I've been out of action for a while and have been seeing people running Lightning Bolt in the main where Pyroclasm was and then sideboarding the Pyroclasm. Is there any particular reason for that or is it just a personal preference thing.
I'm really liking the Mindslaver effect on Emrakul 2 as a way to really mess up any outs or combos my opponent may have. However, I'm not really sure I'm ready to commit to having them in the main until I've tested them.
I've been out of action for a while and have been seeing people running Lightning Bolt in the main where Pyroclasm was and then sideboarding the Pyroclasm. Is there any particular reason for that or is it just a personal preference thing.
I think bolts probably have more all-purpose value for a game 1, whereas clasm is dead vs certain matchups. I've been testing a mix of bolts, clasm and kozilek's return, which is nice for devoid, instant speed sweep, and 5 dmg exile ability. I am probably biased though since I'm always playing against grixis delver and the big Return hits Tasigur and Gurmag Angler nicely. To be honest though, if I was going sweeper, I'd much rather see it turn 2 than turn 3.
What's the advantage of spending 2U in addition to the casting cost of whatever Eldrazi you fetch? Are Eldrazi variable enough in situational power to be worth 2U and some number of sideboard slots? That's not even considering the mana strain. Short answer is no, Gx Tron is not interested in Foax. The deck already doesn't run 4x of the eldrazi it does run, which makes Coax really inefficient.
Sort of odd to hear such a strong opinion from someone who just made his/her first post...
In my opinion it is worth a try. The mana base will get tougher, true. However i think a 1 or 2 of coax may be worth it if you are already playing something like All is dust in the board. you can get a sweeper, you can get a fatty depending on the MU (TKS, Newrakul, Oldrakul, Newlamog). You would probably want to adjust your mana base to something like this:
12 Tron Pieces
3 Grove
2 Sanctum (if you play them)
2 Yavimaya Coast
1 Forest
That would be the way for me to test it. The rest of the fixing has to come from the Chromatics.
As with many things: Time will tell if this card is interesting. I can very well imagine it.
Edit: I forgot to ask my own question...
Apparently the "Eldrazi & Taxes" Deck gains a lot of popularity lately. With the new Thalia spoiled i am pretty sure we will see a surge of this deck. A friend of mine plays it and the Matchup is abysmal. Turn 2 4/4 Body with Thoughseize, Realitysmasher, Leonin Arbiter, Thalias etc. etc. It's just too much disruption and fat bodies for Tron to handle.
What can we do again that? I was actually thinking about playing 4 Flame Slash. Obviously it's not as good as Bolt but it handles everything except the Reality Smasher for R. I would keep the Bolts and/or Clasms in the board. What do you guys think?
Apparently the "Eldrazi & Taxes" Deck gains a lot of popularity lately. With the new Thalia spoiled i am pretty sure we will see a surge of this deck. A friend of mine plays it and the Matchup is abysmal. Turn 2 4/4 Body with Thoughseize, Realitysmasher, Leonin Arbiter, Thalias etc. etc. It's just too much disruption and fat bodies for Tron to handle.
What can we do again that? I was actually thinking about playing 4 Flame Slash. Obviously it's not as good as Bolt but it handles everything except the Reality Smasher for R. I would keep the Bolts and/or Clasms in the board. What do you guys think?
My thoughts: what were they even thinking with Thought-Knot? Such a broken card. Seriously though - your flame slash is just getting exiled when they cast thought-knot unless you get lucky on the next draw. Maybe that's a good thing though, since they're not taking something more important? idk.
Well, according to this you shouldn't play at all against things like Tidehollow Sculler, Brain Maggot etc. They basically have the same effect. But i rather have him taking the relevant removal than my tutor for tron or a Karn. Forces them to make more decisions which is a good thing i guess
When Emrakul, the Promised End and Coax from the Blind Eternities were previewed earlier this week, it inspired a lot of discussion about a little-known corner of the tournament rules. Quoting from Section 3.15, Sideboard:
"During a game, players may look at their own sideboard and the sideboard of any players they currently control. The sideboard must remain clearly distinguishable from other cards."
As of Eldritch Moon, this rule is changing. Simply put, you can now never see an opponent's sideboard, even if you control that opponent. The exact language of the rule is being finalized.
The philosophy of the old rule makes sense: You can look at your sideboard. I control you, so I can see whatever you can see. Ergo, I can see your sideboard. But this has huge ramifications at every level of tournament play. It brings up questions of informational access, lengthy note-taking delays, the timing of strategic concessions, team dynamics, even the physical interactions between players.
If you force a player you're controlling to cast a "Wish," you can't have them access any cards in their sideboard. If you make them cast Death Wish, the same rule applies: no cards, even at random sight unseen.
I'm sorry it took the cards' public unveiling to really bring this issue to light, but I'm happy with the result. Now Emrakul can go be the monster she was meant to be.
This rule will be in effect for Magic Online play after the Eldritch Moon release. In addition, I believe (but don't quote me on this one) that there will be better functionality to support looking at your own sideboard.
