MTG Salvation

Quote from purklefluff »

So new emrakul has had some testing, some articles written about it/her and people are finding it/her to be overall better than Ulamog. This surprised me, but I'm very happy to see it performing.

It's true that in some cases it's a little worse, but in others it's much better so I'm going to be jamming one maindeck for the foreseeable future.

Anyone else seeing this same conclusion? I reckon we have a solid maindeck card on our hands.

in my testing, the earliest you can cast emrakul is turn 5 if you have tower, tower, plant, mine, land and with and artefact and sorcery in the graveyard... this is the best possible scenario. whereas, ulamog can come early turn 4 and more consistent turn 5.

effect wise, ulamog has a very high board impact whereas emrakul is situational (based on opponents board, hand and spells). though both are very good if we can attack with them.

since abzan coco is still around, ulamog can help us win despite them having 1 million lives whereas emrakul is comparable to bird of paradise in this scenario.

for consistency, im playing 2 ulamog and 1 emrakul. just my 2cents

PPTQ coming up on Saturday, and as much as I want to play my pet deck Stompy, I feel like I should be playing RG Tron. This is the list I've been testing with:


I'm going to attempt to acquire Groves to replace the Karplusans at some point this week. I've been happy with Conduit as my threat tutor of choice because it also provides a 5/5 beater body that has to be dealt with immediately (soaking up a removal spell) before it starts producing an extra 2 mana per turn and potentially helping me run out Emrakul as early as turn 5-6. I much prefer LftL compared to Crucible in the realm of land recursion for the sideboard because it's pretty much impossible for the opponent to get rid of unless they Surgical it.

Anything you guys see that seems off (or even just out-of-date) with my build?

Quote from kennyxviii »

PPTQ coming up on Saturday, and as much as I want to play my pet deck Stompy, I feel like I should be playing RG Tron. This is the list I've been testing with:

dc4582's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land: 19 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower 2 Ghost Quarter 2 Forest 3 Karplusan Forest Creature: 10 3 Conduit of Ruin 3 Wurmcoil Engine 2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger 1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn	Planeswalker: 5 4 Karn Liberated 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon Sorcery: 11 4 Ancient Stirrings 4 Pyroclasm 3 Sylvan Scrying Artifact: 15 4 Expedition Map 4 Chromatic Sphere 4 Chromatic Star 3 Oblivion Stone	Sideboard: 15 2 Relic of Progenitus 2 Nature's Claim 2 Spellskite 2 Sudden Shock 1 Life from the Loam 1 Firespout 1 Dismember 2 Thought-Knot Seer 2 Thragtusk

I'm going to attempt to acquire Groves to replace the Karplusans at some point this week. I've been happy with Conduit as my threat tutor of choice because it also provides a 5/5 beater body that has to be dealt with immediately (soaking up a removal spell) before it starts producing an extra 2 mana per turn and potentially helping me run out Emrakul as early as turn 5-6. I much prefer LftL compared to Crucible in the realm of land recursion for the sideboard because it's pretty much impossible for the opponent to get rid of unless they Surgical it.

Anything you guys see that seems off (or even just out-of-date) with my build?

Nobody is really running Emrakul main deck anymore. I would put it in the side maybe if you see a ton of grindy control matchups. You should really have at least 1 maindeck spellskite too if you want any chance vs infect in game 1. I actually ran new kozilek in my sideboard at the last IQ I went to. I was siding him in against burn, but I didn't play any burn so I didn't get to try it out.

Also, there is much debate about pyroclasm vs lightning bolt since Joe Lossett top 8'd running 4 bolts. Something to think about. I ran a 2/2 split with bolts and clasm last time and never seemed to have the one I needed when I needed it. So who knows.

EDIT: World Breaker is what most use in your new kozi and emrakul slots. Also, do not recommend cutting a sylvan scrying. Don't fix what ain't broken.

Quote from eikichi92ii »

Hi guys,

After few top8 at trials, I made one slight change in my decklist.

dc4582's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land: 19 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower 2 Sanctum of Ugin 1 Forest 4 Grove of the Burnwillows Creature: 7 1 Spellskite 2 Wurmcoil Engine 2 World Breaker 2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger	Planeswalker: 6 4 Karn Liberated 2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon Sorcery and Instant: 13 4 Ancient Stirrings 4 Lightning bolt 1 fog 4 Sylvan Scrying Artifact: 15 4 Expedition Map 4 Chromatic Sphere 4 Chromatic Star 3 Oblivion Stone	Sideboard: 15 2 Graffdigger's cage 3 Nature's Claim 2 Sudden Shock 1 Life from the Loam 2 Warping wail 2 Thought-Knot Seer 2 Thragtusk

I used to run 2 TKS main deck instead of 1 spellskite and 1 fog.
I do think that TKS is good, but against several MU it doesn't do much.

