because of a lot of KCi and storm online, ive got 2 trini in my board nowadays. gives all t he time we need
I've been considering Trinisphere lately. Why isn't it ubiquitous? It seems to help in a lot of poor match ups. It certainly isn't a catch-all for combo decks (CoCo and Scapeshift dodge it easily), but it seems powerful enough that I'd expect to see more people play it.
It's not ubiquitous because it's really only good in a few matchups. Generally speaking the more commonly played sideboard cards combat the tougher matches well enough while covering more bases. For example, If you really wanna beat KCI and Storm in particular, just play more Surgical Extractions. That way you also gain points against decks like Hollow One, Dredge, RG Vengevine and any Primeval Titan decks too.
Cascading Cataracts says yes. You only need one, so it can replace your Ghost Quarter (in most lists) if you're not afraid of Crumble to Dust.
I got bored and cast Violent Ultimatum off it one night. Because suddenly Tron needs BBRRRGG. Honestly you can cast whatever you want if you go this route; I don't think it's especially good, but it makes Tron a bit more fun to play and doesn't require much change.
Can anyone give me sideboarding advice for playing against bant spirits. I had a very third time this evening in 2 matches against it because it was o-stone or bust and hope they have not played selfless spirit. I am playing sicsmoo list card for card.
Can anyone give me sideboarding advice for playing against bant spirits. I had a very third time this evening in 2 matches against it because it was o-stone or bust and hope they have not played selfless spirit. I am playing sicsmoo list card for card.
Thank you
I think I'd probably go +2 Nature's Claim, +3 Spatial Contortion/-2 Relic, -2 Karn, -1 Sphere. On the draw -1 Ulamog +1 Warping Wail. Something like that. I'll think about it a bit and add it to the guide.
EDIT: Done. My list is in flux at the moment but I'm still on 2 World Breakers, which are not present in the guide list. This is another matchup the card is very good in.
I played in an 81 person PPTQ on Sunday, and ended up in 12th place after losing my win-and-in for Top 8. I'm pretty satisfied with how the deck performed overall, but control was a definite nuisance.
Round 1: 1-2 loss to Titanshift [0-1]
Round 2: 2-1 win over Bogles [1-1]
Round 3: 2-0 win over Mardu Mancer [2-1]
Round 4: 2-0 win over UW Miracles [3-1]
Round 5: 2-0 win over Mardu Mancer [4-1]
Round 6: 2-1 win over Druid CoCo [5-1]
Round 7: 0-2 loss to Jeskai Control [5-2]
It was unfortunate that my first loss came in round 1, otherwise I'd have likely been able to draw into the top 8 in round 7. But I'm quite happy to have ripped off 5 wins in a row to put myself in a position to make the top 8 after losing the first round. Mardu mancer is a bye, the closest I came to losing a game was being beat down with spirits through opponents ensnaring bridge, but o-stone eventually took care of that before I got to bolt range. Keeping in some number of Karns is definitely doable as it is another out to Ensnaring bridge, even if the card is not the greatest against token creature strategies. Spatial took out the bogles player's kor spiritdancer in game two, which was their first creature that game, and in game 3 I played ugin on turn 4 on the play.
The first match of the day was a heartbreaker, I actually had the literal nuts game 1: T3 Karn, T4 Karn, T5 Karn, and stirrings into T6 Karn to have my opponent at zero lands and they scoop. Game 2 I didn't do anything and they scapeshifted me on turn 4. Game 3 I had an opening 6 card hand of guaranteed T3 tron with wurmcoilx2, so I kept. Opponent plays T2 damping sphere, and literally does nothing but land drops for 5 or more turns while I get stuck on 5 lands and 2 wurms in hand. It was a definite mistake to not bring in claims for sphere, it turns out they are running 3 copies in the board quite often.
UW Miracles felt like our easiest control matchup because they are focused more on cheating terminus and are super slow to win the game. Jeskai was quite rough because my opening hands were below average in both games, followed by my opponent drawing more field of ruins than i did tron lands. Because they have bolt-snap-bolt, they can end games quite fast and that presents a problem for when you factor in field of ruin taking us off tron and keeping us off ulamog/worldbreaker mana. While I've been thinking of going to 2 world breakers in the 75 to help control matchups, I'm considering using surgical extractions to limit how much the opponent can slow us/our threats down. I would first aim for path to exile, which would make wurmcoil, world breaker, and ulamog much bigger threats. Supreme verdict and teferi minus abilities will not deal with these cards well at all. Second I would go for cryptic, because it is their most universally applied counterspell and it could be used to chain tap us out of attack phases. Lastly. If the opponent plays and uses field of ruin on turn 3, I think it would be worth it to surgical away the rest of their copies, even if it's short of a full playset. I will be testing surgicals out against UW, jeskai, and esper control. I feel some thing needs to be done to gain percentage points against these decks. What do you guys think of surgical against control, to win the battle of attrition?
