MTG Salvation

Split the finals at a local CFB $2k (110 players). Guess I'm back on G Tron. All my luck is gone for LA though



R1: 2-1 Titanshift (Marshall Jankovsky - Top8 GP OAK)
G1: Fast Karn held him off 6 lands enough to stick an Ulamog
G2: Rolled by Scapeshift.
G3: T3 Karn -> T4 TKS x2 seeing Scapeshiftx3 Titan

R2: 2-0 Storm
G1: I actually was about to board for Izzet Phoenix because he played Island -> Serum -> Opt -> Opt -> Serum -> Opt but he pitched a Gifts Ungiven which allowed me to see the MU
G2: I had Grafdigger's on 1 + 2 Relics. Took 10-15 turns to win because I was playing almost playing prison.

R3: 1-2 Izzet Phoenix
G1: Rolled by T2 double Phoenix. Almost stabilized but got topdecked by Gutshot
G2: T3 Wurmcoil into World Breaker
G3: T4 double Thing in the Ice flipped.

R4: 2-1 GDS
G1: Mulled to 5 but opponent had only one Angler so I managed to chain a couple threats with fire top decks.
G2: Thought Scour -> Surgical -> Relic -> Surgical
G3: Thought Scour x3 missed three times

R5: 2-1 Eldrazi
G1: He missed playing Scourge on two and I won at 4 life. (Could've also killed my Karn)
G2: Chalice on 1 blocked my entire line.
G3: Chalice on 1 was too slow for natural tron.

R6: 2-0 Amulet Titan
G1: She drew literal dumpster fire.
G2: She drew literal dumpster fire.

R7: 2-1 Jeskai Control
G1: Early Tron with threats outclassed his Field.
G2: Probably the best game of the tournament. Mull to 4 and game went to 20 turns. Had early tron with lucky top decks. Drew live threats for a few turns. He had a really nice Cryptic Command counter Ulamog bounce Sanctum into multiple Snap Cryptic bounce Snap + counter.
G3: T3 Karn.

QF: 2-1 Hollow One
G1: T3 Karn into two Stones beat his Burning Inquiry.
G2: Rolled by Hollow Ones + Flameblade Adept + Flamewake Phoenix
G3: T3 Wurmcoil into Surgical Flamewake into Karn secured it.

SF: 2-1 Dredge
G1: He hit hot garbage off his dredge but still won because I couldn't find Tron/Relic.
G2: T3 Wurmcoil into Relic.
G3: Should've lost here. He played well all day but had two really big missteps. First trigger Bloodghast on his MP2 allowed me to Ugin wipe 3x Ghast + Amalgam. Then the final situation. He had 3x Bloodghast exiled, 2x Conflag in yard, 7 cards in hand, 3 lands on board, 20 cards in library, and I was at 10 life with an Ugin on 4 and a known Ulamog in hand. He chose to Conflag 6 at me which put him dead to my Ulamog.

F: Split Titanshift
Long day agreed to split before knowing the MU. Thank goodness.

Overall, I got extremely lucky in some really poor MUs to take it home. I ran G Tron cause I didn't get the cards for Whir in time and I didn't want to play Phoenix/GW. Ran well for me, much better than it did at GP OAK. I find myself occasionally wanting a third Surgical, a Crucible, and 2 Dismember's or PTEs. (Also maybe another Canopy instead of a Forest.)

My SB strategy started with sicsmoo's guide when I got back into Modern 6 months ago but I've slowly changed some of the cuts/adds. Biggest thing I think is the difference for play/draw and maybe cutting Karn too aggressively because trying to mise a T3 Karn victory is still a great line in some of the bad MUs. Huge shoutout to sicsmoo though for the extremely comprehensive data/SB guide. Helped me really get into 4x Thragtusks SB.

Biggest tip I still have to tell myself everyday: Mull aggressively. I definitely didn't get punished for some very sketchy keeps yesterday.

Nice work, thanks for the report.

Well, I'm going to regionals again (Aiming high again! 4th and beyond). I still have my notes on your SB Sicsmoo, was wondering what your thoughts are on these match ups:

Izzet Pheonix and Mono Red

Last Regionals I beat Izzet Pheonix 2-0 in the Quarters, G1 I remember knocking on the top of my deck and just believing in the Heart of the Cards. I was gifted with a top deck Wurmcoil Engine, Never didn't have it . My SB'ing was improvised, something like:
Out: -1 Stone, -1 Ugin, -2 Karn, -2 Ballista, -1 Ulamog
In: +1 Wail, +2 Claim, +3 Thragtusk, +2 Surgical

The last league I played, I did this against mono red phoenix:
Treated it like a half way Burn Sb Plan:
Out: -2 Ballista, -1 Ulamog, -1 Ugin, -2 Stone, -2 Karn, -1 Relic (good but I shaved 1 from my main down to 2), 1 Sphere
In: +3 Claim (I still run 4, it's like a rabbit's foot for me), +3 Thragtusk, +2 Spatial Contortion, +2 Surgical
I did't like TKS here, not sure why, I did want the Surgicals.

I know how to board against everything else, but these match ups are always a shuffle. Any input is would be greatly appreciated. Thnx!

I wrote something about Mono Red Phoenix a little while ago - it's on this page.

For Izzet:

+1 Cage, +2 Surgical, +2 Nature's Claim
-2 Ballista, -1 Ugin, -1 Ostone, -1 Ulamog

Wail is good if you have it, but otherwise no major changes as the matchup is already good. I don't like Thragtusk because it doesn't block anything profitably and the lifegain doesn't matter as much as against Mono Red. I still think Karn is great as we have enough graveyard hate to control the Phoenixes and he is exactly what we want against TiTi and Crackling Drake. Most lists aren't even playing hard counters for him - generally just 1-2 Spell Pierce so play around that if you can and you'll be fine.

I'll update the guide with these matchups when I get a sec - should have done it sooner.

EDIT: Also interesting that you're still on 4 Claim as well. I've been toying with the idea of going back down to 2 now that Stony Silence is basically non-existent again. The main thing stopping me is this Wilderness Reclamation deck lurking around in the MTGO queues - Claim is the best card there.

Anyone have any SB tech options vs Whir Prison? It's too bad that Creeping Corrosion doesn't have the anti-regenerate clause. Was wondering if you guys had any other viable options.

Quote from MCR »

Anyone have any SB tech options vs Whir Prison? It's too bad that Creeping Corrosion doesn't have the anti-regenerate clause. Was wondering if you guys had any other viable options.

Perilous Vault. It's a great additional Ostone effect that exiles so it gets around those pesky Welding Jars out of Whir and Hardened Scales which is not an easy matchup either. It's also just good as an additional sweeper against Humans, Spirits, Dredge, etc. The main issue is it's a bit slower than Ostone because it costs 4, then 5 to activate, but this would not matter against Whir Prison in particular. Against the faster decks, you can still activate it on turn 4 like Ostone, but it requires you to play it on turn 3 which gives them a window to disrupt/destroy it.

sting list. Trimmed down on Ballistas and World Breaker for a pair of MD Thrags, and is running both Horizon Canopy and Buried Ruin in exchange for running only three basics.

Yea, anyone that's been reading the thread for a while knows that I've been a fan of MD Thragtusks. It's just very good in the deck and Ballista and WB are fairly medium at the moment, so I think that list is solid. As for the manabase, going below 4 Forest is still too much for me to stomach. UW may be on a downswing but it's still present, and I run into BG Rock regularly enough that I want those basics. Though the Tusks in the main do help mitigate the low basic count a bit.

Added the 2 Phoenix matchups (at the top) and Sultai Wilderness Reclamation (at the bottom) to the guide.

Quote from sicsmoo »

Added the 2 Phoenix matchups (at the top) and Sultai Wilderness Reclamation (at the bottom) to the guide.

Thanks! Much appreciated

Quote from MCR »

Anyone have any SB tech options vs Whir Prison? It's too bad that Creeping Corrosion doesn't have the anti-regenerate clause. Was wondering if you guys had any other viable options.

