Cracking comments pal! I am new to the deck and find that every small decision counts. It is similar to Burn in that respect.
More generally, I doubt that many decks are simple to play; whenever I find myself thinking so, the issue is usually my ability to identify possible lines of play as opposed to deck simplicity.
Yeah that's about right. Burn is another deck sometimes accused of being 'simple' when really it's got a lot of hidden depth.
Some decks definitely have a lower initial learning curve and I think I'd say burn & tron fall into this category. I suppose that allows players get a false sense of "knowing the deck" earlier than they would have expected, so their conclusion is that the deck is easy to play. And of course, it's possible to just stomp certain matchups with tron which also will give an inflated sense of power and ease. Fringe decks tend to get stomped pretty hard, maybe that's part of the reason as well.
Of course, there are much trickier decks out there. Traverse death's Shadow, grixis death's Shadow are both very decision-intense decks and walk the line between winning and losing much more finely. Does that make tron simple? Nope. Tron is on a par with most other magic decks in terms of mastery. Easy to get the rough idea, hard to master.
More edges and considerations; when to cast stirrings vs sylvan scrying (vs cracking an egg). We can actually learn a bit from lantern control here.
On cracking an egg vs stirrings, the general aim is to see as deep into the deck as possible with your selection spell so cracking eggs first is usually preferable. Obviously there are caveats here like having another coloured spell in-hand and needing to preserve a coloured source for later. The tricky thing is deciding when it's just a flat race and seeing cards off the top is more important than casting your coloured spell next turn. Not saying there's a definite answer here but it's important to have a good gut-feel for when to switch gears and go full digging mode. Always have a clear idea of how much mana you'll need the following turn to cast your ideal spell; e.g. if you definitely need 8 mana next turn and this turn you're debating whether to play/crack a bunch of eggs or something, try to maneuver your choices in such a way that still allows you that critical 8 mana next turn (while achieving maximum cards-dug-into-deck). Sometimes this can mean doing all the digging on your current turn so that next turn you have all your mana free. If an opponent is on discard spells, drop all the eggs and hold them back so that you can crack the eggs and drop a bomb all on the same turn, protected from discard.
On scrying (or map) vs stirrings, this is far more straightforward. If you only have one tron piece and those two spells in hand, you'll want to wait until you can dig into a second tron piece before using the tutor for the correct final piece. If you tutor too early and then need to dig or draw into that final tron piece you can get the wrong one. Very simple; still see people make this mistake. Why? No idea :S.
Anyway I'm assuming all this stuff is in the primer. For my sins I haven't actually looked haha. I'm just having a ramble because I enjoy the deck.
Traverse death's Shadow, grixis death's Shadow are both very decision-intense decks and walk the line between winning and losing much more finely. Does that make tron simple? Nope. Tron is on a par with most other magic decks in terms of mastery. Easy to get the rough idea, hard to master.
More edges and considerations; when to cast stirrings vs sylvan scrying (vs cracking an egg). We can actually learn a bit from lantern control here.
On cracking an egg vs stirrings, the general aim is to see as deep into the deck as possible with your selection spell so cracking eggs first is usually preferable.
On GDS, I am finding this MU very hard, mainly because of Thoughtseize and Inquisition wrecking my hand. Any tips for how to play this one?
On the Stirrings comments I'm afraid I do not quite understand; Sphere first then Stirrings would seem to give the first card and then a choice of cards 2-6, whereas the other way round would seem to give choice of 1-5 and then the sixth card. Aren't these kind of equivalent? I understand the synergy of using Sphere first to generate the mana for Stirrings however.
When you stirrings, you are able to look at a wide array of cards. Let’s say for example you crack the egg for the G mana and draw Tron piece #2 for your hand. Now when you stirrings, you know exactly which piece you’re looking for. The pile has another copy of your second piece, some eggs, a spell.m maybe... and the last card you pick up to look at is your third piece! Things worked out. That means both pieces were in the top 6 cards, but only because you went in that order.
Imagine instead, you cast ancient stirrings first. Now you have to decide if you want piece B or piece C — because you didn’t draw your second piece, you have less information to make your decision on. You choose piece C. Then you draw... and it’s another piece C. You chose the wrong one because you didn’t have full information.
It’s better to take all random draws first, because they provide you with information upfront and they don’t have any play to them - you either draw or you don’t.
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Hello, I'm building Tron and can't decide between GB or GR. My meta is pretty variable. With red I get pyroclasm and some other removal, and blood sun. Black has collective brutality, fatal push, and thoughtseize. Any thoughts?
Hello, I'm building Tron and can't decide between GB or GR. My meta is pretty variable. With red I get pyroclasm and some other removal, and blood sun. Black has collective brutality, fatal push, and thoughtseize. Any thoughts?
Here is an excellent article comparing mono Green and GB. While not covering GR, it may nevertheless provide some useful information on GB Tron.
How does Gx Tron sideboard against UWR geist/queller? What cards do you side out - what do you side in typically?
If you are running thragtusk (and you should be) bring however many you have in. If you run orbs of warding or witchbane orb, those tend to be decent. Land destruction for colonnades is a safe bet. Just consider they attempt to turn into a burn deck to close the game out quickly because you are going to win virtually any game that goes long once you have tron
Whatever happened to GW tron? I thought that was gonna be the hot tron deck forever. Path deals with more than fatal. And running sideboard rest in peace as at least a three of shuts down dredge and storm but also makes life sad for deaths shadow. Not to mention you get all the good sideboard cards You also get to run the best land of all time, horizon canopy. Hmmmm I may have to run it at my lgs soon.
Whatever happened to GW tron? I thought that was gonna be the hot tron deck forever. Path deals with more than fatal. And running sideboard rest in peace as at least a three of shuts down dredge and storm but also makes life sad for deaths shadow. Not to mention you get all the good sideboard cards You also get to run the best land of all time, horizon canopy. Hmmmm I may have to run it at my lgs soon.
Here is an article on GW Tron, though it is a year old.
I gave it a try today with 3x Razorverge Thicket and 1x Brushland, as per the list in the link I put earlier. It seems to me that having a land come into play tapped is too costly given the slow speed of the deck even with basic lands supporting the Tron lands. So, it seems likely we have to go with Horizon Canopy- although there is a life cost, we save on the same by having Path instead of Dismember. Sadly for me though, I got rid of my (digital) Canopies only last month, so for now I will continue testing Mono Green Tron.
Sacred Ground seems incredibly important provided we can see it early. The deck continues to play 2x Thicket, which I do not care for from my play testing. Against aggressive decks a tapped land can spell the difference between winning and losing.
You'll be interested to hear I went undefeated against these decks today playing RG tron...
In order:
Jund Moon
Burn
Burn
Burn
8-whack
Burn
Dropped only 1 game the whole time.
Turns out burn isn't such a bad matchup. Correct mulligans here played a huge part.
For my trouble I got a revised Tundra NM condish, which I feel is a pretty stonking prize.
whats your list?
Of course.
When you're looking through, note that I've dropped the 4th card from a few playsets and stuck in a very similar or equivalent card with a slightly different bonus against certain matchups. This 3:1 split is to improve general matchups across the metagame. I'll explain some of them below.
Things I've been very happy with:
- Swapping the 4th stone for an all is dust. This was twofold. Firstly to enable more turn three 'big' sweepers (which it did and won me a match yesterday for this exact reason) and to reduce the impact of stony silence from an opponent's sideboard. Again, it's done this and won me games against an opponent rocking stony.
- 4th clasm becoming koz's return. This is less clear-cut but I wanted a definite tool against affinity and for giving me more options to 2+-for-1 an aggro opponent. When casting removal you want to be voiding as many cards from your opponent's hand as you can. So far it's been working. Pyroclasm *is* a whole turn faster though so I went with 3 of those rather than splitting it the other way round or 2:2.
- Cavern of souls/Sundering titan. This is actually some old tech from competitive lists more than a year ago. I brought it back because I have seen a stratifying of modern where burn/aggro decks are setting the pace and the remaining big players are blue decks like jeskai and grixis. Ceremonious rejection is a popular card, so a tutorable cavern (when it's necessary) and titan to wreck all the three colour fetch-heavy lists has been absolutely amazing.
- titan & dust both trigger sanctum allowing for more consistent fetching up of wurmcoil (very handy).
My games against burn started with me mulliganing away anything slower than a turn 3 bomb or turn 2 sweeper.
I boarded like this:
-2 Ulamog
-2 ugin
-1 Karn
-2 Oblivion Stone
-1 sundertitan
-1 something (sometimes Karn number two, sometimes the other stone, depends on the list)
I aimed to lower my curve also also reduce my reliance on artifact removal (I have historically found o-stone to be a liability against burn if you drop it on turn three, it often gets hit with destructive revelry often a 4x in their sideboard). I keep in some number of Karn because it's important to be able to keep them off lands if they stumble.
Thought-knot seers and nature's claims are amazing against burn. Mulligan aggressively for seer and pyroclasm type effects.