What do you guys think of surgical against druid combo, aiming for druid or vizier? On one hand board removsl may be enough, but things can get scary when they start CoCoing on our end step, and it would be nice to shut that down by taking away one of the combo pieces asap. A corner case outside of the obvious would be to snag CoCo from their GY after they try to ewitness it back to hand.
Sicsmoo, what are you using dismember for post-board against Titanshift? Sideboard tracker and baloth? I'm thinking it's the most expendable card to make room for claims, as I would like the extra draw off of a relic as the matchup is a total race.
Edit: I did use sicsmoo's SB guide for the tournament for the most part, it was quite useful as I'm just coming back to th3 deck and it saved me lots of time. So thanks for that!
Titan Shift: I feel your pain. I'm 0-6 against it this month. Damping Sphere was a huge boon for them. Yeah, the Dismember is there for Tireless Tracker as that card can easily take the game over on its own. Has happened to me multiple times after I've Surgicaled their Valakuts. What I've done recently though is kept 2 O-Stone post-board along with the 2 Claims, and leaving Dismember out. That way you have 4 things that kill Damping Sphere, as well as some insurance against Tracker. That might be the best way to go. But it's a tough one no matter what your configuration.
Control: I still prefer to play against Jeskai even though they have the burn plan, simply because they have fewer Field of Ruins and Stony Silences than UW (2-3 vs 4 and 0-1 vs 2, respectively). Those are the really annoying cards. UW usually doesn't actually kill you as fast, but they can get really far ahead really quickly. I've died many times to turn 3 Field, turn 4 Field, turn 5 Teferi holding up multiple counters out of UW. And also some people still play the traditional version with 4 Spreading Seas on top of the 4 Field. I HATE playing against UW. Jeskai isn't that bad. The second Breaker does help if you want more percentage points in these matchups. Crucible of Worlds is another good one I've dabbled with recently.
Surgical: Ehhh. I've tested it against control here and there but never stuck with it long-term. It's just a really high-variance card if you're bringing it in for grindy matchups like these. Sometimes it'll be fantastic when you hit their Field or Cryptic when they have another in hand, sometimes you'll just hit the one in the graveyard and lose because you don't have the extra cantrip, tutor or a threat you need. If you're already bringing in Claims against these decks and add Surgicals, thats a lot of air if things don't line up correctly. I think consistency and card advantage is more important in these matchups.
For CoCo: possibly? You have to be able to kill one of their guys first to be able to Surgical it, and then you have less threats in your deck assuming that's what you're cutting to make room for them. So then you're more susceptible to their beatdown plan. I personally don't see the need for it - using spot removal into sweeper feels fine to me. Only their excellent draws (combo pieces in hand/multiple tutors/good CoCo hits) are gonna beat that.
Well, big PPTQ coming this Sat. My LGS was out of spots on Tuesday I got managed to get one of the last slots. I'm leaning Heavily towards Tron. I was thinking about cutting the World Breaker's this weekend in favor of 2 Dismember's. My gut tells me this is a knee jerk reaction to the rise of Humans again. Tested against it last night and was able to have a decent win rate against it without those removal pieces but I did rely on drawing Ugin more than I liked. Thoughts on this?
Also was thinking about Surgical's and All is Dust in my Sb but I'm so used to the build I have right now. That said after eyeing what some locals are thinking about bringing I have begun to ponder changes. MTGO and local metas are very different so I may gun to beat what people have in my area more than the greater MTGO meta's encompass.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
Well it's funny, after praising World Breaker so much I've actually gone back down to 1 as the meta has shifted online. Humans is indeed very popular again and I've gone up to 3 Ballistas in response and they've been insane for me there, and against the Spirits decks which are seeing a lot of play as well. I'm also on 3 Surgical in the side now to try to combat the Stitcher's Supplier Vengevine deck which is out there in numbers. Also have had an All Is Dust in the 75, which is good against all the decks I've mentioned plus Elves which rises to fight Humans.
I'd like to tru Blue/Green Tron Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augor and Frost Titan. What other good big blue drops are useful outside hard casting Turn cards. What blue stuff can help out early game?
I'd like to tru Blue/Green Tron Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augor and Frost Titan. What other good big blue drops are useful outside hard casting Turn cards. What blue stuff can help out early game?
Blue doesn't really offer much for Gx builds, but if you really want to try it:
* Bombs: Inkwell Leviathan and Tidespout Tyrant are two powerful blue bombs, but the multiple colored symbols in the cost can be an issue.
* Early Game Interaction: Reality Shift or Pongify/Rapid Hybridization can work as removal, but they leave behind a body. You can also try counterspells with only one colored symbol like Condescend or Remand. Maybe bounce spells like Repeal and Cyclonic Rift?
Well it's funny, after praising World Breaker so much I've actually gone back down to 1 as the meta has shifted online. Humans is indeed very popular again and I've gone up to 3 Ballistas in response and they've been insane for me there, and against the Spirits decks which are seeing a lot of play as well. I'm also on 3 Surgical in the side now to try to combat the Stitcher's Supplier Vengevine deck which is out there in numbers. Also have had an All Is Dust in the 75, which is good against all the decks I've mentioned plus Elves which rises to fight Humans.
I think Spirits is definitely a problem, I haven't stood a chance unless it's fast Ugin. Is it time to -1 O-Stone MB, -1 Wail SB for AID in those slots?
Surprisingly, I haven't had problems vs. Scapeshift. They don't really interact against us, so it's a race that we sometimes just win.
Hmm, I'm not sure that Spirits is a problem. It feels a lot like the Humans matchup to me - they have some draws that we just can't beat but overall we should be able to overpower them. My record so far is 7-2. O-Stone is a bit worse against them because they have Selfless Spirit and Queller, but if they don't have either it's still our best card. All is Dust is slightly better but can still get taxed by Mausoleum Wanderer making it tough to cast. I don't really like the idea of less than 4 O-Stone simply due to Damping Sphere existing but it's possible it's worth it. I actually had my 5-0 list published yesterday with an All is Dust in the main, but this was in addition to 4 Stone and 2 Ugin. I'm constantly tweaking the list right now as the meta feels very much in flux.
I've been off Warping Wail for a while now. It feels very medium in this meta.
Scapeshift - yeah it's weird. Before this month I was 50/50 against it (12/12), but just been getting crapped on recently. A bit of variance for sure.
The other decks I've been seeing a lot are the Vengevine Bridge deck and Infect, both of which are giving me a hard time. I've been on 4 Surgical in the side to fight Vengevine, but Infect is just not realistic to beat without warping the deck a ton.
You'd think there would be tons of Mardu around to fight all the Humans, Spirits and Infect but amazingly I haven't seen it once in the last 19(!) leagues. So my winrate is suffering a bit right now.
Yeah, that vengevine bridge deck is everywhere right now. Ive been seeing a ton of it and burn, so not playing near as much tron right now. Regarding spirits, I've played a good amount of bant spirits and I think Tron is certainly favored. I would probably be running an all is dust as a 5th sweeper that dodges queller, and a third ballista to interact with the go wide draws of bridgevine and spirits, also to have a creature that can clear out turn 1 2 bridges in the yard for 0 mana if I wanted.
want to thank sicsmoo for your work on the sb guide you provided. I took tron to a 2nd place finish at my local 1k/ pptq. 96 player turn out. I lost to kci in the finals but i took it to 3. opponent tried to cheat in g3 but hey a friend caught it. will post a write up later! this forum has been really helpful.
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Standard Arena: Eh? Gruul or Die
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now: G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record) C Eldrazi Tron (9-5) UG Infect RW Burn
I arrived at the location about 30 min early. Made myself comfy, put my iphone ear buds on and turned to Dream Theater's "Lines in the Sand" from Falling into Infinity album for some sharpening of the mind. Lot of players to say hi to, but I waved from afar and kept my mind on the what I wanted to happen:
"Play techincally well, SB well, know your position in the match and be flexible"
Round 1
2-0 Win Vs Dredge
Notable plays: Opponent missed 4 Amalgam Triggers at his End Step. He had set aside the Amalgams, but said "Pass Turn", which I quickly did, I untapped cracked my star, and drew a card. My opponent realized he missed a trigger, calls a Judge and tries to say that I didn't give him a have a chance to finish his turn. The Judge asks us both what was said and after he tried to fudge his wording he nodded and said " I said Pass Turn". That Bought me an extra Turn to Find Ugin and I followed up with Karn.
R2
2-0 Win Vs Mardu Pyromancer
Teammate and upcoming grinder in our area. This was a bad match up for him and he knew that. Not much happens here that we don't already know.
R3
2-1 Win Vs Mardu Pyromancer
Opponent was much better prepared for me and G2 saw him hit 2 Molten Rain's and Wear // Tear on my T1 Map. Yep...G3, we both mull. I have natural Tron. Ugin Comes down at some point and he scoops.
R4
2-1 Win Vs GR Tron
Another Local. We knew what was up, he wins the Die roll. He wins G1. G2 I'm on the play, Land Karn followed by World Breaker. G3, I have an early Ghost Quarter, and chose to take him off Tron on his T3. This buys me 2 turns. He gets a little cocky and casts Crumble to Dust on my Towers. He says "This is over now right?" I look at him and tap 2 Lands and cast Warping Wail. He gasps and doesn't have a good follow up. I get my last tron piece and start slam Karn.
R5
1-2 Loss vs Bant Eldrazi
NO!! My favorite modern deck and a match up I know in and out. It's not favorable for Tron and I lose in 3. Displacer is huge and G3 he blinks away my TKS's and swings past for 11.
R6
2-0 Win Vs Grixis Death Shadow
This was probably the easiest match of the day. G1 I had natural Tron and got O'Stone down early. He countered a few things before running out of gas. G2, he mulled to 5, and that's all she wrote.
R7 ID (Alex on Burn) We are both locked into Top 8. I'm 5th and he is 6th.
Quarter Finals/Top 8:
2-1 Win Vs BR Hollow One
Whelp G1 he has one of the best starts I've seen in paper, he mills all 4 Pheonix's and has a T1 Adept and Hollow One. I die quickly. G2, I keep a hand that seems a bit sketchy but I get clever. I figure that if he casts Burning Inquiry that allows me to draw 10 cards in my opener. The chances of my drawing a 2nd Tron is high so I keep and bank on him doing that. He did and I managed to keep my maps and lands. He lands a T1 Hollow one but I get tron on line and land a T3 Karn. I -3, exile something, it gets bolted. I follow with Wurmcoil and then an Ulamog exiles more things. G3, was hard I had a strong opening sequence namely T3 Tron into O'stone into Ulamogs. WOO! Semis
Semi Finals:
2-0 Win Vs Humans
My opponent is a very good player, and is fresh off the last Pro Tour. We have always had great matches of magic but we both wanted to get the finals. We have some friendly banter and then get started (I have a massive Headache at this point). In my testing I think Tron is favored against Humans, and after memorizing Sicsmoo's guide I am confident I can take it. I get an early O-Stone on board and sit back patiently. he gets an amazing start with Mantis Rider backed by Noble, and on T3 he copies it. BLAH! I get my O Stone down and start appreciating being on the play. My O'Stone wipes the board in T4 and I have Ugin to clean things up. G2 wasn't much of a game, he has a very good start with a T1 Vial, and 3x Champions but he misses his 2 land drop. I Get to a T4 Ugin.
Finals!
1-2 Loss to KCI
Yeah my configuration wasn't set up to beat this and I was really kicking myself for not putting 2-3 Surgical's in my SB. Well he goes off T4 I die. G2 was close, I Nature's Claim an early Mind Stone. I wanted to buy myself 1-2 Turns, and it mattered. I got to a T4 Karn, - on his land, and follow up with T5 Ulamog and exiled his 2 lands. G3, well...I saw some hot tech from him, Silence. He did this 2 turns in a row and that pretty much did me in. Without that card, I know I win that match since I had T3 tron and a fist full of Eldrazi + Karn.
In retrospect I should've been better prepared for KCI but I know my meta. There are only 3-4 player on it and in a room of 95 I figured my SB would be better suited to beat the open field rather than gun for 1 deck. It paid off, and while losing in the finals sucks I'm still happy with my performance. There will be a yotube vid of the final match soon.I had a massive headache in Rd 10 so I'm sure I didn't play that match optimally. I mulligan'd a large % of my hands. After reading Owen's article I started to look at my openers very differently, and it paid off.
