Round 1: Lost to Grixis Death's Shadow 1-2. Game 1 was slow on my part. I had the mana, but nothing to cast and the eventually got there with a Temur Battlerage. Game 2 he got Tron'd. Game 3 I kept a sketchier hand of Mine, Forest, Map, and 2 Stirrings. I found a powerplant and the stirrings missed the last piece, and I eventually got beat with Ceremonious Rejection backup.
Round 2: Beat Bant Spirits 2-1. Games 1 and 3 I landed an Ugin and completely took over the games. Game 2 I played a turn 1 map which got named with Pithing Needle, and Thalia followed it up. He killed me shortly after before I could activate Oblivion Stone.
Round 3: Beat 7-Land Belcher 2-1. Game 1 I had Tron on turn 3 but nothing to play. Passed to him and he killed me on his Turn 4. Games 2 & 3 I got there with TKS and Karn's keeping his land count low.
Round 4: Beat UR Wizards 2-0. Game 1 there as nothing they could do to stop a resolved Wurmcoil and Karn which followed it up. Game 2 she mulled to 4 and were stuck on 2 lands while I hit turn 4 Tron and played Ugin followed by Karn.
Round 5: Beat Eldrazi Tron 2-0. Game 1 I was on the play, and we both had a turn 1 map on track to turn 2 tron. I played Karn and exiled his land, then drew another Karn so I exiled his remaining two lands. He kept paying, so I played Ulamog and showed another Karn and he conceded. Game 2 he mulled to 4 and I kept a hand with an easy turn 3 tron and a bunch of stirrings to find threats. He played a Chalice on 1 which shut off most of my hand, and Warping Wailed my Scryig which was getting me Tron. We then spent a while just passing back and forth. I had a Thragtusk & Wurmcoil in play by the time he found his third land, which he then dropped a reshaper, which blocked and helped his get to Tron. He played a Batterskull and then out life totals got pretty out of control with me being in the 40's and him going from 2 back up to 20. Eventually I found a 7th land, stuck a Karn, and then got rid of his chalice on 1 to dig for an Ulamog to close out the game.
Round 6: I was at 6th place with my 4-1 record, so I ID'd with 5th place to lock in top 8.
Quarterfinals: I was on the draw since I played the person in 2nd. He was on UG Infect and killed me turn 3 each game with not-much I could do. Game 1 I played a Ballista to kill his Blighted Agent but he still had an Inkmoth Nexus to kill me with the next turn. Game 2 I had turn 4 tron on the way with a Ballista in hand to hopefully lock him out of the game, but he got me on his turn 3 by pumping his Agent with a Might of old Korosa, Vines of the Vastwood, and an Exalted trigger, and even when I tried to Spatial Contortion he had a Blossoming Defense. The rest of the top 8 was 2 KCI, RW Burn, G Tron, Grixis Shadow (from Round 1), and 4c Saheeli; so not great for me regardless...
---
The weekend before I played another PPTQ (and did not top 8) with a nearly identical list of +1 Walking Ballista -1 Relic of Progenitus main, +1 Relic of Progenitus -1 Emrakul, the Promised End side. I took out the Emmy before the event because I figured I could get through control matchups without it, and there turned out to be 6 UW control players at the event. I wasn't making the same mistake this week so I put it in and never saw any control...
The previous PPTQ was full of control, Humans, and Company decks, while this one was full of Bridgevine, KCI, and other big mana decks. I liked having more Relics to combat the graveyard decks but I felt that some of the other cards like Dismember were kind of lost. Besides upping the Ballista count, does anyone have suggestions of what I could change around? I haven't felt like I've been having bad matchups, but more like I'm facing a lot of go-wide decks and want ways to clear the board once I get Tron online. Ugin has been an all-star lately so I've thought about an All is Dust in the side.
Well one note I'll make is that Dismember feels pretty weak currently. I cut mine last week and I've rarely missed it. In a lot of cases having the 3rd Ballista covers the same base and just has a lot of versatility. My current maindeck is actually exactly the same as Faustino's.
Well one note I'll make is that Dismember feels pretty weak currently. I cut mine last week and I've rarely missed it. In a lot of cases having the 3rd Ballista covers the same base and just has a lot of versatility. My current maindeck is actually exactly the same as Faustino's.
I've never been a big Dismember fan; the 4 life just makes it too expensive vs a ton of aggro decks. It's reasonable vs Hollowed One, but even then it can be 4 life too much. Given that we have such an indomitable lategame, it feels like there are few threats that we are that willing to spend 4 life to get rid of.
I have been a bit quiet lately because i had no time for MTG. I played the Modern PPTQ Sideevent at the German Nationals on 19.08.
I went 5-2 out of 8 rounds but had to drop the last one because we had a 4 hour car ride ahead of us
Here's the list i played, somehow i do not have the formatting options in this box anymore so it is just a write down, sorry!
12 Tron Pieces
4 Forest
1 Urza's Factory
1 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Expedition Map
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Walking Ballista
2 Ulamog, the ceaseless Hunger
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 World Breaker
4 Karn liberated
2 Ugin the spirit Dragon
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
1 Spatial Contortion
Sideboard:
3 Nature's Claim
1 Seal of Primordium
2 Warping Wail
1 Spatial Contortion
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
3 Thragtusk
2 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
I played against: UW Control, Mono White Taxes, Elves, Mono G Tron, Bogles, Grixis Shadow (Loss), UR Breach (Loss)
Walking Ballista in bonkers and the 3rd copy of Ugin did A LOT of work for me. I don't see myself removing any Ballistas or the 3rd Ugin from the sideboard any time soon!
I'm also on the same maindeck as Faustino other than the scavenger, I'm still on canopy instead because it is better with crucible post-board. I have considered 2 ballista and 20 lands to fit both scavenger and canopy.
For sideboard I'm considering what to do for the 15h slot. My 14 locks are:
3 Claim
3 swagdaddy
2 TKS
2 surgical
2 spatial
1 Wail (need a 3rd spot removal due to loss of dismember, I like wail over 3rd spatial)
1 crucible
Options (in order of most to least likely):
1 cage
1 skite
3rd tks
1 Emmy
1 dust
Cage would be the 5th GY hate and a decent turn 1 play on the play against degenerate Gy decks. My question to you guys regarding skite is if you feel the card is strong against hardened scales affinity? Does it have the potential to impede their counter shenanigans? If I'm using skite for only infect I'm less likely to choose it, but both infect and hardened scales are on the rise and it has potential to help both matchups. The third copy of TKS is potentially weaker than the first copy of cage or skite. For Emmy and dust, those are meh in my opinion, and not really necessary to win any of the matchups they are good in. Anyone have thoughts?
I'm also on the same maindeck as Faustino other than the scavenger, I'm still on canopy instead because it is better with crucible post-board. I have considered 2 ballista and 20 lands to fit both scavenger and canopy.
For sideboard I'm considering what to do for the 15h slot. My 14 locks are:
3 Claim
3 swagdaddy
2 TKS
2 surgical
2 spatial
1 Wail (need a 3rd spot removal due to loss of dismember, I like wail over 3rd spatial)
1 crucible
Options (in order of most to least likely):
1 cage
1 skite
3rd tks
1 Emmy
1 dust
Cage would be the 5th GY hate and a decent turn 1 play on the play against degenerate Gy decks. My question to you guys regarding skite is if you feel the card is strong against hardened scales affinity? Does it have the potential to impede their counter shenanigans? If I'm using skite for only infect I'm less likely to choose it, but both infect and hardened scales are on the rise and it has potential to help both matchups. The third copy of TKS is potentially weaker than the first copy of cage or skite. For Emmy and dust, those are meh in my opinion, and not really necessary to win any of the matchups they are good in. Anyone have thoughts?
Skite really only hits Ravager triggers and is a horrible blocker. I think if you wanted to target Scales you’d just play the 4th Claim. Needle/Spyglass are also flexible while being good against Infect (Inkmoth) and Scales (Ravager/Inky/Blinky/Ballista/Hangarback).
I agree with that. Skite is really medium against Scales. If you want to fight that deck, 4th Claim is probably the best option. They play 4 Damping Sphere and obviously we want to kill that, plus Scales itself or whatever else happens to be threatening at the time.
Going with this list. I like 3 Ugin/3 O-Stone because the former is game over for Spirits while the latter is actively bad into 7-8 of their MB cards.
Modern is such a crapshoot, I'd rather default to the generalist 3/3/3/3/3 SB. Would flex 1 Surgical for 1 additional Claim if Hardened Scales Affinity moves up a tier.
Quick note for the primer (and anyone interested): Horizon Canopy is a bit of a nonbo with Life from the Loam. The dredge ability requires you to replace your draw to recur LftL, so you're not really digging two cards deep every turn with Canopy like you would be with Crucible. The two mana per turn to recur LftL can hinder one's ability to play a drawn bomb as well (which can also be true when recur-chaining Sanctum).
On the other hand, LftL used aggressively can help reduce Emrakul TPE's mana cost, as well as dig for World Breaker if you're really desperate.
Quick note for the primer (and anyone interested): Horizon Canopy is a bit of a nonbo with Life from the Loam. The dredge ability requires you to replace your draw to recur LftL, so you're not really digging two cards deep every turn with Canopy like you would be with Crucible. The two mana per turn to recur LftL can hinder one's ability to play a drawn bomb as well (which can also be true when recur-chaining Sanctum).
On the other hand, LftL used aggressively can help reduce Emrakul TPE's mana cost, as well as dig for World Breaker if you're really desperate.
Thanks for the heads-up! I'll update when MTGS decides to let us edit our posts again...
Notably cut all the Thragtusks. This was not an easy choice but something had to go and the land package helps in some of the midrange matchups where you want Tusk. It's still a bit greedy though, I fully admit. The Crucible/Tec package is just SO good against UW and the mirror. Also I wanted a better shot against Valakut. It's not a huge part of the metagame right now but I've just lost to it almost every time over the past couple months (2-11) and was getting a bit sick of it. Of course, I didn't run into it while on that configuration.
Looking for something more balanced, this is what I'm working with today:
If I could have one more slot it would be a Tec Edge. May or may not be able to find room. Gonna try out Cage. I've never been a fan of the card in Tron because you often want it in the same matchups you want to be sweeping the board with O-Stone and I just hate nonbos like that. But it certainly has appeal as a permanent effect you only have to invest 1 mana into, unlike Relic, and has a wider effect than Surgical. I like that it's good against Bant Spirits with CoCo, but U/W with no CoCo is a thing as well, which muddies the picture a bit.
I'm not a fan of cage in tron either. Dredge, hollow one, and bridgevine can find ancient grudge yo remove it super easily. Against bridgevine it only stops the creature shenanigans, it doesn't stop bridge from below. Storm can bounce the cage on our end step, whereas we can crack relic in response to clear their GY. Trimming away their GY with relic activations each turn can be super good, and surgical is live on turn 1 just like cage is. I can't see much of a reason to use a slot on cage over the other two gy hate cards, and CoCo decks aren't enough reason for me to include it.
I like Owen Turtenwalds reasoning for including skite in his board and I'm going to run with it on paper (probably not on MODO as the odds of running into infect are pretty low).
I cut the Cage after 1 league for the 4th Claim. 5 losses in a row to Hardened Scales was enough.
Basically he said that because of ancient stirrings, there is way more value in the first copy of skite over the third tks/something else. We have a high chance to cast t2 skite in the matchups we want it. I like 3 Claim and 3 thrag because we want these in our opening hand when we want them and stirrings can't find them, two TKS seems fine because of stirrings. It's also my personal opinion infect is going to be on an upswing, at least in paper. It's not a widely applicable card, but I can also see why the last sideboard slot is good for a colorless silver bullet instead of gy or combo hate card number X.
What I've come to realize is that the meta is just more difficult for this deck than it was a couple months ago. UW Control is frustrating now, Bridgevine and Hardened Scales are unfavorable new matchups, I'm seeing more Titan Shift, and Mardu, which was basically a free win, is in a huge lull after seeing tons of play most of the year previously. So I'm finding myself constantly juggling my sideboard slots trying to find a way to beat everything, and there just isn't one right now. My winrate in July was way down from May and June, and I thought it may have just been an anomaly/variance, but this month isn't shaping up to be much better.
As soon as the deck put 6 copies into the top 16 at GP Vegas in mid-June it was the start of the downward trend as the community started giving it a whole lot more "respect". It's to be expected, for sure, but I did prefer it when the deck was more under the radar.
This all may be obvious and I don't have much of a point. I'm just reflecting on my unsatisfactory win rate. Though I guess it does illustrate the negative aspects of sticking with one deck as the meta shifts.
Absolutely a fact, the meta is very troublesome and UW control is not an easy game anymore. I would say its almost unfavorable with the amount of land disruption and permission being played now. I have been lurking on here a long time and appreciate all you share with the community. I love Tron, its really all i want to play in Modern but I am contemplating picking up something different for now. Not sure what that is though, nothing looks overly appealing. Thanks again for always sharing your data and thoughts.
My win rate is significantly down too.....cant post a 5-0 to save my life because I cant get a decent pairing for 5 matches anymore.
What I've come to realize is that the meta is just more difficult for this deck than it was a couple months ago. UW Control is frustrating now, Bridgevine and Hardened Scales are unfavorable new matchups, I'm seeing more Titan Shift, and Mardu, which was basically a free win, is in a huge lull after seeing tons of play most of the year previously. So I'm finding myself constantly juggling my sideboard slots trying to find a way to beat everything, and there just isn't one right now. My winrate in July was way down from May and June, and I thought it may have just been an anomaly/variance, but this month isn't shaping up to be much better.
As soon as the deck put 6 copies into the top 16 at GP Vegas in mid-June it was the start of the downward trend as the community started giving it a whole lot more "respect". It's to be expected, for sure, but I did prefer it when the deck was more under the radar.
This all may be obvious and I don't have much of a point. I'm just reflecting on my unsatisfactory win rate. Though I guess it does illustrate the negative aspects of sticking with one deck as the meta shifts.
I agree with this sentiment completely. I think the UW MU is about even (maybe ever-so-slightly favorable), as much as people like to laugh at me when I tell them. Even if Tron has some degree of lategame inevitability, UW has a bunch of CA engines that also quickly close the door, as well as a countermagic suite that deals with our topdecks once we get into topdeck mode. I think the meta is very prepared for Tron, and even if the deck's good, I don't think matchups are quite as polarized as the general public likes to believe.
Absolutely a fact, the meta is very troublesome and UW control is not an easy game anymore. I would say its almost unfavorable with the amount of land disruption and permission being played now. I have been lurking on here a long time and appreciate all you share with the community. I love Tron, its really all i want to play in Modern but I am contemplating picking up something different for now. Not sure what that is though, nothing looks overly appealing. Thanks again for always sharing your data and thoughts.
My win rate is significantly down too.....cant post a 5-0 to save my life because I cant get a decent pairing for 5 matches anymore.
Thanks for the kind words and for taking the time to post. I feel the same way re: switching to a different deck to win more but wanting to stay on Tron cause I love it. Particularly sucks cause there's a series of online PTQs the next few weekends and I'd like to feel more confident about those.
Yep...I am no one special but I am fortunate enough to have interacted with one of the players in the player of the year race who is fond of playing Mono G Tron if that gives it away. I text him today and asked what he’d be playing tomorrow if he was playing a modern event. Hardened scales was the response. But I think online there’s so much uw and spirits that board in stony and RIP that it can’t be a good post board match up.
For tron I’ve been brining in surgical against uw to try and grab field of ruin and a permission spell. Sometimes helps but don’t think it’s worth a card. I’m just not sure the right approach. My wins for u/w all rely on me getting cast triggers. But sometimes they’re useless as taking them off a couple lands in the mid game is pretty unimpactful.
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1 Walking Ballista
3 Wurmcoil Engine
1 World Breaker
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Planeswalkers (6)
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Spells (26)
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
2 Dismember
4 Expedition Map
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Oblivion Stone
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Ghost Quarter
5 Forest
3 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Thragtusk
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
4 Nature's Claim
1 Spatial Contortion
1 Warping Wail
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Grafdigger's Cage
Round 2: Beat Bant Spirits 2-1. Games 1 and 3 I landed an Ugin and completely took over the games. Game 2 I played a turn 1 map which got named with Pithing Needle, and Thalia followed it up. He killed me shortly after before I could activate Oblivion Stone.
Round 3: Beat 7-Land Belcher 2-1. Game 1 I had Tron on turn 3 but nothing to play. Passed to him and he killed me on his Turn 4. Games 2 & 3 I got there with TKS and Karn's keeping his land count low.
Round 4: Beat UR Wizards 2-0. Game 1 there as nothing they could do to stop a resolved Wurmcoil and Karn which followed it up. Game 2 she mulled to 4 and were stuck on 2 lands while I hit turn 4 Tron and played Ugin followed by Karn.
Round 5: Beat Eldrazi Tron 2-0. Game 1 I was on the play, and we both had a turn 1 map on track to turn 2 tron. I played Karn and exiled his land, then drew another Karn so I exiled his remaining two lands. He kept paying, so I played Ulamog and showed another Karn and he conceded. Game 2 he mulled to 4 and I kept a hand with an easy turn 3 tron and a bunch of stirrings to find threats. He played a Chalice on 1 which shut off most of my hand, and Warping Wailed my Scryig which was getting me Tron. We then spent a while just passing back and forth. I had a Thragtusk & Wurmcoil in play by the time he found his third land, which he then dropped a reshaper, which blocked and helped his get to Tron. He played a Batterskull and then out life totals got pretty out of control with me being in the 40's and him going from 2 back up to 20. Eventually I found a 7th land, stuck a Karn, and then got rid of his chalice on 1 to dig for an Ulamog to close out the game.
Round 6: I was at 6th place with my 4-1 record, so I ID'd with 5th place to lock in top 8.
Quarterfinals: I was on the draw since I played the person in 2nd. He was on UG Infect and killed me turn 3 each game with not-much I could do. Game 1 I played a Ballista to kill his Blighted Agent but he still had an Inkmoth Nexus to kill me with the next turn. Game 2 I had turn 4 tron on the way with a Ballista in hand to hopefully lock him out of the game, but he got me on his turn 3 by pumping his Agent with a Might of old Korosa, Vines of the Vastwood, and an Exalted trigger, and even when I tried to Spatial Contortion he had a Blossoming Defense. The rest of the top 8 was 2 KCI, RW Burn, G Tron, Grixis Shadow (from Round 1), and 4c Saheeli; so not great for me regardless...
---
The weekend before I played another PPTQ (and did not top 8) with a nearly identical list of +1 Walking Ballista -1 Relic of Progenitus main, +1 Relic of Progenitus -1 Emrakul, the Promised End side. I took out the Emmy before the event because I figured I could get through control matchups without it, and there turned out to be 6 UW control players at the event. I wasn't making the same mistake this week so I put it in and never saw any control...
The previous PPTQ was full of control, Humans, and Company decks, while this one was full of Bridgevine, KCI, and other big mana decks. I liked having more Relics to combat the graveyard decks but I felt that some of the other cards like Dismember were kind of lost. Besides upping the Ballista count, does anyone have suggestions of what I could change around? I haven't felt like I've been having bad matchups, but more like I'm facing a lot of go-wide decks and want ways to clear the board once I get Tron online. Ugin has been an all-star lately so I've thought about an All is Dust in the side.
MTGO/MTGA: Tyclone
My Primers ~ GWx Vizier Company ~ Knightfall ~ RG Eldrazi ~ Green's Sun's Zenith
More Brews ~ Modern Four Horsemen ~ Gitrog Dredge
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
I have been a bit quiet lately because i had no time for MTG. I played the Modern PPTQ Sideevent at the German Nationals on 19.08.
I went 5-2 out of 8 rounds but had to drop the last one because we had a 4 hour car ride ahead of us
Here's the list i played, somehow i do not have the formatting options in this box anymore so it is just a write down, sorry!
12 Tron Pieces
4 Forest
1 Urza's Factory
1 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Expedition Map
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Walking Ballista
2 Ulamog, the ceaseless Hunger
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 World Breaker
4 Karn liberated
2 Ugin the spirit Dragon
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
1 Spatial Contortion
Sideboard:
3 Nature's Claim
1 Seal of Primordium
2 Warping Wail
1 Spatial Contortion
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
3 Thragtusk
2 Pithing Needle
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
I played against: UW Control, Mono White Taxes, Elves, Mono G Tron, Bogles, Grixis Shadow (Loss), UR Breach (Loss)
Walking Ballista in bonkers and the 3rd copy of Ugin did A LOT of work for me. I don't see myself removing any Ballistas or the 3rd Ugin from the sideboard any time soon!
BRGJundGRB
GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
For sideboard I'm considering what to do for the 15h slot. My 14 locks are:
3 Claim
3 swagdaddy
2 TKS
2 surgical
2 spatial
1 Wail (need a 3rd spot removal due to loss of dismember, I like wail over 3rd spatial)
1 crucible
Options (in order of most to least likely):
1 cage
1 skite
3rd tks
1 Emmy
1 dust
Cage would be the 5th GY hate and a decent turn 1 play on the play against degenerate Gy decks. My question to you guys regarding skite is if you feel the card is strong against hardened scales affinity? Does it have the potential to impede their counter shenanigans? If I'm using skite for only infect I'm less likely to choose it, but both infect and hardened scales are on the rise and it has potential to help both matchups. The third copy of TKS is potentially weaker than the first copy of cage or skite. For Emmy and dust, those are meh in my opinion, and not really necessary to win any of the matchups they are good in. Anyone have thoughts?
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Modern is such a crapshoot, I'd rather default to the generalist 3/3/3/3/3 SB. Would flex 1 Surgical for 1 additional Claim if Hardened Scales Affinity moves up a tier.
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Scavenger Grounds
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 World Breaker
3 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Walking Ballista
3 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Oblivion Stone
3 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Thragtusk
3 Spatial Contortion
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Nature's Claim
On the other hand, LftL used aggressively can help reduce Emrakul TPE's mana cost, as well as dig for World Breaker if you're really desperate.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/302637108
Starts at about 2:26:30
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
My SB was:
3 Claim
3 Surgical
3 TKS
2 Spatial
2 Crucible
1 Tec Edge
1 Emrakul, Promised
Notably cut all the Thragtusks. This was not an easy choice but something had to go and the land package helps in some of the midrange matchups where you want Tusk. It's still a bit greedy though, I fully admit. The Crucible/Tec package is just SO good against UW and the mirror. Also I wanted a better shot against Valakut. It's not a huge part of the metagame right now but I've just lost to it almost every time over the past couple months (2-11) and was getting a bit sick of it. Of course, I didn't run into it while on that configuration.
Looking for something more balanced, this is what I'm working with today:
2 Surgical
3 Claim
2 Tusk
2 Contortion
1 Wail
2 TKS
1 Cage
1 Crucible
1 Emrakul, Promised
If I could have one more slot it would be a Tec Edge. May or may not be able to find room. Gonna try out Cage. I've never been a fan of the card in Tron because you often want it in the same matchups you want to be sweeping the board with O-Stone and I just hate nonbos like that. But it certainly has appeal as a permanent effect you only have to invest 1 mana into, unlike Relic, and has a wider effect than Surgical. I like that it's good against Bant Spirits with CoCo, but U/W with no CoCo is a thing as well, which muddies the picture a bit.
I like Owen Turtenwalds reasoning for including skite in his board and I'm going to run with it on paper (probably not on MODO as the odds of running into infect are pretty low).
3 thrag
2 TKS
2 surgical
2 spatial
3 Claim
1 Wail
1 crucible
1 skite
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
I cut the Cage after 1 league for the 4th Claim. 5 losses in a row to Hardened Scales was enough.
Basically he said that because of ancient stirrings, there is way more value in the first copy of skite over the third tks/something else. We have a high chance to cast t2 skite in the matchups we want it. I like 3 Claim and 3 thrag because we want these in our opening hand when we want them and stirrings can't find them, two TKS seems fine because of stirrings. It's also my personal opinion infect is going to be on an upswing, at least in paper. It's not a widely applicable card, but I can also see why the last sideboard slot is good for a colorless silver bullet instead of gy or combo hate card number X.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
As soon as the deck put 6 copies into the top 16 at GP Vegas in mid-June it was the start of the downward trend as the community started giving it a whole lot more "respect". It's to be expected, for sure, but I did prefer it when the deck was more under the radar.
This all may be obvious and I don't have much of a point. I'm just reflecting on my unsatisfactory win rate. Though I guess it does illustrate the negative aspects of sticking with one deck as the meta shifts.
My win rate is significantly down too.....cant post a 5-0 to save my life because I cant get a decent pairing for 5 matches anymore.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
For tron I’ve been brining in surgical against uw to try and grab field of ruin and a permission spell. Sometimes helps but don’t think it’s worth a card. I’m just not sure the right approach. My wins for u/w all rely on me getting cast triggers. But sometimes they’re useless as taking them off a couple lands in the mid game is pretty unimpactful.