Alright, I wasn't planning on testing Great Creator after my initial assessment of the card but community interest has been so strong that I thought I should give it a spin to be sure.
I played this list for 2 leagues - 8 card wishboard which is all I could justify without cutting into essential sideboard cards too much. It felt fine. Some matchups felt better, but more felt worse. I'm gonna go through the top 10 decks in the format and look at how the matchups change with this configuration.
Dredge first of all gets significantly worse because you're shaving grave-hate cards overall and mostly relying on Great Creator to tutor one up, on turn 3 at the earliest. This is not going to be good enough most of the time.
Grixis Shadow - the Great Creators looked pretty silly here, especially when I had to cut my 2nd and 3rd Dismembers, 3rd Relic and 3rd and 4th Thragtusks to make room for the package.
Phoenix - losing grave-hate and Dismembers, gaining...?
Amulet - worse because you shave TKS and cut Surgicals.
UWx and BGx - I think you improve a bit against UW but not much against BGx because they can pressure him so easily, compared to the 3rd and 4th Thragtusks which impact the board immediately and in a big way.
Burn - probably a minor improvement because fetching up something like Witchbane Orb game 1 is great, but you also might just die first/anyway, plus again, cutting Thragtusks hurts.
Humans - maybe a minor improvement because you effectively have 6 O-Stones, but this matchup is already great.
There are only 2 matchups where I would say Great Creator offers a significant improvement - the Tron mirror and Hardened Scales. Not coincidentally, these are the only 2 matchups where GC's static ability matters on its own. In the mirror, it becomes our second best turn-3 Tron play after Karn Liberated with the ability to fetch a Spyglass to shut off their potential Karn Liberated, and obviously why the static ability is good requires no explanation.
For Scales, again, 1-sided Stony Silence is strong, especially when you consider it shuts down their Darksteel Citadels as well, but it can be slow and they can still just attack and kill Karn.
I will mention decks like Titan Shift, Boggles, and Infect - yeah, getting Witchbane or Spellskite game 1 against these decks is great, but they're also each less than 2% of the metagame.
Now of course, this anaylsis is just based on the list I posted, and certainly you could play different cards and improve a particular matchup - having access to Torpor Orb against Amulet for example. But then you have to cut something and lose that edge in a different matchup.
People may suggest playing fewer copies of Great Creator. I'm skeptical about this as well because as you decrease his numbers, obviously you're less likely to draw him and so that makes it even harder to justify having all those narrow 1-ofs in your sideboard.
A note on Mycosynth Lattice - our deck does not need this card. It's a fun alternate win-con (that I actually found pretty hard to protect), but we already have plenty of things to end the game with that don't require putting 2 pieces together.
So in summary, I think Karn, the Great Creator is a very interesting card, a very versatile card and a very fun card. But does it improve Mono Green Tron against the field? I'm standing by my initial assessment with an emphatic no.
Thanks for the great work as always, sicsmoo! How's Blast Zone been treating you?
It feels strong. I killed some spirits, boggles, a Death's Shadow, and even a JTMS with it. The fact that you can "ratchet" up to your preferred CMC all in one turn, assuming you have the mana, is really strong. And obviously the fact that the 1 counter it comes in with kills such a wide variety of things already. I'll definitely continue to test it.
Played another couple leagues with it today and it didn't do a ton. I like the card and still want to test it but on the other hand it's hard to find room for it. I'm still pretty sold on 5 Forest as control continues to be very popular online, and at least so far, I don't see Zone being better than Sanctum.
2 Trons in MC London T8 - pretty standard builds - 3 Relic, 4 O-Stone, 2 Ugin, 19 lands (5 Forests). One build ran 4 Wurmcoil and the standard 2 Ulamog (Hayne), the other ran 3 Wurmcoil/1 MD Thragtusk and 1 Ulamog/1 World Breaker (Zhu). It looks like both players went 8-1-1 in the Swiss, so there shouldn't be much inflation for draft performance.
I'll post the lists once we have the full 75 (right now we don't have numbers on SB cards). Overall, Tron performed relatively average given its meta share - 12.5% in T8 vs 14.8% in field. So this should hopefully alleviate some banlist/mulligan doomsaying. Humans had 3 appearances in T8 though, which is pretty positive for our chances going forward (vs. like 10% of the field going in). Highest ranked in Swiss is Titanshift with multiple copies of MD Acid-Moss - ugh.
2 Trons in MC London T8 - pretty standard builds - 3 Relic, 4 O-Stone, 2 Ugin, 19 lands (5 Forests). One build ran 4 Wurmcoil and the standard 2 Ulamog (Hayne), the other ran 3 Wurmcoil/1 MD Thragtusk and 1 Ulamog/1 World Breaker (Zhu). It looks like both players went 8-1-1 in the Swiss, so there shouldn't be much inflation for draft performance.
I'll post the lists once we have the full 75 (right now we don't have numbers on SB cards). Overall, Tron performed relatively average given its meta share - 12.5% in T8 vs 14.8% in field. So this should hopefully alleviate some banlist/mulligan doomsaying. Humans had 3 appearances in T8 though, which is pretty positive for our chances going forward (vs. like 10% of the field going in). Highest ranked in Swiss is Titanshift with multiple copies of MD Acid-Moss - ugh.
Did my math wrong, Hayne went 7-2-1 (Zhu went 8-1-1).
Hayne's list is interesting. Tons of respect for the mirror there with 3 GQ in the 75 along with the 3 Surgicals.
Yeah, I found that interesting as well. Zhu's list seemed really poised to prey on Humans, with the MD Tusk being better than Wurmcoil vs. Reflector and Detention, Breaker being more easy to cast vs. fast decks in general, as well as being different names for Meddling. It's interesting to see how the two lists took different approaches in the decks they expected to play against.
EDIT: Other than Zhu, the only other player to go 24 points or better was Shahar Shenhar
Alright, I'm gonna sound a little schizophrenic here but I think I found a Great Creator build that solves a lot of the problems I was talking about before. I'll do a write-up when I get some time or maybe just hold out and see if my 5-0 list gets posted in the Tuesday dump first
Alright, I'm gonna sound a little schizophrenic here but I think I found a Great Creator build that solves a lot of the problems I was talking about before. I'll do a write-up when I get some time or maybe just hold out and see if my 5-0 list gets posted in the Tuesday dump first
Does it cut fatties like my list does? I noticed you cut lower-to-the-ground stabilizer cards in your initial Karn GC list you didn't like Karn GC in; I'm not a fan of cutting cheap cards for expensive cards like Karn GC (or Ugin 1.0). Heck, my current list can easily afford to drop a Bond of Flourishing to get the 3rd Relic back in, but I'm not kicking Bond of Flourishing the life gain cantrip for anything but a cantrip or cheap answer (Walking Ballista is a cheap answer).
I repeat what I said before. people are looking at Karn wrong. Coating, Lattice, anything that requires Karn stay in play is wrong, because it will get killed.
So are there other reasons to keep Mycosynth Lattice in sideborad or would you remove it?
This is where I'm at currently with the deck. The key card that I glossed over initially was Ensnaring Bridge. Not intuitively good for us but actually stops a lot of relevant things - Awoken Horror, Primeval Titan and Death's Shadow in particular. And I've also even been able to stop smaller creatures as well. Emptying our hand is not as difficult as you might think, especially when you consider London allows us better 6 and 5 card hands. Mull to a 5 of t3 Tron and Great Creator, fetch Bridge. Not bad at all.
This list seems pretty reasonable against the field, though further testing and tweaking of numbers/slots is certainly required.
Uh... how come we end up with Bond of Flourishing all of a sudden? The 3 life don‘t seem good enough to me - did I miss something?
To me, the 3 life and the ability to get any permanent with a Dig 3 are what pushes Bond of Flourishing to playability in Gx Tron for me. Oath of Nissa didn't look playable in Gx Tron to me because it cannot get artifacts.
In the meantime, the life gain from Bond of Flourishing has granted me an extra turn exactly once so far. The dig is a bit to the disappointing side in terms of getting me precisely what I want, but it does feel nice to dig further than a 1-deep cantrip after my opponent strips the tutors and Ancient Stirrings from my hand. I think it also got me an Ugin 1.0 in testing once when a regular cantrip rock would not have dug far enough, so maybe it does boost consistency noticeably enough after all. I definitely don't want 4 of it, though; I think that would demand green mana too much.
This is where I'm at currently with the deck. The key card that I glossed over initially was Ensnaring Bridge. Not intuitively good for us but actually stops a lot of relevant things - Awoken Horror, Primeval Titan and Death's Shadow in particular. And I've also even been able to stop smaller creatures as well. Emptying our hand is not as difficult as you might think, especially when you consider London allows us better 6 and 5 card hands. Mull to a 5 of t3 Tron and Great Creator, fetch Bridge. Not bad at all.
