Good luck in the PPTQ and let us know how it performed if you can! Also, I've talked about GW a little bit after the modernnexus article, but I'd give it a test or two if you have time before the event. You get Timely Reinforcements out of the board and I'd argue that Path is better than Bolt at the moment because of decks like Death's Shadow, Zoo, or Infect which can Atarka's Command, pump or wild defiance its way around bolt. The only difference is swapping out 4 Groves for 3 Razorverge Thicket and a Plains or Brushland.
Fair enough, I guess. I love Nature's Claim, but my "problem" with it is that people don't play enough good targets any more outside of Affinity. As solely an Affinity hedge, I'm already running MD Bolts and SB Sudden Shocks/Warping Wails - I feel that MU's covered with the red, but without it you might be right.
It's not just Affinity, though. I'd bring in 4 Nature's Claims against Merfolk, Ad Nauseam, Bogles, Lantern Control, Death & Taxes, and Tokens. Sure, a bunch of those are fringe, but they add up, and Merfolk in particular is a reasonably major player. Nature's Claim #4 isn't just for Affinity.
Anybody here in Indy playing Tron, hit me up! Scouting and grinding my build at the moment.
Edit: Just made Day 2 at 6-3. Beat two Jeskai Nahiri, Grishoalbrand, two Jund, and Wilted Abzan, and lost to Ross Merriam on Dredge, Affinity, and BTL Scapeshift.
No Tron in any of the T16s. A lot bubbled around T16 (17-20ish) or were in T32, with some in T64. Most seemed to resemble the "standard" list that I posted on the last page from the SCG Invi, though a lot of people seemed to be running more Clasms than Bolts. Spellskites seemed to be shaved down to 1 or 0, a lot of lists tried to make room for 1 copy of Relic, and lands seemed to be upped to 20 in many cases.
There was one GW Tron list, running 1 Brushland/3 Razorverge/1 Horizon Canopy. There was a mono-green list (no Temples/significant variations other than Fogs for disruption).
Some lists also seemed to cut either Wurmcoils or World Breakers as well. 0 copies of Geier Reach, lots of Sanctums.
Some lists also seemed to cut either Wurmcoils or World Breakers as well. 0 copies of Geier Reach, lots of Sanctums.
I guess the reason for this is that people are comfortable with Sanctum right now. When going to a big tournament like a GP i wouldn't experiment with the list either. I would run the classic Tron stock so i know what i get.
Until the next bigger tournament is the time to test Geier Reach sufficiently. (Also my bet is as soon as Joe Lossett tries the Geier Reach it will pop up everywhere. He's the Tron Godfather after all)
Speaking of Joe, was watching him on twitch a few days ago, he´s using 1 Bojuka Bog SB, really good tec against grave shenanigans, never thought of that lol
Speaking of Joe, was watching him on twitch a few days ago, he´s using 1 Bojuka Bog SB, really good tec against grave shenanigans, never thought of that lol
There was one Bojuka Bog MD in the mono green list (from Guangzhou?) It seems alright, but pretty slow against a deck like dredge (which floods the board by the time the turn comes back around to you).
Also, I'm not sure if people follow pros like Joe rank-and-file like people have suggested; there was a lot of variation and innovation in the ~10-15 GP lists, but the Sanctums were one of the few things that were constant.
I mentioned going 6-3 over the first day a few days ago; on day two, I beat Naya Burn twice (one with Nacatl, one without), as well as Jeskai Nahiri and Elves, but lost to Jeskai Control (w/ black splash for Lingering Souls) and the five-color aggro deck with Hierarch and Mantis Rider. Here are my takeaways:
-TKS was amazing against control, combo, and non-Affinity aggro. I used it to rip Crumble to Dust the turn before my opponent would have taken me off Tron forever early on, and it was instrumental to both of my wins over Naya Burn. So glad I kept these in the board.
-World Breaker performed well in matches where I wanted additional land or artifact destruction, but overall fell a bit flat for me. I lost the deciding game against the Mantis Rider player with eleven mana on the board due to the lack of a green source. I boarded out Ulamog, expecting disruption like Fulminator Mages and Stony Silences (he played both, so good guess) to keep me off of enough mana to ever cast him. I thought the reach and lower CMC would trump the double exile, but this turned out not to be the case. Had Ulamog been in my hand instead of World Breaker, I would have stabilized wonderfully and likely taken the set.
-The biggest let-down for me over the entire weekend was, without a doubt, Relic of Progenitus. I beat two Jund, a Wilted Abzan, Grishoalbrand, and three Jeskai Nahiri decks without them ever being relevant (either due to not bringing them in, or not drawing them). Against dredge, they were just too slow. I am going to toy around with these three slots in the near future, as Relic was the worst card in my 75 for what I was actually packing them for.
