I watched Cedric use Oblivion Stone to its maximum potential. I may have to bump up my copies. (Wish it weren't so darned expensive.)
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I watched Cedric use Oblivion Stone to its maximum potential. I may have to bump up my copies. (Wish it weren't so darned expensive.)
I played it a bunch and came to the conclusion that 4 o-stones might just be too clunky. I dropped 1 and swapped it for a single ratchet bomb. This lowers the curve of my sweepers overall and also gives me better game against the faster decks in the format. It's a small change that will hopefully make all the difference.
Getting to 5 mana for activating stone was too difficult in a lot of games because you can't assemble tron as well as an actual Tron deck.
I feel like Cedric made a good start and a very streamlined list but it needs a couple of minor tweaks is all. It's more or less playable as-is. I'll be running it at a 300-person event on Monday. Wish me luck.
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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
Good points on O-stone. I like Ratchet Bomb as well. And yes, good luck.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
1. Include more Tron Assembly cards. Early Temple is great, but now that mana advantage has been cut in half, meaning Tron and Eldrazi Tron may be on a collision course (meaning Green!).
2. Conduit of Ruin, Sea Gate Wreckage, and/or Endbringer means draw/replace power.
3. Our mana base got a little more flexible. Without Eye of Ugin, the reason to keep Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in the deck is Dismember. We can either suck up the 4, try to off balance it with decent life gain cards, or cut it. Keeping Urborg could also mean building off black for more black cards (Heartless Summoning?).
So... we'll survive. It also might mean that we might have to curve down as to not reach the Titans. (But I somewhat doubt that because why play Tron if not to have them as the aces in the hole?)
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
i'm thinking of running the simian spirit guide - chalice of the void package in the colourless version now, almost as a standard.... seems good in an aggro-y format with much less eldrazi floating around. chalice on 1 makes a lot more sense when Eldrazi isn't top-dog.
thopter-sword combo though..... ouch. that'll be tricky to pick apart.
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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
Did a little testing... I found decent reason to keep Urborg in the deck. When I initially posted, I'd forgotten that Urborg enables Oblivion Sower's theft of fetchlands to be more than raking in permanents.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Did a little testing... I found decent reason to keep Urborg in the deck. When I initially posted, I'd forgotten that Urborg enables Oblivion Sower's theft of fetchlands to be more than raking in permanents.
i think that without Eye, there's not a lot of point in running Sower.
part of the reason to run sower at all was to instantly switch on Eye, and from that point tutor up a threat every turn. without eye, Sower is just a big dumb guy that ramps you a bit. I think i'll be running endbringer in its place now. drawing cards or pinging things is a big game 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
Did a little testing... I found decent reason to keep Urborg in the deck. When I initially posted, I'd forgotten that Urborg enables Oblivion Sower's theft of fetchlands to be more than raking in permanents.
i think that without Eye, there's not a lot of point in running Sower.
part of the reason to run sower at all was to instantly switch on Eye, and from that point tutor up a threat every turn. without eye, Sower is just a big dumb guy that ramps you a bit. I think i'll be running endbringer in its place now. drawing cards or pinging things is a big game in modern.
Sower still helps me because it's a big dumb guy that has cast value, feeds processors (oh yeah, those are back) and can't be Dismembered so easily. Also if we keep eldrazi Titans, All ramp helps. My issue with Endbringer is that it dies too easily before it pulls it weight in value. That's not the Eldrazi way.
Life gain has some relevance, so I'm maining a Ruin Processor because it can be fetched with Conduit of Ruin. Also, Green is in because World Breaker, Ancient Stirring, and Explore (Sylvan Scrying maybe in the future, but I'm looking for more lands than needing Early Tron because that's a different deck for the moment).
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
I see RG Tron may be shifting towards Conduit of Ruin and Sanctum of Ugin in place of Eye of Ugin. I absolutely love Conduit of Ruin and run 4 in my MB. I'm also running 2 Endbringers right now as well with 2 Oblivion Sowers as well. I think EldraziTron is in a decent position after this ban. We were weakened but not gutted. Glad I can still have some fun with this deck.
I've also trimmed Emrakul. I should probably run 2 Newlamogs over one but for now here is my current deck list. When the 18th hits I'll swap the Eye of Ugin for another Sanctum of Ugin or drop one of the Ghost Quarters and go with 2 Urborgs. I'd love to see some other lists run Deceiver of Form. Its pseudo-scry effect is pretty handy at filtering the top of the library every turn.
Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Here's what I am testing now, seems pretty good so far. The idea is that I mulligan if I don't get either an eldrazi temple or two tron pieces. I haven't had to mulligan below 6 in +/- 10 games which is all I've had time to yet. Urborg is basically there just for Sower and Dismember and Conduit of Ruin is "poor man's eye".
I like your build a lot. How has Oblivion Stone worked out so far? Also, what do you think of Spatial Contortion? I'm thinking about adding two to my main and moving two stones to the board.
Oblivion stone seems great so far but I haven't done a lot of testing yet. Spatial contortion might work better in the many matchups, but oblivion stone is a nice catch-all and not just a wrath which is the main reason I'm running it(spreading seas, ensnaring bridge).
I'm thinking of dropping the sowers (only useful for ulamog ramp anyway) to go up to 3 or 4 Conduit. That would allow me to drop to 1 ulamog and add a breaker of armies and void winnower or something. And a chalice + void winnower combination from the sideboard sounds like it could be pretty brutal so I'm going to test that.
I'm also considering switching one or two ghost quarters for cavern of souls because I think we might see some more remands and mana leaks in the coming weeks because of ancestral visions.
I tested 200 hands using an online deck generator and the deck seems pretty much exactly as consistent as the old non-tron deck. It fizzled on T3 (just 3 mana) about 20% of time including mulligans). Also it seems mulliganing to 5 is a mistake if you have a tron piece + map. Mulliganing to 6 is very often a good idea but 5 rarely works. It's better to hope for assembling tron on T4/5 than having a hand full of urborgs and ulamogs.
This is currently the deck that I am planning to run for the next few months during FNM/events as I was initially hesitant to start buying/building the deck before the banlist changes (so the pieces are in the mail so to speak). Currently as it stands, the amount of Warping Wail/Spatial Contortion can be used as a flex-spot depending on the deck you are facing. The idea behind both cards is to enable us to interact as early as T1(Temple)/T2(without) if we don't have a map to play. The deck plays a lower curve with the addition of Matter Reshaper because I am not personally comfortable sitting idle through early turns if we happen to get bad hands and they help later in the game with drawing through the deck. Lands are far too flexible for their own good so I have no idea what is truly best. Overall the deck is more of a mid-range variant - it seeks out temple (with map) before tron (unless it has two pieces already) and plays through the creature mana curve 1/2 turns early to force the game into an unbalanced state before dropping titans.
Mull Strategy:
Mull for 3 lands/or temple+1/or tron+map.
Card Draw/Scry:
Sea Gate Wreckage
Endbringer
Matter Reshaper
Deceiver of Form
Tutor Effects:
Sanctum of Ugin
Conduit of Ruin
Sanctum of Ugin Triggers:
Deceiver of Form
Endless One
I am not 100% on the amount of titans I would like to run. I think it is nice to have the option to drop Ulamog as a bomb (and blow something up on cast) but the ability to refill our hand in a long game may also be useful. Having both in the deck gives you the utility to look for either depending on the situation. Warping Wail also has a small added bonus of being able to produce a scion at instant speed and then sac it next turn to act as a bad SSG if your hand is lacking the required mana for a Thought-Knot Seer or Reality Smasher. The biggest issue I have with it currently is that it is abit creature heavy and may need a board wipe in the main board or other forms of control.
Below is a list I brew independently before finding this thread. It performed well for me at the local modern tourney and I didn't miss the loss of Eye of Ugin at all.
Here is the list I'm fairly sure is close to optimal. But suggestions to refine it further are much appreciated.
As you can see, this list is a bit more top heavy that most Eldrazi Aggro decks you're probably used to. The more powerful threat-base is enabled by playing a lot more mana ramp which wasn't playable before because Eye of Ugin wouldn't help you cast any of the potential rampers.
Rampers allow you to plop down on turn 4 a gamebreaking card like Wurmcoil Engine (another excellent card that was also unplayable in a deck that housed 4 Eye of Ugin). By going this route, you're able to play a much higher density of gamebreaking threats.
Expedition Map allows you to assemble the tron combo by turn 3. Just as useful, Map can fetch up an Eldrazi Temple on turn 2 which is often all you need to start laying down your game winning threats starting turn 3.
Conduit of Ruin is a tutor, ramper, and threat all in one card.
Radiant Fountain both helps you survive long enough to take control of the board, and offers up a juicy target for Vesuva to copy when it doesn't have an Eldrazi Temple to copy and you don't have the tron combo assembled yet.
^^^ I prefer Tomb of the Spirit Dragon over Radiant Fountain, but I can see the appeal of not tapping a land for the life gain. I also found Palladium Myr to underperform most of the time as I used it quite a bit in the first versions of my current deck. Late game it always felt like a wasted draw. I've abandoned it over +2 Eldrazi Mimic and +2 Matter Reshaper although that could just as easily be +2 Endless One and +2 Mimic as well. I'm running Sanctum of Ugins so Wurmcoil is out for me. But I see you aren't so it should be a better fit. Thanks for sharing and keep us informed.
And thanks to all that have been posting recently. Good to see some more activity.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
The biggest issue I have with it currently is that it is abit creature heavy and may need a board wipe in the main board or other forms of control.
Yep I think you could use some All is Dust or Oblivion Stone. They can always be sided in or out if necessary. Keep us informed.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
i'm still brewing away after taking this deck to the largest GPT in Europe, and performing fairly well (despite a couple of mishaps).
I think the main considerations are as follows:
how many vesuva?
it's no secret that Vesuva has been a big spec card for lots of people, since Temple was left the only eldrazi land standing. I am very much of the opinion that you should start with a playset of a card you feel is worth including, and then reduce numbers through testing. starting with 1 or 2 doesn't actually help you determine if it's worth it or not - you simply won't see how the card plays out.
so i'm moving for the deck to include 4 - at this early stage. (i'm gambling on 3 being the eventual correct number, we'll see)
how many Eldrazi Mimic?
on the face of it, you'd be forgiven for saying "none", and i'm sure I don't need to explain why... although with Vesuva in the deck, there's an interesting interplay going on.
with a turn 1 temple, you can drop a vesuva (tapped of course) and still play something on turn 2 (a mimic) without losing too much tempo. this is small, and probably wouldn't happen too often, but it's the sort of difference that would win you games.
mind you - phyrexian revoker seems pretty decent in this deck as a replacement 2-drop, and has the added benefit of shutting down a handful of problematic matchups for us, so i'm on the side of tentatively swapping out any/all mimics for a playset of revokers as a test. there have been a number of clutch games in the last month for me where a turn 2 revoker would effectively be a win (or buy me enough time to secure a win).
how many endless one?
this one is much easier. we have the ability (due to tron) to cast some whoppingly large endless ones, and the card still remains relevant in the early game as a blocker (against quick aggro where you need to just stall the game out by a couple of turns) or in the mid game (where you can cast it about 1 turn ahead of the curve if you've drawn some number of temples, and clog the battlefield). and sometimes you just win with a vanilla fatty. card is perfectly acceptable, and should remain in the deck for its versatility.
how many oblivion stone?
this one's tricky.
i'd advocate (just on paper) a 3:1 split of O-Stone and a single Ratchet Bomb. this hedges you slightly against the quicker decks in the format, catches the occasional tokens/thopters player out, and is good against affinity. However, O-Stone has a far higher ceiling in terms of power and can potentially be much quicker, if you get Tron online, so it should be your go-to sweeper of choice. In practice, I think they come out at about equal in terms of usability, so I wouldn't criticise you for running 4x O-Stone and keeping the ratchet bombs in the sideboard (if so, I recommend up to 3x ratchets in the side. when they are good, they are insane).
In a slower metagame, just run 4 stones and suck up the occasional affinity game-1.
What flex-slot lands? How many Ghost Quarters?
again, tricky.
let's break the problem down:
an ideal manabase for this deck looks at running 24 or 23 lands. we can't dip below this, because we don't run the massive suite of filtering and land-tutoring that RG Tron uses. as a result, our topdecks are better, but we need to have a higher land count to get there.
so fine. let's go with 24 as the "stock" number.
12x Tron lands
4x Temple
4x Vesuva - and that's 20.
the four remaining slots should probably look as follows:
2x Ghost Quarter (very relevant against affinity and Infect. you need at least 2. don't bother cracking it against most other decks)
1x Cavern of Souls (more relevant now, post-ban)
and then 1x of any of the following: Sea Gate Wreckage (great vs. the grindy matchups - wins games easily when you go hellbent) rogue's passage (has overperformed for me on numerous occasions, allowing my thought-knots to attack unimpeded and force blocks against Reality Smashers. surprises me that nobody's mentioned it as an option yet) gemstone caverns (as a singleton it's hard to deny the advantage it gives you. every time I land one on turn 0, I am probably winning that game) radiant fountain - decent enough, and improved by the addition of Vesuva, but this choice has issues. yes - in some games, that 2 life might make all the difference. however, would that number of games be dwarfed by the number of games won by drawing 1 or 2 cards from a Wreckage, or getting in a "free" 4 damage on your opponent from the Passage... or more emphatically, the number of games won by having an extra mana on turn 0 from a Caverns? it's hard to tell. the lifegain is obviously at its best against burn, but not really worth it against the rest of the metagame. also, would you be inclined to "spend" your vesuvas on copying Fountain when you could be ramping instead, slowing your gem plan and actually netting more turns for your opponent to deal you damage? It figures in with the old-school analysis of lifegain in the abstrat - it doesn't win you the game, only postpone your loss. now, the caveat here is that of course, if there's a lot of burn flying around then Fountain is an excellent choice. if it's infect and midrange, merfolk and control, living end and elves (or whatever) then the fountain is fairly pointless. make your call based on the local meta.
what about the top end?
OK, a potential look at all the cards (6 mana or more) you could be running, and my reasoning why:
let's deal with Oblivion Sower. Don't fall into the trap. It was a great option before because it switched on your Eye of Ugin by ramping. you didn't need to have a threat in-hand to make it work. also, it paired great with Urborg (which you no longer have any reason to run) by letting opponent's stolen fetchlands tap for mana. now, it forces you to sub-optimally run Urborg (probably more than one) and it no longer gives you late-game inevitability, because it may/may not ramp you and you actually have to have your ramp target (such as Ulamog) in hand to get anything more than a vanilla 5/8 for your mana. bad. don't do it.
Now that's out the way - you should be considering:
Endbringer - yes, you need to untap for it to "do anything", but it's too much value to ignore. attacking, blocking AND drawing a card every turn-sequence is brilliant, and it also randomly hoses strategies that rely on one big creature to win (such as Emrakul, Griselbrand etc.). The pinging ability is actually very relevant, and a 5/5 is fine for Modern and will tangle fairly well in combat overall. gurmag angler is a card that has seen a lot of play, and a colourless one with attached value is perfectly acceptable (if you can "cheat" it out with Tron lands and Temples). don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Conduit of Ruin - another 5/5 for 6. this one has some tension to it, though. It relies on you setting up an Ulamog the following turn, AND having the requisite 8 mana already in place, or 10 if it gets removed from play somehow. sometimes, that just won't be fast enough, but in those situations, would Endbringer actually be any better? the answer is mixed - but Endbringer generally comes out on top.
The ceiling for Conduit is much higher in terms of game-winning potential, but the floor is far, far lower. If you draw an opener with a fairly easily-assembled turn-three-tron, and a conduit, you'll keep that hand. you'll also be slamming that turn-three Conduit in the hopes that you can close out the game quickly. let's say they remove your conduit though - now you've got a 10 mana spell on top of your deck that you can no longer cast, and are effectively two turns away from drawing anything worthwhile. that's how you lose games to aggro, people.
my conclusion between these two - favour Endbringer, but don't dismiss Conduit. Conduit is a fine mid-game play, and will threaten an effective win the following turn if your opponent doesn't have an answer.
my recommendation - 3x Endbringer, 1 or 2x Conduit of ruin (depends on your build)
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - i don't think anyone's going to actually argue the point here so i'll get right to it. Ulamog is the best "big-mana" threat in the whole format in terms of cost-to-effect. being 10 mana is cheap enough that you can feasibly stick it fairly early, and the exile 2 permanents ability is back-breaking (really, it's why you play the card). the big question is how many?
without Eye to get your big bomb, you are necessarily forced to run more. otherwise you'll have the problem of "all the mana, nothing to spend it on". I am inclined, as many RG Tron players are currently testing, to run up to three Ulamogs maindeck (although I am currently running 2 because of wanting a lower curve). One could argue for 2x Ulamog and 1x Kozilek, the Great Distortion, but I think increasing your chances of hitting that exile ability outweigh the potential advantage of slamming two titans on the field at the same time. Multiple Ulamogs aren't an issue anyway. you attack in, exile half their library, then post-combat stick a second ulamog, bin the tapped one, and exile two more of their permanents. stronk.
Kozilek, the Great Distortion - i want to love this card. the art is amazing, the ability is amazing, the 12/12 with menace is amazing. BUT, the problem with decks like this one are that by the time you realistically land a titan, you are slightly behind on board, and need to break parity or catch up somehow. Ulamog does this better in most cases, and there's no avoiding that. Corner case situations arise when the disrupting shoal ability on Kozilek can shut down an uninteractive combo player, and that's perhaps worth a 2:1 or 1:1 split with Ula and Kozi.... so it's primarily a metagame call. make your choice.
worth noting that this deck isn't as consistent at assembling Tron as RG Tron, so the focus should really be on having a lower curve (or "virtually lower" because Temple effectively reduces costs). If you are flooding your top-end ad then as a result having to run ramp cards such as mana dorks, I think you may be taking the deck down an inconsistent route. it's fine for standard and hyper-synergistic decks like Elves, but in a deck like this, you just want to curve out into powerful threats, only your curve is always higher than your opponent's and at a certain point in the game you just "level up" and make 9/9 endless ones, and Ulamog.
other options:
ancient stirrings - I really want to find some way to include this card in the deck. realistically it would mean dropping *all* of the flex slots of land, and maybe even some number of Vesuva, in order to include 5-8 coloured sources.
i'm not sure how much I value this change. Vesuva can still give some busted opening hands, but how do they stack up against the consistency of having a set of Stirrings in the deck?
also, how many coloured mana sources do we have to include in the deck in order to hit G for Stirrings reliably? will it push the deck down a slower route? does that even matter, if the deck becomes more consistently able to dig for threats or lands?