Nice report. Looks like the 3 Relics main was a good call based on your matchups. Countering Crumble with Wail must have felt great. Curious why you played the 5th Forest over a 3rd tech land though - were you expecting a lot of Field of Ruin/GQs?
Hmm, I'm not sure that Spirits is a problem. It feels a lot like the Humans matchup to me - they have some draws that we just can't beat but overall we should be able to overpower them. My record so far is 7-2. O-Stone is a bit worse against them because they have Selfless Spirit and Queller, but if they don't have either it's still our best card. All is Dust is slightly better but can still get taxed by Mausoleum Wanderer making it tough to cast. I don't really like the idea of less than 4 O-Stone simply due to Damping Sphere existing but it's possible it's worth it. I actually had my 5-0 list published yesterday with an All is Dust in the main, but this was in addition to 4 Stone and 2 Ugin. I'm constantly tweaking the list right now as the meta feels very much in flux.
I've been off Warping Wail for a while now. It feels very medium in this meta.
Scapeshift - yeah it's weird. Before this month I was 50/50 against it (12/12), but just been getting crapped on recently. A bit of variance for sure.
The other decks I've been seeing a lot are the Vengevine Bridge deck and Infect, both of which are giving me a hard time. I've been on 4 Surgical in the side to fight Vengevine, but Infect is just not realistic to beat without warping the deck a ton.
You'd think there would be tons of Mardu around to fight all the Humans, Spirits and Infect but amazingly I haven't seen it once in the last 19(!) leagues. So my winrate is suffering a bit right now.
I played a few sets vs. Bant Spirits, and it's probably tougher than straight UW. Have you played the Spirits matchup with Supreme Phantom? Do you mull aggressively to turn 3 Tron? You just can't count on O-Stone, they have 8 great answers to it. I've auto-lost every time they resolve CoCo on the backswing, the new lord makes it so likely they have double pump after factoring in Image. Wanderer is also a beating, the extra pump when they play more spirits is so key in pushing the last few points before I stabilize.
Also came to the same conclusion All Is Dust doesn't markedly improve the matchup. I'm going up to 3 Ugins to combat the deck, it's just so good right now in my meta. Going to replace an O-Stone or a Relic MB, probably O-Stone since I don't see a lot of Affinity but there's a few graveyard/combo decks around.
I'm not sold on waiting for 5 mana to O-Stone away Blood Moon or Damping Sphere. Most decks these days aren't dumb, they back up these hate cards with a clock. The 3rd Nature's Claim feels necessary.
I think you're right with more Surgical Extraction. Going to replace the Emrakul or a TKS, probably Emrakul since I have yet to see it matter and don't want to weaken the Burn matchup.
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I've been considering Trinisphere lately. Why isn't it ubiquitous? It seems to help in a lot of poor match ups. It certainly isn't a catch-all for combo decks (CoCo and Scapeshift dodge it easily), but it seems powerful enough that I'd expect to see more people play it.
Vintage >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Legacy
I got bored and cast Violent Ultimatum off it one night. Because suddenly Tron needs BBRRRGG. Honestly you can cast whatever you want if you go this route; I don't think it's especially good, but it makes Tron a bit more fun to play and doesn't require much change.
"Reveal a Dragon"
Thank you
EDIT: Done. My list is in flux at the moment but I'm still on 2 World Breakers, which are not present in the guide list. This is another matchup the card is very good in.
Round 1: 1-2 loss to Titanshift [0-1]
Round 2: 2-1 win over Bogles [1-1]
Round 3: 2-0 win over Mardu Mancer [2-1]
Round 4: 2-0 win over UW Miracles [3-1]
Round 5: 2-0 win over Mardu Mancer [4-1]
Round 6: 2-1 win over Druid CoCo [5-1]
Round 7: 0-2 loss to Jeskai Control [5-2]
It was unfortunate that my first loss came in round 1, otherwise I'd have likely been able to draw into the top 8 in round 7. But I'm quite happy to have ripped off 5 wins in a row to put myself in a position to make the top 8 after losing the first round. Mardu mancer is a bye, the closest I came to losing a game was being beat down with spirits through opponents ensnaring bridge, but o-stone eventually took care of that before I got to bolt range. Keeping in some number of Karns is definitely doable as it is another out to Ensnaring bridge, even if the card is not the greatest against token creature strategies. Spatial took out the bogles player's kor spiritdancer in game two, which was their first creature that game, and in game 3 I played ugin on turn 4 on the play.
The first match of the day was a heartbreaker, I actually had the literal nuts game 1: T3 Karn, T4 Karn, T5 Karn, and stirrings into T6 Karn to have my opponent at zero lands and they scoop. Game 2 I didn't do anything and they scapeshifted me on turn 4. Game 3 I had an opening 6 card hand of guaranteed T3 tron with wurmcoilx2, so I kept. Opponent plays T2 damping sphere, and literally does nothing but land drops for 5 or more turns while I get stuck on 5 lands and 2 wurms in hand. It was a definite mistake to not bring in claims for sphere, it turns out they are running 3 copies in the board quite often.
UW Miracles felt like our easiest control matchup because they are focused more on cheating terminus and are super slow to win the game. Jeskai was quite rough because my opening hands were below average in both games, followed by my opponent drawing more field of ruins than i did tron lands. Because they have bolt-snap-bolt, they can end games quite fast and that presents a problem for when you factor in field of ruin taking us off tron and keeping us off ulamog/worldbreaker mana. While I've been thinking of going to 2 world breakers in the 75 to help control matchups, I'm considering using surgical extractions to limit how much the opponent can slow us/our threats down. I would first aim for path to exile, which would make wurmcoil, world breaker, and ulamog much bigger threats. Supreme verdict and teferi minus abilities will not deal with these cards well at all. Second I would go for cryptic, because it is their most universally applied counterspell and it could be used to chain tap us out of attack phases. Lastly. If the opponent plays and uses field of ruin on turn 3, I think it would be worth it to surgical away the rest of their copies, even if it's short of a full playset. I will be testing surgicals out against UW, jeskai, and esper control. I feel some thing needs to be done to gain percentage points against these decks. What do you guys think of surgical against control, to win the battle of attrition?
What do you guys think of surgical against druid combo, aiming for druid or vizier? On one hand board removsl may be enough, but things can get scary when they start CoCoing on our end step, and it would be nice to shut that down by taking away one of the combo pieces asap. A corner case outside of the obvious would be to snag CoCo from their GY after they try to ewitness it back to hand.
Sicsmoo, what are you using dismember for post-board against Titanshift? Sideboard tracker and baloth? I'm thinking it's the most expendable card to make room for claims, as I would like the extra draw off of a relic as the matchup is a total race.
Edit: I did use sicsmoo's SB guide for the tournament for the most part, it was quite useful as I'm just coming back to th3 deck and it saved me lots of time. So thanks for that!
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
Titan Shift: I feel your pain. I'm 0-6 against it this month. Damping Sphere was a huge boon for them. Yeah, the Dismember is there for Tireless Tracker as that card can easily take the game over on its own. Has happened to me multiple times after I've Surgicaled their Valakuts. What I've done recently though is kept 2 O-Stone post-board along with the 2 Claims, and leaving Dismember out. That way you have 4 things that kill Damping Sphere, as well as some insurance against Tracker. That might be the best way to go. But it's a tough one no matter what your configuration.
Control: I still prefer to play against Jeskai even though they have the burn plan, simply because they have fewer Field of Ruins and Stony Silences than UW (2-3 vs 4 and 0-1 vs 2, respectively). Those are the really annoying cards. UW usually doesn't actually kill you as fast, but they can get really far ahead really quickly. I've died many times to turn 3 Field, turn 4 Field, turn 5 Teferi holding up multiple counters out of UW. And also some people still play the traditional version with 4 Spreading Seas on top of the 4 Field. I HATE playing against UW. Jeskai isn't that bad. The second Breaker does help if you want more percentage points in these matchups. Crucible of Worlds is another good one I've dabbled with recently.
Surgical: Ehhh. I've tested it against control here and there but never stuck with it long-term. It's just a really high-variance card if you're bringing it in for grindy matchups like these. Sometimes it'll be fantastic when you hit their Field or Cryptic when they have another in hand, sometimes you'll just hit the one in the graveyard and lose because you don't have the extra cantrip, tutor or a threat you need. If you're already bringing in Claims against these decks and add Surgicals, thats a lot of air if things don't line up correctly. I think consistency and card advantage is more important in these matchups.