Fun fact, it's almost.... Aaaaaalmost better to be on the draw against burn (if they have a creature-y draw) because then your turn 2 clasm can be a 2 or 3-for-1 and there's basically no way for them to come back with one or something card in hand and you next turn slamming a seer or thragtusk. I wouldn't advise it; always go on the play. But having been on the draw a lot (winning!) it worked out fine for me.
You'll be interested to hear I went undefeated against these decks today playing RG tron...
In order:
Jund Moon
Burn
Burn
Burn
8-whack
Burn
Dropped only 1 game the whole time.
Turns out burn isn't such a bad matchup. Correct mulligans here played a huge part.
For my trouble I got a revised Tundra NM condish, which I feel is a pretty stonking prize.
whats your list?
Of course.
When you're looking through, note that I've dropped the 4th card from a few playsets and stuck in a very similar or equivalent card with a slightly different bonus against certain matchups. This 3:1 split is to improve general matchups across the metagame. I'll explain some of them below.
Things I've been very happy with:
- Swapping the 4th stone for an all is dust. This was twofold. Firstly to enable more turn three 'big' sweepers (which it did and won me a match yesterday for this exact reason) and to reduce the impact of stony silence from an opponent's sideboard. Again, it's done this and won me games against an opponent rocking stony.
- 4th clasm becoming koz's return. This is less clear-cut but I wanted a definite tool against affinity and for giving me more options to 2+-for-1 an aggro opponent. When casting removal you want to be voiding as many cards from your opponent's hand as you can. So far it's been working. Pyroclasm *is* a whole turn faster though so I went with 3 of those rather than splitting it the other way round or 2:2.
- Cavern of souls/Sundering titan. This is actually some old tech from competitive lists more than a year ago. I brought it back because I have seen a stratifying of modern where burn/aggro decks are setting the pace and the remaining big players are blue decks like jeskai and grixis. Ceremonious rejection is a popular card, so a tutorable cavern (when it's necessary) and titan to wreck all the three colour fetch-heavy lists has been absolutely amazing.
- titan & dust both trigger sanctum allowing for more consistent fetching up of wurmcoil (very handy).
My games against burn started with me mulliganing away anything slower than a turn 3 bomb or turn 2 sweeper.
I boarded like this:
-2 Ulamog
-2 ugin
-1 Karn
-2 Oblivion Stone
-1 sundertitan
-1 something (sometimes Karn number two, sometimes the other stone, depends on the list)
I aimed to lower my curve also also reduce my reliance on artifact removal (I have historically found o-stone to be a liability against burn if you drop it on turn three, it often gets hit with destructive revelry often a 4x in their sideboard). I keep in some number of Karn because it's important to be able to keep them off lands if they stumble.
Thought-knot seers and nature's claims are amazing against burn. Mulligan aggressively for seer and pyroclasm type effects.
Fun fact, it's almost.... Aaaaaalmost better to be on the draw against burn (if they have a creature-y draw) because then your turn 2 clasm can be a 2 or 3-for-1 and there's basically no way for them to come back with one or something card in hand and you next turn slamming a seer or thragtusk. I wouldn't advise it; always go on the play. But having been on the draw a lot (winning!) it worked out fine for me.
do you feel the 1 basic land is okay? i've been playing GB and can't really decide on the amount of basics i need. how come no world breakers? i've also been thinking of cavern and all is dust as well. i really like your list and think i could adopt it to gb, especially with TKS. i think that's a better thing with cavern then using thoughtseize.
I'm seeing Field of Ruin all the time nowadays, and even running 2x it's not enough sometimes. That's probably one of the reasons some people are switching to Mono-G.
Mono-g is also more consistently Doing Tron things, instead of wasting time with kill spells etc
I suppose you're right but my total list of opponents on my undefeated run this weekend was as follows and hinged heavily on cards like pyroclasm. Worth mentioning I only play in paper, never online.
Jund moon
Burn
Burn
Burn
8-whack
Burn
Jeskai
Coco
Burn
Jund
Abzan
Tron
Affinity
Affinity
Grixis
Burn
Tron
Merfolk
And then the final round which I lost:
Ponza.
Hahahahaha
Anyway I prefer to play RG tron. I don't have much interest in the black or white splashes although I own the cards. I recognise that mono green is perhaps a small percentage more consistently tronning (although it still contains mostly the same consistency cards as RG) but for me clasm is the ultimate fast deck stopper and it's treated me well.
Total winnings:
Tundra
Booster box
Booster box
15 mixed boosters from old sets (lorwyn for example)
I suppose you're right but my total list of opponents on my undefeated run this weekend was as follows and hinged heavily on cards like pyroclasm. Worth mentioning I only play in paper, never online.
