Haven't played MTGO for a couple weekends and I was really interested in GW tron testing, ending up snagging a 5-0 to end the night. I didn't cast RiP until match 5 against hollow one, it was game 3 and I was on the play with T1 relic into T3 wurmcoil and T4 RiP to seal the game.
Match 1: Martyr Life 2-1
Match 2: Martyr Life 2-1
Match 3: Mardu Burn: 2-1
Match 4: Skred Dragons: 2-0
Match 5: Hollow one: 2-1
Pretty soft matchups, I faced Martyr Life 3 opponents in a row if you go back to the previous league which is a bit ridiculous. That matchup is not a gimme considering they can get a quick 6/6 lifelink flyer out and have like 7-8 copies of field and ghost quarter with crucible to back it up. One of the lists had pithing needles, stony silence, AND damping spheres. That was the one time I lost.
Edit: Forgot to say that this is Owen's list from the tournament, except I opted to keep the Worldbreaker over third Ulamog because I really like the option of tutoring 7 mana cast trigger removal when it's relevant. I also went with crucible over the third copy of timely for two reasons; first, since this build is down to 3 basics I wanted crucible as a way to deal with lost of land destruction and second because I didn't want to flood myself with cards demanding white when I'm running an extremely greedy mana build. I'm not sure which is better, the crucible did some work against the martyr grindy matchups but timely was amazing against burn and pretty good against humans and skred to buy time.
I do like the Crucible in the board if you're only playing 3 Forests. I would be so scared to face UW with that build and even GBx would be sketchy. Facing the Martyr deck 3 times in a row is wild, even more so if it was 3 different opponents - was that the case?
Last month I got paired against the same Lantern opponent 4 times (AngledLuffa), 3 of which were in a 2-day period. Normally I hate getting paired against the same opponent but considering how good of a matchup that is I didn't feel too bad, even if my opponent is one of the best pilots of the deck on MTGO.
I forgot to say that the martyr players also had surgical LOL. They had so much hate post board and the matches often went until someone had 5 minutes of clock left. It was 3 different opponents literally one after another over the course of 90 minutes or so. I was wondering if saffronolive posted a video on it or something.
I like the UW matchup with crucible, it does a lot there and usually they can only cryptic bounce or teferi tuck it away. Tbh, I feel the games I lose to uw are the ones where they get us with stony for multiple turns or play multiple fields by turn 4, either way by the time we cast anything meaningful they've gotten a Jace and teferi down and are amassing snapcaster and cryptics in hand. I was already beating uw before with 4 forests and 1 horizon canopy in my mono g build, with crucible as a crutch I think 3 is fine. I will also say having two canopies to cantrip with in grindy post-board play was really really nice. I was churning through my deck quite well and stumbling not too often.
I think bgx decks have the best chance with fulm, otherwise we play thrag into wurm on curve or wipe the board with o-stone and then topdeck way better at parity. Fulminator slows our curve while allowing them to put on a clock or Liliana away our hand. It's similar to uw in that I don't see myself winning the games where they draw 3 or more land destruction by turn 4-5 regardless of the number of forests in my deck. They need to seriously flounder on their gameplan for us to be in the game at that point. More forests will help win those games, but those games are in the minority and I still win the matchups with hardly ever going up to 5 basics in any of my tron builds. I don't thunk one is right over the other, I think it's all about your individual post board plan for the mentioned decks. For me, the way I want to beat them is by redundant tron assembly through maps and Scrying, as well as "gotcha" with a turn 3/4 crucible returning a needed tronland back from the yard to the board. I am playing to assemble tron and play my cards asap rather than try to grind and outlast with extra forests.
With SCG regional's coming up this Sat, I've been jamming again. Did 2 leagues and both were 3-2 results. Played a rare paper event and went 3-0-1 for a nice bit of store credit. My paper record with tron is a staggering 29-8
SCG Classic 6-2
Trios (personal record) 7-2
PPTQ 1 7-2
PPTQ 2 6-2
Random modern event (20 people) 3-0-1.
On mtgo I've gone back to TKS in my Sb, and have stayed at 5 Forest. Cannot stress how important it is for have 5 Basics. Almost every deck I've against played has GQ/ and or Fields in multiples. I tried the old 3x Goyf build in paper and goyf did approximately 14 pts of damage to my UW control opponent in G2 (G1 my opponent had the crucible + GQ/Field lock, I could not have won without 5 basics, said opponent will also be at Regionals). I prefer goyf over Carnage Tyrant, it comes down early and gets under many of UW's permission. If they are so inclined to path a 2 drop that is a fine exchange.
I played against Arch light phoenix in both leagues and beat it after Sb. I found the TKS useful, exiling their Phoenix and random draw spells. Both Sb'd games were won by TKS. Against storm TKS won me yet another match due to stripping away key cards in the right spot.
Not sure what's better, goyf (for UW, and Midrange) or TKS (hedge against combo and our worst match ups).
What would you all recommend?
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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 tested 2xgoyf over 2xtks in the side a few weeks back. It was great against bgx and control, but against the field it's middling at best. My sideboarding against decks like kci, Titanshift, amulet titan, g tron, burn, storm, and ad naus all felt pretty bad without TKS. These are unfavorable matchups and I only had 2-4 cards to side in and that felt pretty bad. IMO goyf was flavor of the month immediately after ass trophy was printed, but we really need TKS in the side for most combo decks. Crucible also does work against bgx and control without taxing our green sources early and it only takes up 1 sideboard slot. I think for regionals you've got to go with TKS over goyf in mono g.
I've been testing a list similar to Turtenwalds GW list, and while I got a 5-0 with it i have similar feelings to when I had goyf in mono g sideboard. Sure, I was beating Gy decks absurdly, but against everything else my sideboarding felt super lackluster. RiP is a narrow card, there are so many gy decks (like jund) where relic is a great card in the side but RiP isn't really playable against it. So RiP is taking 3 slots in the board and is really only playable against the super degenerate gy stuff. Timely also felt hit or miss, a lot of times I was waffling on whether I wanted to board it in because it was a middling card but also taxed me for white mana and I didn't want to run into mana issues post-board. I also missed warping wail in the side so much, I just love having 1 copy of that card.
What I've settled on is mono g, with 2 relic, 3 ball, 1 Breaker, 2 ulamog, 4 o-stone in the main with this side:
With this configuration I've got 3 ball over 3 relics main because I was seeing so many relics in gsme 1s with 3 in the deck and I was not happy with its performance in non-gy matchups. I was really missing ballista number 3 for early and mid game. However, post board I go up to 4 relics and 1 surgical, which feels pretty good against gy decks. Draw multiple relics against dredge and you'll slow them down significantly. You can also play 4 relics against bgx, to slow the tarmo clock a whole bunch and csntrip into tronlands and land tutors to aggressively re-assemble tron. Basically with all this testing, relic was such an all-star in that it trims their GY, and wipes the gy, and cantrips, it is everything I want for this deck. I do like exactly 1 surgical to have 5 gy hate cards, and I've never been a fan of grafdiggers in this deck at all.
Modern - Pyro Prison
Modern - GW Tron
Modern - Mono G Tron
Modern - RWg Burn
Commander - Yisan, The Wanderer Bard cEDH build
Commander - Edric, Spymaster of Trest - Budget/Casual list - complete
Commander - Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis - $35 Budget upgrade
Commander - Edgar Markov - $150 upgrade
Hey all, just finished up playing SCG Dallas Regionals. Took 4th place with my semis loss being too.... -drum roll- Tron lol. I started rd 1 against tron and i ended against tron. Overall great day and fun.
Results:
Win Rd 1) vs Tron (GW Version) 2-0
Win Rd 2) vs Elves 2-0
Win Rd 3) vs Humans 2-0
Win Rd 4) vs GW Value Town 2-0
Win Rd 5) Vs Hardened Scales Affinity 2-1
Loss Rd 6) Vs Grishoalbrand 0-2
Win Rd 7) Vs Infect 2-1 Win (Miracles can happen)
ID Rd 8) ID
Top 8:
Quarters:
Win Vs UR Pheonix w/ Thing in the Ice 2-0
Semis:
Loss Vs Tron (LoL) 0-2
My Turn to lose on the draw, it happens.
Overall I had a lot of fun playing today. Beating Infect and Hardened Scales was a highlight for sure. Starting the day with Tron and Ending the Day with Tron was ironic. Win in the morning, loss in the evening. We all know how great the mirror is!
Oh yeah, I got the SCG Invitational Invite too. HA!
these are decent in the scenario you described (and if you're not bringing in nature's claim, you're doing it wrong). I assume you're running 5 basics? that seems to be the way we're headed these days and personally i've not found any reason to drop down from the 5 i'm running right now (ask me again in six months but for now 5 is the way to go). with that number of basics you're relatively likely to see one over your first couple of draws or maybe in your opener.
stony is a pain, that's for sure. I've never felt that it's lights out though - and we topdeck better than midrange decks so having an empty hand isn't necessarily lights out either.
Dat Lily ultimate tho. lol. if you struggle to find a way to deal with her, that'll be a pain for sure.
i've played a few games which followed the scenario you've described. I threw out an o-stone on my third turn (which i couldn't activate) and then on my fourth or fifth turns, used a nature's claim to enable a couple of chromatics, draw a couple of cards, drop a tron-piece and activate the stone. It worked out fairly well at the time although I recognise you'd have to draw the claim in order to have access to this sort of corner-turning moment.
oh and of course, this was before the printing of assassin's trophy.... but then if they are using trophy on your o-stone, i guess you're up on the exchange? you definitely should have boarded in thragtusks and attempted to lower your curve post-board so them giving you an extra land in exchange for stone would be actually brilliant.
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
these are decent in the scenario you described (and if you're not bringing in nature's claim, you're doing it wrong). I assume you're running 5 basics? that seems to be the way we're headed these days and personally i've not found any reason to drop down from the 5 i'm running right now (ask me again in six months but for now 5 is the way to go). with that number of basics you're relatively likely to see one over your first couple of draws or maybe in your opener.
stony is a pain, that's for sure. I've never felt that it's lights out though - and we topdeck better than midrange decks so having an empty hand isn't necessarily lights out either.
Dat Lily ultimate tho. lol. if you struggle to find a way to deal with her, that'll be a pain for sure.
i've played a few games which followed the scenario you've described. I threw out an o-stone on my third turn (which i couldn't activate) and then on my fourth or fifth turns, used a nature's claim to enable a couple of chromatics, draw a couple of cards, drop a tron-piece and activate the stone. It worked out fairly well at the time although I recognise you'd have to draw the claim in order to have access to this sort of corner-turning moment.
oh and of course, this was before the printing of assassin's trophy.... but then if they are using trophy on your o-stone, i guess you're up on the exchange? you definitely should have boarded in thragtusks and attempted to lower your curve post-board so them giving you an extra land in exchange for stone would be actually brilliant.
It was definitely a moment of them drawing all the right cards at the right time and I mulled to 4 never seeing the 4 natures claim or 2 thragtusks. It is what it is unfortunately. Other than that Abzan beatdown, I ended up 4-2 and bowing out for packs.
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Modern - Pyro Prison
Modern - GW Tron
Modern - Mono G Tron
Modern - RWg Burn
Commander - Yisan, The Wanderer Bard cEDH build
Commander - Edric, Spymaster of Trest - Budget/Casual list - complete
Commander - Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis - $35 Budget upgrade
Commander - Edgar Markov - $150 upgrade
Played last night for the first time in a while and went 3-2 for 7th place. Lost to U/R Phoenix and Goryo’s vengeance. The Phoenix game 1 I kept a bad hand and then found the wrong end of my deck on game two. Honestly, the matchup seemed favorable. The goryo’s vengeance game however... I lost on turn 3 game one and turn 2 game 2. Does anybody have a sideboard guise for either of those two decks? I am running a pretty stick mono green list. Thanks!
Hey guys, thought I'd pop in with a metagame report. I didn't actually play very much this month because the online meta is quite poor for Tron right now and I wasn't having fun trying to slog through the endless hordes of Arclight Phoenixes, so I was doing other things. I did still manage to play 75 matches, about half with Tron and half with other decks, and this is what I ran into:
Now, keeping in mind that this is a relatively small sample, I can't remember the last time the online meta was this uninteractive. I never saw Ironworks more than 2 or 3 times even in months with large sample sizes. I think it's increasing in popularity now that another BR update has passed with no bans, and more people are seeing it almost as a duty to pick it up, given its raw power. There was also a massive 50+ page primer released on it recently.
Saw the Phoenix decks 1 out of every 6.8 matches. Finding it pretty exhausting to be honest, especially considering no consensus has been reached on what the best version is. There's at least 3 distinct versions (Mono Red, UR and Hollow Phoenix) which all have variation within themselves, which makes it difficult to prepare or have a concrete sideboard plan @PlainsAngels. At least the most recent versions of all of them seem to be dropping the Alpine and Blood Moons, which is a response to Tron all but disappearing online, so people still playing the deck have that going for them at least.
So yeah I think Tron is poorly positioned online right now but I would still take it to a paper tournament.
back from another FNM. Lost to a Turn 2 Griselbrand win, so that happened, whatever. Once again, I HATE Ponza, I hate, hate, HATE Ponza. I don't want to switch to another deck, butit's REALLY tempting to check which deck just kills Ponza hardest and bring that. MAINBOARD Stone Rain??? I sided in 9 cards, NINE. and it wasn't enough because I never had mana. This deck can't run on 2 lands, it's not possible. is there anything that ROFLSTOMPS them that we can play? I don't care if it's ONLY for that matchup and actively awful everywhere else. is there a card we can run that even with their good hand just makes them look stupid> I may have asked after the last time I played that matchup, but i can't find it. I am fine losing some power in another matchup if I can pull a 'Hulk on Loki' and restructure the floor with that blasted deck. TBC, I'm a bit annoyed
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There's no silver bullet that "ROFLSTOMPS" Ponza because outside of all the land destruction, it's just a fair midrange deck. Tarmogoyf is a fantastic card in the matchup because it will be a large body for just 2 mana. Other than that you can just lower your curve - play more copies of Walking Ballista and Thragtusk. Play Crucible/Life From the Loam. Dismember is very good because it can snipe their Arbor Elf or kill Tireless Tracker later. Warping Wail can be really good to counter Stone Rains but it also gets shut off by Blood Moon.
Added Grishoalbrand to the sideboard guide @PlainsAngels
There's no silver bullet that "ROFLSTOMPS" Ponza because outside of all the land destruction, it's just a fair midrange deck. Tarmogoyf is a fantastic card in the matchup because it will be a large body for just 2 mana. Other than that you can just lower your curve - play more copies of Walking Ballista and Thragtusk. Play Crucible/Life From the Loam. Dismember is very good because it can snipe their Arbor Elf or kill Tireless Tracker later. Warping Wail can be really good to counter Stone Rains but it also gets shut off by Blood Moon.
Added Grishoalbrand to the sideboard guide @PlainsAngels
The midrange plan doesn't bother me, it's just decent, not even brutal midrange, I can beat that same as any other, Wurmcoil,Karn, concede? It's the LD that had me seething. I did pack Wail, but like you said, Blood Moon SUCKS. I was thinking of adding one Wastes just so I have an out there. I'm hoping to get Goyf off of the latest reprint when the price falls a bit. I have one Crucible in the side. a guy just pointed out Sacred Ground I might try that, maybe one Temple Garden to have access to some white toys. it just SUCKS when the Ponza player isn't dropping any threats, just LD card after card, and you can't do much because you're sitting there with 2 Mountains
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Ballista to remove their Arbor Elf can buy you enough time to make land drops, their top decks can be just atrocious and taking away their mana can get you really far. Also, look for moments where a ghost quarter on their land that has Utopia Sprawl(s) on it will take them off of mana and/or red mana. Warping wail is really good in the matchup. From my experience they will play their LD before their blood moon, and you will be leaving 2 mana open for wail the turn they go to cast either one, so if it's a blood moon then cast wail for a scion while moon is on the stack. get to Thragtusk/wurmcoil sticking and you're pretty golden.
The MODO meta is so bad for tron right now, it might be the worst I've seen it ever. Since creeping chill got printed, MODO got flooded with goldfish decks and graveyard decks, all operating on their own axis and all winning by turn 3/turn 4 w/ the play. I think in the past 15 matches I played, 4 or more were against Amulet Titan which is not a very good matchup if the titan player is competent. If they are smart enough to get a ghost quarter with their first Titan trigger, our deck will not get it's mana fast enough with their very fast clock. I have also played way less MODO in the past 4-6 weeks than I would like because even getting a 3-2 became such a slog, as Sicsmoo said. I do jam it in paper and continue to do great there, but it's just been way too rough going on MODO.
As for the GW discussion, having played that version a bit recently I came to the conclusion that the consistency of Mono G is still more percentage points of value against the field over hosing GY decks with RiP. With phoenix, RiP is a trap card because they don't need their GY to win like dredge and KCI do, and many times it makes the opponent's ancient grudge on your wurmcoil way too powerful. Using wurm to stabilize against dredge is pretty important in post-board play, and the non-bo with RiP feels bad there and other matchups. RiP just does not fit into our deck shell like it does other decks; it non-bos with too much IMO. Chromatic Star, Wurmcoil, Loam/Crucible; not to mention the stress it puts on your manabase/chromatics to have white by turn 2. I can see white and RiP being playable if THE TOP deck in the format is FIRMLY KCI or dredge or something that gets totally hosed. Outside of that, relic is going to get the job done enough of the time, surgical is going to get it done enough of the time, and cage is ***** in the deck IMO but a colorless turn 1 play and for that reason fits the tron shell better than RiP. Go with 1 canopy and 4 forests and run mono G. the Mono G lists are the ones putting up results in paper, there has been one green white list that top 8'd a major tournament (or maybe T16 or something), whereas there have been numerous MONO G lists. That speaks volumes to the percentage points gained by the Mono G consistency.
As an aside, I do think 4 Ostones is where we want to be; cutting either Wold Breaker, a ballista, or a relic over the 4th ostone seems better. With as much field of ruin and other tron assembly interruption there is going on, I feel like I'm leaning on an ostone activation over two turns now more than ever. Early game, decks are playing damping sphere, A-trophy, and field of ruin instead of playing threats for a clock, and Ostone really shines here because it makes them play around one on the board and it destroys their threats and their damping sphere/blood moon in one fell swoop. IMO there's just too many decks where its very good to not have access to all 4, and it seems silly to split them 3/1 in the main/sideboard.
hi sicsmoo, do you have any idea on what should side out and side in against Izzet Phoenix deck and Mono-red Phoenix deck, they are very popular now I hope you could give me some insights
Well, like I touched on recently, the issue with trying to make sideboard plans for those decks is that they're still evolving. It looked like the UR versions were becoming fairly homogenous, at least in terms of the creature base, but this weekend we see Ross Merriam's winning list containing 2 Monastery Swiftspear, which was previously only seen in the mono-red versions. So there are still wrenches being thrown. That being said I can probably try to make some general plans tomorrow.
Hey @Foxantes, nice that you've been having success. To clarify, I don't think that these matchups are terrible, but I don't think they're good either. Kinda like the Burn matchup. Anything can happen over small sample sizes.
I think that the UR version is probably the easiest, because they don't generally have Monastery Swiftspear, which is just a hard card for us to deal with in general. But again, now that Merriam won that tournament with those cheeky 2 copies, people will copy that to an extent. Generally, though, that version is a bit slower and has less reach than the mono-red ones, because it has more cantrips and less burn spells, which is good for us.
General thoughts on the matchups: Thragtusk is the only card I would want 100% of the time against all of the versions. It's definitely not amazing because it doesn't block Phoenix or Drake, but it does block Swiftspear, Steam-Kin, Reveler and Hollow One, and leaves a token after Thing in the Ice flips. And we're always in the market for lifegain.
Surgical is probably a trap, especially against mono-red. They can easily win without Phoenix and the 2 life matters.
I like Spatial against mono-red as it hits Swiftspear, Phoenix, Steam-Kin (if they're playing that version), Flameblade Adept (ditto), and Eidolon out of the side. Generally it only has Phoenix as a target against UR so it doesn't seem good.
I think Karn is actually pretty solid against UR because they have so few threats. Killing their one TiTi or Crackling Drake can buy a lot of time. If they Bolt it, fine, we're happy its not pointed at our face.
Re: Nature's Claim for Alpine Moon out of UR - I'm not a fan. Only some of the lists are playing it, and it's only a 2-of in the ones that are. It also has no synergy with their gameplan so it will usually slow them down, which gives us time to get to O-Stone or Thragtusk on 5. I like it better against mono-red because blowing up our own things has more value because they have more burn spells, plus it kills Eidolon and Shrine of Burning Rage if they bring it in.
I like keeping both Ulamogs because we just want to end the game against these decks and that's what it does.
To boil this down, using the list from my guide, this would be my starting point:
UR:
-2 Walking Ballista, -1 Ugin, -1 World Breaker
+4 Thragtusk
I'll just mention Dismember as well, which is not currently in my deck. It's actually pretty solid against the UR version in particular to take down TiTi or Drake, and is even fine against Phoenix if it was going to hit you more than once anyway. I don't like it as much against mono-red as again, the life loss hurts more, but if I was expecting to see a lot of UR in particular I'd be packing 1-2 in the 75.
Match 1: Martyr Life 2-1
Match 2: Martyr Life 2-1
Match 3: Mardu Burn: 2-1
Match 4: Skred Dragons: 2-0
Match 5: Hollow one: 2-1
Pretty soft matchups, I faced Martyr Life 3 opponents in a row if you go back to the previous league which is a bit ridiculous. That matchup is not a gimme considering they can get a quick 6/6 lifelink flyer out and have like 7-8 copies of field and ghost quarter with crucible to back it up. One of the lists had pithing needles, stony silence, AND damping spheres. That was the one time I lost.
Edit: Forgot to say that this is Owen's list from the tournament, except I opted to keep the Worldbreaker over third Ulamog because I really like the option of tutoring 7 mana cast trigger removal when it's relevant. I also went with crucible over the third copy of timely for two reasons; first, since this build is down to 3 basics I wanted crucible as a way to deal with lost of land destruction and second because I didn't want to flood myself with cards demanding white when I'm running an extremely greedy mana build. I'm not sure which is better, the crucible did some work against the martyr grindy matchups but timely was amazing against burn and pretty good against humans and skred to buy time.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
Last month I got paired against the same Lantern opponent 4 times (AngledLuffa), 3 of which were in a 2-day period. Normally I hate getting paired against the same opponent but considering how good of a matchup that is I didn't feel too bad, even if my opponent is one of the best pilots of the deck on MTGO.
I like the UW matchup with crucible, it does a lot there and usually they can only cryptic bounce or teferi tuck it away. Tbh, I feel the games I lose to uw are the ones where they get us with stony for multiple turns or play multiple fields by turn 4, either way by the time we cast anything meaningful they've gotten a Jace and teferi down and are amassing snapcaster and cryptics in hand. I was already beating uw before with 4 forests and 1 horizon canopy in my mono g build, with crucible as a crutch I think 3 is fine. I will also say having two canopies to cantrip with in grindy post-board play was really really nice. I was churning through my deck quite well and stumbling not too often.
I think bgx decks have the best chance with fulm, otherwise we play thrag into wurm on curve or wipe the board with o-stone and then topdeck way better at parity. Fulminator slows our curve while allowing them to put on a clock or Liliana away our hand. It's similar to uw in that I don't see myself winning the games where they draw 3 or more land destruction by turn 4-5 regardless of the number of forests in my deck. They need to seriously flounder on their gameplan for us to be in the game at that point. More forests will help win those games, but those games are in the minority and I still win the matchups with hardly ever going up to 5 basics in any of my tron builds. I don't thunk one is right over the other, I think it's all about your individual post board plan for the mentioned decks. For me, the way I want to beat them is by redundant tron assembly through maps and Scrying, as well as "gotcha" with a turn 3/4 crucible returning a needed tronland back from the yard to the board. I am playing to assemble tron and play my cards asap rather than try to grind and outlast with extra forests.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
SCG Classic 6-2
Trios (personal record) 7-2
PPTQ 1 7-2
PPTQ 2 6-2
Random modern event (20 people) 3-0-1.
On mtgo I've gone back to TKS in my Sb, and have stayed at 5 Forest. Cannot stress how important it is for have 5 Basics. Almost every deck I've against played has GQ/ and or Fields in multiples. I tried the old 3x Goyf build in paper and goyf did approximately 14 pts of damage to my UW control opponent in G2 (G1 my opponent had the crucible + GQ/Field lock, I could not have won without 5 basics, said opponent will also be at Regionals). I prefer goyf over Carnage Tyrant, it comes down early and gets under many of UW's permission. If they are so inclined to path a 2 drop that is a fine exchange.
I played against Arch light phoenix in both leagues and beat it after Sb. I found the TKS useful, exiling their Phoenix and random draw spells. Both Sb'd games were won by TKS. Against storm TKS won me yet another match due to stripping away key cards in the right spot.
Not sure what's better, goyf (for UW, and Midrange) or TKS (hedge against combo and our worst match ups).
What would you all recommend?
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've been testing a list similar to Turtenwalds GW list, and while I got a 5-0 with it i have similar feelings to when I had goyf in mono g sideboard. Sure, I was beating Gy decks absurdly, but against everything else my sideboarding felt super lackluster. RiP is a narrow card, there are so many gy decks (like jund) where relic is a great card in the side but RiP isn't really playable against it. So RiP is taking 3 slots in the board and is really only playable against the super degenerate gy stuff. Timely also felt hit or miss, a lot of times I was waffling on whether I wanted to board it in because it was a middling card but also taxed me for white mana and I didn't want to run into mana issues post-board. I also missed warping wail in the side so much, I just love having 1 copy of that card.
What I've settled on is mono g, with 2 relic, 3 ball, 1 Breaker, 2 ulamog, 4 o-stone in the main with this side:
3 thrag
3 Claim
2 TKS
2 relic
2 spatial
1 Wail
1 crucible
1 surgical
With this configuration I've got 3 ball over 3 relics main because I was seeing so many relics in gsme 1s with 3 in the deck and I was not happy with its performance in non-gy matchups. I was really missing ballista number 3 for early and mid game. However, post board I go up to 4 relics and 1 surgical, which feels pretty good against gy decks. Draw multiple relics against dredge and you'll slow them down significantly. You can also play 4 relics against bgx, to slow the tarmo clock a whole bunch and csntrip into tronlands and land tutors to aggressively re-assemble tron. Basically with all this testing, relic was such an all-star in that it trims their GY, and wipes the gy, and cantrips, it is everything I want for this deck. I do like exactly 1 surgical to have 5 gy hate cards, and I've never been a fan of grafdiggers in this deck at all.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
Modern - GW Tron
Modern - Mono G Tron
Modern - RWg Burn
Commander - Yisan, The Wanderer Bard cEDH build
Commander - Edric, Spymaster of Trest - Budget/Casual list - complete
Commander - Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis - $35 Budget upgrade
Commander - Edgar Markov - $150 upgrade
The list I ran:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1247692#paper
Results:
Win Rd 1) vs Tron (GW Version) 2-0
Win Rd 2) vs Elves 2-0
Win Rd 3) vs Humans 2-0
Win Rd 4) vs GW Value Town 2-0
Win Rd 5) Vs Hardened Scales Affinity 2-1
Loss Rd 6) Vs Grishoalbrand 0-2
Win Rd 7) Vs Infect 2-1 Win (Miracles can happen)
ID Rd 8) ID
Top 8:
Quarters:
Win Vs UR Pheonix w/ Thing in the Ice 2-0
Semis:
Loss Vs Tron (LoL) 0-2
My Turn to lose on the draw, it happens.
Overall I had a lot of fun playing today. Beating Infect and Hardened Scales was a highlight for sure. Starting the day with Tron and Ending the Day with Tron was ironic. Win in the morning, loss in the evening. We all know how great the mirror is!
Oh yeah, I got the SCG Invitational Invite too. HA!
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.. you're not 0% to see some dig through your deck, although Stony does shut off chromatics making G a harder sell.
these are decent in the scenario you described (and if you're not bringing in nature's claim, you're doing it wrong). I assume you're running 5 basics? that seems to be the way we're headed these days and personally i've not found any reason to drop down from the 5 i'm running right now (ask me again in six months but for now 5 is the way to go). with that number of basics you're relatively likely to see one over your first couple of draws or maybe in your opener.
stony is a pain, that's for sure. I've never felt that it's lights out though - and we topdeck better than midrange decks so having an empty hand isn't necessarily lights out either.
Dat Lily ultimate tho. lol. if you struggle to find a way to deal with her, that'll be a pain for sure.
i've played a few games which followed the scenario you've described. I threw out an o-stone on my third turn (which i couldn't activate) and then on my fourth or fifth turns, used a nature's claim to enable a couple of chromatics, draw a couple of cards, drop a tron-piece and activate the stone. It worked out fairly well at the time although I recognise you'd have to draw the claim in order to have access to this sort of corner-turning moment.
oh and of course, this was before the printing of assassin's trophy.... but then if they are using trophy on your o-stone, i guess you're up on the exchange? you definitely should have boarded in thragtusks and attempted to lower your curve post-board so them giving you an extra land in exchange for stone would be actually brilliant.
It was definitely a moment of them drawing all the right cards at the right time and I mulled to 4 never seeing the 4 natures claim or 2 thragtusks. It is what it is unfortunately. Other than that Abzan beatdown, I ended up 4-2 and bowing out for packs.
Modern - GW Tron
Modern - Mono G Tron
Modern - RWg Burn
Commander - Yisan, The Wanderer Bard cEDH build
Commander - Edric, Spymaster of Trest - Budget/Casual list - complete
Commander - Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis - $35 Budget upgrade
Commander - Edgar Markov - $150 upgrade
Arclight Phoenix decks: 14.7% (11 MP)
Storm: 9.33% (7 MP)
Dredge: 6.67% (5 MP)
Ironworks: 6.67% (5 MP)
BGx: 6.67% (5 MP) (Jund 4%, BG 1.33%, Sultai 1.33%, Abzan 0%)
Burn: 5.33% (4 MP)
UW Control: 4.0% (3 MP)
Boggles: 4.0% (3 MP)
Humans: 2.67% (2 MP)
Hollow One: 2.67% (2 MP)
Titan Shift: 2.67% (2 MP)
Eldrazi Tron: 2.67% (2 MP)
Blue Moon: 2.67% (2 MP)
Jund/4C Shadow: 2.67% (2 MP)
8Rack: 2.67% (2 MP)
Affinity, Gx Tron, Mardu Pyro, Infect, Jeskai, Spirits, Bridgevine, Wizards and Hatebears = 1 MP.
Now, keeping in mind that this is a relatively small sample, I can't remember the last time the online meta was this uninteractive. I never saw Ironworks more than 2 or 3 times even in months with large sample sizes. I think it's increasing in popularity now that another BR update has passed with no bans, and more people are seeing it almost as a duty to pick it up, given its raw power. There was also a massive 50+ page primer released on it recently.
Saw the Phoenix decks 1 out of every 6.8 matches. Finding it pretty exhausting to be honest, especially considering no consensus has been reached on what the best version is. There's at least 3 distinct versions (Mono Red, UR and Hollow Phoenix) which all have variation within themselves, which makes it difficult to prepare or have a concrete sideboard plan @PlainsAngels. At least the most recent versions of all of them seem to be dropping the Alpine and Blood Moons, which is a response to Tron all but disappearing online, so people still playing the deck have that going for them at least.
So yeah I think Tron is poorly positioned online right now but I would still take it to a paper tournament.
Added Grishoalbrand to the sideboard guide @PlainsAngels
The midrange plan doesn't bother me, it's just decent, not even brutal midrange, I can beat that same as any other, Wurmcoil,Karn, concede? It's the LD that had me seething. I did pack Wail, but like you said, Blood Moon SUCKS. I was thinking of adding one Wastes just so I have an out there. I'm hoping to get Goyf off of the latest reprint when the price falls a bit. I have one Crucible in the side. a guy just pointed out Sacred Ground I might try that, maybe one Temple Garden to have access to some white toys. it just SUCKS when the Ponza player isn't dropping any threats, just LD card after card, and you can't do much because you're sitting there with 2 Mountains
The MODO meta is so bad for tron right now, it might be the worst I've seen it ever. Since creeping chill got printed, MODO got flooded with goldfish decks and graveyard decks, all operating on their own axis and all winning by turn 3/turn 4 w/ the play. I think in the past 15 matches I played, 4 or more were against Amulet Titan which is not a very good matchup if the titan player is competent. If they are smart enough to get a ghost quarter with their first Titan trigger, our deck will not get it's mana fast enough with their very fast clock. I have also played way less MODO in the past 4-6 weeks than I would like because even getting a 3-2 became such a slog, as Sicsmoo said. I do jam it in paper and continue to do great there, but it's just been way too rough going on MODO.
As for the GW discussion, having played that version a bit recently I came to the conclusion that the consistency of Mono G is still more percentage points of value against the field over hosing GY decks with RiP. With phoenix, RiP is a trap card because they don't need their GY to win like dredge and KCI do, and many times it makes the opponent's ancient grudge on your wurmcoil way too powerful. Using wurm to stabilize against dredge is pretty important in post-board play, and the non-bo with RiP feels bad there and other matchups. RiP just does not fit into our deck shell like it does other decks; it non-bos with too much IMO. Chromatic Star, Wurmcoil, Loam/Crucible; not to mention the stress it puts on your manabase/chromatics to have white by turn 2. I can see white and RiP being playable if THE TOP deck in the format is FIRMLY KCI or dredge or something that gets totally hosed. Outside of that, relic is going to get the job done enough of the time, surgical is going to get it done enough of the time, and cage is ***** in the deck IMO but a colorless turn 1 play and for that reason fits the tron shell better than RiP. Go with 1 canopy and 4 forests and run mono G. the Mono G lists are the ones putting up results in paper, there has been one green white list that top 8'd a major tournament (or maybe T16 or something), whereas there have been numerous MONO G lists. That speaks volumes to the percentage points gained by the Mono G consistency.
As an aside, I do think 4 Ostones is where we want to be; cutting either Wold Breaker, a ballista, or a relic over the 4th ostone seems better. With as much field of ruin and other tron assembly interruption there is going on, I feel like I'm leaning on an ostone activation over two turns now more than ever. Early game, decks are playing damping sphere, A-trophy, and field of ruin instead of playing threats for a clock, and Ostone really shines here because it makes them play around one on the board and it destroys their threats and their damping sphere/blood moon in one fell swoop. IMO there's just too many decks where its very good to not have access to all 4, and it seems silly to split them 3/1 in the main/sideboard.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR
I think that the UR version is probably the easiest, because they don't generally have Monastery Swiftspear, which is just a hard card for us to deal with in general. But again, now that Merriam won that tournament with those cheeky 2 copies, people will copy that to an extent. Generally, though, that version is a bit slower and has less reach than the mono-red ones, because it has more cantrips and less burn spells, which is good for us.
General thoughts on the matchups: Thragtusk is the only card I would want 100% of the time against all of the versions. It's definitely not amazing because it doesn't block Phoenix or Drake, but it does block Swiftspear, Steam-Kin, Reveler and Hollow One, and leaves a token after Thing in the Ice flips. And we're always in the market for lifegain.
Surgical is probably a trap, especially against mono-red. They can easily win without Phoenix and the 2 life matters.
I like Spatial against mono-red as it hits Swiftspear, Phoenix, Steam-Kin (if they're playing that version), Flameblade Adept (ditto), and Eidolon out of the side. Generally it only has Phoenix as a target against UR so it doesn't seem good.
I think Karn is actually pretty solid against UR because they have so few threats. Killing their one TiTi or Crackling Drake can buy a lot of time. If they Bolt it, fine, we're happy its not pointed at our face.
Re: Nature's Claim for Alpine Moon out of UR - I'm not a fan. Only some of the lists are playing it, and it's only a 2-of in the ones that are. It also has no synergy with their gameplan so it will usually slow them down, which gives us time to get to O-Stone or Thragtusk on 5. I like it better against mono-red because blowing up our own things has more value because they have more burn spells, plus it kills Eidolon and Shrine of Burning Rage if they bring it in.
I like keeping both Ulamogs because we just want to end the game against these decks and that's what it does.
To boil this down, using the list from my guide, this would be my starting point:
UR:
-2 Walking Ballista, -1 Ugin, -1 World Breaker
+4 Thragtusk
Mono Red/Hollow Phoenix:
-2 Walking Ballista, -2 Ugin, -2 Karn, -2 O-Stone, -1 World Breaker
+4 Thragtusk, +2 Spatial, +3 Nature's Claim
I'll just mention Dismember as well, which is not currently in my deck. It's actually pretty solid against the UR version in particular to take down TiTi or Drake, and is even fine against Phoenix if it was going to hit you more than once anyway. I don't like it as much against mono-red as again, the life loss hurts more, but if I was expecting to see a lot of UR in particular I'd be packing 1-2 in the 75.
WG G/W Tron GW
BG G/B Tron GB
GG Mono G Tron GG
RG G/R Tron GR