-Spellskite did work against Burn, and that's about it. Of course, dodging Infect and Suicide Zoo all weekend was nice, so I'm not saying Spellskite is bad at all; I fully intend to keep three of them in my 75. My luck was just such that it sat on the sidelines a lot due to what I was paired against most of the time.
-Geier Reach Sanitarium was a last-minute inclusion, and it did end up directly helping me win two games. Karn does a great job of pressuring the opponent's hand to keep them from benefitting from the effect, and TKS is the icing on the cake. There were a few times where I would have preferred a second Sanctum, so it's not a strict upgrade...but it was nice to have, and I hope more people test this card out.
-Karn and Ugin, to no one's surprise, are still amazing. There were times I wished I'd had even more copies of Ugin with all of the Merfolk and Dredge around me, but the 4/2 split worked wonders. Even against nut draws from Wilted Abzan and Jund, a resolved Ugin was just game over every time for them. Karn is still surprisingly relevant in the Burn match as well; sniping even PtE or Deflecting Palm, or cutting them off of their mana base...so good. I love ticking Karn down to three to bait a burn spell or an attack, or ripping their last threats out to put them in top deck mode.
-Pyroclasm was a card I was close to cutting for some mix of Lightning Bolts and Firespouts, but man did they deliver. Turn two sweepers are just so good at the moment, even against Dredge, as they only miss Amalgam. In matches where they were relevant, they were great; when I didn't need them, they swapped out conveniently for other tools.
-I was very surprised by how resilient my build was to the onslaught from Dredge. The only reason I lost the set was because Greater Gargadon is such an amazing out to things like O-Stone and especially Ugin. They don't pack enough answers to deal with multiple Wurmcoils, Thragtusks, or TKS, so if you can stay out of Conflagrate range and pay attention to combat math, you can pull ahead.
I'm definitely pulling out the Relics, and will be replacing them with a single Emrakul, the Promised End as well as two of either Warping Wail or Grafdigger's Cage.
Why Emrakul 2.0? I had tested it before with lackluster results against a few control decks, sometimes actually giving them an extra card off of it with no other upside. A single fetchable copy would have been wonderful against any of the decks with a looming win condition. Often they would slip and give me a window, or other cards I had would delay them (even Newlamog, in the case of the BTL Scapeshift match I played); had I that lone copy of Emrakul, they wouldn't have had a chance. Scapeshift and Breach Titan decks can auto-lose on the spot. Against Dredge, Greater Gargadon can sac everything, come out, and slam right into the titan...then you can burn them with their own Conflagrates. Several times in long games, I found myself just wishing I had that lone copy to bring in, so I'm going to test it out again as a singleton in the board.
As for the other "two" slots...if I go with Warping Wail, I'll likely cut the Ghost Quarter and just jam three of them. Cage is great versus Dredge, Storm, reanimator decks that aren't Living End, and anything with CoCo/Chord/Evolution. Thing is, Tron only has trouble with a few of those, and most of them are rare besides Dredge. Wail is way more versatile against many of the decks that give Tron trouble, and has the nice bonus of being able to turbo out Emrakul much quicker if needed.
I went into the GP not feeling great about Tron's chances/positioning in the meta, but walked away feeling pretty good overall. The wins against the Burn decks in particular felt great, and the matches I lost can be adjusted with a few of the changes I've listed. Thanks for the ideas on Geier Reach Sanitarium; it made my opponents scratch their heads all day, and worked out well.
So, you felt that Geier Reach Sanitarium was worth keeping ? Cuz modern is a grave matter format and helping then looting looks bad. What about only 1 Forest, it looked like the metta had a ton of Path to Exile.
How did you fell about no Ghost Quarter main, i do want to remove mine, but i don´t know
So, you felt that Geier Reach Sanitarium was worth keeping ? Cuz modern is a grave matter format and helping then looting looks bad. What about only 1 Forest, it looked like the metta had a ton of Path to Exile.
How did you fell about no Ghost Quarter main, i do want to remove mine, but i don´t know
There were definitely times I swapped Sanitarium and GQ between games, and yeah, fueling an opponent's strategy is not a good idea. Burn and Dredge are two good examples of matches where Sanctum can be a liability against skilled opponents. Because of both this and the fact that I'm (re)adding Emrakul TPE to the board, I'm going to continue with the pair of Sanctums instead, at least for awhile.
I love GQ, but I'm either using it to snipe manlands, or save me from Crumble to Dust on rare occasions. Since Warping Wail snipes Inkmoth (by far the manland with the fastest clock) and can counter Crumble, I feel I can live without GQ for now. As far as the second Forest is concerned, I run a threat-heavy enough 75 to not miss it too much. Every creature I run except Spellskite and Wurmcoil provides good value against spot removal, and I don't feel the second Forest is worth more to me than anything else I'm running.
And yeah, the red sweeper/removal slot is one of the most meta-dependent parts of the deck. Any mix of Pyroclasm, Lightning Bolt, Sudden Shock, Firespout, and Kozilek's Return can be correct, depending on what you're up against. I saw a lot of Merfolk and Bant Eldrazi at the last-chance grinders, so I was leaning toward Firespout, but there was enough Burn and Affinity to justify keeping the Clasms.
19 Lands, Tron has always played with 19 lands (Eye was never a "real" land).
ALso, if you want a suggestion, i use 3 Groves and 2 Forests, works fine for me.
I also use 12 fatties.
The removal is really a metta call, i vote for bolt cuz my field has a lot of x/3 and Spout is sometimes to late when playing agains´t infect. But clasm did a good work for Thenarus, as you can see 2 posts above.
Should we be running 3x big fatties? (some mix of newlamog or Emrakul 2.0)
I'm running 2 of the *big* fatties. In the past it was three. Is that representative of losing eye of ugin, or should I still realistically be running three?
Another big question:
Warping wail; seems too low-impact. Worth running at all in sideboard? Bearing in mind I'm looking ahead to a GP, what can I hope to accomplish by including this card?
And another:
Boil: this card has won me more games than any other sideboard option, and yet I don't see it being played or spoken about. A friend of mine (UK modern champion) ran exclusively tron and swore by a couple in the board at all times against random blue strategies. Surprising how often it was useful, and I'm still running a single copy, but am considering going back up to 2 to beat the various blue decks you'd expect to see hovering around the mid tables at a GP)
And another:
Is there a sort of "stock" example sideboard for the current modern field? I'm guessing it includes 2x Grafdigger's cage, but beyond that, it all seems to be personal preference. I'm used to seeing other decks with maybe 10 or 11 kind of expected options and 4 or 5 flex slots.
One more:
Wurmcoil engine: I used to run 3 mainboard with a 4th in the side and it was generally a good choice. Sometimes I even went to 4 mainboard when burn and aggro decks were out in force. Now I'm seeing a lot of 2x wurmcoil and 2x world breaker and I can't help but feel like this is just slower. I understand that breaker is kind of like having karns 5-6 but requiring the green mana can often mean the difference between slamming it down on turn 3, and playing it on turn 4 when you can get down that chromatic star or whatever. Surely this is just adding variance to the deck and a 3:1 split in favour of wurmcoil is probably a safer bet, right? I'm playing 2 breakers myself but this is only since i picked the deck back up and I'm left wondering if it's the right call to make.
Private Mod Note
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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
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BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
2 Spellskite
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 World Breaker
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
Sorceries & Instants
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Path to Exile
3 Sylvan Scrying
Artifacts
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Lands
3 Brushland
1 Forest
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Razorverge Thicket
12 Urza Lands
2 Condemn
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Nature's Claim
1 Pithing Needle
1 Rest in Peace
1 Sacred Ground
2 Warping Wail
3 Timely Reinforcements
1 Ghost Quarter
I will find out if it was a good idea to take a 4th Sylvan Scrying our for a second Spellskite
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
Edit: Just made Day 2 at 6-3. Beat two Jeskai Nahiri, Grishoalbrand, two Jund, and Wilted Abzan, and lost to Ross Merriam on Dredge, Affinity, and BTL Scapeshift.
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
There was one GW Tron list, running 1 Brushland/3 Razorverge/1 Horizon Canopy. There was a mono-green list (no Temples/significant variations other than Fogs for disruption).
Some lists also seemed to cut either Wurmcoils or World Breakers as well. 0 copies of Geier Reach, lots of Sanctums.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Edit: Saw the lists !! Bad luck, he lost the other 3 MU, but 12-3 is good on a field dominated by Burn, DS Aggro, Infect and other aggro variants.
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
I guess the reason for this is that people are comfortable with Sanctum right now. When going to a big tournament like a GP i wouldn't experiment with the list either. I would run the classic Tron stock so i know what i get.
Until the next bigger tournament is the time to test Geier Reach sufficiently. (Also my bet is as soon as Joe Lossett tries the Geier Reach it will pop up everywhere. He's the Tron Godfather after all)
BRGJundGRB
GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
BRGJundGRB
GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
Also, I'm not sure if people follow pros like Joe rank-and-file like people have suggested; there was a lot of variation and innovation in the ~10-15 GP lists, but the Sanctums were one of the few things that were constant.
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
Also, Engineered Explosives might be a good choice for us now.
Always wanted to try Wall of Roots to see if works lol
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
BLiliana, Heretical HealerB| |GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
GWBDoom Plane EnchantressBWG
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Forest
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Geier Reach Sanitarium
2 Spellskite
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 World Breaker
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Pyroclasm
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 Spellskite
1 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Nature's Claim
3 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Thragtusk
I mentioned going 6-3 over the first day a few days ago; on day two, I beat Naya Burn twice (one with Nacatl, one without), as well as Jeskai Nahiri and Elves, but lost to Jeskai Control (w/ black splash for Lingering Souls) and the five-color aggro deck with Hierarch and Mantis Rider. Here are my takeaways:
-TKS was amazing against control, combo, and non-Affinity aggro. I used it to rip Crumble to Dust the turn before my opponent would have taken me off Tron forever early on, and it was instrumental to both of my wins over Naya Burn. So glad I kept these in the board.
-World Breaker performed well in matches where I wanted additional land or artifact destruction, but overall fell a bit flat for me. I lost the deciding game against the Mantis Rider player with eleven mana on the board due to the lack of a green source. I boarded out Ulamog, expecting disruption like Fulminator Mages and Stony Silences (he played both, so good guess) to keep me off of enough mana to ever cast him. I thought the reach and lower CMC would trump the double exile, but this turned out not to be the case. Had Ulamog been in my hand instead of World Breaker, I would have stabilized wonderfully and likely taken the set.
-The biggest let-down for me over the entire weekend was, without a doubt, Relic of Progenitus. I beat two Jund, a Wilted Abzan, Grishoalbrand, and three Jeskai Nahiri decks without them ever being relevant (either due to not bringing them in, or not drawing them). Against dredge, they were just too slow. I am going to toy around with these three slots in the near future, as Relic was the worst card in my 75 for what I was actually packing them for.
-Spellskite did work against Burn, and that's about it. Of course, dodging Infect and Suicide Zoo all weekend was nice, so I'm not saying Spellskite is bad at all; I fully intend to keep three of them in my 75. My luck was just such that it sat on the sidelines a lot due to what I was paired against most of the time.
-Geier Reach Sanitarium was a last-minute inclusion, and it did end up directly helping me win two games. Karn does a great job of pressuring the opponent's hand to keep them from benefitting from the effect, and TKS is the icing on the cake. There were a few times where I would have preferred a second Sanctum, so it's not a strict upgrade...but it was nice to have, and I hope more people test this card out.
-Karn and Ugin, to no one's surprise, are still amazing. There were times I wished I'd had even more copies of Ugin with all of the Merfolk and Dredge around me, but the 4/2 split worked wonders. Even against nut draws from Wilted Abzan and Jund, a resolved Ugin was just game over every time for them. Karn is still surprisingly relevant in the Burn match as well; sniping even PtE or Deflecting Palm, or cutting them off of their mana base...so good. I love ticking Karn down to three to bait a burn spell or an attack, or ripping their last threats out to put them in top deck mode.
-Pyroclasm was a card I was close to cutting for some mix of Lightning Bolts and Firespouts, but man did they deliver. Turn two sweepers are just so good at the moment, even against Dredge, as they only miss Amalgam. In matches where they were relevant, they were great; when I didn't need them, they swapped out conveniently for other tools.
-I was very surprised by how resilient my build was to the onslaught from Dredge. The only reason I lost the set was because Greater Gargadon is such an amazing out to things like O-Stone and especially Ugin. They don't pack enough answers to deal with multiple Wurmcoils, Thragtusks, or TKS, so if you can stay out of Conflagrate range and pay attention to combat math, you can pull ahead.
I'm definitely pulling out the Relics, and will be replacing them with a single Emrakul, the Promised End as well as two of either Warping Wail or Grafdigger's Cage.
Why Emrakul 2.0? I had tested it before with lackluster results against a few control decks, sometimes actually giving them an extra card off of it with no other upside. A single fetchable copy would have been wonderful against any of the decks with a looming win condition. Often they would slip and give me a window, or other cards I had would delay them (even Newlamog, in the case of the BTL Scapeshift match I played); had I that lone copy of Emrakul, they wouldn't have had a chance. Scapeshift and Breach Titan decks can auto-lose on the spot. Against Dredge, Greater Gargadon can sac everything, come out, and slam right into the titan...then you can burn them with their own Conflagrates. Several times in long games, I found myself just wishing I had that lone copy to bring in, so I'm going to test it out again as a singleton in the board.
