Ill try to post my current list later but its nothing special; the usual mix of core spells with 2 wurmcoil 1 slaver 1 balista. Only spice is a gearhulk and a commit.
Final comment on talisman ramp - we play 12 specific lands in order to jump ahead by four or more mana for free and cast spells of six or more cmc. Paying two mana and a card to jump ahead by one mana just seems grossly inefficient in comparison.
Of course, some matchups tapping out turn six for wurmcoil is lights out. Others its a death sentence.
The problem is cards like talismans and solemns are only good if you tap out for them on curve. Sure you can see a matchup and decide to not talisman, with plan to pitch for thirst later, the problem I see is there are so few matchups where tapping out turn two in this deck is better than showing remand/condescend. This is compounded by the best turn two talisman lines requiring a turn three tapout (karn, solemn).
More often than not im just trying to weather the storm early on until I can ostone, rift, wurmcoil or ugin. Talisman doesnt do enough to help me not-die by turn four and actually nonbos with ostone.
Other times we're playing a chess match vs control or combo where one flop of a turn is a loss. You cant go talisman solemn vs storm because theyll baral and kil you. You cant vs uw because theyll resolve a jace (and will probably logic knot the solemn to boot).
Anyways I think folks know talisman is a personal choice, it just took me a while to figure out that for me its that I want the deck to be draw-go until I have a window to play a gamebreaker. The only time I want to tapout on my turn early on is if ive got tron and a match where ugin, wurmcoil, ostone etc are going to slam the door shut.
What I have found is that I like to play this deck as draw-go as possible, only tapping out for haymakers. This is why I really don't like Karn and talismans, or solemn or treasure mage. I'm iffy on trinket mage and have cut it lately. It gets ballista 90 percent or more anyways.
But yeah I prefer to be presenting counterspells as often as possible.
Is summary dismissal effective? I feel like storm can at least sometimes if not often just remand it? I stopped looking at counterflux as a storm trump after the first time I had them just remand their grapeshot, let counterflux resolve, then grapeshot me again :S
Summary dismissal isn't even uncounterable so they can just remand it straight up too Does it have some other useful application?
4 anticipate 2 thirst seems just wrong. For one more mana thirst lets you draw all 3 and pitch your worst 1-2, letting you turn dead cards into real cards. I am not a fan of anticipate in general (remand, condescend, crack map, and repeal should be your turn 2 plays) but running anticipate #1 before thirst #4 is just extra greasy
Checked the primer out. He skips over surgical as an option and promotes kozilek the great distortion as a legit card. Curious if anyone has actually played new kozilek? I've not even seen it In a list let alone tried it myself. I did try emrakul promised end and found it was too slow and no synergy w thirst/ruins. I'd guess kozilek comes up the same.
The only reason to play telling time is to flip delver or setup terminus. The fact neither delver nor miracles play it should tell you something.
Remand, repeal, condescend, thirst and supreme will are the decks dig spells. I would play anticipate way before telling time in this deck, and id probably play squelch before anticipate.
The ub mythic isnt good enough even for tron where we might have eight mana to work with. For it to be good three mana gy exile would have to be playable with the casting stuff just a random late game upside. The going rate for exiling a gy is 0-1 mana so thats that.
The front side really needed to be instant speed at two mana. Two mana preordain with a pretty bad bounce and discard option late game is not good enough on either side for modern.
Because youre not tapping out for this t2, and having to wait for six mana to cast a cantrip is pretty bad.
Just to confirm,you know needle doesn't work vs KCI? It's a mana ability. Phyrexian revoker will work though since it can be used on mana abilities. (Still gets wiped out by spellbomb or ee sadly)
Most important thing for a new u Tron player is to realize this is not a ramp deck. You get Tron when you get it, you are a control deck first and foremost. Turn three Tron is rarely even good - you need blue mana to cast your spells. It is not uncommon to expedition map for an island instead of third Tron piece of you do that have blue mana yet.
Your hand might change the equation but more often than not we don't have Tron that quickly. We condescend and remand and thirst for k owledge and often then hardcast the six mana wurmcoil with six lands. Then you hit Tron and now it's an ugin or ballista with counterspell backup or a mindslaver lock and that's when it's over.
You can eot Bounce blood moon or damping sphere and untap with your Tron mana online.
You will often discard two cards to thirst rather than an artifact.
To be fair I've alternated between one and two rivers with two dismember main and i would say I use black mana for dismember like one out of twenty times. Casting for two mana at sorcery speed is rarely effective vs one mana instant speed; although it's nice to k ow it's possible.
If they trophy your land it does not really ramp you, more like field of ruins you.
We are built to function without Tron. I'm usually quite happy when my opponent spends turn three giving me a blue source out of fear (field of ruin). It can sometimes even let me fire off a thirst for knowledge ahead of schedule. I don't see bgx as much worse than Mardu, but if it picks up overall then yes snare gets a lot better. I run two in the side for storm burn and kind
What is the thinking behind contortions main instead of dismembers? I would think in the abstract you want dismember as it kills more things for less mana, but contortion could be some kind of meta call vs burn and little aggro decks?
I guess I generally see blue Tron as having a superior end game to most decks in the format. If my opponent wants to do nothing on his turn to dodge remand or condescend that's fine. I'm marching my way up to my wurmcoil, slaver, and ugin. What's he marching to - collected company?
I'm way more concerned about tapping out turn two or three and seeing them pull ahead and thus kill me before I reach that juicy end game.
I guess in a deck looking to rocket ahead by four mana just by making land drops the idea of two mana and a card to get ahead by one just seems pretty anemic
Final comment on talisman ramp - we play 12 specific lands in order to jump ahead by four or more mana for free and cast spells of six or more cmc. Paying two mana and a card to jump ahead by one mana just seems grossly inefficient in comparison.
The problem is cards like talismans and solemns are only good if you tap out for them on curve. Sure you can see a matchup and decide to not talisman, with plan to pitch for thirst later, the problem I see is there are so few matchups where tapping out turn two in this deck is better than showing remand/condescend. This is compounded by the best turn two talisman lines requiring a turn three tapout (karn, solemn).
More often than not im just trying to weather the storm early on until I can ostone, rift, wurmcoil or ugin. Talisman doesnt do enough to help me not-die by turn four and actually nonbos with ostone.
Other times we're playing a chess match vs control or combo where one flop of a turn is a loss. You cant go talisman solemn vs storm because theyll baral and kil you. You cant vs uw because theyll resolve a jace (and will probably logic knot the solemn to boot).
Anyways I think folks know talisman is a personal choice, it just took me a while to figure out that for me its that I want the deck to be draw-go until I have a window to play a gamebreaker. The only time I want to tapout on my turn early on is if ive got tron and a match where ugin, wurmcoil, ostone etc are going to slam the door shut.
But yeah I prefer to be presenting counterspells as often as possible.
Summary dismissal isn't even uncounterable so they can just remand it straight up too
4 anticipate 2 thirst seems just wrong. For one more mana thirst lets you draw all 3 and pitch your worst 1-2, letting you turn dead cards into real cards. I am not a fan of anticipate in general (remand, condescend, crack map, and repeal should be your turn 2 plays) but running anticipate #1 before thirst #4 is just extra greasy
Remand, repeal, condescend, thirst and supreme will are the decks dig spells. I would play anticipate way before telling time in this deck, and id probably play squelch before anticipate.
The ub mythic isnt good enough even for tron where we might have eight mana to work with. For it to be good three mana gy exile would have to be playable with the casting stuff just a random late game upside. The going rate for exiling a gy is 0-1 mana so thats that.
Because youre not tapping out for this t2, and having to wait for six mana to cast a cantrip is pretty bad.
Your hand might change the equation but more often than not we don't have Tron that quickly. We condescend and remand and thirst for k owledge and often then hardcast the six mana wurmcoil with six lands. Then you hit Tron and now it's an ugin or ballista with counterspell backup or a mindslaver lock and that's when it's over.
You can eot Bounce blood moon or damping sphere and untap with your Tron mana online.
You will often discard two cards to thirst rather than an artifact.
We are built to function without Tron. I'm usually quite happy when my opponent spends turn three giving me a blue source out of fear (field of ruin). It can sometimes even let me fire off a thirst for knowledge ahead of schedule. I don't see bgx as much worse than Mardu, but if it picks up overall then yes snare gets a lot better. I run two in the side for storm burn and kind
I'm way more concerned about tapping out turn two or three and seeing them pull ahead and thus kill me before I reach that juicy end game.
I guess in a deck looking to rocket ahead by four mana just by making land drops the idea of two mana and a card to get ahead by one just seems pretty anemic