There's not really that much tech for the matchup because our deck is basically already anti-Whir Prison tech. It's a stellar matchup. They don't have enough Spyglasses to cover everything, so unless they manage to put together the Tectonic Edge+Crucible of Worlds combo fast enough and prevent you from thwarting it with a Relic of Progenitus, the first game is yours. Even in the second all they can really do is hope to beat you down with Sai or kill you with Tezzeret before you break your way through their defenses.

But if you're really looking for something to make the matchup even better, try Orbs of Warding. As noted, their main threats are Tezzeret and Sai, but while it's in play Tezzeret can't ultimate and neither Sai nor his tokens can hurt you. The card's also good against Valakut, Burn, and Storm.

Quote from Lord Seth »

Quote from MCR »

Anyone have any SB tech options vs Whir Prison? It's too bad that Creeping Corrosion doesn't have the anti-regenerate clause. Was wondering if you guys had any other viable options.

There's not really that much tech for the matchup because our deck is basically already anti-Whir Prison tech. It's a stellar matchup. They don't have enough Spyglasses to cover everything, so unless they manage to put together the Tectonic Edge+Crucible of Worlds combo fast enough and prevent you from thwarting it with a Relic of Progenitus, the first game is yours. Even in the second all they can really do is hope to beat you down with Sai or kill you with Tezzeret before you break your way through their defenses.

Interesting perspective; in my experience the matchup isn't very good at all. You missed a couple key points I think - the 4 maindeck Chalice of the Void is not a good time for us, especially with 4 Welding Jar to keep it around if we manage to slip O-Stone past Spyglass. And 4 Whir of Invention with the maindeck Damping Sphere, giving them effectively 5 copies of it. Same goes for Spyglass of which they have 2 main and 2 more in the sideboard. 4 is definitely enough to cover everything, but even in game 1 they really only need 1 quickly to shut off O-Stone which then buys them tons of time to set the lock up further. They have all the tools to shut down our gameplan, and given how redundant/full of tutors the deck is, I think they'll succeed more often than not. Currently my record in the matchup is 4-6.

Just finsihed a league, went 3-2:

Notes here:
League Tron
R1) 2-1 Win Vs Valakut
R2) 0-2 Loss Through the Breach
R3) 2-0 Vs Bant Eldrazi
R4) 2-1 Vs Dredge (notes Venegful Pharaoh almost beat me)
R5) 0-2 8 Rack (lack of Sb prep)

The dredge match up was very tight. Vengeful Pharaoh was hiding out in the opponents GY. I attacked once with Ulamog , got him down to card in his card and gasped a bit once Pharaoh went back on top of his library. We laughed about because I took a minute to figure out that I needed to hold back lol. Phew

Valakut win was sweet, surgical his Valakut's and in G3 I mull to 5 and casted 2 Karns in a row (ah tron things)

Bant Eldrazi felt tricky, but that deck sometimes fails to find pressure. They can't beat multiple O stones either.

Throught the Breach felt like a nightmare, and I was not prepared for 8 rack. Caught me like a deer in head lights.

What was the lack of prep vs 8Rack? I think you just want Claims and Thragtusks. Crucible is great if you have it. I think the matchup mostly hinges on 1 card - Smallpox. If they fire that off early, it's really tough (assuming they're pressuring us too), but if they don't have it, it's really easy because they have no other way to keep us off Tron and we topdeck very well. I actually played against it a couple days ago - ended up restarting the game with 5 Swamps and my own Thragtusk in play and played a turn 1 Wurmcoil

Agreed on Whir Prison being a rough MU; they have far more tutoring power than Lantern, and they run a lot more relevant cards vs. us than Lantern did. Maybe Sam Black taking Lantern all the way will be good for us, but the Whir Prison MU feels nightmarish sometimes.

In other news, I liked the Top 8 GP Tampa and Jim Davis' Top 16 SCG Open/Classic lists; both had a number of things in common which I liked:


-5 basics: BGx (especially straight BG running Field) is on an uptick, so having access to all 5 copies feels really good. Kudos to sicsmoo for pointing that out earlier.
-3 O-Stones in favor of a Tron-enabled threat (4th Wurmcoil/1 All Is Dust) - both the Phoenix variants really pressure our ability to answer their boards, so having another threat with immediate impact feels pretty good right now.
It's also worth pointing out that neither list ran SB Surgicals.

Finally, there was a weird version in the Top 8 of SCG Philadelphia that swapped MD Thought-Knots for SB Ballistas.

Quote from sicsmoo »

Quote from Lord Seth »

Quote from MCR »

Anyone have any SB tech options vs Whir Prison? It's too bad that Creeping Corrosion doesn't have the anti-regenerate clause. Was wondering if you guys had any other viable options.

There's not really that much tech for the matchup because our deck is basically already anti-Whir Prison tech. It's a stellar matchup. They don't have enough Spyglasses to cover everything, so unless they manage to put together the Tectonic Edge+Crucible of Worlds combo fast enough and prevent you from thwarting it with a Relic of Progenitus, the first game is yours. Even in the second all they can really do is hope to beat you down with Sai or kill you with Tezzeret before you break your way through their defenses.

Interesting perspective; in my experience the matchup isn't very good at all. You missed a couple key points I think - the 4 maindeck Chalice of the Void is not a good time for us, especially with 4 Welding Jar to keep it around if we manage to slip O-Stone past Spyglass. And 4 Whir of Invention with the maindeck Damping Sphere, giving them effectively 5 copies of it. Same goes for Spyglass of which they have 2 main and 2 more in the sideboard. 4 is definitely enough to cover everything, but even in game 1 they really only need 1 quickly to shut off O-Stone which then buys them tons of time to set the lock up further. They have all the tools to shut down our gameplan, and given how redundant/full of tutors the deck is, I think they'll succeed more often than not. Currently my record in the matchup is 4-6.

It's true Chalice is annoying, but again their lack of clock means we have a whole lot of time to find an answer to it, it's not like EldraziTron where you have to worry about getting beaten down by Reality Smashers in the meantime. Damping Sphere has the same problem Blood Moon often has against us, which is that if not backed up with a clock it doesn't really accomplish much.

I'll admit, I only played against it once (in which I had a fairly decisive, albeit slow, victory). But I know someone who plays the prison deck and he says that Tron is one of his worst matchups.

@Silvortal's post

Yep I'm still firmly on 5 basics; BGx is really popular online and so is UW, a bit less so. I'm seeing it so much that I'm actually slipping a Goyf or 2 back into my SB lately.

Going down to 3 O-Stones in favor of another "3 drop" does make sense in this meta, although oddly I'm seeing more Humans and less Phoenix lately. I'll probably give it a shot.

I've been lukewarm on Surgical for quite a while - basically since Dredge got Creeping Chill. The card definitely has its uses but I don't think it's necessary in Tron at all right now.

The 3 Cider didn't help, but he fires off Smallpox on T2, and then surgical away my Mines G1. I was not happy. G2 I was on tilt, and didn't think to bring in claims and got punished. My mull to 5 didn't help but, as we say, "No seas Pendejo", translates , " Stop being a Dumb***". Everything else was fine, ciders were a nice way to kick off spring break.

Ohhh, well if they were on Surgical maindeck that's a whole different ballgame. It seems to be in vogue now, unfortunately.

Well, played locally for the first time in 8 weeks. Was nice to see some old faces. Got to show off my beta forests so that was sweet! Deck hummed and I had some favorable match ups:

R1) Vs Izzet Phoenix 2-0 Win (This didn't feel close, felt like my top 8 at Dallas Regioanls in 11/18)
R2) Vs Golgari Midrange 2-1 Win (Good player, made finals of a SCG open a few times, he took Game 1. G2-3 were a slug fest but hard casting Ugin the old fashioned way still gets the job done).
R3) Vs Jund 2-1 Win (G1 I mull to oblivion, G2 I do tron things, G3 I left my buddy with 0 lands in play and a gofy. I made sure to be nice afterwards.)
R4) We split. Was nice to talk to locals.

I don't get a chance to play locally anymore so it was cool to shuffle my deck and actually laugh and talk to players. MTGO can be a lonely and at times salty place