This list seems pretty reasonable against the field, though further testing and tweaking of numbers/slots is certainly required.
I know I said it stops Awoken Horror sarcastically in a post a couple pages back, but when you put it that way, I guess it makes sense.
Uh... how come we end up with Bond of Flourishing all of a sudden? The 3 life don‘t seem good enough to me - did I miss something?
To me, the 3 life and the ability to get any permanent with a Dig 3 are what pushes Bond of Flourishing to playability in Gx Tron for me. Oath of Nissa didn't look playable in Gx Tron to me because it cannot get artifacts.
In the meantime, the life gain from Bond of Flourishing has granted me an extra turn exactly once so far. The dig is a bit to the disappointing side in terms of getting me precisely what I want, but it does feel nice to dig further than a 1-deep cantrip after my opponent strips the tutors and Ancient Stirrings from my hand. I think it also got me an Ugin 1.0 in testing once when a regular cantrip rock would not have dug far enough, so maybe it does boost consistency noticeably enough after all. I definitely don't want 4 of it, though; I think that would demand green mana too much.
Idk, a sorcery-speed restricted Anticipate is something I have trouble getting behind, with or without lifegain. I know I've been eating my words here and there, but I really don't feel like a 2-mana sorcery speed dig 3 is really where we want to be.
This is where I'm at currently with the deck. The key card that I glossed over initially was Ensnaring Bridge. Not intuitively good for us but actually stops a lot of relevant things - Awoken Horror, Primeval Titan and Death's Shadow in particular. And I've also even been able to stop smaller creatures as well. Emptying our hand is not as difficult as you might think, especially when you consider London allows us better 6 and 5 card hands. Mull to a 5 of t3 Tron and Great Creator, fetch Bridge. Not bad at all.
This list seems pretty reasonable against the field, though further testing and tweaking of numbers/slots is certainly required.
Glad the new Karn is working for you. I had dismissed Ensnaring Bridge for being too inconsistent, so we're all learning the best ways to run with the toolbox plan. Speaking of which, how has Trinisphere been working out for you?
This is where I'm at currently with the deck. The key card that I glossed over initially was Ensnaring Bridge. Not intuitively good for us but actually stops a lot of relevant things
that was exactly my thought as well, last week. glad to have brought you round =)
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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
Honestly I havent had any real opportunities to grab Trinisphere yet. But in theory it's good against Phoenix, Burn, Storm, Shadow, etc, as the case my be.
I tested the Dredge match-up some more because it's one of the few match-ups where I think I'd want to play Ensnaring Bridge (I want to keep a valuable hate rock--i.e. Grafdigger's Cage--but keep the hordes at bay). I consistently could not empty my hand fast enough to stop even Prized Amalgam from swinging. (Yes, I often had 4 or more cards in hand by the end of the game, including the games I won.)
If all I want Ensnaring Bridge for is RG Valakut (I want to keep Witchbane Orb but hold their attackers back, and those attackers tend to be big), I don't think Bridge is worth it in an open meta. Why aren't I wishing for Oblivion Stone instead? That's my go-to against a developed UR Phoenix board.
Yeah Bridge is not often going to be the play against Dredge - their creatures are generally too small and plus they can just Grudge it post-board.
The fact that Bridge is a turn 3 play with GC + Tron makes it a better option than O-Stone in many scenarios, including against a fast Awoken Horror which is the #1 way we lose to Phoenix.
It is great against Valakut, but I actually think the most important application of Bridge is stopping the other Titan out of Amulet. It's one of the top 10 decks right now, and one that we don't really have a lot of other specific answers for. There is Torpor Orb, which is also good against Humans, but we have better options there and Bridge does more in other matchups. Plus, if we have GC in play, Amulet can't even Engineered Explosives away the Bridge, so they generally can't remove it, in game 1 anyway.