To clarify, I am an advocate of RG Tron. I was just stating the reason why someone may notice mono green in presence. Some people want to cast big spells on t3,4,5 and that’s it. Meta points to both sides
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Yeah that's about right. Burn is another deck sometimes accused of being 'simple' when really it's got a lot of hidden depth.
Some decks definitely have a lower initial learning curve and I think I'd say burn & tron fall into this category. I suppose that allows players get a false sense of "knowing the deck" earlier than they would have expected, so their conclusion is that the deck is easy to play. And of course, it's possible to just stomp certain matchups with tron which also will give an inflated sense of power and ease. Fringe decks tend to get stomped pretty hard, maybe that's part of the reason as well.
Of course, there are much trickier decks out there. Traverse death's Shadow, grixis death's Shadow are both very decision-intense decks and walk the line between winning and losing much more finely. Does that make tron simple? Nope. Tron is on a par with most other magic decks in terms of mastery. Easy to get the rough idea, hard to master.
More edges and considerations; when to cast stirrings vs sylvan scrying (vs cracking an egg). We can actually learn a bit from lantern control here.
On cracking an egg vs stirrings, the general aim is to see as deep into the deck as possible with your selection spell so cracking eggs first is usually preferable. Obviously there are caveats here like having another coloured spell in-hand and needing to preserve a coloured source for later. The tricky thing is deciding when it's just a flat race and seeing cards off the top is more important than casting your coloured spell next turn. Not saying there's a definite answer here but it's important to have a good gut-feel for when to switch gears and go full digging mode. Always have a clear idea of how much mana you'll need the following turn to cast your ideal spell; e.g. if you definitely need 8 mana next turn and this turn you're debating whether to play/crack a bunch of eggs or something, try to maneuver your choices in such a way that still allows you that critical 8 mana next turn (while achieving maximum cards-dug-into-deck). Sometimes this can mean doing all the digging on your current turn so that next turn you have all your mana free. If an opponent is on discard spells, drop all the eggs and hold them back so that you can crack the eggs and drop a bomb all on the same turn, protected from discard.
On scrying (or map) vs stirrings, this is far more straightforward. If you only have one tron piece and those two spells in hand, you'll want to wait until you can dig into a second tron piece before using the tutor for the correct final piece. If you tutor too early and then need to dig or draw into that final tron piece you can get the wrong one. Very simple; still see people make this mistake. Why? No idea :S.
Anyway I'm assuming all this stuff is in the primer. For my sins I haven't actually looked haha. I'm just having a ramble because I enjoy the deck.
Take care bud.
On the Stirrings comments I'm afraid I do not quite understand; Sphere first then Stirrings would seem to give the first card and then a choice of cards 2-6, whereas the other way round would seem to give choice of 1-5 and then the sixth card. Aren't these kind of equivalent? I understand the synergy of using Sphere first to generate the mana for Stirrings however.
Imagine instead, you cast ancient stirrings first. Now you have to decide if you want piece B or piece C — because you didn’t draw your second piece, you have less information to make your decision on. You choose piece C. Then you draw... and it’s another piece C. You chose the wrong one because you didn’t have full information.
It’s better to take all random draws first, because they provide you with information upfront and they don’t have any play to them - you either draw or you don’t.
@Robo_Memer on Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube
Feel free to PM me about Affinity decks in any format!
UWx control/midrange
Bant Eldrazi
http://www.mtgmintcard.com/articles/writers/zen-takahashi/mono-green-or-black-green-tron
If you are running thragtusk (and you should be) bring however many you have in. If you run orbs of warding or witchbane orb, those tend to be decent. Land destruction for colonnades is a safe bet. Just consider they attempt to turn into a burn deck to close the game out quickly because you are going to win virtually any game that goes long once you have tron
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/34061_The-Guide-To-GW-Tron.html
Here is a deck with some nice W sideboard cards:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-gw-tron-27027#online
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Ninth Edition/Sacred Ground#online
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Mirrodin/Rule of Law#online
Sacred Ground seems incredibly important provided we can see it early. The deck continues to play 2x Thicket, which I do not care for from my play testing. Against aggressive decks a tapped land can spell the difference between winning and losing.
In order:
Jund Moon
Burn
Burn
Burn
8-whack
Burn
Dropped only 1 game the whole time.
Turns out burn isn't such a bad matchup. Correct mulligans here played a huge part.
For my trouble I got a revised Tundra NM condish, which I feel is a pretty stonking prize.
whats your list?
Of course.
When you're looking through, note that I've dropped the 4th card from a few playsets and stuck in a very similar or equivalent card with a slightly different bonus against certain matchups. This 3:1 split is to improve general matchups across the metagame. I'll explain some of them below.
12 tron
4x Grove of the burnwillows
1x sanctum of ugin
1x forest
1x cavern of souls
7 creatures
3x wurmcoil engine
1x Sundering titan
1x walking ballista
2x Ulamog, the ceaseless hunger
20 consistency tools
4x chromatic star
4x chromatic sphere
4x expedition map
4x sylvan scrying
4x ancient stirrings
3x pyroclasm
1x kozilek's return (was 4th clasm)
3x Oblivion Stone
1x all is dust (was 4th stone)
6 planeswalkers
4x Karn liberated
2x ugin the spirit dragon
3x relic of progenitor
3x nature's claim
2x thragtusk
3x thought-knot seer
1x orbs of warding
2x blood sun
1x crumble to dust
Things I've been very happy with:
- Swapping the 4th stone for an all is dust. This was twofold. Firstly to enable more turn three 'big' sweepers (which it did and won me a match yesterday for this exact reason) and to reduce the impact of stony silence from an opponent's sideboard. Again, it's done this and won me games against an opponent rocking stony.
- 4th clasm becoming koz's return. This is less clear-cut but I wanted a definite tool against affinity and for giving me more options to 2+-for-1 an aggro opponent. When casting removal you want to be voiding as many cards from your opponent's hand as you can. So far it's been working. Pyroclasm *is* a whole turn faster though so I went with 3 of those rather than splitting it the other way round or 2:2.
- Cavern of souls/Sundering titan. This is actually some old tech from competitive lists more than a year ago. I brought it back because I have seen a stratifying of modern where burn/aggro decks are setting the pace and the remaining big players are blue decks like jeskai and grixis. Ceremonious rejection is a popular card, so a tutorable cavern (when it's necessary) and titan to wreck all the three colour fetch-heavy lists has been absolutely amazing.
- titan & dust both trigger sanctum allowing for more consistent fetching up of wurmcoil (very handy).
My games against burn started with me mulliganing away anything slower than a turn 3 bomb or turn 2 sweeper.
I boarded like this:
-2 Ulamog
-2 ugin
-1 Karn
-2 Oblivion Stone
-1 sundertitan
-1 something (sometimes Karn number two, sometimes the other stone, depends on the list)
+3 nature's claim
+3 thought-knot seer
+1 orbs of warding
+2 thragtusk
I aimed to lower my curve also also reduce my reliance on artifact removal (I have historically found o-stone to be a liability against burn if you drop it on turn three, it often gets hit with destructive revelry often a 4x in their sideboard). I keep in some number of Karn because it's important to be able to keep them off lands if they stumble.
Thought-knot seers and nature's claims are amazing against burn. Mulligan aggressively for seer and pyroclasm type effects.
Fun fact, it's almost.... Aaaaaalmost better to be on the draw against burn (if they have a creature-y draw) because then your turn 2 clasm can be a 2 or 3-for-1 and there's basically no way for them to come back with one or something card in hand and you next turn slamming a seer or thragtusk. I wouldn't advise it; always go on the play. But having been on the draw a lot (winning!) it worked out fine for me.
do you feel the 1 basic land is okay? i've been playing GB and can't really decide on the amount of basics i need. how come no world breakers? i've also been thinking of cavern and all is dust as well. i really like your list and think i could adopt it to gb, especially with TKS. i think that's a better thing with cavern then using thoughtseize.
thank you so much for sharing your list
IMO no, it's not.
I'm seeing Field of Ruin all the time nowadays, and even running 2x it's not enough sometimes. That's probably one of the reasons some people are switching to Mono-G.
@Robo_Memer on Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube
Feel free to PM me about Affinity decks in any format!
I suppose you're right but my total list of opponents on my undefeated run this weekend was as follows and hinged heavily on cards like pyroclasm. Worth mentioning I only play in paper, never online.
Jund moon
Burn
Burn
Burn
8-whack
Burn
Jeskai
Coco
Burn
Jund
Abzan
Tron
Affinity
Affinity
Grixis
Burn
Tron
Merfolk
And then the final round which I lost:
Ponza.
Hahahahaha
Anyway I prefer to play RG tron. I don't have much interest in the black or white splashes although I own the cards. I recognise that mono green is perhaps a small percentage more consistently tronning (although it still contains mostly the same consistency cards as RG) but for me clasm is the ultimate fast deck stopper and it's treated me well.
Total winnings:
Tundra
Booster box
Booster box
15 mixed boosters from old sets (lorwyn for example)
What's your current list?
@Robo_Memer on Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, and YouTube
Feel free to PM me about Affinity decks in any format!