But are you really having no issues at all against UW with Jace or Grixis? I found Jeskai a good matchup, but Grixis is a nightmare nowdays. I still have to test vs UW after bans.
I haven't had a single match against Grixis in 12 leagues so I'm not really sure how the matchup goes. Most common matchups are Jund, RG Ponza and UR Pyro. Every other deck I have faced is a one or two-of. UW Control with Jace just doesn't have a way to get underneath us and they still rely on Colonnade beats (I run 1 Tec Edge, 2 Field of Ruin in the 75) or silly stuff like Entreat or Jace which I am always holding counters up for.
Serum powder seems funny. Someone should test it, i have no time to do this. Draw again for natural Thron or better starting Hand.. manaramp later
We do nothing with natural tron on turn 3 except Platinum Angel or Wurmcoil with no blue mana for protection. I'm willing to test out a lot of options (especially spicy artifacts) but Serum Powder is a non-starter for me.
Yes but I’m not interested in “Titan WRECKED Grixis”, I want some info on the matchup right now. Grixis packs four Field of Ruins and several hard counterspells, plus Kolaghan’s and Snappies and Jace. When you’re able to cast and RESOLVE a Titan, nowdays is often too late. I think too many of us are underestimating the matchup against those next gen Control decklists.
Just faced my first Grixis Control list. Snapcaster, Lili, Kolaghan's, Ancestral Visions, DREADBORE (ouch). Was very rough but I pulled a 2-1 win. In game 3 after being crushed by card draw I set Chalice=0 after a turn 1 Ancestral Visions figuring I could keep Kolaghan's off of it later. That worked out well and it stayed there all game but the game was still so grindy. They do have all the answers and 4 Snapcaster's to keep them coming. At one point I had a Jace and Ugin out at the same time and he still managed to remove both of them with flash in Snapcaster -> Dreadbore in response to my Jace trigger, I honestly don't know how I misplayed the whole situation but I must have.
Short of setting Chalice to all of 0, 1, maybe 3 it's hard to answer. That sideboard is nasty to us and half of ours needs to be at least half anti-aggro so not sure how to shore up the matchup.
Topkyle Turn 3 Wurm is nothing? ore fast ugin..o stone? Dont underestimate tron in u tron. We dont need it like gx tron...but it is important too. Another example was overal better hands. We have maybe 70% Chance getinng blue starthand, with powder maybe 85% if you dont Like tron fast? So we can try cheaper spells like opt together powder. I dont say put only powder in, but maybe brew something radical new
@thnkr Two questions: why on the list there are both platinum angel and torrential gearhulk, even if the data say that they have low percentages, lower than other creatures?
How many matches have been analyzed using this method with lantern, to have a "definitive" list?
As for Platinum Angel and Torrential Gearhulk, I'm only keeping them in because I'm trying to at least stay in the spirit of the deck. It may end up that both of those should be cut, but I understand that they do play roles in the current form of the deck, even if they're bad in the opening hand.
With Lantern, I want to say I had close to 1000 games when everything started to get real solid. Of course, we still tested new things and had to use our judgment to note when something looked bad but was actually somewhat decent. You probably know by now that Whir is pretty much a mainstay, but it took a while for the sample size to get high enough to reach the rank it truly deserved.
Something else to note is that, with Lantern, I was entering data in the order it was being presented. With this Utron sheet, I'm entering it "backwards", or, starting from most recent games in pierakor's playlist and going back. This means that there will be probably be some counter-intuitive or deceptive trends, especially due to metagame evolution. We do have other things to watch out for that we didn't really have to worry so much about with Lantern. One being the stability of the manabase, as Lantern has access to Glimmervoid, Spire of Industry, Mox Opal, etc, whereas we are fighting between assembling Tron and having blue mana available. Another is the average converted mana costs, wherein Lantern didn't have much to worry about since the highest cost was three, whereas we are stuck with 6+ cmc spells and not always having Tron to play them. Thus, if we have numerous higher ranking cards all in the same cmc range, we might need to be picky about our exact numbers to account for keeping a decent mana curve.
Topkyle Turn 3 Wurm is nothing? ore fast ugin..o stone? Dont underestimate tron in u tron. We dont need it like gx tron...but it is important too. Another example was overal better hands. We have maybe 70% Chance getinng blue starthand, with powder maybe 85% if you dont Like tron fast? So we can try cheaper spells like opt together powder. I dont say put only powder in, but maybe brew something radical new
If we wanna go crazy and do something weird like that (admittedly awesome) Eternal Scourge Eldrazi deck then sure, sounds fun. Looking at the last league I just ran though I was 3-2 with my losses coming to Affinity and Merfolk. Turn 3 Tron into Wurmcoil does nothing to save me. In fact I kept a bomb hand with a turn 4 Ugin and some countermagic (g1, not knowing I was against Affinity) and got thoroughly crushed. The merfolk player knew what was up and kept in multiple Vapor Snags. Turn 3 Wurmcoil just isn't Karn and the more leagues I run the more I realize this. It would be absolutely fantastic against Burn but unlike some people I haven't felt that to be a hard matchup. My absolute worst matchups though are Affinity/Merfolk/Humans and what I really need is a turn 3 O-Stone/Ugin which is impossible without Talisman.
So, an observation I thought relevant to the conversation of the deck. There are currently 22 of 42 cards on the sheet for the deck that have negative correlations with win rates when they're in the opening hand (52% of condidate cards). One of those is Island. For comparison, there are 12 of 33 cards on the Lantern sheet that have negative correlations (36%). The worst on the Lantern sheet is Codex Shredder, at -1.42, whereas the worst on the Utron sheet is -3.52, over twice as bad. And that card? Basic Island.
I don't feel that this bodes well for the viability of this deck. This seems to imply that this deck lives and dies by luck of the opening hand, the mulligan, and the topdecks, to quite a degree more than Lantern. Sure, I understand that it may not feel fair to compare the two decks, but I'm doing so in order to point out what seems to be a large issue with the very core of the deck. While I understand that this deck may have some moderate results in the past, this seems to suggest that the deck just cannot reasonably become competitive without some major help from new cards not existent at this time or a complete redesign. I've been looking at the data to see what on earth could be done to redesign the deck to not need those cards that score so low, but it isn't testing well at all.
I hate to be a downer, and to not be able to bring any good news. In addition to the abysmal numbers, I'm guessing everyone's seen the Competitive League results from WOTC. Not a single Utron deck among the 53 unique decks posted.
So I understand if many want to keep pressing with the current "accepted" builds, but I'm thinking that this is going to take more than just tweaking a few numbers using data.
EDIT: Some additional comparisons and data:
Lantern: 14 of the 75 cards in the deck, 5 unique cards, have a negative correlation with win percentage. So, ~19% of the deck (rounding up).
Utron: 22 of the 75 cards in the deck, 13 unique cards, have a negative correlation with win percentage. ~ 29% of the deck (rounding down). 14 of those 22 are lands necessary to even operate. Given that the Power Plants are interchangeable with Tower and Mine until Tron is online, this further implies the swingy nature of opening hands and topdecks.
That's fair. All the games I've entered in so far have been from pierakor. There is the possibility that shoktroopa's list might provide better numbers for the individual cards. However, from what I'm seeing, those lists are nearly identical with only slight changes.
Very confused how starting with a an island is a bad thing - it was needed to cast everything that was so good on the list (looks like thirst has overtaken supreme will, I'd the link I just checked is up to date, just as a note).
Thinking about our beloved deck while pondering about what makes this deck unique and I think that it is the ability to work like a toolbox, meaning packing as many silver bullets and tutors as we can and stalling via a control shell. For me every MU is puzzle where I have to put together all the pieces to win, and that is a very powerful thing in a format like modern where you can go to a GP or any tournament and play 30 games vs 30 different decks.
Some notable things are that i replace 2 Thirst for Knowledge for 1 Fabricate and 1 Nimble Obstructionist. The Fabricate is in my opinion a way better late game card than thirst and makes some good gifts piles, and the obstructionist is really nice as a 2U "removal" or and anti JTMS/TecEdeges/Fiel/GQ activation that replaces itself, in a way is like Supreme Will meaning a over cost Mana Leak/digging spell but by the virtue of being both at the same time ends up being over all better.
Another card that I really like is Jester's Cap that can be devastating for many combo decks.
I'm also running Hangarback Walker on the side to fight mid-range/aggro decks.
My testings so far are letting me with a good feeling about my current list, but i'm open to suggestions.
@Funslaver, That's just how the data pans out. Of course, as Pesca97 noted, it is a drop from 69.3% to 64.47%. So while the win rate is still decent (at least above 50%), it's still a drop. The data could also just be resorted by column G, which would just rank them by strictly the win % with those cards in hand, rather than a raise or drop in win percentage.
