I just wanted to update this forum with my latest thoughts on some cards after some more testing.
1) A lot of lists run a 1 of oblivion ring in the main as a 3 mana catch all. while this does not sound terrible (I played this for almost half a year now), I was just thinking that its not really that useful. In MOST matchups, things we want to kill are mainly creatures and oring does not interact at instant speed against pod/twin. I have now cut this from the deck in favor of snapcaster mage to test it. Just to have another instant speed interaction.
2) Some lists are playing 1+ timely reinforcements in the main. I can't stress how impressed I am with this card. Against creature based matchups which put some pressure on your life total, this card is obviously very good. Some examples include affinity, zoo, pod, u/r delver variants. However against decks playing red or have an beatdown/combo game plans such as tarmo twin, pod, U/W/R control/midrange, I found timely to be very good. Since UWR control can't beat emrakul in the late game, many of my opponents decided to do an "aggro" playstyle focusing on attacking my life with clique, colonnade, snapcaster and lightning bolts. Timely is once again very good in this matchup, as it allows you to live through more burn spells. The same applies when playing against twin and pod where they have the ability to combo you, but also just beat you down with creatures and bolts (in twin). I would definitely run at least 1 timely in the main deck.
I am currently testing a list very close to the one darksteel88 plays in his primer. Everything else is exactly the same (in the main deck) with the exception of:
oring out for cyclonic rift
Sphinx's revelation for timely reinforcements
supreme verdict for batterskull
I could see ORing for Cyclonic Rift. I was honestly quite impressed with it, but now that I have triple Wrath I feel it's not all that important. I just overall found that a Wrath was better than a Timely in this format. Less random aggro and more combo like Pod. I'm easily boarding out Timely against Pod but happily casting Wrath. If you look at my primer, ORing comes out quite a bit because it's lackluster. It's just particularly good at answering cards like Liliana or Karn. I suppose against Twin or Pod it's not the best, so I'm still sort of hedging in that spot. I guess I still feel like some hard answers to cards are necessary, and ORing happens to do a solid job.
I ran Timely main for the longest time, mostly because I didn't agree any Wrath was suitable in that spot, but we wanted a Wrath effect. In essence, it was the closest you could get while being reasonable. I agree with basically all the things you say except I think it's horrible against Pod. I board out Timely in that matchup, doesn't really do much for me. With triple Wrath they're not going to grind me out, so I don't really expect to need Timely.
Ultimately you're moving more towards what I used to play, except I had a Wurmcoil over Batterskull. I'm not convinced it's the right move, but I'm also not convinced it's the worst. While I really do want Verdict to be good, I might have to concede that it's too hard to cast. I have been pleased with Sphinx's though.
- I feel that pod wins a lot of games through attacking people with creatures and opponents have to play differently due to the threat of the combo. They have attacking threats such as kitchen finks and voice. I'm definitely not saying that wrath is BAD against pod, but against kitchen finks and voice its not the best, considering you have to tap 2 white mana and even more for verdict on mainphase in order to wrath making it possibly hard to defend against the combo since we are low on colored sources now. I think timely is a great stall against them as most of their creatures are grounded and you can buy multiple turns with timely. Post board, i acutally bring in wraths and timelys against pod.
- Gerry Thompson wrote about sphinx's revelation in a few of his articles. He says that it bridges the gap between 4 mana and 10 mana spells (his exact words) and he doesn't want to play cards that are good AFTER tron is active (because he says that generally the deck is already quite good at that point with colonnades and emrakul etc). He wants to focus on stalling and surviving until he gets tron online, thats the goal of how he built his u/w tron list. Sure you can cast a revelation without tron with 7 lands and draw 4 cards gain 4 life, thats not bad, im just summarizing Gerry Thompson's thoughts that he wrote in his articles. In addition Gerry mentioned that the reason why the list runs remand over mana leak is due to the fact that our deck isn't trying to grind out the opponents resources, we are simply trying to buy time until our late game engine kicks into place where we usually win the game. Using the same logic, I don't think oring (a permanent answer to something) is very necessary in our deck, with repeal we can "tempo play" them while advancing our own game plan (drawing a card) and delaying the game. You mentioned oring is particularly good against lilianna and karn. Lilianna saw the most play in Jund which is not very popular now in my opinion after the recent bannings and Oring isn't really that good against Karn. The decks that play Karn are usually opposing Tron decks. After karn has come into play and exiled a land on turn 3 against GR tron, having oring isn't really that useful IMO.
Right now the slots that I'm testing are to help delay the game and help me survive to ensure that I get to the late game where the tron engine is usually online. I'm not looking for mid-late game cards that are good AFTER tron is active. For example, cyclonic rift can act as a 2 mana bounce gofy or kitchen finks or some beater and after tron is active its quite good to bounce their board. Snapcaster acts as a 2 mana chump blocker, 3 mana blocker+ path, 4 mana snapcaster +remand, 5 mana blockers+ thirst etc. I want more early game interactive cards to ensure that I can stop instant speed combos from twin and survive against the beatdown decks.
- I feel that pod wins a lot of games through attacking people with creatures and opponents have to play differently due to the threat of the combo. They have attacking threats such as kitchen finks and voice. I'm definitely not saying that wrath is BAD against pod, but against kitchen finks and voice its not the best, considering you have to tap 2 white mana and even more for verdict on mainphase in order to wrath making it possibly hard to defend against the combo since we are low on colored sources now. I think timely is a great stall against them as most of their creatures are grounded and you can buy multiple turns with timely. Post board, i acutally bring in wraths and timelys against pod.
- Gerry Thompson wrote about sphinx's revelation in a few of his articles. He says that it bridges the gap between 4 mana and 10 mana spells (his exact words) and he doesn't want to play cards that are good AFTER tron is active (because he says that generally the deck is already quite good at that point with colonnades and emrakul etc). He wants to focus on stalling and surviving until he gets tron online, thats the goal of how he built his u/w tron list. Sure you can cast a revelation without tron with 7 lands and draw 4 cards gain 4 life, thats not bad, im just summarizing Gerry Thompson's thoughts that he wrote in his articles. In addition Gerry mentioned that the reason why the list runs remand over mana leak is due to the fact that our deck isn't trying to grind out the opponents resources, we are simply trying to buy time until our late game engine kicks into place where we usually win the game. Using the same logic, I don't think oring (a permanent answer to something) is very necessary in our deck, with repeal we can "tempo play" them while advancing our own game plan (drawing a card) and delaying the game. You mentioned oring is particularly good against lilianna and karn. Lilianna saw the most play in Jund which is not very popular now in my opinion after the recent bannings and Oring isn't really that good against Karn. The decks that play Karn are usually opposing Tron decks. After karn has come into play and exiled a land on turn 3 against GR tron, having oring isn't really that useful IMO.
Pod is not typically going to win by grinding us out. They win through persistent damage. Kitchen Finks is hard to kill, or your Birds suddenly turning into a 2/3 flier because of Township. The deck is also only capable of comboing off when they have multiple creatures. It's either two specific creatures (Archangel + Spike Feeder) or three pieces. If I Wrath, it's too hard for them to go off. Finks can't come back anymore after you Wrath, it has the -1/-1 counter now. So like, they're going to Pod that into Redcap and find another two creatures? Especially if you Wrath on turn 4, they're just not going to have the mana to Pod and cast everything they need. Obviously you can't always Wrath, but more often than not it's really good.
Timely is just doing basically nothing. I'm not concerned about a couple points here or there because they're on a tight clock. We're going to clock them, and cards like Elesh Norn are brutal. There's not a lot of option for them to slowly grind me out, between Path, Wrath, and Elesh Norn, plus the end game clock, they just can't afford to grind. I'm really not sure what their game plan would be post board, when I board in multiple combo answers, they may as well just scoop.
Honestly, Pod is fairly close to a bye for us. You're just not going to lose when it takes so many resources for them to win and we have so many ways to blow up their board.
The thing with cards like Liliana or Karn is that they provide value over multiple turns. Liliana is going to drain my hand, or Karn is going to exile two lands. Sometimes it's not about me grinding them out but them grinding me out, and us wanting to stop that. While I don't particularly need hard answers for the most part, these are just two to highlight that scenario. Sometimes I really do want to just get rid of it for good as opposed to delay it. Karn is particularly a good example because bouncing it does nothing; it stops me dead right now and they'll just play it again next turn. Yeah, you're probably not going to win the game against RG Tron regardless, but that doesn't mean it's not good at stopping Karn. There aren't a lot of cards that come down post-Karn and answer him.
It's possible ORing isn't that good, don't get me wrong. Jund and RG Tron are on the decline since last season. When you think about it, there are a lot of cards where ORing is much worse than Repeal or Cyclonic Rift. I won't fault you if you don't want to play it, but I've never been sad to have just a singleton hard answer to any permanent. Most of the time it's a 3-mana Path, which isn't exactly bad. You're basically paying for the flexibility. Remember, Repeal is expensive to cast. In the Karn example, you're never going to bounce Karn.
As far as Sphinx's Rev goes, it's just an option for something in the midrange, like he says. When you're trying to bridge a gap between cheap and expensive spells, you're often going to have Tron online. Particularly it's been good against the aggro decks. Even in just a couple hours of testing against Small Zoo, it came into play multiple times. It'd save my bacon and let me see another turn, whereas something immobile like Wurmcoil might have seen a Path.
At the end of the day, the deck has flexibility. Just because I have good success with some cards, doesn't mean others will. The game is often dominated by personal preference. I have a tendency not to attack with Colonnade and rather gain card advantage instead, whereas the next player might be quick to animate. So what's good for me isn't necessarily good for others. Keep that in mind as we debate. Pretty much everything I've listed in the card options are things I think are reasonable to use.
Timely Reinforcements is a bad card. Against the decks you want it against, most players are at a lower life total than you. They can even play around it by shocking themselves more.
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I disagree. Against fast aggro decks, it can save your ass for an extra Turn or two. This gives you time to get one of your larger threats out (norn for zoo or affinity or Iona for Burn). Granted, it doesnt do much against an Ornithopter with Cranial Plating, but it can help stabilize in some of the matchups that have proven to be a bit more difficult for this deck.
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Hey darksteel, how was snapcaster been for you? Ive read the section in the primer, do u have any more info to add after more testing? Is it worth 1 slot in the deck?
Hey darksteel, how was snapcaster been for you? Ive read the section in the primer, do u have any more info to add after more testing? Is it worth 1 slot in the deck?
It's been reasonable for me, I have no major complaints. It's also rarely ever dead.
I disagree. Against fast aggro decks, it can save your ass for an extra Turn or two. This gives you time to get one of your larger threats out (norn for zoo or affinity or Iona for Burn). Granted, it doesnt do much against an Ornithopter with Cranial Plating, but it can help stabilize in some of the matchups that have proven to be a bit more difficult for this deck.
This is actually just wrong. Against aggro decks that go fetch, shock and start at 17 life -- you're Timely Reinforcements will never gain you 6 life. They can actively play around it.
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Ok, but then you crack a fetch and get hit by Wild Cat- boom, ready for Timely Reinforcements. From personal experience playing Timely in various Ritual Gifts brews, that card does work. When all your trying to do is stall the game a few turns until you can win, it does exactly what you want.
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Not just the Tendo King, the power of the Galactic Leyline surpasses that of the Tempa Emperor, No!, It's magnificent power is even greater than that!
This is a bit of a blanket statement and is pretty meta dependent, don't you think?
Timely won FNM for me last week against Death and Taxes in the finals. He had been beating my face for several turns. I got Iona out naming White, but he had an Aether Vial on 4 and was running a playset of Restos. He was on the fence about the game and when I played Timely, gaining 6 and getting dudes, he scooped on the spot.
It also saved me against Burn where I got dudes out and life and then snapcastered to get more life.
I think it's a very good card, but is meta dependent (and I am in an aggressive meta).
Ok, but then you crack a fetch and get hit by Wild Cat- boom, ready for Timely Reinforcements. From personal experience playing Timely in various Ritual Gifts brews, that card does work. When all your trying to do is stall the game a few turns until you can win, it does exactly what you want.
This^
All we are looking for is to buy a few turns. If affinity/Zoo/Burn want to play around timely, that works for us.
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Everything is always meta dependent. I expected UWR Control, Melira Pod, and Twin. Sadly, I played against Eggs, Jund, and UR Delver. To be fair, the Jund player got lucky (that I dodged a white source and the Wrath was Verdict), he was a bad player letting me Snapcaster -> Condescend while he had Ooze mana up. The UR Delver player would have been playing UWR Control if he had Colonnades too. So I guess I got a bit unlucky in that regard.
Everything is always meta dependent. I expected UWR Control, Melira Pod, and Twin. Sadly, I played against Eggs, Jund, and UR Delver. To be fair, the Jund player got lucky (that I dodged a white source and the Wrath was Verdict), he was a bad player letting me Snapcaster -> Condescend while he had Ooze mana up. The UR Delver player would have been playing UWR Control if he had Colonnades too. So I guess I got a bit unlucky in that regard.
Darksteel are you still planning on retiring UW Tron for a while and playing Twin?
I have a pretty decent UWR control deck put together (fetchless...with only 2 Cryptics...) but UW Tron was so fun...trying to decide what to focus on...
Everything is always meta dependent. I expected UWR Control, Melira Pod, and Twin. Sadly, I played against Eggs, Jund, and UR Delver. To be fair, the Jund player got lucky (that I dodged a white source and the Wrath was Verdict), he was a bad player letting me Snapcaster -> Condescend while he had Ooze mana up. The UR Delver player would have been playing UWR Control if he had Colonnades too. So I guess I got a bit unlucky in that regard.
Darksteel are you still planning on retiring UW Tron for a while and playing Twin?
I have a pretty decent UWR control deck put together (fetchless...with only 2 Cryptics...) but UW Tron was so fun...trying to decide what to focus on...
UW Tron will always be a pet deck of mine. I love the deck and I'm never going to just trade away the pieces or something. I've played more than my fair share of UW Tron games. Honestly, I've probably played 500 games with it, I used to play it during classes on Cockatrice. I know the deck inside out, I wrote the primer from scratch and had a matchup analysis for most matchups. But yes, I am going to focus on Twin for the moment. I feel like it's good for the style of play I'm best at, and I finally have enough of the cards that I could put it together (as in I got the Twins and Mistys from my friend).
That's understandable. I have only been playing MTG since last August, but I find that I gravitate toward U based tron decks just because the late game is so fun.
I am going to try and get decent with UWR Control as I finally have 2 Cryptic Commands to play around with and there are so many fun sideboard options, but I am sure I will be coming back to U/UW Tron quite often.
That's understandable. I have only been playing MTG since last August, but I find that I gravitate toward U based tron decks just because the late game is so fun.
I am going to try and get decent with UWR Control as I finally have 2 Cryptic Commands to play around with and there are so many fun sideboard options, but I am sure I will be coming back to U/UW Tron quite often.
Personally, I find I prefer decks that present a hard clock on when the game ends. I played UWR for a while but the deck just wasn't for me. Not only that, but I found the deck wasn't that good. I don't know how people consistently do well with it, maybe it just sees so much play that someone's bound to do well with it.
That's understandable. I have only been playing MTG since last August, but I find that I gravitate toward U based tron decks just because the late game is so fun.
I am going to try and get decent with UWR Control as I finally have 2 Cryptic Commands to play around with and there are so many fun sideboard options, but I am sure I will be coming back to U/UW Tron quite often.
Personally, I find I prefer decks that present a hard clock on when the game ends. I played UWR for a while but the deck just wasn't for me. Not only that, but I found the deck wasn't that good. I don't know how people consistently do well with it, maybe it just sees so much play that someone's bound to do well with it.
I'm running 3 Resto's and a Stormbreath at the top end, so I guess it is mildly midrange-ish. It can put on a pretty quick clock.
That being said I can see myself going back to Tron pretty quick here. It is just more my style, with big awesome game ending plays both mid and late game.
That's understandable. I have only been playing MTG since last August, but I find that I gravitate toward U based tron decks just because the late game is so fun.
I am going to try and get decent with UWR Control as I finally have 2 Cryptic Commands to play around with and there are so many fun sideboard options, but I am sure I will be coming back to U/UW Tron quite often.
Personally, I find I prefer decks that present a hard clock on when the game ends. I played UWR for a while but the deck just wasn't for me. Not only that, but I found the deck wasn't that good. I don't know how people consistently do well with it, maybe it just sees so much play that someone's bound to do well with it.
I'm running 3 Resto's and a Stormbreath at the top end, so I guess it is mildly midrange-ish. It can put on a pretty quick clock.
That being said I can see myself going back to Tron pretty quick here. It is just more my style, with big awesome game ending plays both mid and late game.
I've played it with Resto + Clique, and I've played it without. I find you're forced to draw too well to get anything going. That's just my opinion of the deck. Reactionary decks that can't be proactive don't seem good in Modern.
Hey, long time lurker, first time poster. I really enjoy what Gifts offers to the Tron archetype and appreciate how much work you've put into it thus far. That being said, what do you think of a UW control shell running Gifts + Rites? Does the Gifts combo maintain its potency when transplanted into another deck?
The main problem when trying to force a combo into a control deck is that it gets too diluted; it's doing too much at once and doesn't have time to find the pieces needed. But Gifts is not only a "one card combo" that can shut down games out of nowhere, it's also a great value card in general. I don't want to derail the thread or anything but I figured you'd be one of the best people to ask about this sort of thing.
Hey, long time lurker, first time poster. I really enjoy what Gifts offers to the Tron archetype and appreciate how much work you've put into it thus far. That being said, what do you think of a UW control shell running Gifts + Rites? Does the Gifts combo maintain its potency when transplanted into another deck?
The main problem when trying to force a combo into a control deck is that it gets too diluted; it's doing too much at once and doesn't have time to find the pieces needed. But Gifts is not only a "one card combo" that can shut down games out of nowhere, it's also a great value card in general. I don't want to derail the thread or anything but I figured you'd be one of the best people to ask about this sort of thing.
The problem with doing this is that sometimes the gifts pieces get stuck in your hand for example, unburial rites or iona or elesh norn, so in UW tron we use thirst for knowledge to put them back into the graveyard. But any deck playing thirst needs to play some artifacts inorder to make thirst much better. So you need to have gifts combo + thirst + signet to make it the most effective.
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I could see ORing for Cyclonic Rift. I was honestly quite impressed with it, but now that I have triple Wrath I feel it's not all that important. I just overall found that a Wrath was better than a Timely in this format. Less random aggro and more combo like Pod. I'm easily boarding out Timely against Pod but happily casting Wrath. If you look at my primer, ORing comes out quite a bit because it's lackluster. It's just particularly good at answering cards like Liliana or Karn. I suppose against Twin or Pod it's not the best, so I'm still sort of hedging in that spot. I guess I still feel like some hard answers to cards are necessary, and ORing happens to do a solid job.
I ran Timely main for the longest time, mostly because I didn't agree any Wrath was suitable in that spot, but we wanted a Wrath effect. In essence, it was the closest you could get while being reasonable. I agree with basically all the things you say except I think it's horrible against Pod. I board out Timely in that matchup, doesn't really do much for me. With triple Wrath they're not going to grind me out, so I don't really expect to need Timely.
Ultimately you're moving more towards what I used to play, except I had a Wurmcoil over Batterskull. I'm not convinced it's the right move, but I'm also not convinced it's the worst. While I really do want Verdict to be good, I might have to concede that it's too hard to cast. I have been pleased with Sphinx's though.
