I play both decks (and i think so does cksboy15(I SEE YOU LURKING IN THERE SOMETIMES))and I think U-tron is actually one of Skred's worst match ups. I think I'm 1 win 10 losses against U-tron. We simply can't close out the game quickly enough. Blood Moon is nice, but it usually just gets bounced at the end of turn before dropping a big threat that we usually can't come back from. Bring in Rabblemasters, land destruction, and artifact hate. Keep bolts because they offer reach, and ditch the sweepers and Skreds. Koth is actually an MVP in this matchup because they can't repeal him before we can animate a land, and generally have a hard time dealing with him if he resolves. Chalice on 4 makes our deck cry, but luckily very few people do it against us.
You can try to oversideboard for them, but I'm not even sure how you would do that. Rabblemaster is good, but susceptible to dismember and Spatial Contortion, and any of their counterspells.
I lurk everywhere. I carry around roughly 7 modern decks, 4 edh decks, 2 legacy decks, and a vintage deck on me wherever I go. Used to carry around a cube too, but I ran out of space for my moden decks.
I can agree that U-Tron is probably the worst non combo matchup Skred has, happily only like 6 people have ever played the deck.
I think it is rather bad (much worse than Hangarback) and without some kind of "Proliferate" type tricks to grow it it s very slow and clunky.
It's got its benefits. It may be a strict upgrade for Pyrite spellbomb and not hangarbacks.
Colorless, instant source of damage to creatures or players. Real nice against infect, delver flips, early mana dorks.
Mana sink late game to pump its P/T. Synergies with all our planeswalkers, just like Stormbreath.
I think it's worth a shot
How is it any better than Pyrite Spellbomb ?
At the very least it costs 2 mana for 1 damage which is very inefficient.
Pyrite costs 1 to cast and 1 top "pop" and deals 2 damage or cycles.
Wasting 4 mana to put counters on it isn't particularly effective as well imho unless you have nothing else to do with your mana meaning that you're probably going to lose anyway.
It's a much better late game draw. There are rather limited instances where the difference between 1 and 2 damage matters. It's generally there to kill infecters and their manlands. You don't have to leave mana up to activate it. It's pump and sac abilities can be used multiple times in a turn. We have planeswalkers that generate mana. The only disadvantage I see is that it doesn't cantrip, but otherwise it seems to do everything spellbomb is in the deck to accomplish.
An example against infect: You play a T1 spellbomb, blow it up T2. 2 mana spent. Or on T2 you play Ballista and still have the ability to blow up their minions. Same 2 mana spent. Fast forward to T8, this guy become a 4/4, maybe 5/5 drop, with the ability to grow larger the next turn when he swings.
just picked this deck up and i really like it. i was wondering what the opinion is of godo, bandit warlord in conjuunction with batterskull. seems like a good way to end the game quick and you get instant value from godo since he grabs batterskull anyways.
In that case I wouldn't bother with trap. Sure it redirects a counter spell, but Reverberate is the better card in that kind of matchup as it has more practical uses. If your going to sideboard specifically for U-Tron more artifact destruction is just plain better. All their game winning threats besides Ugin, The Spirit Dragon is an artifact. The best card to play vs U-Tron is Smash to Smithereens along side Shattering Spree as it deals damage to help us apply pressure and destroys Platinum Angel, Sundering Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Chalice of the Void, [Oblivion Stone[/card], and Ect.
That and just be more Threat Dense so board in creatures like Goblin Rabblemaster, your Stormbreath Dragons and such since most U-Tron lists only really run something like 7-8 counterspells in their full 75. Eventually you'll get a threat on the table.
That and while Blood Moon won't win you the game, it goes a long way in helping you keep up with any mana acceleration they might have.
Noted, thanks!! I actually had a misconception that U-tron has tons of counters. With only 7-8, I guess you can bulldog a threat or 2 into the board without having to lean on trap.
99% of u tron lists are going to have atleast 8 counterspells main. 4 remand and 4 condescend. some also run spellburst. against skred red they are likely to bring in spell pierce as an answer to plainswalkers and blood moon. in my experience as a u tron player playing against skred, blood moon is close to worthless. i'll just wait until i have assembled tron and have a win con ready, eot repeal your blood moon and that's all she wrote. pithing needle is good out of the board though, as you can name ugin or mindslaver, which will be the go to win cons against skred. wurmcoil, mindslaver, and ugin stay in. platinum and sundering go out.
In that case I wouldn't bother with trap. Sure it redirects a counter spell, but Reverberate is the better card in that kind of matchup as it has more practical uses. If your going to sideboard specifically for U-Tron more artifact destruction is just plain better. All their game winning threats besides Ugin, The Spirit Dragon is an artifact. The best card to play vs U-Tron is Smash to Smithereens along side Shattering Spree as it deals damage to help us apply pressure and destroys Platinum Angel, Sundering Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Chalice of the Void, [Oblivion Stone[/card], and Ect.
That and just be more Threat Dense so board in creatures like Goblin Rabblemaster, your Stormbreath Dragons and such since most U-Tron lists only really run something like 7-8 counterspells in their full 75. Eventually you'll get a threat on the table.
That and while Blood Moon won't win you the game, it goes a long way in helping you keep up with any mana acceleration they might have.
Noted, thanks!! I actually had a misconception that U-tron has tons of counters. With only 7-8, I guess you can bulldog a threat or 2 into the board without having to lean on trap.
99% of u tron lists are going to have atleast 8 counterspells main. 4 remand and 4 condescend. some also run spellburst. against skred red they are likely to bring in spell pierce as an answer to plainswalkers and blood moon. in my experience as a u tron player playing against skred, blood moon is close to worthless. i'll just wait until i have assembled tron and have a win con ready, eot repeal your blood moon and that's all she wrote. pithing needle is good out of the board though, as you can name ugin or mindslaver, which will be the go to win cons against skred. wurmcoil, mindslaver, and ugin stay in. platinum and sundering go out.
Yeah that sounds like a terrible matchup when you put it that way.
In that case I wouldn't bother with trap. Sure it redirects a counter spell, but Reverberate is the better card in that kind of matchup as it has more practical uses. If your going to sideboard specifically for U-Tron more artifact destruction is just plain better. All their game winning threats besides Ugin, The Spirit Dragon is an artifact. The best card to play vs U-Tron is Smash to Smithereens along side Shattering Spree as it deals damage to help us apply pressure and destroys Platinum Angel, Sundering Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Chalice of the Void, [Oblivion Stone[/card], and Ect.
That and just be more Threat Dense so board in creatures like Goblin Rabblemaster, your Stormbreath Dragons and such since most U-Tron lists only really run something like 7-8 counterspells in their full 75. Eventually you'll get a threat on the table.
That and while Blood Moon won't win you the game, it goes a long way in helping you keep up with any mana acceleration they might have.
Noted, thanks!! I actually had a misconception that U-tron has tons of counters. With only 7-8, I guess you can bulldog a threat or 2 into the board without having to lean on trap.
99% of u tron lists are going to have atleast 8 counterspells main. 4 remand and 4 condescend. some also run spellburst. against skred red they are likely to bring in spell pierce as an answer to plainswalkers and blood moon. in my experience as a u tron player playing against skred, blood moon is close to worthless. i'll just wait until i have assembled tron and have a win con ready, eot repeal your blood moon and that's all she wrote. pithing needle is good out of the board though, as you can name ugin or mindslaver, which will be the go to win cons against skred. wurmcoil, mindslaver, and ugin stay in. platinum and sundering go out.
Yeah that sounds like a terrible matchup when you put it that way.
i'm not saying it's unwinnable, just that we shouldn't look at that match up as being the same as the rg tron match up. they are totally different animals. we do have main deck hate for their slaver combo and sideboard cards, so it's not as if there are ways for us to beat u tron.
also landing a scourge could be one of the most powerful things we do against them. prob best to bring in molten rain to keep them off tron rather than b moon
just picked this deck up and i really like it. i was wondering what the opinion is of godo, bandit warlord in conjuunction with batterskull. seems like a good way to end the game quick and you get instant value from godo since he grabs batterskull anyways.
Honestly, Godo usually gets bolted because we don't have any creatures worth bolting, so our opponents will usually have one in hand. But thats perfectly fine because we still get a Batterskull. For 1 extra mana, we gain so much potential that it easily outweights the downsides.
If you want to run Godo, I suggest that you run x2 batterskulls or at least a sword so that he doesn't whiff.
ps. Batterskull also sometimes runs into a similar problem as Godo where the opponent may have an Abrupt Decay with no targets, and the Germ becomes a target.
I got bored last night and played against myself with U tron vs Skred, and it is as bad as I remembered. I let Skred start every game, and let u tron keep questionable hands, and I think the end score was still like 1-5. The matchup actually doesn't feel that bad because the tron player usually falls to very low life and it seems close, but utron is able to consistently stop the skred deck dead in it's tracks.
For blood moon, some of the time I don't even want to spend a turn dropping it because it's so worthless, but it still feels like a necessary thing that I must do.
how many people are running Batterskull over Stormbreath Dragon? wondering how that's worked out? there's a lot of artifact hate in my meta so I'm pretty leery of including it in my list.
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currently playing
(Modern)
RG RG Titanshift RG WUBR Affinity WUBR x Eldrazi Tron x UG Tropical Merfolk UG
In that case I wouldn't bother with trap. Sure it redirects a counter spell, but Reverberate is the better card in that kind of matchup as it has more practical uses. If your going to sideboard specifically for U-Tron more artifact destruction is just plain better. All their game winning threats besides Ugin, The Spirit Dragon is an artifact. The best card to play vs U-Tron is Smash to Smithereens along side Shattering Spree as it deals damage to help us apply pressure and destroys Platinum Angel, Sundering Titan, Wurmcoil Engine, Chalice of the Void, [Oblivion Stone[/card], and Ect.
That and just be more Threat Dense so board in creatures like Goblin Rabblemaster, your Stormbreath Dragons and such since most U-Tron lists only really run something like 7-8 counterspells in their full 75. Eventually you'll get a threat on the table.
That and while Blood Moon won't win you the game, it goes a long way in helping you keep up with any mana acceleration they might have.
Noted, thanks!! I actually had a misconception that U-tron has tons of counters. With only 7-8, I guess you can bulldog a threat or 2 into the board without having to lean on trap.
99% of u tron lists are going to have atleast 8 counterspells main. 4 remand and 4 condescend. some also run spellburst. against skred red they are likely to bring in spell pierce as an answer to plainswalkers and blood moon. in my experience as a u tron player playing against skred, blood moon is close to worthless. i'll just wait until i have assembled tron and have a win con ready, eot repeal your blood moon and that's all she wrote. pithing needle is good out of the board though, as you can name ugin or mindslaver, which will be the go to win cons against skred. wurmcoil, mindslaver, and ugin stay in. platinum and sundering go out.
Yeah that sounds like a terrible matchup when you put it that way.
i'm not saying it's unwinnable, just that we shouldn't look at that match up as being the same as the rg tron match up. they are totally different animals. we do have main deck hate for their slaver combo and sideboard cards, so it's not as if there are ways for us to beat u tron.
also landing a scourge could be one of the most powerful things we do against them. prob best to bring in molten rain to keep them off tron rather than b moon
Thanks for that =) I haven't picked up and played yet coz i'm still waiting for my last koth in the mail.. What's the approach vs RG tron??
And speaking of RG, if there's no scapeshift in my meta, is sudden shock still a good card for sideboard??
Sudden Shock is great against Infect, Affinity, and I bring it in against Merfolk to prevent them from flashing lords in combat and to pick off lone lords without the threat of a counter spell. Maybe not the correct card against them, but it works.
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Sudden Shock is great against Infect, Affinity, and I bring it in against Merfolk to prevent them from flashing lords in combat and to pick off lone lords without the threat of a counter spell. Maybe not the correct card against them, but it works.
Nice. Thanks man. Lol I feel bad that all I do in this thread is ask questions and thank people =)) When I get my last koth hopefully I can start contributing something hahaha
One thing Skred Red has always lacked is an efficient and good 2 drop - what about Kari Zev, Skyship Raider? i think this is a very strong play especially folowed up by boros reckoner... Alot of times the skred play is turn two drop mindstone or coldsteel heart then cast Reckoner etc and they come down with a kill spell. But an effiecent turn two play makes them have to decide to kill it or not... not sure needs testing
I don't see how this is any better than a Stormblood Berserker if you can activate "bloodthirst"
(which is admitedly harder in "Skred Red" than in a dedicated aggro deck).
I also think that Ash Zealot might be better as well.
I'm not sure about Kari Zev in particular, but the idea of having a useful creature drop to fill in the gap between threats is interesting and something I've thought about as well. I'm not usually dying to do something on turn 2, but I see what you mean when you look at the gap in the mana curve.
Stormblood seems too hard to turn on. Ash Zealot is interesting, but a potential nonbo with our Relics.
I've been meaning to test out Lightning Berserker. The combination of the dash ability and firebreathing has some interesting implications in my opinion:
- Dash allows her to not interfere with our sweepers and makes her immune to sorcery speed removal
- 1 drop, so any removal the opponent uses is equal/favorable for us
- Firebreathing allows flexibility to jump in and swing, and only commit mana after blockers are declared. Also possible to threaten favorable trades against larger creatures when left on defense with mana up
- decent top deck late game as a mana dump
I definitely wouldn't say the deck "needs" a creature like this, but I've been in situations where it could have been nice.
That all said, I still think Mind Stone is the perfect turn 2 play when possible. If not, playing a 2 mana removal spell or leaving mana up for Bolt/Skred is pretty valid.
I know our game against Jund is supposed to be good, but what do you do when they've got a grip of discard spells? Those seem to be our biggest weakness from that particular deck.
To be fair, "dies to Bolt/Push" isn't always a reason to avoid using a card. We're not going to drop Koth because the animated mountains die to Push, for example. It's just something to be aware of.
Against Jund, just try to keep a lot of threats in your opening hand. Their first discard spell has to take your Blood Moon, so it protects the Mind Stone > turn 3 Koth play which is amazing in response to a turn 3 Liliana. If they have more discard, the game quickly becomes a top deck war, and we have a ton of late game threats. Hold your Relics until absolutely necessary to keep Goyf/Scooze under control.
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I lurk everywhere. I carry around roughly 7 modern decks, 4 edh decks, 2 legacy decks, and a vintage deck on me wherever I go. Used to carry around a cube too, but I ran out of space for my moden decks.
I can agree that U-Tron is probably the worst non combo matchup Skred has, happily only like 6 people have ever played the deck.
How is it any better than Pyrite Spellbomb ?
At the very least it costs 2 mana for 1 damage which is very inefficient.
Pyrite costs 1 to cast and 1 top "pop" and deals 2 damage or cycles.
Wasting 4 mana to put counters on it isn't particularly effective as well imho unless you have nothing else to do with your mana meaning that you're probably going to lose anyway.
I don't understand what synergy it has with PW's.
An example against infect: You play a T1 spellbomb, blow it up T2. 2 mana spent. Or on T2 you play Ballista and still have the ability to blow up their minions. Same 2 mana spent. Fast forward to T8, this guy become a 4/4, maybe 5/5 drop, with the ability to grow larger the next turn when he swings.
Yeah that sounds like a terrible matchup when you put it that way.
also landing a scourge could be one of the most powerful things we do against them. prob best to bring in molten rain to keep them off tron rather than b moon
If you want to run Godo, I suggest that you run x2 batterskulls or at least a sword so that he doesn't whiff.
ps. Batterskull also sometimes runs into a similar problem as Godo where the opponent may have an Abrupt Decay with no targets, and the Germ becomes a target.
I got bored last night and played against myself with U tron vs Skred, and it is as bad as I remembered. I let Skred start every game, and let u tron keep questionable hands, and I think the end score was still like 1-5. The matchup actually doesn't feel that bad because the tron player usually falls to very low life and it seems close, but utron is able to consistently stop the skred deck dead in it's tracks.
For blood moon, some of the time I don't even want to spend a turn dropping it because it's so worthless, but it still feels like a necessary thing that I must do.
(Modern)
RG RG Titanshift RG
WUBR Affinity WUBR
x Eldrazi Tron x
UG Tropical Merfolk UG
(Pauper)
G Elves G
WURG Affinity WURG
Thanks for that =) I haven't picked up and played yet coz i'm still waiting for my last koth in the mail.. What's the approach vs RG tron??
And speaking of RG, if there's no scapeshift in my meta, is sudden shock still a good card for sideboard??
Nice. Thanks man. Lol I feel bad that all I do in this thread is ask questions and thank people =)) When I get my last koth hopefully I can start contributing something hahaha
(which is admitedly harder in "Skred Red" than in a dedicated aggro deck).
I also think that Ash Zealot might be better as well.
Stormblood seems too hard to turn on. Ash Zealot is interesting, but a potential nonbo with our Relics.
I've been meaning to test out Lightning Berserker. The combination of the dash ability and firebreathing has some interesting implications in my opinion:
- Dash allows her to not interfere with our sweepers and makes her immune to sorcery speed removal
- 1 drop, so any removal the opponent uses is equal/favorable for us
- Firebreathing allows flexibility to jump in and swing, and only commit mana after blockers are declared. Also possible to threaten favorable trades against larger creatures when left on defense with mana up
- decent top deck late game as a mana dump
I definitely wouldn't say the deck "needs" a creature like this, but I've been in situations where it could have been nice.
That all said, I still think Mind Stone is the perfect turn 2 play when possible. If not, playing a 2 mana removal spell or leaving mana up for Bolt/Skred is pretty valid.
Legacy: Merfolk U; Shadow UB; Eldrazi Stompy C
Pauper: Delver U
Vintage: Merfolk U
Primers:
I know our game against Jund is supposed to be good, but what do you do when they've got a grip of discard spells? Those seem to be our biggest weakness from that particular deck.
Against Jund, just try to keep a lot of threats in your opening hand. Their first discard spell has to take your Blood Moon, so it protects the Mind Stone > turn 3 Koth play which is amazing in response to a turn 3 Liliana. If they have more discard, the game quickly becomes a top deck war, and we have a ton of late game threats. Hold your Relics until absolutely necessary to keep Goyf/Scooze under control.