@BloodyRabbit_01, I understand if it means nothing to you, but it actually does mean something. Quite literally, it shows how well the deck survives the early game with or without those specific cards in the opening hand. To say that this means nothing is about the equivalent of saying that mulligans aren't necessary.
I'm going to see if I can find some other sources of videos to diversify the input. It might take a bit longer to get the same amount of data, but at least it'll be a little more mixed. Even the Lantern data had both Whir and Bg versions combined.
@Funslaver, That's just how the data pans out. Of course, as Pesca97 noted, it is a drop from 69.3% to 64.47%. So while the win rate is still decent (at least above 50%), it's still a drop. The data could also just be resorted by column G, which would just rank them by strictly the win % with those cards in hand, rather than a raise or drop in win percentage.
@BloodyRabbit_01, I understand if it means nothing to you, but it actually does mean something. Quite literally, it shows how well the deck survives the early game with or without those specific cards in the opening hand. To say that this means nothing is about the equivalent of saying that mulligans aren't necessary.
I'm going to see if I can find some other sources of videos to diversify the input. It might take a bit longer to get the same amount of data, but at least it'll be a little more mixed. Even the Lantern data had both Whir and Bg versions combined.
@Funslaver, That's just how the data pans out. Of course, as Pesca97 noted, it is a drop from 69.3% to 64.47%. So while the win rate is still decent (at least above 50%), it's still a drop. The data could also just be resorted by column G, which would just rank them by strictly the win % with those cards in hand, rather than a raise or drop in win percentage.
@BloodyRabbit_01, I understand if it means nothing to you, but it actually does mean something. Quite literally, it shows how well the deck survives the early game with or without those specific cards in the opening hand. To say that this means nothing is about the equivalent of saying that mulligans aren't necessary.
I'm going to see if I can find some other sources of videos to diversify the input. It might take a bit longer to get the same amount of data, but at least it'll be a little more mixed. Even the Lantern data had both Whir and Bg versions combined.
Pie did create a video that contained both his data and Shoks, i thought. That link is in this thread somewhere and findable via google too.
The data actually does show all of those things that you mention.
In games where pierakor keeps an opening hand that doesn't have cheap interaction in the opener for the early turns,then the cards that are in that kept hand will reflect a negative winning correlation. In games where pierakor keeps an opening hand with no blue sources and is punished he, again, will have a negative win correlation. For your Gemstone Caverns example, I created a data point to look at exactly that. I'll let you take a look at what that's showing for yourself on the sheet. It looks at mulligan rates as well, so when he has to mulligan due to no blue sources in the opener, it's still accounting for that.
The cards in the opener are crucial to having early turn plays, as they either do or don't allow for early turn plays. How they perform as early turn disruption is then reflected in the data.
Experience, on the other hand, is far more susceptible to confirmation bias. Having conviction in a belief doesn't make it a valid belief. That's just faith. I find faith worthless in the search for truth. As the Sagan quote in my signature says, I don't want to believe, I want to know.
Hey BloodyRabbit_01, no offence seriously, but I've been reading on and off on this forum the past year or so and for the past few weeks where you've started to contribute, and, while I really appreciated your input (and a lot of great ones too), I feel like you are very quick to dismiss other people's opinions or approaches because it's just different from what you're doing. Maybe it'd be nice to take in some opinions of others even if you have to with a grain of salt? I don't think we can refine the deck if we are stuck to the base list and the thoughts that go with it.
Anyways, regarding the topic of our opening hand and the fact that Island = more losses, I believe that it's because we have 2 plans that work quite clunky with each other. As others have said, U-Tron plays a lot like Gx Tron than a control deck. Having the Tron lands and more of it in the early games means that we can reach the mana advantage that the deck needs to play our win-conditions and/or achieve mana advantage to get the most out of cards like Condescend and Repeal. We also don't play blue spells on turn 1 (unless you really want that scry 2 from Condescend of course) so that means having an Island in the opener sometimes means nothing. So I think both Thnkr and BloodyRabbit_01 are right in some regards. But we're not thinking about how most of our cards work. We need more mana and be more disruptive than our opponent to stay ahead, and even more so now that a lot of modern decks play cheap efficient spells. Given that, how do we solve it? If we solve our mana issue, be it more ramp spells or what else have you, I think it answers more than half of our question.
Sometimes it seems like we’re speaking a different language.
You are: Wissenschaft VS Logical analytics.
On the Data issue of opening hands. I am not surprised that overall our blue lands in the opener could tend to have a negative correlation. I mean, all data overlaping, when we have tron (whether it is all 3 or just two leading to three, etc.) in our opening hand we ofc tend to win and we do HAVE to lose somethimes, so it leaves only place for the island to take the blame. Otherwise, it would mean that our blue plan is better then our Tron plan, which is ofc a false statement. Still, I agree with Bloody, just pack more turn one removala like Dismember and EE.
I will be trying some splashe in the SB or MB for this week and see how it goes. That because I do think that if we WANT the deck to go more than tier 2, we'll have to make changes. My statements on the performativity of the deck have already been stated in previous pages, so I will simply say this: to my current data, experience and unstanding of the deck, U Tron is a Tier 2 deck and we'll either need to accept this and have fun our way, or we'll need to make changes altering the core and the ideal of the deck. Understand me correctly, the deck is well positioned in the current meta in so many MU, but there are some like burn that will always be frustrating and unfavored for us.
Back to the splashes: I'm thinking of black to help calm the Dismember "late" health-cost and for some SB options like Yahenni's Expertise, Collective brutality, that simply crushes burn decks, Tasigur or simply Inquisition of Kozilek/thoughseize, even tho it deasnt fit well with chalice in some MU.
This is my edited list I'm going to play later today. I've been glued to that spread sheet and really want to see how this plays out. I see that treasure mage is far down there, and since I'm usually grabbing either wurmcoil or slaver anyway, I cut the mage and bumped them both to two. I'm running one threat lower than before, but my opening hands at least LOOK better in my solitaire, but we'll see. 4 repeal, remand, will, and thirst is visually pleasing to look at, if nothing else haha.
I think you're spot on in regards to how our gameplan works out. Also, I also have to agree that we must respect the different approaches to the deck.
At this point, I think there's two different approaches that we can try and see which one's better.
One is to design our deck around the gameplan that we should always focus on getting Tron. Think of it as a Gx Tron with interaction.
And one is to use Tron as a "bonus" and not design our entire deck around it (kind-of like Eldrazi Tron I suppose), playing lower curve cards like Thought-Knot Seers and other easier to cast cards.
For the first style that's more focused on Tron, I think cards that can dig AND be something else should be the main focus like Supreme Will for instance. The deck should focus on the higher-end and ways to get there without dying. I think this is what the deck was originally designed to do, but it's just faltered with all the cheap Modern interactions in the recent years (or the uncounterable creature decks). The deck should almost feel like a Titanshift in that it focuses getting mana while surviving on the early turns with cards like Steel Wall or Solemn Simulacrum. It should emphasize surviving and ramping. Maybe Gifts package or other "Fact or Fiction" cards like Epiphany at the Drownyard, Truth or Tale, and Fortune's Favor are something to consider.
The second style of deck should perhaps be lower to the ground, disruptive, and almost be a tempo-based aggro deck. So you will have Thought-Knot Seers, Chalices, Remands, etc. Perhaps playing more Walking Ballistas would help. Its plan should focus on landing threats constantly while protecting them with counterspells or swinging tempo by using cards like Remand, Repeals, and Commit//Memory. Its main finisher should not cost more than 6-7 mana so it would play more Wurmcoil Engines.
I agree that Mono-U will almost always be a Tier 2 deck, but Lantern Control is too and it's pulled off some great results in the past few months. Same goes for Eldrazi Tron in that it was a Tier 2 deck that was always there but it was polished to win some majors.
I haven't had a single match against Grixis in 12 leagues so I'm not really sure how the matchup goes. Most common matchups are Jund, RG Ponza and UR Pyro. Every other deck I have faced is a one or two-of. UW Control with Jace just doesn't have a way to get underneath us and they still rely on Colonnade beats (I run 1 Tec Edge, 2 Field of Ruin in the 75) or silly stuff like Entreat or Jace which I am always holding counters up for.
We do nothing with natural tron on turn 3 except Platinum Angel or Wurmcoil with no blue mana for protection. I'm willing to test out a lot of options (especially spicy artifacts) but Serum Powder is a non-starter for me.
Just faced my first Grixis Control list. Snapcaster, Lili, Kolaghan's, Ancestral Visions, DREADBORE (ouch). Was very rough but I pulled a 2-1 win. In game 3 after being crushed by card draw I set Chalice=0 after a turn 1 Ancestral Visions figuring I could keep Kolaghan's off of it later. That worked out well and it stayed there all game but the game was still so grindy. They do have all the answers and 4 Snapcaster's to keep them coming. At one point I had a Jace and Ugin out at the same time and he still managed to remove both of them with flash in Snapcaster -> Dreadbore in response to my Jace trigger, I honestly don't know how I misplayed the whole situation but I must have.
Short of setting Chalice to all of 0, 1, maybe 3 it's hard to answer. That sideboard is nasty to us and half of ours needs to be at least half anti-aggro so not sure how to shore up the matchup.
As for Platinum Angel and Torrential Gearhulk, I'm only keeping them in because I'm trying to at least stay in the spirit of the deck. It may end up that both of those should be cut, but I understand that they do play roles in the current form of the deck, even if they're bad in the opening hand.
With Lantern, I want to say I had close to 1000 games when everything started to get real solid. Of course, we still tested new things and had to use our judgment to note when something looked bad but was actually somewhat decent. You probably know by now that Whir is pretty much a mainstay, but it took a while for the sample size to get high enough to reach the rank it truly deserved.
Something else to note is that, with Lantern, I was entering data in the order it was being presented. With this Utron sheet, I'm entering it "backwards", or, starting from most recent games in pierakor's playlist and going back. This means that there will be probably be some counter-intuitive or deceptive trends, especially due to metagame evolution. We do have other things to watch out for that we didn't really have to worry so much about with Lantern. One being the stability of the manabase, as Lantern has access to Glimmervoid, Spire of Industry, Mox Opal, etc, whereas we are fighting between assembling Tron and having blue mana available. Another is the average converted mana costs, wherein Lantern didn't have much to worry about since the highest cost was three, whereas we are stuck with 6+ cmc spells and not always having Tron to play them. Thus, if we have numerous higher ranking cards all in the same cmc range, we might need to be picky about our exact numbers to account for keeping a decent mana curve.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
If we wanna go crazy and do something weird like that (admittedly awesome) Eternal Scourge Eldrazi deck then sure, sounds fun. Looking at the last league I just ran though I was 3-2 with my losses coming to Affinity and Merfolk. Turn 3 Tron into Wurmcoil does nothing to save me. In fact I kept a bomb hand with a turn 4 Ugin and some countermagic (g1, not knowing I was against Affinity) and got thoroughly crushed. The merfolk player knew what was up and kept in multiple Vapor Snags. Turn 3 Wurmcoil just isn't Karn and the more leagues I run the more I realize this. It would be absolutely fantastic against Burn but unlike some people I haven't felt that to be a hard matchup. My absolute worst matchups though are Affinity/Merfolk/Humans and what I really need is a turn 3 O-Stone/Ugin which is impossible without Talisman.
I don't feel that this bodes well for the viability of this deck. This seems to imply that this deck lives and dies by luck of the opening hand, the mulligan, and the topdecks, to quite a degree more than Lantern. Sure, I understand that it may not feel fair to compare the two decks, but I'm doing so in order to point out what seems to be a large issue with the very core of the deck. While I understand that this deck may have some moderate results in the past, this seems to suggest that the deck just cannot reasonably become competitive without some major help from new cards not existent at this time or a complete redesign. I've been looking at the data to see what on earth could be done to redesign the deck to not need those cards that score so low, but it isn't testing well at all.
I hate to be a downer, and to not be able to bring any good news. In addition to the abysmal numbers, I'm guessing everyone's seen the Competitive League results from WOTC. Not a single Utron deck among the 53 unique decks posted.
So I understand if many want to keep pressing with the current "accepted" builds, but I'm thinking that this is going to take more than just tweaking a few numbers using data.
EDIT: Some additional comparisons and data:
Lantern: 14 of the 75 cards in the deck, 5 unique cards, have a negative correlation with win percentage. So, ~19% of the deck (rounding up).
Utron: 22 of the 75 cards in the deck, 13 unique cards, have a negative correlation with win percentage. ~ 29% of the deck (rounding down). 14 of those 22 are lands necessary to even operate. Given that the Power Plants are interchangeable with Tower and Mine until Tron is online, this further implies the swingy nature of opening hands and topdecks.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Thinking about our beloved deck while pondering about what makes this deck unique and I think that it is the ability to work like a toolbox, meaning packing as many silver bullets and tutors as we can and stalling via a control shell. For me every MU is puzzle where I have to put together all the pieces to win, and that is a very powerful thing in a format like modern where you can go to a GP or any tournament and play 30 games vs 30 different decks.
Therefore this list:
1x Academy Ruins
1x Gemstone Caverns
4x Island
1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1x River of Tears
2x Snow-Covered Island
1x Tectonic Edge
1x Tolaria West
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Urza's Tower
Artifact (11)
1x Batterskull
2x Chalice of the Void
1x Engineered Explosives
4x Expedition Map
1x Mindslaver
1x Oblivion Stone
1x Talisman of Dominance
Instant (14)
2x Condescend
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Dismember
1x Gifts Ungiven
2x Remand
2x Repeal
1x Spell Burst
2x Supreme Will
2x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Nimble Obstructionist
1x Platinum Angel
1x Snapcaster Mage
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Sundering Titan
1x Treasure Mage
1x Trinket Mage
1x Walking Ballista
1x Wurmcoil Engine
Sorcery (1)
1x Fabricate
Planeswalker (1)
1x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Field of Ruin
1x Grafdigger's Cage
1x Hangarback Walker
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Jester's Cap
2x Negate
1x Silent Arbiter
2x Spatial Contortion
1x Spellskite
2x Spreading Seas
1x Tormod's Crypt
Some notable things are that i replace 2 Thirst for Knowledge for 1 Fabricate and 1 Nimble Obstructionist. The Fabricate is in my opinion a way better late game card than thirst and makes some good gifts piles, and the obstructionist is really nice as a 2U "removal" or and anti JTMS/TecEdeges/Fiel/GQ activation that replaces itself, in a way is like Supreme Will meaning a over cost Mana Leak/digging spell but by the virtue of being both at the same time ends up being over all better.
Another card that I really like is Jester's Cap that can be devastating for many combo decks.
I'm also running Hangarback Walker on the side to fight mid-range/aggro decks.
My testings so far are letting me with a good feeling about my current list, but i'm open to suggestions.
360 Pauper Cube The Trinket Box
PDH Decks
Classic Pauper Decks
@BloodyRabbit_01, I understand if it means nothing to you, but it actually does mean something. Quite literally, it shows how well the deck survives the early game with or without those specific cards in the opening hand. To say that this means nothing is about the equivalent of saying that mulligans aren't necessary.
I'm going to see if I can find some other sources of videos to diversify the input. It might take a bit longer to get the same amount of data, but at least it'll be a little more mixed. Even the Lantern data had both Whir and Bg versions combined.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Pie did create a video that contained both his data and Shoks, i thought. That link is in this thread somewhere and findable via google too.
In games where pierakor keeps an opening hand that doesn't have cheap interaction in the opener for the early turns,then the cards that are in that kept hand will reflect a negative winning correlation. In games where pierakor keeps an opening hand with no blue sources and is punished he, again, will have a negative win correlation. For your Gemstone Caverns example, I created a data point to look at exactly that. I'll let you take a look at what that's showing for yourself on the sheet. It looks at mulligan rates as well, so when he has to mulligan due to no blue sources in the opener, it's still accounting for that.
The cards in the opener are crucial to having early turn plays, as they either do or don't allow for early turn plays. How they perform as early turn disruption is then reflected in the data.
Experience, on the other hand, is far more susceptible to confirmation bias. Having conviction in a belief doesn't make it a valid belief. That's just faith. I find faith worthless in the search for truth. As the Sagan quote in my signature says, I don't want to believe, I want to know.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Hey BloodyRabbit_01, no offence seriously, but I've been reading on and off on this forum the past year or so and for the past few weeks where you've started to contribute, and, while I really appreciated your input (and a lot of great ones too), I feel like you are very quick to dismiss other people's opinions or approaches because it's just different from what you're doing. Maybe it'd be nice to take in some opinions of others even if you have to with a grain of salt? I don't think we can refine the deck if we are stuck to the base list and the thoughts that go with it.
Anyways, regarding the topic of our opening hand and the fact that Island = more losses, I believe that it's because we have 2 plans that work quite clunky with each other. As others have said, U-Tron plays a lot like Gx Tron than a control deck. Having the Tron lands and more of it in the early games means that we can reach the mana advantage that the deck needs to play our win-conditions and/or achieve mana advantage to get the most out of cards like Condescend and Repeal. We also don't play blue spells on turn 1 (unless you really want that scry 2 from Condescend of course) so that means having an Island in the opener sometimes means nothing. So I think both Thnkr and BloodyRabbit_01 are right in some regards. But we're not thinking about how most of our cards work. We need more mana and be more disruptive than our opponent to stay ahead, and even more so now that a lot of modern decks play cheap efficient spells. Given that, how do we solve it? If we solve our mana issue, be it more ramp spells or what else have you, I think it answers more than half of our question.
You are: Wissenschaft VS Logical analytics.
On the Data issue of opening hands. I am not surprised that overall our blue lands in the opener could tend to have a negative correlation. I mean, all data overlaping, when we have tron (whether it is all 3 or just two leading to three, etc.) in our opening hand we ofc tend to win and we do HAVE to lose somethimes, so it leaves only place for the island to take the blame. Otherwise, it would mean that our blue plan is better then our Tron plan, which is ofc a false statement. Still, I agree with Bloody, just pack more turn one removala like Dismember and EE.
I will be trying some splashe in the SB or MB for this week and see how it goes. That because I do think that if we WANT the deck to go more than tier 2, we'll have to make changes. My statements on the performativity of the deck have already been stated in previous pages, so I will simply say this: to my current data, experience and unstanding of the deck, U Tron is a Tier 2 deck and we'll either need to accept this and have fun our way, or we'll need to make changes altering the core and the ideal of the deck. Understand me correctly, the deck is well positioned in the current meta in so many MU, but there are some like burn that will always be frustrating and unfavored for us.
Back to the splashes: I'm thinking of black to help calm the Dismember "late" health-cost and for some SB options like Yahenni's Expertise, Collective brutality, that simply crushes burn decks, Tasigur or simply Inquisition of Kozilek/thoughseize, even tho it deasnt fit well with chalice in some MU.
1 Walking Ballista
1 Trinket Mage
2 Wurmcoil Engine
Spells (31)
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Condescend
4 Expedition Map
4 Repeal
4 Remand
1 Talisman of Dominance
1 Oblivion Stone
4 Supreme Will
4 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Mindslaver
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Academy Ruins
1 Field of Ruin
2 Gemstone Caverns
6 Island
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 River of Tears
1 Tolaria West
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
This is my edited list I'm going to play later today. I've been glued to that spread sheet and really want to see how this plays out. I see that treasure mage is far down there, and since I'm usually grabbing either wurmcoil or slaver anyway, I cut the mage and bumped them both to two. I'm running one threat lower than before, but my opening hands at least LOOK better in my solitaire, but we'll see. 4 repeal, remand, will, and thirst is visually pleasing to look at, if nothing else haha.
At this point, I think there's two different approaches that we can try and see which one's better.
One is to design our deck around the gameplan that we should always focus on getting Tron. Think of it as a Gx Tron with interaction.
And one is to use Tron as a "bonus" and not design our entire deck around it (kind-of like Eldrazi Tron I suppose), playing lower curve cards like Thought-Knot Seers and other easier to cast cards.
For the first style that's more focused on Tron, I think cards that can dig AND be something else should be the main focus like Supreme Will for instance. The deck should focus on the higher-end and ways to get there without dying. I think this is what the deck was originally designed to do, but it's just faltered with all the cheap Modern interactions in the recent years (or the uncounterable creature decks). The deck should almost feel like a Titanshift in that it focuses getting mana while surviving on the early turns with cards like Steel Wall or Solemn Simulacrum. It should emphasize surviving and ramping. Maybe Gifts package or other "Fact or Fiction" cards like Epiphany at the Drownyard, Truth or Tale, and Fortune's Favor are something to consider.
The second style of deck should perhaps be lower to the ground, disruptive, and almost be a tempo-based aggro deck. So you will have Thought-Knot Seers, Chalices, Remands, etc. Perhaps playing more Walking Ballistas would help. Its plan should focus on landing threats constantly while protecting them with counterspells or swinging tempo by using cards like Remand, Repeals, and Commit//Memory. Its main finisher should not cost more than 6-7 mana so it would play more Wurmcoil Engines.
I agree that Mono-U will almost always be a Tier 2 deck, but Lantern Control is too and it's pulled off some great results in the past few months. Same goes for Eldrazi Tron in that it was a Tier 2 deck that was always there but it was polished to win some majors.
Modern
Mono U-Tron U
Jeskai Control UWR
EDH
Ezuri, Renegade Leader UG
Tasigur, the Golden Fang UGB