As for the other "two" slots...if I go with Warping Wail, I'll likely cut the Ghost Quarter and just jam three of them. Cage is great versus Dredge, Storm, reanimator decks that aren't Living End, and anything with CoCo/Chord/Evolution. Thing is, Tron only has trouble with a few of those, and most of them are rare besides Dredge. Wail is way more versatile against many of the decks that give Tron trouble, and has the nice bonus of being able to turbo out Emrakul much quicker if needed.
I went into the GP not feeling great about Tron's chances/positioning in the meta, but walked away feeling pretty good overall. The wins against the Burn decks in particular felt great, and the matches I lost can be adjusted with a few of the changes I've listed. Thanks for the ideas on Geier Reach Sanitarium; it made my opponents scratch their heads all day, and worked out well.
How did you fell about no Ghost Quarter main, i do want to remove mine, but i don´t know
I´m surprised Pyroclasm did work there
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
There were definitely times I swapped Sanitarium and GQ between games, and yeah, fueling an opponent's strategy is not a good idea. Burn and Dredge are two good examples of matches where Sanctum can be a liability against skilled opponents. Because of both this and the fact that I'm (re)adding Emrakul TPE to the board, I'm going to continue with the pair of Sanctums instead, at least for awhile.
I love GQ, but I'm either using it to snipe manlands, or save me from Crumble to Dust on rare occasions. Since Warping Wail snipes Inkmoth (by far the manland with the fastest clock) and can counter Crumble, I feel I can live without GQ for now. As far as the second Forest is concerned, I run a threat-heavy enough 75 to not miss it too much. Every creature I run except Spellskite and Wurmcoil provides good value against spot removal, and I don't feel the second Forest is worth more to me than anything else I'm running.
And yeah, the red sweeper/removal slot is one of the most meta-dependent parts of the deck. Any mix of Pyroclasm, Lightning Bolt, Sudden Shock, Firespout, and Kozilek's Return can be correct, depending on what you're up against. I saw a lot of Merfolk and Bant Eldrazi at the last-chance grinders, so I was leaning toward Firespout, but there was enough Burn and Affinity to justify keeping the Clasms.
19 or 20 lands?
I'm currently running 19:
12 tronlands
4 groves
1 forest
2 sanctum of ugin
Is there a consensus on what's best?
Second question:
How many "big mana" cards are reasonable to run?
I'm currently running 12:
2 world breaker
2 wurmcoil
4 karn
2 ugin
1 ulamog 2.0
1 Emrakul 2.0
Third question:
At a GP metagame, pyroclasm or bolt?
Thanks for your help. Let's get me a GP top8!!!
ALso, if you want a suggestion, i use 3 Groves and 2 Forests, works fine for me.
I also use 12 fatties.
The removal is really a metta call, i vote for bolt cuz my field has a lot of x/3 and Spout is sometimes to late when playing agains´t infect. But clasm did a good work for Thenarus, as you can see 2 posts above.
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
Should we be running 3x big fatties? (some mix of newlamog or Emrakul 2.0)
I'm running 2 of the *big* fatties. In the past it was three. Is that representative of losing eye of ugin, or should I still realistically be running three?
Another big question:
Warping wail; seems too low-impact. Worth running at all in sideboard? Bearing in mind I'm looking ahead to a GP, what can I hope to accomplish by including this card?
And another:
Boil: this card has won me more games than any other sideboard option, and yet I don't see it being played or spoken about. A friend of mine (UK modern champion) ran exclusively tron and swore by a couple in the board at all times against random blue strategies. Surprising how often it was useful, and I'm still running a single copy, but am considering going back up to 2 to beat the various blue decks you'd expect to see hovering around the mid tables at a GP)
And another:
Is there a sort of "stock" example sideboard for the current modern field? I'm guessing it includes 2x Grafdigger's cage, but beyond that, it all seems to be personal preference. I'm used to seeing other decks with maybe 10 or 11 kind of expected options and 4 or 5 flex slots.
One more:
Wurmcoil engine: I used to run 3 mainboard with a 4th in the side and it was generally a good choice. Sometimes I even went to 4 mainboard when burn and aggro decks were out in force. Now I'm seeing a lot of 2x wurmcoil and 2x world breaker and I can't help but feel like this is just slower. I understand that breaker is kind of like having karns 5-6 but requiring the green mana can often mean the difference between slamming it down on turn 3, and playing it on turn 4 when you can get down that chromatic star or whatever. Surely this is just adding variance to the deck and a 3:1 split in favour of wurmcoil is probably a safer bet, right? I'm playing 2 breakers myself but this is only since i picked the deck back up and I'm left wondering if it's the right call to make.