I like him a lot against combo deecks or against control decks such as jeskai nahiri or grixis in order to get rid of crumble or counterspells.

I also sided out 1 warping wail for one life from the loam cause of fulim and GQ. I believe that we should have answers against them too.

I neever tried fog yet but I'm pretty sure that it can do a great job against all those aggro decks or combo decks such as Titanshift or knight and Coral combo.

I don't know about Newrakul. I do prefer to have a safe bet with Ulamog.
Regarding the sweepers, I think 4 bolt and 1 fog are enough. Indeed, they disturb less our tron access plan thanks to there 1 mana cost and are less predictible with their instant speed.


So whad do you guys things about my list and my thinkings.



Thanks.



Pierre

I like this maindeck build. It looks mostly stock with a fog thrown in. I run something similar and might actually try 4 bolts and 2 fogs in my main and drop an o-stone or wurmcoil. Early 1cmc spells to buy time are great, especially since you can cast and not have it mess up your tron acquisition plan too much.

Quote from eikichi92ii »

Hi guys,

After few top8 at trials, I made one slight change in my decklist.

vonklaude's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land: 19 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower 2 Sanctum of Ugin 1 Forest 4 Grove of the Burnwillows Creature: 7 1 Spellskite 2 Wurmcoil Engine 2 World Breaker 2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger	Planeswalker: 6 4 Karn Liberated 2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon Sorcery and Instant: 13 4 Ancient Stirrings 4 Lightning bolt 1 fog 4 Sylvan Scrying Artifact: 15 4 Expedition Map 4 Chromatic Sphere 4 Chromatic Star 3 Oblivion Stone	Sideboard: 15 2 Graffdigger's cage 3 Nature's Claim 2 Sudden Shock 1 Life from the Loam 2 Warping wail 2 Thought-Knot Seer 2 Thragtusk

I used to run 2 TKS main deck instead of 1 spellskite and 1 fog.

I like your 1/1 Spellskite/Fog split. I'm playing in an FLGS weekly tournament next week and will try the same thing. Could I suggest 2 Claim and 1 Unravel the Aether for a random out against Prison?

Quote from kennyxviii »

PPTQ coming up on Saturday, and as much as I want to play my pet deck Stompy, I feel like I should be playing RG Tron. This is the list I've been testing with:

Phelpssan's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Land: 19 4 Urza's Mine 4 Urza's Power Plant 4 Urza's Tower 2 Ghost Quarter 2 Forest 3 Karplusan Forest Creature: 10 3 Conduit of Ruin 3 Wurmcoil Engine 2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger 1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion 1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn	Planeswalker: 5 4 Karn Liberated 1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon Sorcery: 11 4 Ancient Stirrings 4 Pyroclasm 3 Sylvan Scrying Artifact: 15 4 Expedition Map 4 Chromatic Sphere 4 Chromatic Star 3 Oblivion Stone	Sideboard: 15 2 Relic of Progenitus 2 Nature's Claim 2 Spellskite 2 Sudden Shock 1 Life from the Loam 1 Firespout 1 Dismember 2 Thought-Knot Seer 2 Thragtusk

I'm going to attempt to acquire Groves to replace the Karplusans at some point this week. I've been happy with Conduit as my threat tutor of choice because it also provides a 5/5 beater body that has to be dealt with immediately (soaking up a removal spell) before it starts producing an extra 2 mana per turn and potentially helping me run out Emrakul as early as turn 5-6. I much prefer LftL compared to Crucible in the realm of land recursion for the sideboard because it's pretty much impossible for the opponent to get rid of unless they Surgical it.

Anything you guys see that seems off (or even just out-of-date) with my build?

Probably too late for the PPTQ, but I think running 4 Titans MB is too much. I'd limit it to 2 MB + 1 SB, maybe adding the Spellskites to the MB. Other than that it looks fine.

Why would you run Mockery of Nature over an additional World Breaker? You don't have that many creatures to make emerge effective, and if you've landed any of your creatures that would make its emerge cost cheaper than casting a World Breaker you probably have the land to just cast World Breaker. Also 5/7 reach with recursion is better than a vanilla 6/5 on top of the fact that World Breaker hits lands as well as artifacts and enchantments and exiles them instead of destroys.

Quote from Driemer84 »

Why would you run Mockery of Nature over an additional World Breaker? You don't have that many creatures to make emerge effective, and if you've landed any of your creatures that would make its emerge cost cheaper than casting a World Breaker you probably have the land to just cast World Breaker. Also 5/7 reach with recursion is better than a vanilla 6/5 on top of the fact that World Breaker hits lands as well as artifacts and enchantments and exiles them instead of destroys.

Definitely agree with this - I'd much rather just have another World Breaker than a Mockery of Nature. I do like the name and art tho :-D

So guys, i have played some matches against a friend of mine yesterday with some slight changes to my "stock" Tron list.

For reference, this is the deck i playetested yesterday:


I know that 61 cards MD is bad, but i really don't want to miss my tutorable land hate (Ghost Quarter). I have lost enough games to Raging Ravines with an O-Stone on the board to be willing to play it as the 61st Card.

Regarding my choices:
- Geier Reach Sanitarium over the 2nd Sanctum of Ugin: I have found the 2nd Sanctum to be somewhat unecessary due to the amount of tutors. Also 90% of the time a Sanctum sac from a bomb into another bomb is enough is close out the game. Geier Reach Sanitarium provides some nice lategame strength against hard control or grindy decks like Jund. I know it also draws cards for your opponent and that he can filter aswell, but Tron has the best Topdecks in Modern once Tron is up and running. This land really provided me some decent value when i pitched dead lands into it to get a threat.

- Emrakul, the promised End over 2nd Newlamog: I really just wanted to test this card. It certainly shines in Controll-ish and Grindy matchups. Against fast/aggro decks i would still prefer the 2nd Newlamog. Newrakul's EV is decent. I have had some great turns against Jund and even combo-killed a Stormplayer (feels good, i tell ya). I would consider running a 1-1 Split with Newlamog and Newrakul and maybe 2nd Newlamog in the board. Not sure yet.

- Lightning Bolt over Clasm MD: I really, really love this by now. At first i was not hyped by it, but it feels good being able to kill Manadorks on T1, Kill Steel Overseers on T1 and blowout infect players. Many don't expect the Bolt coming out from Tron. I can highly recommend it, unless you're playing in a swarm deck meta.

I use only 3 Groves with the same amount of R that you use, and it works fine for me. Really want to test Newrakul, i lost several times when i cast Ulamog, had nothing else, and got pathed ...

I prefer to stay at 4 Groves, as there are a few MUs where i want both Bolt and Pyroclasm in the MD (Abzan company, Kiki Chord, Infect; against affinity even the nature's claim and bolts)

I found 3 groves to be too restricting on colored mana in these cases. But if i were to run fewer colored spells SB i would take out a grove to go back to 60 cards MD

I tested the newrakul and will keep it at 1, newlamog is more impactful because we have prison decks and abzan coco where emrakul depends on what the opponent has.

one time, I casted emrakul and sac all of the abzan coco pieces. haha but in the end needed ulamog to close it vs 1million lives.

Would Oblivion Sower be of use to this deck? It synergizes really well with World Breaker, and has a less color-intensive mana cost. Unfortunately it doesn't trigger Sanctum of Ugin but it can be nuts against the mirror. Just a thought I had.

Would Oblivion Sower be of use to this deck? It synergizes really well with World Breaker, and has a less color-intensive mana cost. Unfortunately it doesn't trigger Sanctum of Ugin but it can be nuts against the mirror. Just a thought I had.

Oblivion Sower doesn't impact the board or hinder our opponents in any meaningful way so no. Our deck already gets tons of mana, we don't need more of that.

Oblivion Sower is actually pretty crazy good in the mirror. It's pretty unimpressive against other decks.

I suppose it might be okay against Scapeshift if you get lucky and pull away the right lands, though.

I used the sower in a colorless eldrazi tron and the mana ramp it gave was nice. did not have a huge impact but taking lands from an opponent is always fun.

I was blown out by it once when my opponent (eldrazi tron) assembled his own tron from the top of my deck and then played his own Ulamog in the same turn.

Seems absurd in the mirror, pointless everywhere else.

Pairing it with the world breaker ability it come back to your hand is a nice combo so you do not sac your own lands. Otherwise its just ok

Figured I would give a quick report from the PPTQ I played in yesterday, meta was fairly hostile, but I managed to do very well with a bit of luck to snag top 8.

Decklist I registered:



Round 1: Bant Eldrazi 2-1

From what I've heard the matchup is rough as they can accelerate into thought knot seer's and smashers quite quickly while disrupting our game plan with path's, negates, ghost quarters, etc. Game 1 on the draw everything went as planned I believe I had an oblivion stone that i was able to follow up with other big stuff to initiate a concession. Game 2 was rough losing to multiple spellskites while not being able to deploy tron through a ghost quarter, ended up stranded with multiple karns in hand. Game three was fairly epic and got fairly grindy, I definitely misplayed my initial karn thinking i could use it to keep my opponent off of a known thought-knot seer while i had a known ulamog in hand. Lost both the karn and the ulamog. Oblivion stones were then able to keep my opponent at bay while digging for threats. Finally got to a world breaker that closed out the game.

1-0

Round 2: Merfolk 2-1

A so-so matchup that feels like its the only 50-50 matchup tron actually has. Nothing too notable besides oblivion stone proving consistently to be the best card in the match-up. On the draw i boarded out pyroclasms in favor of nature's claims, in game 3 on the play i brought back in 3 clasms for a sphere, and thought-knot seer's.

2-0

Round 3: Death's Shadow 2-1

Lots of luck here, my opponent never drew a deaths shadow in any of the 3 games. Game 1 I got super lucky facing down a board of gnarlwood dryad, monastery swiftspear with a rancor on it, and a tarmogoyf. After getting thoughtseized twice to take away my ancient stirrings and having a hand that still gets me to tron, but with 0 threats and no card draw I topdecked a wurmcoil which was able to steer the game in my favor.

3-0

Locked for top 8 if myself and the other 3 3-0's double draw.

Round 4: Jund 0-0-3 ID

We know were locked if we double draw

Round 5: B/W Eldrazi and Taxes 0-0-3 ID

I actually believe it would've been correct for me to play this match for seeding given that I had the best breakers and was locked for top 8 either way, mainly due to that i should've been able to figure out that I would be paired with the other 3-0-2 player in the top 8 who both top 8'd GP LA and was on dredge.

The top 8 consisted of:
Dredge
Jund
Eldrazi and Taxes
Merfolk
Merfolk
Affinity
Bant Eldrazi
???? (can't quite remember)

I played against dredge to an 0-2 loss.

Game 1:

I'm on the play with the higher seeding with turn 3 karn. Didn't matter too much as the dredge player started off not playing a land to discard a grave troll to hand size, dredging multiple nacromeba's. These were soon followed by 3 Prized Amalgams (the other one i stripped from his hand with a thought-knot seer). I was able to hold off the amalgam's for quite a while activating oblivion stones on multiple consecutive turns, at some point i grabbed an ulamog with a sanctum of ugin. My opponent at this point had less than 20 cards in his library and I just needed to find a window where i could cast ulamog and another blocker to hold off multiple bloodghast's and a soon to be 1 amalgam. I find the window Casting ulamog to exile two amalgams triggering my 2nd sanctum to grab a seer to be cast off my remaining four mana calculating that if he dredges back life from the loam his coflagrate in his graveyard can deal up to 6 damage and two out of the three bloodghasts in play can deal another 4 to bring me from 12 to 2. Well he untaps dredges loam, find the last bloodghast in his deck and deals me exactly lethal discarding his hand to flashback conflagrate. Was an epic game and i nearly pulled it off.

Game 2 was unexciting and uneventful and was able to kill me while trying to play around a warping wail that wasn't in my hand.

Overall pretty stoked on how I did given the hostile environment. The room was filled with lots of burn, affinity, scapeshift with only a couple clearly favorable matchups to be spotted.

I read Dredge got a huge bump from Prized Amalgam. It's meta % in MTGO jumped like double and I guess it's in tier 2 now. My normal gy hate is Relic of Progenitus, but I might have to switch to grafdigger's cage if Dredge gets too popular.

EDIT: Side note, Narcomoeba might be the hardest mtg card to spell correctly. I had to try 3 times to get it right