I can't answer these questions - but i want to test them. Ancient Stirrings may just be the most powerful card in Modern that we aren't running.... I'd like to see some people trying out a playset of this green powerhouse. lord knows it's won me so many games in RG tron i can't even count. topdeck stirrings, dig for an answer, find answer, win game. the ability to see 6 cards deep into your library on a turn you topdeck stirrings is so effective, it's assuredly worth testing.
those are my musings for the moment.
take them as you will (although i've been a big Tron player since the beginning of Modern, and was testing the colourless Eldrazi decks before the ProTour, so i've got a pretty good track record for this kind of deck)
I watched Cedric use Oblivion Stone to its maximum potential. I may have to bump up my copies. (Wish it weren't so darned expensive.)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I played it a bunch and came to the conclusion that 4 o-stones might just be too clunky. I dropped 1 and swapped it for a single ratchet bomb. This lowers the curve of my sweepers overall and also gives me better game against the faster decks in the format. It's a small change that will hopefully make all the difference.
Getting to 5 mana for activating stone was too difficult in a lot of games because you can't assemble tron as well as an actual Tron deck.
I feel like Cedric made a good start and a very streamlined list but it needs a couple of minor tweaks is all. It's more or less playable as-is. I'll be running it at a 300-person event on Monday. Wish me luck.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=100333
The moment of truth is coming soon for our deck.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Ancestral Vision Unbanned
Sword of the Meek Unbanned
We... survived. Without Eye, things we could do.
1. Include more Tron Assembly cards. Early Temple is great, but now that mana advantage has been cut in half, meaning Tron and Eldrazi Tron may be on a collision course (meaning Green!).
2. Conduit of Ruin, Sea Gate Wreckage, and/or Endbringer means draw/replace power.
3. Our mana base got a little more flexible. Without Eye of Ugin, the reason to keep Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth in the deck is Dismember. We can either suck up the 4, try to off balance it with decent life gain cards, or cut it. Keeping Urborg could also mean building off black for more black cards (Heartless Summoning?).
So... we'll survive. It also might mean that we might have to curve down as to not reach the Titans. (But I somewhat doubt that because why play Tron if not to have them as the aces in the hole?)
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
thopter-sword combo though..... ouch. that'll be tricky to pick apart.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
i think that without Eye, there's not a lot of point in running Sower.
part of the reason to run sower at all was to instantly switch on Eye, and from that point tutor up a threat every turn. without eye, Sower is just a big dumb guy that ramps you a bit. I think i'll be running endbringer in its place now. drawing cards or pinging things is a big game in modern.
Life gain has some relevance, so I'm maining a Ruin Processor because it can be fetched with Conduit of Ruin. Also, Green is in because World Breaker, Ancient Stirring, and Explore (Sylvan Scrying maybe in the future, but I'm looking for more lands than needing Early Tron because that's a different deck for the moment).
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
I've also trimmed Emrakul. I should probably run 2 Newlamogs over one but for now here is my current deck list. When the 18th hits I'll swap the Eye of Ugin for another Sanctum of Ugin or drop one of the Ghost Quarters and go with 2 Urborgs. I'd love to see some other lists run Deceiver of Form. Its pseudo-scry effect is pretty handy at filtering the top of the library every turn.
4 Conduit of Ruin
2 Oblivion Sower
2 Reality Smasher
2 Endbringer
1 Deceiver of Form
2 Matter Reshaper
2 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Expedition Map
4 Mind Stone
2 All is Dust
2 Dismember
3 Warping Wail
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Tower
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Eye of Ugin
3 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Wastes
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
2 Pithing Needle
2 Torpor Orb
2 Spellskite
1 Void Winnower
2 Ratchet Bomb
2 Spatial Contortion
2 Oblivion Stone
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
that would mimic a turn 4 eye of ugin wouldn't it?
2 Conduit of Ruin
2 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Endless One
4 Matter Reshaper
2 Oblivion Sower
4 Reality Smasher
4 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Spells
4 Dismember
4 Oblivion Stone
4 Expedition Map
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Wastes
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Gut Shot
2 Pithing Needle
3 Ratchet Bomb
3 Relic of Progenitus
I'm thinking of dropping the sowers (only useful for ulamog ramp anyway) to go up to 3 or 4 Conduit. That would allow me to drop to 1 ulamog and add a breaker of armies and void winnower or something. And a chalice + void winnower combination from the sideboard sounds like it could be pretty brutal so I'm going to test that.
I'm also considering switching one or two ghost quarters for cavern of souls because I think we might see some more remands and mana leaks in the coming weeks because of ancestral visions.
I tested 200 hands using an online deck generator and the deck seems pretty much exactly as consistent as the old non-tron deck. It fizzled on T3 (just 3 mana) about 20% of time including mulligans). Also it seems mulliganing to 5 is a mistake if you have a tron piece + map. Mulliganing to 6 is very often a good idea but 5 rarely works. It's better to hope for assembling tron on T4/5 than having a hand full of urborgs and ulamogs.
4 Endless One
2 Eldrazi Mimic
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Endbringer
2 Conduit of Ruin
2 Deceiver of Form
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
4 Eldrazi Temple
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Sea Gate Wreckage
2 Tomb of the Spirit Dragon
3 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Wastes
4 Expedition Map
2 Warping Wail
4 Spatial Contortion
This is currently the deck that I am planning to run for the next few months during FNM/events as I was initially hesitant to start buying/building the deck before the banlist changes (so the pieces are in the mail so to speak). Currently as it stands, the amount of Warping Wail/Spatial Contortion can be used as a flex-spot depending on the deck you are facing. The idea behind both cards is to enable us to interact as early as T1(Temple)/T2(without) if we don't have a map to play. The deck plays a lower curve with the addition of Matter Reshaper because I am not personally comfortable sitting idle through early turns if we happen to get bad hands and they help later in the game with drawing through the deck. Lands are far too flexible for their own good so I have no idea what is truly best. Overall the deck is more of a mid-range variant - it seeks out temple (with map) before tron (unless it has two pieces already) and plays through the creature mana curve 1/2 turns early to force the game into an unbalanced state before dropping titans.
Mull Strategy:
Mull for 3 lands/or temple+1/or tron+map.
Card Draw/Scry:
Sea Gate Wreckage
Endbringer
Matter Reshaper
Deceiver of Form
Tutor Effects:
Sanctum of Ugin
Conduit of Ruin
Sanctum of Ugin Triggers:
Deceiver of Form
Endless One
I am not 100% on the amount of titans I would like to run. I think it is nice to have the option to drop Ulamog as a bomb (and blow something up on cast) but the ability to refill our hand in a long game may also be useful. Having both in the deck gives you the utility to look for either depending on the situation. Warping Wail also has a small added bonus of being able to produce a scion at instant speed and then sac it next turn to act as a bad SSG if your hand is lacking the required mana for a Thought-Knot Seer or Reality Smasher. The biggest issue I have with it currently is that it is abit creature heavy and may need a board wipe in the main board or other forms of control.
Here is the list I'm fairly sure is close to optimal. But suggestions to refine it further are much appreciated.
Blind Eldrazi
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Mine
4 Radiant Fountain
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Vesuva
2 Wastes
4 Expedition Map
4 Mind Stone
3 Spatial Contortion
3 Dismember
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
4 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Conduit of Ruin
1 Breaker of Armies
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Damping Matrix
2 Relic of Progenitus
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Gut Shot
1 All is Dust
1 Void Winnower
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
As you can see, this list is a bit more top heavy that most Eldrazi Aggro decks you're probably used to. The more powerful threat-base is enabled by playing a lot more mana ramp which wasn't playable before because Eye of Ugin wouldn't help you cast any of the potential rampers.
Rampers allow you to plop down on turn 4 a gamebreaking card like Wurmcoil Engine (another excellent card that was also unplayable in a deck that housed 4 Eye of Ugin). By going this route, you're able to play a much higher density of gamebreaking threats.
Expedition Map allows you to assemble the tron combo by turn 3. Just as useful, Map can fetch up an Eldrazi Temple on turn 2 which is often all you need to start laying down your game winning threats starting turn 3.
Conduit of Ruin is a tutor, ramper, and threat all in one card.
Radiant Fountain both helps you survive long enough to take control of the board, and offers up a juicy target for Vesuva to copy when it doesn't have an Eldrazi Temple to copy and you don't have the tron combo assembled yet.
How would you suggest improving on this list?
And thanks to all that have been posting recently. Good to see some more activity.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Yep I think you could use some All is Dust or Oblivion Stone. They can always be sided in or out if necessary. Keep us informed.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I think the main considerations are as follows:
how many vesuva?
it's no secret that Vesuva has been a big spec card for lots of people, since Temple was left the only eldrazi land standing. I am very much of the opinion that you should start with a playset of a card you feel is worth including, and then reduce numbers through testing. starting with 1 or 2 doesn't actually help you determine if it's worth it or not - you simply won't see how the card plays out.
so i'm moving for the deck to include 4 - at this early stage. (i'm gambling on 3 being the eventual correct number, we'll see)
how many Eldrazi Mimic?
on the face of it, you'd be forgiven for saying "none", and i'm sure I don't need to explain why... although with Vesuva in the deck, there's an interesting interplay going on.
with a turn 1 temple, you can drop a vesuva (tapped of course) and still play something on turn 2 (a mimic) without losing too much tempo. this is small, and probably wouldn't happen too often, but it's the sort of difference that would win you games.
mind you - phyrexian revoker seems pretty decent in this deck as a replacement 2-drop, and has the added benefit of shutting down a handful of problematic matchups for us, so i'm on the side of tentatively swapping out any/all mimics for a playset of revokers as a test. there have been a number of clutch games in the last month for me where a turn 2 revoker would effectively be a win (or buy me enough time to secure a win).
how many endless one?
this one is much easier. we have the ability (due to tron) to cast some whoppingly large endless ones, and the card still remains relevant in the early game as a blocker (against quick aggro where you need to just stall the game out by a couple of turns) or in the mid game (where you can cast it about 1 turn ahead of the curve if you've drawn some number of temples, and clog the battlefield). and sometimes you just win with a vanilla fatty. card is perfectly acceptable, and should remain in the deck for its versatility.
how many oblivion stone?
this one's tricky.
i'd advocate (just on paper) a 3:1 split of O-Stone and a single Ratchet Bomb. this hedges you slightly against the quicker decks in the format, catches the occasional tokens/thopters player out, and is good against affinity. However, O-Stone has a far higher ceiling in terms of power and can potentially be much quicker, if you get Tron online, so it should be your go-to sweeper of choice. In practice, I think they come out at about equal in terms of usability, so I wouldn't criticise you for running 4x O-Stone and keeping the ratchet bombs in the sideboard (if so, I recommend up to 3x ratchets in the side. when they are good, they are insane).
In a slower metagame, just run 4 stones and suck up the occasional affinity game-1.
What flex-slot lands? How many Ghost Quarters?
again, tricky.
let's break the problem down:
an ideal manabase for this deck looks at running 24 or 23 lands. we can't dip below this, because we don't run the massive suite of filtering and land-tutoring that RG Tron uses. as a result, our topdecks are better, but we need to have a higher land count to get there.
so fine. let's go with 24 as the "stock" number.
12x Tron lands
4x Temple
4x Vesuva - and that's 20.
the four remaining slots should probably look as follows:
2x Ghost Quarter (very relevant against affinity and Infect. you need at least 2. don't bother cracking it against most other decks)
1x Cavern of Souls (more relevant now, post-ban)
and then 1x of any of the following:
Sea Gate Wreckage (great vs. the grindy matchups - wins games easily when you go hellbent)
rogue's passage (has overperformed for me on numerous occasions, allowing my thought-knots to attack unimpeded and force blocks against Reality Smashers. surprises me that nobody's mentioned it as an option yet)
gemstone caverns (as a singleton it's hard to deny the advantage it gives you. every time I land one on turn 0, I am probably winning that game)
radiant fountain - decent enough, and improved by the addition of Vesuva, but this choice has issues. yes - in some games, that 2 life might make all the difference. however, would that number of games be dwarfed by the number of games won by drawing 1 or 2 cards from a Wreckage, or getting in a "free" 4 damage on your opponent from the Passage... or more emphatically, the number of games won by having an extra mana on turn 0 from a Caverns? it's hard to tell. the lifegain is obviously at its best against burn, but not really worth it against the rest of the metagame. also, would you be inclined to "spend" your vesuvas on copying Fountain when you could be ramping instead, slowing your gem plan and actually netting more turns for your opponent to deal you damage? It figures in with the old-school analysis of lifegain in the abstrat - it doesn't win you the game, only postpone your loss. now, the caveat here is that of course, if there's a lot of burn flying around then Fountain is an excellent choice. if it's infect and midrange, merfolk and control, living end and elves (or whatever) then the fountain is fairly pointless. make your call based on the local meta.
what about the top end?
OK, a potential look at all the cards (6 mana or more) you could be running, and my reasoning why:
Now that's out the way - you should be considering:
Endbringer - yes, you need to untap for it to "do anything", but it's too much value to ignore. attacking, blocking AND drawing a card every turn-sequence is brilliant, and it also randomly hoses strategies that rely on one big creature to win (such as Emrakul, Griselbrand etc.). The pinging ability is actually very relevant, and a 5/5 is fine for Modern and will tangle fairly well in combat overall. gurmag angler is a card that has seen a lot of play, and a colourless one with attached value is perfectly acceptable (if you can "cheat" it out with Tron lands and Temples). don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Conduit of Ruin - another 5/5 for 6. this one has some tension to it, though. It relies on you setting up an Ulamog the following turn, AND having the requisite 8 mana already in place, or 10 if it gets removed from play somehow. sometimes, that just won't be fast enough, but in those situations, would Endbringer actually be any better? the answer is mixed - but Endbringer generally comes out on top.
The ceiling for Conduit is much higher in terms of game-winning potential, but the floor is far, far lower. If you draw an opener with a fairly easily-assembled turn-three-tron, and a conduit, you'll keep that hand. you'll also be slamming that turn-three Conduit in the hopes that you can close out the game quickly. let's say they remove your conduit though - now you've got a 10 mana spell on top of your deck that you can no longer cast, and are effectively two turns away from drawing anything worthwhile. that's how you lose games to aggro, people.
my conclusion between these two - favour Endbringer, but don't dismiss Conduit. Conduit is a fine mid-game play, and will threaten an effective win the following turn if your opponent doesn't have an answer.
my recommendation - 3x Endbringer, 1 or 2x Conduit of ruin (depends on your build)
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger - i don't think anyone's going to actually argue the point here so i'll get right to it. Ulamog is the best "big-mana" threat in the whole format in terms of cost-to-effect. being 10 mana is cheap enough that you can feasibly stick it fairly early, and the exile 2 permanents ability is back-breaking (really, it's why you play the card). the big question is how many?
without Eye to get your big bomb, you are necessarily forced to run more. otherwise you'll have the problem of "all the mana, nothing to spend it on". I am inclined, as many RG Tron players are currently testing, to run up to three Ulamogs maindeck (although I am currently running 2 because of wanting a lower curve). One could argue for 2x Ulamog and 1x Kozilek, the Great Distortion, but I think increasing your chances of hitting that exile ability outweigh the potential advantage of slamming two titans on the field at the same time. Multiple Ulamogs aren't an issue anyway. you attack in, exile half their library, then post-combat stick a second ulamog, bin the tapped one, and exile two more of their permanents. stronk.
Kozilek, the Great Distortion - i want to love this card. the art is amazing, the ability is amazing, the 12/12 with menace is amazing. BUT, the problem with decks like this one are that by the time you realistically land a titan, you are slightly behind on board, and need to break parity or catch up somehow. Ulamog does this better in most cases, and there's no avoiding that. Corner case situations arise when the disrupting shoal ability on Kozilek can shut down an uninteractive combo player, and that's perhaps worth a 2:1 or 1:1 split with Ula and Kozi.... so it's primarily a metagame call. make your choice.
worth noting that this deck isn't as consistent at assembling Tron as RG Tron, so the focus should really be on having a lower curve (or "virtually lower" because Temple effectively reduces costs). If you are flooding your top-end ad then as a result having to run ramp cards such as mana dorks, I think you may be taking the deck down an inconsistent route. it's fine for standard and hyper-synergistic decks like Elves, but in a deck like this, you just want to curve out into powerful threats, only your curve is always higher than your opponent's and at a certain point in the game you just "level up" and make 9/9 endless ones, and Ulamog.
other options:
ancient stirrings - I really want to find some way to include this card in the deck. realistically it would mean dropping *all* of the flex slots of land, and maybe even some number of Vesuva, in order to include 5-8 coloured sources.
i'm not sure how much I value this change. Vesuva can still give some busted opening hands, but how do they stack up against the consistency of having a set of Stirrings in the deck?
also, how many coloured mana sources do we have to include in the deck in order to hit G for Stirrings reliably? will it push the deck down a slower route? does that even matter, if the deck becomes more consistently able to dig for threats or lands?
I can't answer these questions - but i want to test them. Ancient Stirrings may just be the most powerful card in Modern that we aren't running.... I'd like to see some people trying out a playset of this green powerhouse. lord knows it's won me so many games in RG tron i can't even count. topdeck stirrings, dig for an answer, find answer, win game. the ability to see 6 cards deep into your library on a turn you topdeck stirrings is so effective, it's assuredly worth testing.
those are my musings for the moment.
take them as you will (although i've been a big Tron player since the beginning of Modern, and was testing the colourless Eldrazi decks before the ProTour, so i've got a pretty good track record for this kind of deck)