For CoCo: possibly? You have to be able to kill one of their guys first to be able to Surgical it, and then you have less threats in your deck assuming that's what you're cutting to make room for them. So then you're more susceptible to their beatdown plan. I personally don't see the need for it - using spot removal into sweeper feels fine to me. Only their excellent draws (combo pieces in hand/multiple tutors/good CoCo hits) are gonna beat that.
Also was thinking about Surgical's and All is Dust in my Sb but I'm so used to the build I have right now. That said after eyeing what some locals are thinking about bringing I have begun to ponder changes. MTGO and local metas are very different so I may gun to beat what people have in my area more than the greater MTGO meta's encompass.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
Vintage >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Legacy
Blue doesn't really offer much for Gx builds, but if you really want to try it:
* Bombs: Inkwell Leviathan and Tidespout Tyrant are two powerful blue bombs, but the multiple colored symbols in the cost can be an issue.
* Early Game Interaction: Reality Shift or Pongify/Rapid Hybridization can work as removal, but they leave behind a body. You can also try counterspells with only one colored symbol like Condescend or Remand. Maybe bounce spells like Repeal and Cyclonic Rift?
I think Spirits is definitely a problem, I haven't stood a chance unless it's fast Ugin. Is it time to -1 O-Stone MB, -1 Wail SB for AID in those slots?
Surprisingly, I haven't had problems vs. Scapeshift. They don't really interact against us, so it's a race that we sometimes just win.
I've been off Warping Wail for a while now. It feels very medium in this meta.
Scapeshift - yeah it's weird. Before this month I was 50/50 against it (12/12), but just been getting crapped on recently. A bit of variance for sure.
The other decks I've been seeing a lot are the Vengevine Bridge deck and Infect, both of which are giving me a hard time. I've been on 4 Surgical in the side to fight Vengevine, but Infect is just not realistic to beat without warping the deck a ton.
You'd think there would be tons of Mardu around to fight all the Humans, Spirits and Infect but amazingly I haven't seen it once in the last 19(!) leagues. So my winrate is suffering a bit right now.
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
List:
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Creature (8)
2 Walking Ballista
3 Wurmcoil Engine
1 World Breaker
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Spells (27)
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Oblivion Stone
5 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
1 Grafdigger's cage
3 Nature's Claim
2 Spatial Contortion
2 Warping Wail
3 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Thragtusk
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
I arrived at the location about 30 min early. Made myself comfy, put my iphone ear buds on and turned to Dream Theater's "Lines in the Sand" from Falling into Infinity album for some sharpening of the mind. Lot of players to say hi to, but I waved from afar and kept my mind on the what I wanted to happen:
"Play techincally well, SB well, know your position in the match and be flexible"
Round 1
2-0 Win Vs Dredge
Notable plays: Opponent missed 4 Amalgam Triggers at his End Step. He had set aside the Amalgams, but said "Pass Turn", which I quickly did, I untapped cracked my star, and drew a card. My opponent realized he missed a trigger, calls a Judge and tries to say that I didn't give him a have a chance to finish his turn. The Judge asks us both what was said and after he tried to fudge his wording he nodded and said " I said Pass Turn". That Bought me an extra Turn to Find Ugin and I followed up with Karn.
R2
2-0 Win Vs Mardu Pyromancer
Teammate and upcoming grinder in our area. This was a bad match up for him and he knew that. Not much happens here that we don't already know.
R3
2-1 Win Vs Mardu Pyromancer
Opponent was much better prepared for me and G2 saw him hit 2 Molten Rain's and Wear // Tear on my T1 Map. Yep...G3, we both mull. I have natural Tron. Ugin Comes down at some point and he scoops.
R4
2-1 Win Vs GR Tron
Another Local. We knew what was up, he wins the Die roll. He wins G1. G2 I'm on the play, Land Karn followed by World Breaker. G3, I have an early Ghost Quarter, and chose to take him off Tron on his T3. This buys me 2 turns. He gets a little cocky and casts Crumble to Dust on my Towers. He says "This is over now right?" I look at him and tap 2 Lands and cast Warping Wail. He gasps and doesn't have a good follow up. I get my last tron piece and start slam Karn.
R5
1-2 Loss vs Bant Eldrazi
NO!! My favorite modern deck and a match up I know in and out. It's not favorable for Tron and I lose in 3. Displacer is huge and G3 he blinks away my TKS's and swings past for 11.
R6
2-0 Win Vs Grixis Death Shadow
This was probably the easiest match of the day. G1 I had natural Tron and got O'Stone down early. He countered a few things before running out of gas. G2, he mulled to 5, and that's all she wrote.
R7 ID (Alex on Burn) We are both locked into Top 8. I'm 5th and he is 6th.
Quarter Finals/Top 8:
2-1 Win Vs BR Hollow One
Whelp G1 he has one of the best starts I've seen in paper, he mills all 4 Pheonix's and has a T1 Adept and Hollow One. I die quickly. G2, I keep a hand that seems a bit sketchy but I get clever. I figure that if he casts Burning Inquiry that allows me to draw 10 cards in my opener. The chances of my drawing a 2nd Tron is high so I keep and bank on him doing that. He did and I managed to keep my maps and lands. He lands a T1 Hollow one but I get tron on line and land a T3 Karn. I -3, exile something, it gets bolted. I follow with Wurmcoil and then an Ulamog exiles more things. G3, was hard I had a strong opening sequence namely T3 Tron into O'stone into Ulamogs. WOO! Semis
Semi Finals:
2-0 Win Vs Humans
My opponent is a very good player, and is fresh off the last Pro Tour. We have always had great matches of magic but we both wanted to get the finals. We have some friendly banter and then get started (I have a massive Headache at this point). In my testing I think Tron is favored against Humans, and after memorizing Sicsmoo's guide I am confident I can take it. I get an early O-Stone on board and sit back patiently. he gets an amazing start with Mantis Rider backed by Noble, and on T3 he copies it. BLAH! I get my O Stone down and start appreciating being on the play. My O'Stone wipes the board in T4 and I have Ugin to clean things up. G2 wasn't much of a game, he has a very good start with a T1 Vial, and 3x Champions but he misses his 2 land drop. I Get to a T4 Ugin.
Finals!
1-2 Loss to KCI
Yeah my configuration wasn't set up to beat this and I was really kicking myself for not putting 2-3 Surgical's in my SB. Well he goes off T4 I die. G2 was close, I Nature's Claim an early Mind Stone. I wanted to buy myself 1-2 Turns, and it mattered. I got to a T4 Karn, - on his land, and follow up with T5 Ulamog and exiled his 2 lands. G3, well...I saw some hot tech from him, Silence. He did this 2 turns in a row and that pretty much did me in. Without that card, I know I win that match since I had T3 tron and a fist full of Eldrazi + Karn.
In retrospect I should've been better prepared for KCI but I know my meta. There are only 3-4 player on it and in a room of 95 I figured my SB would be better suited to beat the open field rather than gun for 1 deck. It paid off, and while losing in the finals sucks I'm still happy with my performance. There will be a yotube vid of the final match soon.I had a massive headache in Rd 10 so I'm sure I didn't play that match optimally. I mulligan'd a large % of my hands. After reading Owen's article I started to look at my openers very differently, and it paid off.
Tron is great!
Modern: Decks I'm playing right now:
G Mono Green Tron (34-10-3 paper record, only SCG/Regionals/PPTQ record)
C Eldrazi Tron (9-5)
UG Infect
RW Burn
I played a few sets vs. Bant Spirits, and it's probably tougher than straight UW. Have you played the Spirits matchup with Supreme Phantom? Do you mull aggressively to turn 3 Tron? You just can't count on O-Stone, they have 8 great answers to it. I've auto-lost every time they resolve CoCo on the backswing, the new lord makes it so likely they have double pump after factoring in Image. Wanderer is also a beating, the extra pump when they play more spirits is so key in pushing the last few points before I stabilize.
Also came to the same conclusion All Is Dust doesn't markedly improve the matchup. I'm going up to 3 Ugins to combat the deck, it's just so good right now in my meta. Going to replace an O-Stone or a Relic MB, probably O-Stone since I don't see a lot of Affinity but there's a few graveyard/combo decks around.
I'm not sold on waiting for 5 mana to O-Stone away Blood Moon or Damping Sphere. Most decks these days aren't dumb, they back up these hate cards with a clock. The 3rd Nature's Claim feels necessary.
I think you're right with more Surgical Extraction. Going to replace the Emrakul or a TKS, probably Emrakul since I have yet to see it matter and don't want to weaken the Burn matchup.