Maybe it's just new toy syndrome, but the 5-0 Tron list from this round of Comp Modern lists was extremely spicy - containing not only the full 4 copies of KGC, but 2 copies of Ugin, the Ineffable:
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
I'll post the lists once we have the full 75 (right now we don't have numbers on SB cards). Overall, Tron performed relatively average given its meta share - 12.5% in T8 vs 14.8% in field. So this should hopefully alleviate some banlist/mulligan doomsaying. Humans had 3 appearances in T8 though, which is pretty positive for our chances going forward (vs. like 10% of the field going in). Highest ranked in Swiss is Titanshift with multiple copies of MD Acid-Moss - ugh.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Creature (8)
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Walking Ballista
4 Wurmcoil Engine
Sorcery (8)
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
Artifact (19)
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
4 Oblivion Stone
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
5 Forest
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Dismember
2 Nature's Claim
2 Spatial Contortion
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thragtusk
1 Unravel the Aether
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Creature (8)
2 Walking Ballista
1 Thragtusk
3 Wurmcoil Engine
1 World Breaker
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Sorcery (8)
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
Artifact (19)
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Oblivion Stone
5 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
3 Thragtusk
3 Nature's Claim
3 Dismember
3 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Spatial Contortion
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
EDIT: Other than Zhu, the only other player to go 24 points or better was Shahar Shenhar
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Creature (8)
3 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Walking Ballista
3 Wurmcoil Engine
Sorcery (8)
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
Instant (1)
1 Dismember
Artifact (19)
4 Expedition Map
4 Oblivion Stone
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Mine
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Forest
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Tower
1 Dismember
3 Nature's Claim
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Thragtusk
3 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Spatial Contortion
1 Grafdigger's Cage
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Does it cut fatties like my list does? I noticed you cut lower-to-the-ground stabilizer cards in your initial Karn GC list you didn't like Karn GC in; I'm not a fan of cutting cheap cards for expensive cards like Karn GC (or Ugin 1.0). Heck, my current list can easily afford to drop a Bond of Flourishing to get the 3rd Relic back in, but I'm not kicking Bond of Flourishing the life gain cantrip for anything but a cantrip or cheap answer (Walking Ballista is a cheap answer).
Legacy: Death&Taxes (almost there)
EDH: Squee, Goblin Nabob / Phelddagrif
This is where I'm at currently with the deck. The key card that I glossed over initially was Ensnaring Bridge. Not intuitively good for us but actually stops a lot of relevant things - Awoken Horror, Primeval Titan and Death's Shadow in particular. And I've also even been able to stop smaller creatures as well. Emptying our hand is not as difficult as you might think, especially when you consider London allows us better 6 and 5 card hands. Mull to a 5 of t3 Tron and Great Creator, fetch Bridge. Not bad at all.
This list seems pretty reasonable against the field, though further testing and tweaking of numbers/slots is certainly required.
To me, the 3 life and the ability to get any permanent with a Dig 3 are what pushes Bond of Flourishing to playability in Gx Tron for me. Oath of Nissa didn't look playable in Gx Tron to me because it cannot get artifacts.
In the meantime, the life gain from Bond of Flourishing has granted me an extra turn exactly once so far. The dig is a bit to the disappointing side in terms of getting me precisely what I want, but it does feel nice to dig further than a 1-deep cantrip after my opponent strips the tutors and Ancient Stirrings from my hand. I think it also got me an Ugin 1.0 in testing once when a regular cantrip rock would not have dug far enough, so maybe it does boost consistency noticeably enough after all. I definitely don't want 4 of it, though; I think that would demand green mana too much.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
that was exactly my thought as well, last week. glad to have brought you round =)
If all I want Ensnaring Bridge for is RG Valakut (I want to keep Witchbane Orb but hold their attackers back, and those attackers tend to be big), I don't think Bridge is worth it in an open meta. Why aren't I wishing for Oblivion Stone instead? That's my go-to against a developed UR Phoenix board.
The fact that Bridge is a turn 3 play with GC + Tron makes it a better option than O-Stone in many scenarios, including against a fast Awoken Horror which is the #1 way we lose to Phoenix.
It is great against Valakut, but I actually think the most important application of Bridge is stopping the other Titan out of Amulet. It's one of the top 10 decks right now, and one that we don't really have a lot of other specific answers for. There is Torpor Orb, which is also good against Humans, but we have better options there and Bridge does more in other matchups. Plus, if we have GC in play, Amulet can't even Engineered Explosives away the Bridge, so they generally can't remove it, in game 1 anyway.
4 Karn Liberated
4 Karn, the Great Creator
2 Ugin, the Ineffable
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Creature (6)
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Wurmcoil Engine
Sorcery (8)
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
Artifact (16)
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
2 Oblivion Stone
2 Relic of Progenitus
4 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Defense Grid
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Mycosynth Lattice
3 Nature's Claim
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Spellskite
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Torpor Orb
1 Walking Ballista
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW