MTG Salvation

Feel free to ridicule me:

I realise I said I'm probably jumping off the deck due to the upcoming printing of assassin's trophy, however I was convinced by a friend to stay the course and am currently at a pptq.

At the moment I'm undefeated going into top 8 and am most likely first seed. Top 8 looks pretty favourable apart from a single bogles player. Wish me luck. There may be a burn player in on breakers, potentially. Fingers crossed for my sake they don't quite get there.

Good luck man! I've been all over the place on mtgo, but in paper both my Finals and Semi Final finishes were with Tron this season. Sometime you just do trn things and get there.

Ran Tron through a Competitive a few nights ago and went 3-2. Hit the mirror 2x a true 50-50 match up lol. I'm not sure Tron will be that poorly positioned after GRN is released. While I've been testing a few modern decks Tron still seems fine and I think it'll weather yet another card that can disrupt it just fine.

Also, Efro posted an article about the newer tron lists, seems like he's not fully on board, and the GQ vs Field of Ruin arguement came up. I accidentally uploaded an older tron list and used GQ that league. Both are still relevant. I'm in the camp that Field is better...but I'm biased.

Something I'm not seeing others bring up in regards to Field vs. GQ is the ability to use GQ on our own lands for a green source in a pinch. Ive done this at least a handful of times. The most recent went like this: assemble tron turn 3, no threat to deploy. Have a stirrings in hand but no green source. Turn 4 I go: float 7 mana, play GQ, GQ a tronland I have a backup of in hand, stirrings off forest, find and cast Karn and that Karn buys me the time to win the game.

Field is much more narrow of a card, GQ is more of a toolbox card. I'm also not a big fan of needing to leave up 2 mana to use the field, it can mess up sequencing or just be too slow against affinity/infect manlands. Lastly, GQ loops with crucible much better.

Just took a look at that article. You can see Autumn's response in the comments. I think they both make a lot of relevant points. There's no doubt that by cutting Karn you're losing arguably the deck's most potent play, which is the crux of Eric's argument, but this is only in a vacuum. Autumn has correctly identified that World Breaker is the better card against the current tier 1 meta, despite the fact that it isn't usually coming down until turn 4. Current meta is the key point here. Things change quickly in Modern.

As for which is better against UW, I think at this point that angle is getting a bit too much attention as it's just one matchup, but in my experience the WB version has felt better, especially if Emrakul is main.

I haven't been playing lately as I'm still feeling a bit disillusioned with the deck and to an extent the format in general, kinda just waiting to see what happens with GRN, but if I were to play today I'd be on 2 Karn/2 WB.

EDIT: agree with everything Tituba said re: Field vs GQ.

I agree that Ghost Quarter is a better toolbox card than Field of Ruin. However, with UW, GBx, and who knows what else poised to be doing their best to keep us off Tron, I want to play the card that replaces itself as it disrupts, and that's Field of Ruin. So far it's been fine (the mana cost has yet to be an issue), but if Infect or either version of Affinity gets more popular post GRN, I don't mind switching back.

Purklefluff, how did you end up at the end of the day?

Quote from Thenarus »

Purklefluff, how did you end up at the end of the day?

Thanks for asking:

I think I may have been making some of the best technical play yesterday. It all sort of came together for me. I was navigating games I should have been losing and finding good lines and timing to switch things around in my favour. However, after drawing the final round and waiting for an hour or so (six rounds) it took me out of the zone a bit. I ended up despite making good in-game decisions losing in the quarters because of a baffling mulligan decision which I am struggling to justify, i went on autopilot for a moment and threw back a borderline but context-playable seven, ending up on a mull to five and never drew any more lands over about 15 draws off the top. Donk!

Matches:
- Grixis control
Short but sweet. Guy ended up in top 8 and I had hoped to see him again. 2-0

- Living end
was a tough match of course but aided by knowing the opponent's deck intimately and what he was likely to have in his hand, I took the line of aggressively attacking his manabase and hoping he didn't have double simian spirit guide for a quick fulminator. 2-1

- Tron mirror
Game one I aggressively cracked a field of ruin and set him back more than a turn, which allowed me a free 'setup' turn to play ulamog.
Game two I was on the back foot the whole game and didn't have Tron online the whole time (kept getting pushed off it), but i did have an o-stone in play and a walking ballista on 4, with a fate counter on it. This proved critical. His board was wurmcoil, world breaker, o-stone and my board was thought-knot, ballista (with counter) and o-stone. I saw a window and blew the stone when he tapped for something, leaving him with two wurmcoil tokens and me with a ballista. I immediately killed the deathtouch one, and from there was able to stabilise and take him off Tron with ballista for cmc8, sac sanctum into world breaker. 2-0

- spirits
Tough games. Well played. I got him game one with a fairly quick o-stone followed up by some mana denial.
Game two he got me with damping sphere and some attacks. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Game three I re-boarded slightly differently (took out all my karns) and started with a spatial contortion, leading into o-stone. He had a detention sphere for that. I bided my time and in response to a collected company, I cast nature's claim on the d-sphere which allowed me to play through his Mausoleum wanderer. It was super clutch and from there I was able to claw it back and follow it up with a thragtusk and win from there. In this game I make the only in-game error of the day which is to miss putting a fate counter on my own thragtusk.

Rounds five and six:
- draw
- draw

- go into top 8 as first seed (best outcome)
At this point though I've been sitting around for two hours waiting to play and i'd kind of lost my buzz from the first four rounds. I watch my eventual quarterfinals opponent lose in the final round and refuse to shake his opponent's hand, comes across as a bit of a dick (he squeezes in on breakers).

Quarterfinals:
- mardu pyromancer
Guy from before didn't know what I was playing and spent the first game saying how the world was conspiring against him or something. Makes it awkward. I win the first game quickly.
Game two I start quickly with a turn three wurmcoil and things are going OK, but then I get stumped as I draw 13 of my 19 lands in succession and am dumbfounded to lose to a single 1/1 spirit who goes the distance, on like turn 18 or something. Unbelievable but it happens, go to game three.
At this point the guy is already talking loudly about winning the match and being irritating and I'm just nodding and being polite. Looking back he definitely put me off my game and I receded into autopilot while mulliganing as he got on my nerves. Something to work on in the future. Here's where it all goes wrong. I see this hand:
Urza's mine
Urza's power plant
Ugin
All is dust
Karn
Wurmcoil
Ulamog

No tutors, just two Tron lands. No green sources for any drawn scryings. However it's a painfully slow matchup with lots of time to set up, and opponent plays thoughtseize so cards in hand and threat density is a definite thing. In hindsight this is a definite keep.
In reality I shipped it and saw an unkeepable no-land six. I think for a bit, grumble internally and go to five:
Urza's power plant
Urza's tower
Ancient stirrings
Chromatic star
Wurmcoil

I keep, as it seems reasonable for five cards. Lead with land into star. He thoughtseizes my stirrings and then for 15 draws I don't see another land or any way to fetch one up! End up getting beaten down slowly again by 1/1s while sitting on two lands and that's that.

I left feeling like I'd squandered a real opportunity which definitely stung from a competitive standpoint. To be clear, I didn't care about the prizes, it was more the fact that I'd set myself up perfectly for the finals and couldn't convert it forward. In my head I was already letting my teammates down in the GP in December. The field was hugely soft to Tron, the bogles player in top 8 lost to grixis, giving me a clear path to the finals if I stayed calm and played effectively. And I was top seed heading into all the games. Alas, I fluffed it with a poor mulligan and am left with a lesson on how to not get riled up by an opponent.

So two things to take away from today:
- without hyperbole I think i've reached the point where I can pilot the deck in-game pretty optimally. I played the deck for years and was always 'decent' but recently I've been hitting event after event and really practicing hard and it's paying dividends for my technical play. Hard work does the job. I'm seeing lines now that I didn't before so I feel like I've levelled up. Yes Tron has a bad rep for being a derpy simpleton's deck but it's just like any other deck in modern and mastering it takes time. That's the positive.
- I'm susceptible to brash or loud opponents putting me off my game in the moment. I don't really know how to address this, so much as just be more aware that it can happen, so think around it more deliberately. My quarterfinals opponent made me feel irritated at his impropriety, and I guess that small thing was enough to trigger a dumb autopilot moment of weakness. It ended up mattering which seems to amplify it in hindsight. That's the negative
- Tron is good right now. Let's see what happens with the release of ravnica. There's going to be some large shifts that may not immediately present themselves, but I'm expecting a 'fatal push' level of metagame shift (which was ultimately massive but took a while to catch on). That's the wider consideration.

All the best guys, keep tronning.

For what it's worth, I don't think that hand against Mardu in game 2 is an easy keep. In fact, I think it's a pretty clear mull. Only 2 lands, no green sources and no removal in a matchup where they have Blood Moon, Molten Rain/Fulminator, and fast threats like Rabblemaster post-board in addition to Pyromancers. Especially on the play as it exposes a drawn Map to a Wear/Tear. 5 threats that only get hit by Thoughtseize, none by Inquisition is definitely more than you need. I think you have to get pretty lucky especially in a post-board game for that hand to work out. So while you may not have given it an appropriate amount of thought initially, I think you made the right call.

Quote from sicsmoo »

For what it's worth, I don't think that hand against Mardu in game 2 is an easy keep. In fact, I think it's a pretty clear mull. Only 2 lands, no green sources and no removal in a matchup where they have Blood Moon, Molten Rain/Fulminator, and fast threats like Rabblemaster post-board in addition to Pyromancers. Especially on the play as it exposes a drawn Map to a Wear/Tear. 5 threats that only get hit by Thoughtseize, none by Inquisition is definitely more than you need. I think you have to get pretty lucky especially in a post-board game for that hand to work out. So while you may not have given it an appropriate amount of thought initially, I think you made the right call.

For the record I knew he wasn't running rabblemaster, as he'd discussed his choice to run the mono red god instead. Blood moon I wasn't particularly worried about. I think just starting with a grip of 7 and drawing into some filtering and land drops would have been enough, as my opponent's version of the deck seemed slow. Who knows. Against a jund deck it's an absolute 100% mulligan so as I alluded to above, it's a context-keepable hand and in most scenarios would be too slow or risky for sure.

Anyway it's all academic really. I mulled and ended up feeling like I was playing a bad sealed deck against a bad standard deck. It didn't look pretty from either side of the table haha.

It‘s been brought up a couple pages ago; has anyone given Tarmogoyf in the sideboard any thoughts?

Instead of stalling with Thought-Knot Seers and Thragtusks, we might as well go on the offense and present an early threat. With people gunning down our Tron lands, shouldn’t there be 3 to 4 card types in graveyards in no time? Bridgevine and Hollow One both help growing Goyf, it‘s an ok blocker against other aggro, and control decks will have yet another problem to care about.

It‘s just an idea, feel free to rip it apart.

Quote from SaltySips »

It‘s been brought up a couple pages ago; has anyone given Tarmogoyf in the sideboard any thoughts?

Instead of stalling with Thought-Knot Seers and Thragtusks, we might as well go on the offense and present an early threat. With people gunning down our Tron lands, shouldn’t there be 3 to 4 card types in graveyards in no time? Bridgevine and Hollow One both help growing Goyf, it‘s an ok blocker against other aggro, and control decks will have yet another problem to care about.

It‘s just an idea, feel free to rip it apart.

I've tried Goyf quite a bit recently and while it has its applications, I think overall it's not where I wanna be. Especially in the Thragtusk slot as Burchett's list is configured. The main issue with Goyf as a stopgap vs aggro/midrange/Burn as opposed to Thragtusk is that it interferes with setting up Tron which is really want we want to be doing with the early turns. Sure you have a beefy early blocker, but it will often come at the cost of getting Tron a turn later. When you consider how much more powerful Thragtusk is than Goyf and the fact that it doesn't interfere with our main gameplan, I think the choice is pretty clear. Additionally, Goyf clashes with Relic, which is a card we want in a lot of the same matchups we'd want Goyf. I played against BGx twice in a league yesterday with the Goyf configuration and it was painfully awkward and was kinda the last straw for me.

Thanks for elaborating!

Would probably lean towards replacing TKS with Goyf. Combo decks I‘m facing merely rely on their graveyard, which we‘ve covered with mainboard Relics and additional *insertgraveyardhateofchoice* (where I don‘t deem Goyf necessary). I wouldn’t worry about shrinking Goyf if I can hit the GY against Bridgevine and H1 in the right moment.

Couldn’t Goyf be an answer to decks that continuously keep us off Tron or fast aggro that goes under TKS/Thragtusk/OStone? Would that be too narrow?

Quote from SaltySips »

Thanks for elaborating!

Would probably lean towards replacing TKS with Goyf. Combo decks I‘m facing merely rely on their graveyard, which we‘ve covered with mainboard Relics and additional *insertgraveyardhateofchoice* (where I don‘t deem Goyf necessary). I wouldn’t worry about shrinking Goyf if I can hit the GY against Bridgevine and H1 in the right moment.

Couldn’t Goyf be an answer to decks that continuously keep us off Tron or fast aggro that goes under TKS/Thragtusk/OStone? Would that be too narrow?

I don't think there's many fast aggro decks that really get under a Thragtusk/Ostone or a fast Wurmcoil consistently, esp when we have other interaction like Contortions or GY hate post-board as the case may be. The only really relevant one I can think of is Infect, which consistently kills on turn 3. Goyf is nice to have there. Decks that are continuously keeping us off Tron (this is mostly just UW, and maybe BGx) are usually not that aggressive, so we have time to deploy TKS, O-Stone and Tusk which are just more powerful cards than Goyf. Even if you factor in decks with Damping Sphere - Spirits, Hardened Scales, Boggles, Humans - Goyf is super medium in those matchups. The matchups where the card would come close to meeting both your criteria are Hatebears and Ponza. So if your meta has a lot of those and Infect I could see the Goyf/Tusk package being good, but if that were the case you should probably just be playing a different deck

Tarmogoyf seems to have the following upsides:

-Great threat when Tron isn't online (either early, or later due to cards like Field of Ruin, especially since that and Assassin's Trophy fix our green mana)
-Makes racing combo and aggro more realistic
-Low mana cost makes it easier to cast multiple threats a turn (especially helpful versus UW Control)

All that said, most Gx Tron lists run around 16 bodies in the 75, and those seem to be better role-players for us than Goyf. TKS in particular is great against a lot of decks where we also want graveyard hate. Walking Ballista is everything else we need in a "cheap" creature due to its versatility. Goyf's solid, but I don't feel we need more bodies, and the graveyard liability is real.

Speaking of Ballista, it's better against Hollow One and UW Control than many give it credit for. Against the former, it's solid to block Hollow One and ping off a Bloodghast to help us survive early. Against UW, it triggers Sanctum through counters and Stony Silence, baits Paths, and shoots their threats (including JtMS and Teferi). I'm glad people are playing more of them, and that they are a mainstay component of the deck now.

Quote from Thenarus »

Speaking of Ballista, it's better against Hollow One and UW Control than many give it credit for. Against the former, it's solid to block Hollow One and ping off a Bloodghast to help us survive early. Against UW, it triggers Sanctum through counters and Stony Silence, baits Paths, and shoots their threats (including JtMS and Teferi). I'm glad people are playing more of them, and that they are a mainstay component of the deck now.

I fully agree on both cases. Against Hollow One, I'd add that Ballista is also a decent late-game counter to Flamewake Phoenixes if you don't have a Relic, as you can keep killing it and reloading every turn.

Against UW, I like dropping one on X=1 as soon as possible, before they can counter it. Worst case it eats a Path (ramping you and avoiding that Path hitting a more relevant threat), best case it sticks for a while pinging them and making them unable to drop planeswalkers safely. Not sure if it's ideal, but has been working fine for me.

Hey fellow Tron players. I recently completed my double-signed sets of Japanese black border original-art Tron lands. They are my pride and joy right now.

I'm floating this within the deck-specific community because I reckon it'll get the most traction amongst you guys:

I'm looking to turn my English language Tron deck into an all-signed Japanese language Tron deck. It's a slow-burn project so I'm planning to do trading for bits and bobs over time.

My question to y'all is: would any of you (who own them) be willing to trade your Japanese (preferably signed) nonland cards for my English ones? Maps, chromatics, karns, scryings etc. I'm not interested in foils, just regular non-foil versions. I can throw in bonuses of course.

And of course, because we all love the deck I'll keep you updated on this project as it develops.

In the topic of deck development. I've recently been moved to run spellskite again in the sideboard which feels like a huge blast from the past but it works. Bogles particularly is a deck I want to have an extra card against, and it has so many spots where it's useful in the current meta that I felt the opportunity cost was low. I swapped out a SB relic of progenitus for it. Is anyone else doing something similar?

Cheers guys

I lastly played 3-4 Skites in my Sideboard because the Mirror Match as well as Scapeshift and Burn were common.

Right now, my local Meta is in change due to new players, new Decks they finished and new cards (like Assassin's Trophy). I am building Elves right now, for the same reasons - Tron will have a hard time soon.

Greetings

PS: I'll be back here when I see Tron in a better position.

I've had a Skite in my board pretty often over the past few weeks because of Burn being so popular online, as well as a bullet against Infect. It is a very narrow card though and I think generally not worth the slot unless the meta is trending heavily in a direction where it's good. @purklefluff I find it interesting that you feel the need for an extra card against Boggles. It's always felt like a great matchup to me with an average configuration.

Also pretty excited to brew a bit and see where things go with Trophy in the format now.

So in anticipation of lots of GBx and Trophies running around I made a few tweaks - going up to 4 Thragtusk and playing 1-2 Crucible in the board. I played 4 leagues and faced Jund 6 times going 5-1. The interesting thing is I didn't see a single Fulminator Mage in the 6 matches, as they are predictably shaving them if not cutting them altogether now that they have the more versatile Trophy. If that configuration becomes the norm, I think we are still very much favored in the matchup, because Trophy alone in a normal Jund shell is really not that scary, especially with the 4th Ballista as a mid-range threat becoming widely adopted. If they're bringing in minimal or no land hate, the matchup basically stays as it was, with our pre-board chances being a bit worse and post-board a bit better. So it would seem that yet again, the sky is not falling for us.

Deck notes: The 2nd Crucible is the flex slot. Not super necessary but I was seeing so many midrange decks that it seemed good. Could also be a 3rd Surgical or a 2nd Dismember.

Cut the Thought-Knot Seers altogether to make room, and it felt fine. I'll lose some percentage points here and there but by and large I think the decks it's good against are at a low ebb right now.

Time for the September metagame review. I played 208 matches with Tron and an additional 33 with other decks in the MTGO leagues and other events for this 241 match sample, MP being matches played:

Burn: 9.54% (23 MP)
Humans: 6.64% (16 MP)
UW Control: 6.22% (15 MP)
Spirits: 5.39% (13 MP)
Hardened Scales: 4.98% (12 MP)
Gx Tron: 4.15% (10 MP)
Jund: 4.15% (10 MP)
Bridgevine: 3.73% (9 MP)
Grixis Shadow: 3.32% (8 MP)
Infect: 3.32% (8 MP)
Hollow One: 2.90% (7 MP)
Storm: 2.49% (6 MP)
UR Wizards: 2.49% (6 MP)
Ponza: 2.07% (5 MP)
Abzan: 2.07% (5 MP)
Soul Sisters: 1.66% (4 MP)
Counters Company: 1.66% (4 MP)
Eldrazi Taxes: 1.66% (4 MP)

The big standout is Burn head and shoulders above the rest in representation at 9.54%, almost a full 3% clear of 2nd place Humans and almost doubling its meta share from August. The only other time I've seen shares this high were in July - Tron had 9.67%, and in April - Hollow One had 10.34%. Generally speaking seeing a deck over 8% in one month is pretty rare. Humans, UW Control, Bridgevine, Tron and Storm all saw their meta shares drop this month while Infect and UR Wizards rose. Titan Shift also dropped back to its rightful place based on the recent GP stats, with only 0.41%/1 match played.

Interestingly by adding Jund, Abzan and BG Rock (2 MP not shown) meta shares together into "BGx" it comes to 7% of the meta which would be 2nd in representation.

Tron specific discussion:

I went a perfect 14-0 against Humans this month, bringing my 2-month record to 25-2. That's approaching Mardu Pyromancer levels of dominance. I have to chuckle a bit because when I made the guide originally I thought the matchup was only slightly favored for Tron or even. It just goes to show how much getting a large sample size matters sometimes. That being said, it is better now than it was before, due to the addition of the 3rd and now 4th Ballista. Overall it's now almost a 70% win rate over 115 matches.

Got burned by Burn, 8-13 record, but I maintain that it's a fine matchup, even though it's obviously not something we want to see. I'm still over 50% overall with 91 matches played.

Overall win rate with Tron was 59.1%, which isn't bad.

Can't think of anything else notable to mention at the moment, but I'll reiterate that I think people are way too worried about the impact of Assassin's Trophy and the deck will still be good going forward.

Spreadsheet for September is here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1nh4A0tbP_rIjY4mCIZ573rcvHG9flgTdVLS2g_zEIJE/edit?usp=sharing

Just played a league myself and went 3-2, lost to Hardened Scales and in the last round to Jund (I mulled to 5 in G1, and still had a bad hand, in G2 I got to tron and drew all lands, so...I got hit with some Variance)

The deck still feels fine, (Agreeing with your post Sicsmoo). I'm going to start recording data as well, will be going to SCG Dallas in Oct so it's time to jam.

Trophy is whatever, it's a liability for GB/x in other match ups where they once had Decay. There is a discussion atm whether it's worth running more than 2 in the main. That's fine for us, and I did find myself liking the pseudo fixing it can give us in when we need G.