to win the long game while eventually killing any Jace or Teferi with O-Stone.
Let me show you this: if you can deploy an O-Stone and a Blood Sun with a fate counter, UW Control cannot win the game. Those two are a hardlock against their deck.
Greetings
Titans are great, but Ulamog often is double Vindicate + eat Path. If it comes down too late it's good, but not backbreaking. Emrakul the Promised End is an absolute MU breaker, but I personally have a hard time finding room in my 75 after the death of KCI and UW taking up less than 3% of the meta.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
So yesterday I went to a small 30 man charity tournament (5 rounds of Swiss then cut to top 8). I took mono-G tron and I managed to make top 4!!!
Decklist: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-karnfather-the-star-the-spirit-dragon/
Swiss:
U/W control (loss 1-2)
Prison brew with land destruction (win 2-1)
(I lost the first match because 1) mb bmoon and 2)although I got o-stone, he kept destroying my lands so in the end I only had 4 mana and he beat me down with his creatures.
Jund (win 2-0)
B/G Rock (Win 2-0)
Classic Affinity (Win 2-1)
Top 8 was: 2 mono-G tron (including me), GDS, classic affinity, Ponza, mono-blue living end, dredge and 1 other which I do not know.
Top 8
R1: Ponza (win 2-1): the one match up I didn’t want to face.
G1 I lost.
G2 I managed to cut him off of red early thanks to WB, which left him stranded with 3 BBE in his hand.
G3 was a nailbiter, we both made mistakes. My mistake was that when I was at 1 I should not have attacked with wurmcoil because he had 2 attackers (he had a bbe and tireless tracker). His mistake was after that he played bmoon but didn’t crack a fetch before playing it which would have generated a clue, he could’ve sac the clue for tracker and attack for lethal(after my swing with wurmcoil). I managed to get there in the end.
R2: Classic affinity (0-2)
G1-mulled to 6 but kept a hand with 2x ballista, tower, mine, scrying and o-stone. I kept because all I needed was either an egg, forest, map or even the 3rd tron piece. Lucky for me my opponent kept a slow hand. Unlucky for me I did not see any of those cards until 6 turns later and it was too late unfortunately. I only saw 1 other land and it was a GQ.
G2-I was steamrolled but that happens with affinity (he had the nut draw and I had to mull to 4).
Overall I’m happy with how it turned out! I picked up a scalding tarn and got a sweet play mat.
Thoughts:
Maybe I need to shuffle better because it seems that I was either drawing all lands or all non-lands during the tournament (one of the matches I had 3 of each of the urza lands out lol). Urza factory helped a lot when I was facing jund as I was drawing nothing but lands but I was able to chump block tarmogoyf until I found a threat.
I’ve been thinking of replacing the 3rd ballista with a 4th wurmcoil but I’m not 100% sure yet.
Finally I would like some advice on how I should SB against U/W control. I see some discussion earlier but it seems to be RG tron while I’m mono-G.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
Obviously Blood Sun is a good card against UW, I don't think anyone is arguing that. And O-Stone is fine, if you don't have a lot of threats, such as your list. Obviously you like your configuration and are sticking with it, so these arguments are kind of moot.
The argument I would make (and I think others are in agreement with this) is that the standard build with Thragtusks is a better plan, not just in the UW matchup, but against the field. The lack of Thragtusks and such minimal graveyard hate are significant holes that Pyroclasm and Blood sun can't plug, nor do they provide enough against the field to make up for the losses - I don't think there's any denying this.
Like I mentioned before, local metas are a thing and different versions can be better positioned as the case may be, but I don't think you're convincing anyone that against the Modern meta at large, your configuration has merit. If that's not your goal, then my bad.
@Avatardante: Nice job on the top 8. Look again at this page, some of the discussion has been for Mono G vs UW. Also there is a sideboard guide in the OP.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Hello! I was the other Tron player that made the top 4 of this tournament. It was great that I beat the ponza player in the swiss and you beat them in the first round of the top 8; it shows that the matchup is not as terrible as people think because outside of stormbreath dragon the deck just cannot pressure us fast enough. Warping wail was really good for me in game 3.
My loss in the top 4 was to the mono U living end player, on the back of Nimble Obstructionist countering an Ulamog trigger and an O-stone activation. Lesson learned: if they have 2U up, play around the stifle effect if you can afford to.
For UW, refer to a comment I made within the last page for what my sideboard plan is. Crucible helps a lot (more than emrakul IMO because the card effects the game much earlier) if you really want to shore up that and the BGx matchup. I was watching your loss to UW in round 1 and in the final game your opponent landed an early stony silence and you drew 4+ artifacts in a row right after. That is how like 1/2 of my game losses to UW go, the other half are when I miss multiple land drops in the first 5-6 turns of the game. To lower the artifact count I would suggest cutting ostones and trimming relics before touching the chromatics. The chromatics are key to a turn 2 scrying and they cantrip into cards late game to dig for threats and threats and threats.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
YOUTUBE CHANNEL: GOBOTS
Unfortunately for pyroclasm, threats have changed and 2 damage is now no longer the catch-all that it used to be. Engineered explosives also wasn't ever a major player in Tron decks because of the heavy colour requirements. If you came across it back in the day, that would have very much been an exception rather than the rule.
Without pyroclasm being too effective, without eye of ugin for a dependable crushing late-game, and in an environment where field of ruin sees lots more play, Tron has had to adapt to stay relevant. It's had to speed up its larger threats, in order to circumvent the now real potential for a long game to swing in an opponent's favour. And it's had to run more basic lands, and rely more on cards like walking ballista as an early road-block instead of pyroclasm.
That said it's meta dependant. Clasm can still swing a game, but it ain't what it used to be. I love it against burn and weenie decks, but everywhere else it's pretty useless.
Well thank you
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That's pretty true although for what it's worth, most of the last year has seen burn being pretty unplayable too. It's just the natural pendulum of the metagame. Tron has actually been in a very nice spot recently and it took me to a couple of top 8s in the pptq season. Also gave me the longest win-streak I've ever had at GP side events this year which helped win me a dual land (tundra) and... I dunno five-ish booster boxes or something.
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
5 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Karn Liberated
4 Oblivion Stone
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Sylvan Scrying
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Walking Ballista
1 World Breaker
3 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Nature's Claim
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Thragtusk
3 Wall of Roots
2 Warping Wail
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW