Tried Batterskull and the main problem was that I could not find the freaking thing. It being a 5 CMC is really the upside AND the downside, unless we play Fabricate and I don't think that's what we really want. It's great once you get it down though.
Spellskite was okay. It was pretty good on certain matchups and completely useless in others. It just doesn't do enough on its own I'm afraid. For a sb spot, I think I'd rather play Silent Arbiter or Torpor Orb. It's still great against Infect and sometimes Bogles, but I'd really rather play a second EE if it came to that.
Hangarback I feel like is even slower than Walking Ballista. Great thing about Ballista is that it can be used as a removal or even burn some point of damage at your opponent if it ever gets pathed.
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Batterskull without gifts is very hazardeous, you can draw it as much as you can not draw it. Only Bob Ross plays for happy accidents.
Combo dekcs aren't a probleme imho, Field of ruins times 4 in ALOT of matchups are: it makes our deck being a mono U with hight mana wincon, which is stupid considering cards like Geist exists. ur deck rely on Tron to "win", otherwise we would play something else. My question here is how do we get by sooo much land hate or at the same time so many all in aggro decks: I saw Infect resurging in my LGS :(, although its not an ultra bad match up, it steals alot games.
And there is also the fizzle thing, we have like 2 plans going at the same time: the deck is a mashup of control with its own mana sources, big artifact wincon with its own mana base and there is the "in between" like condescend, repeal, etc. thats fits well with both. We wager that we will find our tron a turn later than GTron but that we'll have ways to protect ourselves from combos and assure our "first strike" with our Huge game state sweeper. It often fizzles and we end up mulliganing for hands that almost any other dekcs would've kept for that their mana base is not so capricous: a 3-lander, 4-well curved spells is often a mulligan. Keeping 4 blue spells with 3 tron (2 of and 1 of) is imo almost unkeepable especially against great value meta and fast meta. Adding things like mana rocks often results a dead draws later.
Keep on the discussion, it's healthy for the community.
Topdecking mana rocks does suck, but having 1-2 Talismans doesn't feel awful since it's just binned for Thirst. I'd rather worry about a potential dead draw late than constant mulligans because I can't find blue mana in my opener.
I have conceded the fact that I am just not as favored against the new versions of blue control. Hopefully it's 50/50, but I have no data to back that up as my meta is tons of aggro/midrange. I still think black based midrange and combo is easy. Going forward trying to tune against aggro (which I think sees a massive uptick to get under Jace) might be the best bet. If you can get aggro close to 50/50 then you can at least say U Tron is one of the few modern decks that is ~50% against the field and hope skill gets you there most nights. It's why I bought into the deck in the first place.
In my meta at least 2x EE, 3x Dismember, 3x Spatial is my minimum to keep aggro at bay. Humans feels unwinnable despite this approach though.
Matchups -
1) G/R BBE Ponza (2-1)
Game 1 I punted on a blocking sequence, allowing him to do enough damage to kill me. There was also a misplay on his side with Blood Moon on the field that I didn't catch until afterwards. Game 2 and Game 3 were no problem.
2) Boros Burn (2-0)
Game 1 I think he just had bad draws... Typical T1 Goblin Guide into T2 Eidelon, then he told me he drew 2 more Eidelons after that. Fortunately, I didn't cast anything into the Eidelon, while he did, and I was able to stabilize the field with a resolved Solemn, into Wurmcoil. Game 2 I dropped a Chalice on 1, which slowed him down a lot. From there I was able to get Tron online within a few turns, played a Platinum Angel and he scooped.
3) U/R Storm (2-0)
Game 1 I'm unsure if he got unlucky or I chose perfectly, but he started to storm off on his T4 and dropped 2 Gifts during the process and didn't seem pleased with the cards I gave him either time. Ultimately, he couldn't complete the combo and fizzled, due to a lack of mana. Two turns later, and some countering of his stuff, I had tron online and Mindslaver in hand. That was the first time I ever played a Storm deck and managed to storm off on his turn and kill him with double grapeshot. Gotta say, it was a magical feeling and everyone around was loving it, "Did you just storm off on the storm player?!?!?!" Game 2, I had early counters for his spells and repeal for his Baral, then T4 dropped a Chalice on 2. This resulted in a scoop.
4) Sultai BBE/Jace Mid-range
Game 1 he seemed to have the perfect hand with T2 and T3 Goyfs into a T4 BBE and that was that. Game 2 I had a lot of early interaction and got the Wurmcoil beats online, with no answers from him. Game 3 was a great back and forth, with both of us having tons of answers to each other's spells. He eventually resolved a JTMS, attacked in with a Troll, which I roflstomped with a flashed in Gearhulk. Next turn Jace was gone. He stabilized for a while, but a resolved Ugin on my side was the end of the game.
Overall, the tweaks I've been making finally seemed to have paid off, for my meta. That, plus cards/draws lining up was huge. Echoing my prior statements and those above, the deck is definitely fragile and requires good mulligan and scry choices. Also, knowing which counters and bounce spells to play and when is huge. I've been playing with this deck for months now and am just starting to feel comfortable with my choice in lines.
Individual card observations:
Commit // Memmory is a card I like for decks running uncounterable spells, higher curve cards that aren't efficiently bounced by Repeal, and for long matches that require a hand replenishment. However, there wasn't a single occasion where I played the card the other night and boarded it out in every match. That may be the result of my matchups, but I definitely believe it is a weaker card, relatively speaking. The only reason it was in the deck was because my 4th Chalice hadn't arrived yet. Bringing me to...
Chalice of the Void is an all star for discard to Thirst and for having a recurring counter to low cost spells (CMC 1 or 2). I am happy with 3 in the deck, but would have liked a 4th, especially against Storm and Burn.
Torrential Gearhulk was out of my deck for a few weeks, but he was a champ. The instant speed cast was huge on more than 1 occasion and the free cast into Thirst, especially, was magnificent.
Spellskite is one I've seen kicked around for a while on here and something I tested in the very early phases of my deck creation. I came back to it in the SB because of the issues I was having with red-centric decks, along with the presence of Bogles in my local meta. It was an absolute star in the Burn and Sultai matches. Great blocker. Great for eating various burn spells. Great defense for artifact hate against Chalice.
Double Hangarback, O-Stone, and EE went largely untested. I really like Hangarback and he always does great work when I board him, which is why I upped it to 2. However, I think I finally unlocked my brain to the full power of Walking Ballista, as that did more work than I've ever seen from the card and has me debating adding another in the SB, in place of the 2nd Walker, or having 2 of both...
The only change I'll definitely be making is the 4th Chalice. Whether I'll drop a Repeal to keep in Commit // Memory is something I'm not sure about yet, but I am leaning towards cutting Commit altogether.
I think that we don't need to try green, and also think that we have a better over all win rate that the Gx Tron vs more decks. It is true that Gx Tron is way better at assembling tron fast and that is because they expend literally 20 deck slots to do it and hoping to do the same with not even 10 draw/search spells is just silly. But our advantage is that that we don't auto loose to a turn 2 Spreading Seas follow by a turn 3 Field of Ruin or Bloodmoon. Also we have the same issue vs aggro that the Gx version of the deck has, and in many cases they play turn 3 Karn Liberated and lose to burn next turn.
I think this deck is trying to be somewhere in the middle of Tezzerator and Gx tron in the sense that we run a lot of silver bullets and ways to get then, and usually this kind of "toobox" deck is a "jack of all trades master of none but better than a master of one", with the added benefit of a better late game.
Yes Merkfolks/Humans will always be our bane because of carvern/vial/swarm and in the case of fish spreading seas to put salt on the wound.
Yes UWx control will always have a better mana base than ours and that mana base will allow then to go Snpcaster Mage > Cryptic Command while in many cases we can't even cast Snpcaster Mage > Remand
So my point is that we should enjoy our strengths (flexibility, adaptability, interactivity, inevitability) and try to live with our weaknesses (slowness, inconsistent mana base, lack of tier 1 removal, lack of value early game self replacing blockers like Wall of Omens) and accept the deck for what it is.
And last but not least, I think the main reason this deck is awesome, it is hard to master, but if you do you can do awesome stuff just like shock and pier have.
have to say that I like all Your posts (and deck change ideas) the discussion is very consctructive and I hope that we still can share Our testings and thoughts
my 2cents about the core of the deck: I think that we need more removal than the traditional shok/pie lists: 2 spatial+2 dismembers are minimum for me (I also try to run a second o-stone main and all is dust in the side - but I don't have enough matches to share my thoughts about them).
The deck is still cool, it's a lot more interactive than mono-g tron (which is a lot more vulnerable to hate just like You said - moon/seas/ponza etc).
Rethinking the deck core is fine and I'm 100% sure that it's needed (for eg. I'm plain with 3 thirst for knowledge for a moment - now I'm a lot more happy when I draw one).
@Jacediscussion: I don't think that Jace brings Us anything valuable - it's just a hype card which is ofc good - but not even close to the "legacyvalue" (there is no brainstorms/ponders + modern is much more creature based format). I'm really fine with more control decks in my meta, it's just cool matchup
cheers!
Here are some unused/underused or just completely ridiculous cards just to open up some conversations:
- Drift of Phantasms (Stops Geist tokens, Freebooter/Mantis Rider, Affinity, etc, and could fetch our 3 CMC cards like O-Stone, TFK, Treasure/Trinket Mage)
- Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch (Another flying defender that has an upside of returning creature back to their owner's hand, probably worse than Drift)
- Torpor Orb (Stops most of Humans triggers, TKS, Flickers from Taxes, etc)
- Commit/Memory (Some people already play it, gets around uncounterable creatures, counts as a sorcery towards Emrakul if you play that)
- Perilous Voyage (better Cyclonic Rift on 2 CMC or less creatuers, scries 2)
- Keiga, the Tide Star (5/5 Flyer that blocks most things and has an upside when it dies, probably too expensive and worse than Wurmcoil)
- Vedalken Plotter (Seen some of these pop up in the Japanese meta, great in Tron matchups)
- Crystal Shard (I've seen the card exactly once in modern from some weird UW taxes deck with Ghostly Prisons and it seemed to be super annoying)
- Flashfreeze (Heck, people run Celestial Purge in their SB's, why not this? There's a ton of RG decks out there right now)
- Curse of the Swine (Probably too expensive, yes definitely too expensive)
- Entrancing Melody (Too cute? I'd play it if it costed a single U source, not double)
- Exhaustion (Could be a timewalk if played right)
I know some of these are just plain ridiculous, but that was the point so we can open up some options.
@Darkx87 I'm also thinking that running play set of Chalice of the Void may be the right thing to do, more specifically for mana consistency and aggro fighting reasons
@Dassul regarding the core of the deck, maybe we need to test more cards like Anticipate/Telling Time in order to lower the mana curve and run more removal. The only problem i have is that this can "dilute" our counter package.
@Darkx87 I'm also thinking that running play set of Chalice of the Void may be the right thing to do, more specifically for mana consistency and aggro fighting reasons
@Dassul regarding the core of the deck, maybe we need to test more cards like Anticipate/Telling Time in order to lower the mana curve and run more removal. The only problem i have is that this can "dilute" our counter package.
Telling Time may be a decent replacement for Thirst. They both provide you a look at 3 cards. Pitching 1 to the gy v. 1 to the bottom is essentially the same*. Caveat being recurring the artifact pitched to Thirst via Ruins. The 1 less CMC of Time means it's played a turn earlier. However, it reduces the ability to hand sculpt, as you only have the 3 you drew to work with and can't discard dead cards in your hand to it. That, I think, is a huge downfall. I'd be curious to see what testing is like with this though.
As I said in a post earlier, Think twice is really a card im considering: it "dodges" counterspells, it is a really good alternative to t2 no counter and when in the graveyard, it is always available for EoT draw, against say discard, etc. The flexibility of this card fits our plane very nicely. I'm not thinking of removing thirsts, but maybe trading 2 thirst for 3 of these and removing a creature like solemn or a mana rock. The thinking behind this is I do think we need "pure" value, not simply filtering which often fizzle, especially since it's limited and sporadic.
Also, against Field of ruins and activaled abilities like planes walker or w/e, I'm thinking or retrying from years aggo squelch as a 2 or 3 of. SB ofc.
Again, I don't think we need MORE cantrips or card draws. Thirst is extremely powerful. How many times did you guys lose because you just had 3-4 colorless lands and didn't have a blue source? How is Telling Time or Think Twice going to help out? We need early game cards that will help us get to the late game without blue sources.
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I love my blue tron deck, it's my main deck (as i hav the most money in cards in here) but it's a slow deck. I always tell people if you don't kill me quickly you're not going to win. I've had many a game down to 1 or 2 life and they still at 20 and then drop a wurmcoil or platinum angel and win, it's such a great feeling.
But for agro decks we have to be faster, so my question is why not play serum over thirst?
Currently I run 4 thirsts but why is thirst so much better than serum visions.
Thirst:
3 mana (1blue and 2 colorless)
draws three cards (have to discard 2 or 1 artifact)
instant
Serum:
1 mana (blue)
draws 1 card but scry 2 (you still get to see 3 cards and don't have to discard to grave, and if you bottom deck it can grab it with gifts later)
sorcery
You can play serum turn 1 instead of turn 3, it's a lot cheaper to recast with snapcaster. I understand sorcery speed is not ideal but 3 mana is a lot in the beginning especially if you have to use 2 to crack an expedition map.
I also love torrential as he is my favorite card in the deck and don't understand why more people don't play him (a free gifts when he lands whats not to love?).
@repeatsyx2 : Simple, I don't keep hands that are -totally- reliant on draw to function. 2 tron lans, no map and all blue spells is a regular mulligan. Thirst is indeed very powerful, but it's slow and we often cannot counter on two mana but for a scry (with condescend) and engaging our opponent to spend an additional mana ona noble hierarch (or litterally anything a burn or infect player is playing, or death's shadow, etc.); also, it blocks almost totally chalice on 3 (which is again, really good against any geist, lili, pulse, etc.). Late game it's a god draw; early game it's an akward turn 3, which is a turn that Imo we need to keep up for counter: not only because 3drop threats are strong, but because we finally have a decent condescend for 2. So in the best situation, we use it EoT becase opponent had nothing, which is lel; Worst case, we use in main phase to hit land drop; middle case we counter turn 3 and it's once again an awkward t4 draw for the same situation, where (in theory we cound keep a little condescend or a remand for 2 + a twink twice from hand on 2 too)... I prefer to slowly cantrip as instant for 2 mana or 3 throughout the game, at least that is the idea and it's what im going to find out being true or false during my nextss tryouts at LGS.
@pants1982 : reason for not playing serum visions is that it's an awkward force blue source turn 1, which chains alethemore badly into tron T 3 and it's a sorcery so it means that you will have to commit more often than otherwise your (only) blue source before knowing if you would need it for a counterspell on that turn.
Blue Tron isn't about getting tron assembled as quickly as possible to play Karn, it's about controlling the other person while you get all the pieces. If you are trying to assemble Tron fast then blue isn't the color to do it in. I am always holding mana open for counters, but what is your normal turn 1 play? The only thing we can do is play expidition as nobody is playing spell pierce, why not get a card draw and see what your next cards are. With supreme will costing the same as thirst which one is better. On turn three i can either counter or thirst and if i counter it puts me a turn behind anyways so whats the difference?
U Tron isn't about assembling tron as fast as possible, that i agree, but a wurmcoil turn 3 is often an instant win against any deck that has no counter up or no white. For example, burn, bogles, humans, jund, etc. It is also a matter of probability: if you engage yourself in playing serum visions, you will reduce the number of times you assembling-T3-Tron, thus missing opportunities to steal games with tron t3.
I myself often keep a blue up in the first 2-4 turns, but on the first match, playing a tron land mislead people to understand that you play green tron, giving you a little advantage on surprise, as little as it can be, it's something. Also, no t4 mindslaver were achieved by putting blue on the first turn, which is, again, often an instant win against powerdeck like valakut, abzan, etc.
There are numerous plays you can make by setting up your trun as early as possible: I.E. if you play any Ulamog in you version of the deck.
Just wanted to stop in and ask for some feedback on my list. I recently bought into the deck on MTGO, and took my test 75 out for a quick spin. While it did decently, I felt like it needed a bit of tweaking, so this is what I've ended up with:
So far, the untested elements are Cyclonic Rift and Field of Ruin, but I'm fairly confident they address a need based on what I've seen so far. I had some Solemn Simulacrums in here before, but they underwhelmed me, so I cut them. I was also rather disappointed by Gemstone Caverns (I got it in my opener twice, but the extra mana wasn't really all that helpful), but I'm willing to give that card another shot. Any feedback or advice is welcome.
I also don't think that serum visions (which is nonbo with chalice of the void, the super core of the deck) or other cantrips are a way to go - draw power isn't a problem here. I still feel that we are doing the right things but a turn/2turns too late than other decks Yea, we don't relay on tron lands but We NEED them to win (but ofc we can do this without them sometimes). On the other hand there are often hands with full tron lands but without any plays from them :P. Mono-U tron is full of stories about powerful hands and other shine'y/fancy castouts but for me I will like more consistency and much more fair play against Our craziest matchups - aggro I look at You!
My another "deck rethink" problem are "mages" which are only sorcery speed blue spells in the deck - I wonder, what If we will cut them (for some instant cantrip or better - supreme wills/second o-stone?) Ofc this mean that we need to choose carefully Our win condition package (sundering titan, EE and platinum for sure goes to the bench)
I think about some kind of versatile winconditions (without search power of trinket/treasure mage), lets say:
2x walking ballista (It's a powerhouse, and 2 is enough to draw and to fech with tolaria west)
2x wurmcoil engine (powerhouse against most nonwhite decks)
2x mindslaver (usualy I run him as a 1-of but without "fetchers" it's too low number to relay on it)
1x Eugene
And that will be Our typical 7. With this - 2-3 chalices and at last 2 oblivion stones (but I can imagine that 3 can be cool number at last before sideboarding - where stony silence comes in).
Ofc body from treasure/trinket mage is great - but lets be serious, how often You cast "mage" on turn 3 (or later but without possible play from tron lands online?) - I do this very rare and I always feel that I played badly (this open mana is still a danger for opponent). These two guys are our only sorcery speed blue spells in the deck, can't we really change them with smth better?
Chalice is indeed a core element of the deck: chalice on 1 and counter spells often win games by itself.
About cutting the mages, we would have no way of tutoring, which is very bad imo; also, the body of the mages often gives us a whole turn by simply chump-blocking. If we were to cut mages, I'd say we get our 4th Repeal back in and we take like fabricate (one of) or gifts for later game. Although it recudes the kind of play being T3 mage, T4 titan, it is still, indeed a fair point saying that it almost never occurs.
Fabricate is a very strong tutor for lategame and gifts good is a late-er tutor. Because, if we are not to play artifact tutor, I'd fill in things like Ulamog or Endbrigner or any other kind of eldrazi/huge wincon that are not necessarily artifact. Tho it expands our pissible threats pool, it would reduce the consistency or tempo on them happening.
I'd still keep Tolaria since it tutor lands and ballista which is nuts.
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Spellskite was okay. It was pretty good on certain matchups and completely useless in others. It just doesn't do enough on its own I'm afraid. For a sb spot, I think I'd rather play Silent Arbiter or Torpor Orb. It's still great against Infect and sometimes Bogles, but I'd really rather play a second EE if it came to that.
Hangarback I feel like is even slower than Walking Ballista. Great thing about Ballista is that it can be used as a removal or even burn some point of damage at your opponent if it ever gets pathed.
Modern
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Combo dekcs aren't a probleme imho, Field of ruins times 4 in ALOT of matchups are: it makes our deck being a mono U with hight mana wincon, which is stupid considering cards like Geist exists. ur deck rely on Tron to "win", otherwise we would play something else. My question here is how do we get by sooo much land hate or at the same time so many all in aggro decks: I saw Infect resurging in my LGS :(, although its not an ultra bad match up, it steals alot games.
And there is also the fizzle thing, we have like 2 plans going at the same time: the deck is a mashup of control with its own mana sources, big artifact wincon with its own mana base and there is the "in between" like condescend, repeal, etc. thats fits well with both. We wager that we will find our tron a turn later than GTron but that we'll have ways to protect ourselves from combos and assure our "first strike" with our Huge game state sweeper. It often fizzles and we end up mulliganing for hands that almost any other dekcs would've kept for that their mana base is not so capricous: a 3-lander, 4-well curved spells is often a mulligan. Keeping 4 blue spells with 3 tron (2 of and 1 of) is imo almost unkeepable especially against great value meta and fast meta. Adding things like mana rocks often results a dead draws later.
Keep on the discussion, it's healthy for the community.
I have conceded the fact that I am just not as favored against the new versions of blue control. Hopefully it's 50/50, but I have no data to back that up as my meta is tons of aggro/midrange. I still think black based midrange and combo is easy. Going forward trying to tune against aggro (which I think sees a massive uptick to get under Jace) might be the best bet. If you can get aggro close to 50/50 then you can at least say U Tron is one of the few modern decks that is ~50% against the field and hope skill gets you there most nights. It's why I bought into the deck in the first place.
In my meta at least 2x EE, 3x Dismember, 3x Spatial is my minimum to keep aggro at bay. Humans feels unwinnable despite this approach though.
4-0 the other night with the following list:
1 Platinum Angel
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Treasure Mage
1 Walking Ballista
1 Wurmcoil Engine
Instants (17)
1 Commit // Memory
4 Condescend
1 Cyclonic Rift
3 Remand
3 Repeal
1 Supreme Will
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Chalice of the Void
4 Expedition Map
2 Mindslaver
1 Oblivion Stone
Planeswalker (1)
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Lands (24)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Field of Ruin
1 Gemstone Caverns
7 Island
1 River of Tears
1 Tolaria West
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Hangarback Walker
2 Spellskite
1 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Dismember
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Oblivion Stone
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Gemstone Caverns
Matchups -
1) G/R BBE Ponza (2-1)
Game 1 I punted on a blocking sequence, allowing him to do enough damage to kill me. There was also a misplay on his side with Blood Moon on the field that I didn't catch until afterwards. Game 2 and Game 3 were no problem.
2) Boros Burn (2-0)
Game 1 I think he just had bad draws... Typical T1 Goblin Guide into T2 Eidelon, then he told me he drew 2 more Eidelons after that. Fortunately, I didn't cast anything into the Eidelon, while he did, and I was able to stabilize the field with a resolved Solemn, into Wurmcoil. Game 2 I dropped a Chalice on 1, which slowed him down a lot. From there I was able to get Tron online within a few turns, played a Platinum Angel and he scooped.
3) U/R Storm (2-0)
Game 1 I'm unsure if he got unlucky or I chose perfectly, but he started to storm off on his T4 and dropped 2 Gifts during the process and didn't seem pleased with the cards I gave him either time. Ultimately, he couldn't complete the combo and fizzled, due to a lack of mana. Two turns later, and some countering of his stuff, I had tron online and Mindslaver in hand. That was the first time I ever played a Storm deck and managed to storm off on his turn and kill him with double grapeshot. Gotta say, it was a magical feeling and everyone around was loving it, "Did you just storm off on the storm player?!?!?!" Game 2, I had early counters for his spells and repeal for his Baral, then T4 dropped a Chalice on 2. This resulted in a scoop.
4) Sultai BBE/Jace Mid-range
Game 1 he seemed to have the perfect hand with T2 and T3 Goyfs into a T4 BBE and that was that. Game 2 I had a lot of early interaction and got the Wurmcoil beats online, with no answers from him. Game 3 was a great back and forth, with both of us having tons of answers to each other's spells. He eventually resolved a JTMS, attacked in with a Troll, which I roflstomped with a flashed in Gearhulk. Next turn Jace was gone. He stabilized for a while, but a resolved Ugin on my side was the end of the game.
Overall, the tweaks I've been making finally seemed to have paid off, for my meta. That, plus cards/draws lining up was huge. Echoing my prior statements and those above, the deck is definitely fragile and requires good mulligan and scry choices. Also, knowing which counters and bounce spells to play and when is huge. I've been playing with this deck for months now and am just starting to feel comfortable with my choice in lines.
Individual card observations:
Commit // Memmory is a card I like for decks running uncounterable spells, higher curve cards that aren't efficiently bounced by Repeal, and for long matches that require a hand replenishment. However, there wasn't a single occasion where I played the card the other night and boarded it out in every match. That may be the result of my matchups, but I definitely believe it is a weaker card, relatively speaking. The only reason it was in the deck was because my 4th Chalice hadn't arrived yet. Bringing me to...
Chalice of the Void is an all star for discard to Thirst and for having a recurring counter to low cost spells (CMC 1 or 2). I am happy with 3 in the deck, but would have liked a 4th, especially against Storm and Burn.
Torrential Gearhulk was out of my deck for a few weeks, but he was a champ. The instant speed cast was huge on more than 1 occasion and the free cast into Thirst, especially, was magnificent.
Spellskite is one I've seen kicked around for a while on here and something I tested in the very early phases of my deck creation. I came back to it in the SB because of the issues I was having with red-centric decks, along with the presence of Bogles in my local meta. It was an absolute star in the Burn and Sultai matches. Great blocker. Great for eating various burn spells. Great defense for artifact hate against Chalice.
Double Hangarback, O-Stone, and EE went largely untested. I really like Hangarback and he always does great work when I board him, which is why I upped it to 2. However, I think I finally unlocked my brain to the full power of Walking Ballista, as that did more work than I've ever seen from the card and has me debating adding another in the SB, in place of the 2nd Walker, or having 2 of both...
The only change I'll definitely be making is the 4th Chalice. Whether I'll drop a Repeal to keep in Commit // Memory is something I'm not sure about yet, but I am leaning towards cutting Commit altogether.
I think this deck is trying to be somewhere in the middle of Tezzerator and Gx tron in the sense that we run a lot of silver bullets and ways to get then, and usually this kind of "toobox" deck is a "jack of all trades master of none but better than a master of one", with the added benefit of a better late game.
Yes Merkfolks/Humans will always be our bane because of carvern/vial/swarm and in the case of fish spreading seas to put salt on the wound.
Yes UWx control will always have a better mana base than ours and that mana base will allow then to go Snpcaster Mage > Cryptic Command while in many cases we can't even cast Snpcaster Mage > Remand
So my point is that we should enjoy our strengths (flexibility, adaptability, interactivity, inevitability) and try to live with our weaknesses (slowness, inconsistent mana base, lack of tier 1 removal, lack of value early game self replacing blockers like Wall of Omens) and accept the deck for what it is.
And last but not least, I think the main reason this deck is awesome, it is hard to master, but if you do you can do awesome stuff just like shock and pier have.
360 Pauper Cube The Trinket Box
PDH Decks
Classic Pauper Decks
Dont think this fixes anything but will be fun testing 3 of these
my 2cents about the core of the deck: I think that we need more removal than the traditional shok/pie lists: 2 spatial+2 dismembers are minimum for me (I also try to run a second o-stone main and all is dust in the side - but I don't have enough matches to share my thoughts about them).
The deck is still cool, it's a lot more interactive than mono-g tron (which is a lot more vulnerable to hate just like You said - moon/seas/ponza etc).
Rethinking the deck core is fine and I'm 100% sure that it's needed (for eg. I'm plain with 3 thirst for knowledge for a moment - now I'm a lot more happy when I draw one).
@Jacediscussion: I don't think that Jace brings Us anything valuable - it's just a hype card which is ofc good - but not even close to the "legacyvalue" (there is no brainstorms/ponders + modern is much more creature based format). I'm really fine with more control decks in my meta, it's just cool matchup
cheers!
- Drift of Phantasms (Stops Geist tokens, Freebooter/Mantis Rider, Affinity, etc, and could fetch our 3 CMC cards like O-Stone, TFK, Treasure/Trinket Mage)
- Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch (Another flying defender that has an upside of returning creature back to their owner's hand, probably worse than Drift)
- Torpor Orb (Stops most of Humans triggers, TKS, Flickers from Taxes, etc)
- Commit/Memory (Some people already play it, gets around uncounterable creatures, counts as a sorcery towards Emrakul if you play that)
- Perilous Voyage (better Cyclonic Rift on 2 CMC or less creatuers, scries 2)
- Keiga, the Tide Star (5/5 Flyer that blocks most things and has an upside when it dies, probably too expensive and worse than Wurmcoil)
- Vedalken Plotter (Seen some of these pop up in the Japanese meta, great in Tron matchups)
- Crystal Shard (I've seen the card exactly once in modern from some weird UW taxes deck with Ghostly Prisons and it seemed to be super annoying)
- Flashfreeze (Heck, people run Celestial Purge in their SB's, why not this? There's a ton of RG decks out there right now)
- Curse of the Swine (Probably too expensive, yes definitely too expensive)
- Entrancing Melody (Too cute? I'd play it if it costed a single U source, not double)
- Exhaustion (Could be a timewalk if played right)
I know some of these are just plain ridiculous, but that was the point so we can open up some options.
Modern
Mono U-Tron U
Jeskai Control UWR
EDH
Ezuri, Renegade Leader UG
Tasigur, the Golden Fang UGB
@Dassul regarding the core of the deck, maybe we need to test more cards like Anticipate/Telling Time in order to lower the mana curve and run more removal. The only problem i have is that this can "dilute" our counter package.
@repeatsyx2 you miss Glint-Nest Crane/Omenspeaker, they can be pretty useful digging spells/blocker.
360 Pauper Cube The Trinket Box
PDH Decks
Classic Pauper Decks
Telling Time may be a decent replacement for Thirst. They both provide you a look at 3 cards. Pitching 1 to the gy v. 1 to the bottom is essentially the same*. Caveat being recurring the artifact pitched to Thirst via Ruins. The 1 less CMC of Time means it's played a turn earlier. However, it reduces the ability to hand sculpt, as you only have the 3 you drew to work with and can't discard dead cards in your hand to it. That, I think, is a huge downfall. I'd be curious to see what testing is like with this though.
Also, against Field of ruins and activaled abilities like planes walker or w/e, I'm thinking or retrying from years aggo squelch as a 2 or 3 of. SB ofc.
Modern
Mono U-Tron U
Jeskai Control UWR
EDH
Ezuri, Renegade Leader UG
Tasigur, the Golden Fang UGB
But for agro decks we have to be faster, so my question is why not play serum over thirst?
Currently I run 4 thirsts but why is thirst so much better than serum visions.
Thirst:
3 mana (1blue and 2 colorless)
draws three cards (have to discard 2 or 1 artifact)
instant
Serum:
1 mana (blue)
draws 1 card but scry 2 (you still get to see 3 cards and don't have to discard to grave, and if you bottom deck it can grab it with gifts later)
sorcery
You can play serum turn 1 instead of turn 3, it's a lot cheaper to recast with snapcaster. I understand sorcery speed is not ideal but 3 mana is a lot in the beginning especially if you have to use 2 to crack an expedition map.
I also love torrential as he is my favorite card in the deck and don't understand why more people don't play him (a free gifts when he lands whats not to love?).
@pants1982 : reason for not playing serum visions is that it's an awkward force blue source turn 1, which chains alethemore badly into tron T 3 and it's a sorcery so it means that you will have to commit more often than otherwise your (only) blue source before knowing if you would need it for a counterspell on that turn.
I myself often keep a blue up in the first 2-4 turns, but on the first match, playing a tron land mislead people to understand that you play green tron, giving you a little advantage on surprise, as little as it can be, it's something. Also, no t4 mindslaver were achieved by putting blue on the first turn, which is, again, often an instant win against powerdeck like valakut, abzan, etc.
There are numerous plays you can make by setting up your trun as early as possible: I.E. if you play any Ulamog in you version of the deck.
Just wanted to stop in and ask for some feedback on my list. I recently bought into the deck on MTGO, and took my test 75 out for a quick spin. While it did decently, I felt like it needed a bit of tweaking, so this is what I've ended up with:
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Expedition Map
2 Oblivion Stone
1 Mindslaver
Creatures (8)
1 Platinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
2 Treasure Mage
2 Trinket Mage
1 Walking Ballista
1 Wurmcoil Engine
Instants (18)
4 Condescend
2 Cyclonic Rift
4 Remand
4 Repeal
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Lands (24)
1 Academy Ruins
2 Field of Ruin
1 Gemstone Caverns
6 Island
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Tolaria West
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Dismember
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Spatial Contortion
4 Spreading Seas
1 Walking Ballista
1 Wurmcoil Engine
So far, the untested elements are Cyclonic Rift and Field of Ruin, but I'm fairly confident they address a need based on what I've seen so far. I had some Solemn Simulacrums in here before, but they underwhelmed me, so I cut them. I was also rather disappointed by Gemstone Caverns (I got it in my opener twice, but the extra mana wasn't really all that helpful), but I'm willing to give that card another shot. Any feedback or advice is welcome.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
My another "deck rethink" problem are "mages" which are only sorcery speed blue spells in the deck - I wonder, what If we will cut them (for some instant cantrip or better - supreme wills/second o-stone?) Ofc this mean that we need to choose carefully Our win condition package (sundering titan, EE and platinum for sure goes to the bench)
I think about some kind of versatile winconditions (without search power of trinket/treasure mage), lets say:
2x walking ballista (It's a powerhouse, and 2 is enough to draw and to fech with tolaria west)
2x wurmcoil engine (powerhouse against most nonwhite decks)
2x mindslaver (usualy I run him as a 1-of but without "fetchers" it's too low number to relay on it)
1x Eugene
And that will be Our typical 7. With this - 2-3 chalices and at last 2 oblivion stones (but I can imagine that 3 can be cool number at last before sideboarding - where stony silence comes in).
Ofc body from treasure/trinket mage is great - but lets be serious, how often You cast "mage" on turn 3 (or later but without possible play from tron lands online?) - I do this very rare and I always feel that I played badly (this open mana is still a danger for opponent). These two guys are our only sorcery speed blue spells in the deck, can't we really change them with smth better?
About cutting the mages, we would have no way of tutoring, which is very bad imo; also, the body of the mages often gives us a whole turn by simply chump-blocking. If we were to cut mages, I'd say we get our 4th Repeal back in and we take like fabricate (one of) or gifts for later game. Although it recudes the kind of play being T3 mage, T4 titan, it is still, indeed a fair point saying that it almost never occurs.
Fabricate is a very strong tutor for lategame and gifts good is a late-er tutor. Because, if we are not to play artifact tutor, I'd fill in things like Ulamog or Endbrigner or any other kind of eldrazi/huge wincon that are not necessarily artifact. Tho it expands our pissible threats pool, it would reduce the consistency or tempo on them happening.
I'd still keep Tolaria since it tutor lands and ballista which is nuts.