I've always been a big fan of GR, but even I think Mono-G is better right now. Ballista does a fairly decent Pyroclasm impression in helping us keep up with go-wide decks while being generally more useful, and there's no truly amazing red SB cards in the current meta.
Add to this the increasing need of basics, plus the ability to run more utility lands, and it becomes really hard to justify sticking to red. If the meta shifts in a way where Clasm or Bolt is amazing then I'll go back to it, but for now I'm sticking to Mono-G.
[quote from="PraiseTheKappa »" url="/forums/the-game/modern/established-modern/big-mana/220174-gx-tron?comment=9159"]On the other hand, while I know talking about spoilers is kind of overdone, I think the new Assassin's Trophy is going to pretty much cement my decision to be playing a 5th basic in my flex land spot post-GRN.
That card seems insane. BGx decks just got a massive boost.
Interesting list from the winning team at GP Detroit. I actually really like the 4th Walking Ballista over the 1 World Breaker MD, but I'm unsure what the 1 Oblivion Sower is doing in the SB.
I've been playing with 4x Ballista and liking it, but I cut the 3rd Wurmcoil instead of the World Breaker. I felt running a full playset was necessary if you're cutting removal MB to make place for Relics.
Managed to go 4-1, 4-1, 5-0 today with this list. Was hoping to run into Scales and Vine a bit more to get a better feel for Ratchet Bomb but it came in against Humans, Spirits, Elves, Jund Shadow, Affinity, CoCo and felt solid. Also was nice to have as an option to clear Chalice when I played against Colorless Eldrazi, and would similarly be nice against that UR Prison deck. I like that it can double as removal for Damping Sphere or even Alpine Moon against creature decks where we wouldn't otherwise want to bring in Claim.
I tested Ratchet Bomb quite a bit in the past. It's solid, but EE almost always felt like a superior option for the same job.
We can easily get it on 0 and 1, and it's not hard to get it to 2 with the help of a Chromatic. You can even splash a singleton GR or GB land to make it easier to deploy on 2.
Being able to drop it and activate for CMC>0 on the same turn is a massive improvement.
I'd like to tru Blue/Green Tron Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augor and Frost Titan. What other good big blue drops are useful outside hard casting Turn cards. What blue stuff can help out early game?
Blue doesn't really offer much for Gx builds, but if you really want to try it:
* Bombs: Inkwell Leviathan and Tidespout Tyrant are two powerful blue bombs, but the multiple colored symbols in the cost can be an issue.
* Early Game Interaction: Reality Shift or Pongify/Rapid Hybridization can work as removal, but they leave behind a body. You can also try counterspells with only one colored symbol like Condescend or Remand. Maybe bounce spells like Repeal and Cyclonic Rift?
Although I know this hasn’t been as popular, I was wondering if someone has a good G/R Tron list taking advantage of abrade etc. but is still able to handle the popular meta?
This is what I brought to GP São Paulo yesterday. Fairly traditional GR list.
* Emrakul is a fun-of, if I had gone to the event with a 100% spike mentalily this would have been a second Ulamog. That being said, it's not significantly worse - it gets an immediate concession 90% of the the time it's cast, it has some situations where it's better than Ulamog (besides the mindslaver trigger, being immune to Path is a big deal), and most of the time you'll be going Sanctum into Eldrazi Titan, so you can pick which one suits the situation better.
* GQ didn't do much and was sided out almost every single game. The only game I kept it was against Affinity, and I already have a ton of hate cards against that matchup. I prefer 20 lands (I think 19 makes me mulligan too often), but I'm going to test something else here.
* That sideboard was great. No complaints about it.
* Pyroclasms did pull their weight in enough matchups to be justified in the 75, but Relics were overall more useful in this event. Swapping them MB <-> SB might be correct.
* 3x Forest were more than enough in this event.
First game he got me from 8->0 at once with 2x Bolt + Brutality, was NOT expecting to be killed from that life total when sitting behind a nice, big ballista. Second game I won, third game was a massive grind, he eventually chained Revelers and I did not have enough blockers or a boardwipe. I did get an Ugin in the last turn, but Revelers are CMC8 and I could not exile them. There was a misplay of mine with a Ballista that cost me the game (he was at 1 life at the end), but I know I would absolutely never have seen that one.
But I had my fun today. Got into the Featured Match area for the first time and played against Marcio Carvalho. Lost the game, but it was a great experience. Now I need to rewatch the match and see how many of my misplays were broadcast to the world.
Is UW Control actually that bad? It seems like some UW Control pilots report high win percentages against Gx Tron, but I feel like I've seen some folks in this thread reporting good win percentages against UW Control.
For folks who are beating UW Control, what are you doing?
It's rough. Plenty of MB land hate (Spreading Seas, Field of Ruin), and enough Counters/Paths to run us out of threats. It's the only Control matchup I don't like seeing across the table, and one of the few matchups I don't feel completely favored if the game goes long.
Winning this matchup is all about getting some threat to stick IMO. Increasing the threat density while lowering on curve with TKS and Thragtusk helps, and if you run it Emrakul TPE can do significant damage with the Mindslaver trigger.
Yup. Whenever you expect a lot of hard cards you should lower your curve and play more of a midrange-ish game. We almost never miss landfalls, so casting CMC4-6 spells on curve is not hard.
Is GR Tron the way to go these days with all the humans/token decks? Kozilek's return seems like it could be a real bomb. I haven't played tron in a couple months and I am thinking of taking it to an IQ this weekend. Also I'm not too worried about alpine moon or damping sphere. Tron is so redundant, even without big mana, most of the time the opponent spends so much time trying to disrupt you, you get to enough mana to cast things anyway.
Mono-G is more popular right now, but RG is also putting up good results, so I'd say pick whichever you're more confortable with.
when to crack the eggs...would you crack to draw a card when you have no use of the green mana generated, or wait for a payoff card?
Depends on how much you value the colored mana. If color fixing is not an issue (because you already have a Forest/Grove in the board), or the card you need to survive is colorless I would cycle it as soon as possible.
One small exception: Save the Chromatic Spheres against Lantern. The draw effect in that card is part of the mana ability and can't be responded to, which lets to you slip a card by their lock.
Cool, fairly standard then, but how has the Emrakul been for you? I've tried the card in spurts many times since it came out but its never been able to hold down a spot in the list. I have one in my sideboard right now and it won me a key game against Storm, but hasn't done much else. It seems real nice against Valakut and Ad Nauseam as well, and I suppose Ironworks combo but I'm not seeing much of those decks right now. Maybe it's worth the SB slot just for those cases, but maindeck seems really ambitious to me.
It's a bit of a pet card of mine. Possibly suboptimal compared to second Ulamog, but I like having three different top-end targets for Sanctum (World Breaker, Ulamog, Emrakul) each better in different situaion.
I think my favorite thing about Emrakul TPE is that it's immune to Path. The mindlaver trigger is less consistent in hindering the opponent than Ulamog's double-vindicate, but the creature itself is ridiculously hard to deal with once it hits the battlefield.
I've always been a big fan of GR, but even I think Mono-G is better right now. Ballista does a fairly decent Pyroclasm impression in helping us keep up with go-wide decks while being generally more useful, and there's no truly amazing red SB cards in the current meta.
Add to this the increasing need of basics, plus the ability to run more utility lands, and it becomes really hard to justify sticking to red. If the meta shifts in a way where Clasm or Bolt is amazing then I'll go back to it, but for now I'm sticking to Mono-G.
That card seems insane. BGx decks just got a massive boost.
I've been playing with 4x Ballista and liking it, but I cut the 3rd Wurmcoil instead of the World Breaker. I felt running a full playset was necessary if you're cutting removal MB to make place for Relics.
Here's what I've been testing:
4x Forest
1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Sanctum of Ugin
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Tower
Planeswalker (6)
4x Karn Liberated
2x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Artifact (18)
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Chromatic Star
4x Expedition Map
4x Oblivion Stone
2x Relic of Progenitus
1x Emrakul, the Promised End
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4x Walking Ballista
1x World Breaker
2x Wurmcoil Engine
Sorcery (8)
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Sylvan Scrying
1x All Is Dust
4x Nature's Claim
2x Spatial Contortion
2x Surgical Extraction
3x Thought-Knot Seer
3x Thragtusk
I play Emrakul more of a fun-of because I love that card, but it does good work in some matchups.
I tested Ratchet Bomb quite a bit in the past. It's solid, but EE almost always felt like a superior option for the same job.
We can easily get it on 0 and 1, and it's not hard to get it to 2 with the help of a Chromatic. You can even splash a singleton GR or GB land to make it easier to deploy on 2.
Being able to drop it and activate for CMC>0 on the same turn is a massive improvement.
Blue doesn't really offer much for Gx builds, but if you really want to try it:
* Bombs: Inkwell Leviathan and Tidespout Tyrant are two powerful blue bombs, but the multiple colored symbols in the cost can be an issue.
* Early Game Interaction: Reality Shift or Pongify/Rapid Hybridization can work as removal, but they leave behind a body. You can also try counterspells with only one colored symbol like Condescend or Remand. Maybe bounce spells like Repeal and Cyclonic Rift?
This is what I brought to GP São Paulo yesterday. Fairly traditional GR list.
3x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
3x Grove of the Burnwillows
1x Sanctum of Ugin
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Tower
Planeswalker (6)
4x Karn Liberated
2x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Creature (8)
1x Emrakul, the Promised End
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2x Walking Ballista
1x World Breaker
3x Wurmcoil Engine
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Chromatic Star
4x Expedition Map
3x Oblivion Stone
Sorcery (11)
4x Ancient Stirrings
3x Pyroclasm
4x Sylvan Scrying
3x Abrade
1x All Is Dust
3x Nature's Claim
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Thought-Knot Seer
3x Thragtusk
Some quick notes:
* Emrakul is a fun-of, if I had gone to the event with a 100% spike mentalily this would have been a second Ulamog. That being said, it's not significantly worse - it gets an immediate concession 90% of the the time it's cast, it has some situations where it's better than Ulamog (besides the mindslaver trigger, being immune to Path is a big deal), and most of the time you'll be going Sanctum into Eldrazi Titan, so you can pick which one suits the situation better.
* GQ didn't do much and was sided out almost every single game. The only game I kept it was against Affinity, and I already have a ton of hate cards against that matchup. I prefer 20 lands (I think 19 makes me mulligan too often), but I'm going to test something else here.
* That sideboard was great. No complaints about it.
* Pyroclasms did pull their weight in enough matchups to be justified in the 75, but Relics were overall more useful in this event. Swapping them MB <-> SB might be correct.
* 3x Forest were more than enough in this event.
Edit: Found the video. Starts at 04:35:00.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/281904046
But I had my fun today. Got into the Featured Match area for the first time and played against Marcio Carvalho. Lost the game, but it was a great experience.
Won:
* Bogles
* Affinity
* BR Hollow One x2
* Soul Sisters
Lost:
* KCI
* Mardu (the Marcio Carvalho match)
* GDS
It's rough. Plenty of MB land hate (Spreading Seas, Field of Ruin), and enough Counters/Paths to run us out of threats. It's the only Control matchup I don't like seeing across the table, and one of the few matchups I don't feel completely favored if the game goes long.
Winning this matchup is all about getting some threat to stick IMO. Increasing the threat density while lowering on curve with TKS and Thragtusk helps, and if you run it Emrakul TPE can do significant damage with the Mindslaver trigger.
Mono-G is more popular right now, but RG is also putting up good results, so I'd say pick whichever you're more confortable with.
If you want some references for RG, I really like this list from a recent IQ:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1154097#paper
I think I'd go -1 Grove +1 Forest, but everything else looks great.
Depends on how much you value the colored mana. If color fixing is not an issue (because you already have a Forest/Grove in the board), or the card you need to survive is colorless I would cycle it as soon as possible.
One small exception: Save the Chromatic Spheres against Lantern. The draw effect in that card is part of the mana ability and can't be responded to, which lets to you slip a card by their lock.
New Blood Moon variant in M19.
Remember the crazy hype for Damping Sphere and everyone saying Tron was dead? Well, get ready for that all over again.
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Alpine Moon
R
Enchantment
As ~ enters the battlefield, choose a nonbasic land card name.
Lands your opponents control with the chosen name lose all land types and abilities, and they gain "T: Add one mana of any colour"
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It's an interesting card, though. A less flexible Pithing Needle that can hit Valakut.
It's a bit of a pet card of mine. Possibly suboptimal compared to second Ulamog, but I like having three different top-end targets for Sanctum (World Breaker, Ulamog, Emrakul) each better in different situaion.
I think my favorite thing about Emrakul TPE is that it's immune to Path. The mindlaver trigger is less consistent in hindering the opponent than Ulamog's double-vindicate, but the creature itself is ridiculously hard to deal with once it hits the battlefield.