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
- Gerry Thompson wrote about sphinx's revelation in a few of his articles. He says that it bridges the gap between 4 mana and 10 mana spells (his exact words) and he doesn't want to play cards that are good AFTER tron is active (because he says that generally the deck is already quite good at that point with colonnades and emrakul etc). He wants to focus on stalling and surviving until he gets tron online, thats the goal of how he built his u/w tron list. Sure you can cast a revelation without tron with 7 lands and draw 4 cards gain 4 life, thats not bad, im just summarizing Gerry Thompson's thoughts that he wrote in his articles. In addition Gerry mentioned that the reason why the list runs remand over mana leak is due to the fact that our deck isn't trying to grind out the opponents resources, we are simply trying to buy time until our late game engine kicks into place where we usually win the game. Using the same logic, I don't think oring (a permanent answer to something) is very necessary in our deck, with repeal we can "tempo play" them while advancing our own game plan (drawing a card) and delaying the game. You mentioned oring is particularly good against lilianna and karn. Lilianna saw the most play in Jund which is not very popular now in my opinion after the recent bannings and Oring isn't really that good against Karn. The decks that play Karn are usually opposing Tron decks. After karn has come into play and exiled a land on turn 3 against GR tron, having oring isn't really that useful IMO.
Right now the slots that I'm testing are to help delay the game and help me survive to ensure that I get to the late game where the tron engine is usually online. I'm not looking for mid-late game cards that are good AFTER tron is active. For example, cyclonic rift can act as a 2 mana bounce gofy or kitchen finks or some beater and after tron is active its quite good to bounce their board. Snapcaster acts as a 2 mana chump blocker, 3 mana blocker+ path, 4 mana snapcaster +remand, 5 mana blockers+ thirst etc. I want more early game interactive cards to ensure that I can stop instant speed combos from twin and survive against the beatdown decks.
Pod is not typically going to win by grinding us out. They win through persistent damage. Kitchen Finks is hard to kill, or your Birds suddenly turning into a 2/3 flier because of Township. The deck is also only capable of comboing off when they have multiple creatures. It's either two specific creatures (Archangel + Spike Feeder) or three pieces. If I Wrath, it's too hard for them to go off. Finks can't come back anymore after you Wrath, it has the -1/-1 counter now. So like, they're going to Pod that into Redcap and find another two creatures? Especially if you Wrath on turn 4, they're just not going to have the mana to Pod and cast everything they need. Obviously you can't always Wrath, but more often than not it's really good.
Timely is just doing basically nothing. I'm not concerned about a couple points here or there because they're on a tight clock. We're going to clock them, and cards like Elesh Norn are brutal. There's not a lot of option for them to slowly grind me out, between Path, Wrath, and Elesh Norn, plus the end game clock, they just can't afford to grind. I'm really not sure what their game plan would be post board, when I board in multiple combo answers, they may as well just scoop.
Honestly, Pod is fairly close to a bye for us. You're just not going to lose when it takes so many resources for them to win and we have so many ways to blow up their board.
The thing with cards like Liliana or Karn is that they provide value over multiple turns. Liliana is going to drain my hand, or Karn is going to exile two lands. Sometimes it's not about me grinding them out but them grinding me out, and us wanting to stop that. While I don't particularly need hard answers for the most part, these are just two to highlight that scenario. Sometimes I really do want to just get rid of it for good as opposed to delay it. Karn is particularly a good example because bouncing it does nothing; it stops me dead right now and they'll just play it again next turn. Yeah, you're probably not going to win the game against RG Tron regardless, but that doesn't mean it's not good at stopping Karn. There aren't a lot of cards that come down post-Karn and answer him.
It's possible ORing isn't that good, don't get me wrong. Jund and RG Tron are on the decline since last season. When you think about it, there are a lot of cards where ORing is much worse than Repeal or Cyclonic Rift. I won't fault you if you don't want to play it, but I've never been sad to have just a singleton hard answer to any permanent. Most of the time it's a 3-mana Path, which isn't exactly bad. You're basically paying for the flexibility. Remember, Repeal is expensive to cast. In the Karn example, you're never going to bounce Karn.
As far as Sphinx's Rev goes, it's just an option for something in the midrange, like he says. When you're trying to bridge a gap between cheap and expensive spells, you're often going to have Tron online. Particularly it's been good against the aggro decks. Even in just a couple hours of testing against Small Zoo, it came into play multiple times. It'd save my bacon and let me see another turn, whereas something immobile like Wurmcoil might have seen a Path.
At the end of the day, the deck has flexibility. Just because I have good success with some cards, doesn't mean others will. The game is often dominated by personal preference. I have a tendency not to attack with Colonnade and rather gain card advantage instead, whereas the next player might be quick to animate. So what's good for me isn't necessarily good for others. Keep that in mind as we debate. Pretty much everything I've listed in the card options are things I think are reasonable to use.
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
Standard
UGRB Emerge
Modern
U Tron
Legacy
UWBRG The E.P.I.C. Storm
RGOmnath, Locus of ManaRG
URThe Locust godUR
Modern
UWMiraclesUW
Legacy
BGIce Station Zebra (Living Fins)BG
UBRGrixis ControlUBR
RGLandsRG
It's been reasonable for me, I have no major complaints. It's also rarely ever dead.
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
This is actually just wrong. Against aggro decks that go fetch, shock and start at 17 life -- you're Timely Reinforcements will never gain you 6 life. They can actively play around it.
Standard
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Modern
U Tron
Legacy
UWBRG The E.P.I.C. Storm
Timely won FNM for me last week against Death and Taxes in the finals. He had been beating my face for several turns. I got Iona out naming White, but he had an Aether Vial on 4 and was running a playset of Restos. He was on the fence about the game and when I played Timely, gaining 6 and getting dudes, he scooped on the spot.
It also saved me against Burn where I got dudes out and life and then snapcastered to get more life.
I think it's a very good card, but is meta dependent (and I am in an aggressive meta).
This^
All we are looking for is to buy a few turns. If affinity/Zoo/Burn want to play around timely, that works for us.
RGOmnath, Locus of ManaRG
URThe Locust godUR
Modern
UWMiraclesUW
Legacy
BGIce Station Zebra (Living Fins)BG
UBRGrixis ControlUBR
RGLandsRG
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
Darksteel are you still planning on retiring UW Tron for a while and playing Twin?
I have a pretty decent UWR control deck put together (fetchless...with only 2 Cryptics...) but UW Tron was so fun...trying to decide what to focus on...
UW Tron will always be a pet deck of mine. I love the deck and I'm never going to just trade away the pieces or something. I've played more than my fair share of UW Tron games. Honestly, I've probably played 500 games with it, I used to play it during classes on Cockatrice. I know the deck inside out, I wrote the primer from scratch and had a matchup analysis for most matchups. But yes, I am going to focus on Twin for the moment. I feel like it's good for the style of play I'm best at, and I finally have enough of the cards that I could put it together (as in I got the Twins and Mistys from my friend).
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
I am going to try and get decent with UWR Control as I finally have 2 Cryptic Commands to play around with and there are so many fun sideboard options, but I am sure I will be coming back to U/UW Tron quite often.
Personally, I find I prefer decks that present a hard clock on when the game ends. I played UWR for a while but the deck just wasn't for me. Not only that, but I found the deck wasn't that good. I don't know how people consistently do well with it, maybe it just sees so much play that someone's bound to do well with it.
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
I'm running 3 Resto's and a Stormbreath at the top end, so I guess it is mildly midrange-ish. It can put on a pretty quick clock.
That being said I can see myself going back to Tron pretty quick here. It is just more my style, with big awesome game ending plays both mid and late game.
I've played it with Resto + Clique, and I've played it without. I find you're forced to draw too well to get anything going. That's just my opinion of the deck. Reactionary decks that can't be proactive don't seem good in Modern.
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
The main problem when trying to force a combo into a control deck is that it gets too diluted; it's doing too much at once and doesn't have time to find the pieces needed. But Gifts is not only a "one card combo" that can shut down games out of nowhere, it's also a great value card in general. I don't want to derail the thread or anything but I figured you'd be one of the best people to ask about this sort of thing.
The problem with doing this is that sometimes the gifts pieces get stuck in your hand for example, unburial rites or iona or elesh norn, so in UW tron we use thirst for knowledge to put them back into the graveyard. But any deck playing thirst needs to play some artifacts inorder to make thirst much better. So you need to have gifts combo + thirst + signet to make it the most effective.