Sudden Shock is great in the sideboard against infect and I also just bring it in when I need more removal in general, like against burn, abzan coco, delver, affinity, ect. It isn't the perfect answer to fulminator mage since they will receive priority after it resolves, but if they don't immediately activate it then you have the chance to kill it before it activates. I wouldn't play Sudden Shock as the replacement to Bolt/Clasm, but alongside them since it is a more specific answer that catches fewer cards.
What are people's thoughts on the 1-of copy of Fog in Joe Losett's mainboard for SCG Dallas this weekend? Would be interesting to see what he took out for it.
What are people's thoughts on the 1-of copy of Fog in Joe Losett's mainboard for SCG Dallas this weekend? Would be interesting to see what he took out for it.
I've actually been playing with 4 copies of Fog maindeck. It actually works out pretty decently.
Too bad Moment's Peace isn't legal in Modern. That would be amazing.
He doesn't have his current list posted on his stream so I guess we won't be able to know unless he makes top 8 or whenever he does a tournament report on his stream. He was 8-1 at the end of day 1.
In the current modern landscape, would you say buying into rg tron is still a good choice? I have been playing u tron and bw eldrazi taxes. u tron is too slow and bw taxes too fragile. Will I find escape from these things in rg tron?
I would say that it's a great choice. Very resilient to metagame shifts, has tons of free wins, the decks we lose to are very fast so you almost never go to turns since once we start winning we win hard, and the deck even survived having one of it's main inevitability conditions banned. Here's a copy/paste from a recent reddit thread:
Interactive
I'm not going to lie, I feel like a lot of people just don't know what they're talking about. Tron is a Control Deck that is very interactive. The core of the Deck is based around Turn 3 / 4 Tron, but there are Decks like Zoo and Infect that you must interact with in the early turns or you'll straight up lose. Basically everything you do is interactive. Your best Turn 3 play is Tron with Karn in which you use Karn to interact with your opponent. His high Loyalty Count and Planeswalker Card-type make him very hard to deal with as some Decks will straight up lose if you stick a Karn. The other parts of the Deck between Pyroclasm, O-Stone, and Ugin are all used to interact with your opponent to keep you alive. Of course there are good matchups where you can casually do Turn 3 or 4 Tron and win. But saying that you can do that every single game is just straight up wrong.
Easy to Play? Nah
If you tend to lose a lot with Tron, your biggest problem is probably your sequencing and mulligans. Tron is deceptively easy in the way that, from the other side it may seem like a Turn 3 Karn just kinda happened. And sometimes it does, but every Deck has their nut draws. A lot of times, you have to either prioritize finding Tron or prioritize staying alive over Tron. Each of these strategies depends on the circumstances of the current match and will require you to sequence every move in perfect conjunction. Most games end on Turn 3 or 4 with either you dying too fast or you putting together Tron too fast.
Burn and Infect are bad matchups, but not unwinnable
My LGS is about 40-50% Burn with 1 Infect player. I do lose a lot, but I also win a lot. I would disagree with the 70/30 in Burn's favor, and say that it's more like 60/40. If we get a clutch Nature's Claim, Thragtusk, or Wurmcoil connection to heal, we can steal away the game. If we get a key Firespout or Pyroclasm, we could buy 2 or 3 turns enough to build to Tron and win. Now, the absolute nut draw of Burn or Infect will 100% win against a Tron nut draw. There's nothing you can do about it and you just have to accept it as a bad matchup. Every Deck has their bad matchups and Tron is no exception.
Resiliency
Tron is fantastic in the way that Hate Cards do not Hate out Tron. Take for instance Blood Moon. Some Decks just fold to it on the spot, but Tron has a ton of Land Search. If the opponent drops a Turn 3 Blood Moon or a Turn 4 Crumble to Dust and has no pressure to follow up, we will search up to 6 Lands and start hard-casting Wurmcoils and hard-casting Karns. Without pressure, these Hate Cards do nothing to stop us except slow down the inevitable. There have been games where I've been Ghost Quarter'd off Tron 3 turns in a row, and in those 3 Turns I repeatedly just searched for the replacement Tron piece. The opponent didn't have any pressure besides that, so I casually found Tron when he ran out of Ghost Quarters and took over the game.
It's important to remember, the perfect amount of disruption can lose us the game. But it must be perfect. If they do like Turn 1 Thoughtseize your Land Search, Turn 2 Ghost Quarter your Tron and play a threat, Turn 3 Fulminator you and Thoughtseize again the turn after, that can work. Most of the time though, a single piece of hate like a single Thoughtseize or a single Ghost Quarter isn't enough to Hate us out. Tron is extremely resilient and it's fantastic.
The ability to beat Brews
Have you ever come across a Brew that you're not prepared for and it just takes you by surprise? Tron doesn't give a crap what Deck you're playing. Our threats are strong and resilient. Most of them Exile, which prevents shenanigans from occurring. Things like O-Stone and Ugin don't care what they have on the board, they'll wipe away every piece of the puzzle every time.
Consistency
If you can mulligan properly and know what to look for, Turn 3 / 4 Tron is the most consistent strategy in Modern. It will always happen. There's no hope for the opponent to pray that you just won't have Tron by Turn 4, you always will and they gotta be ready for it.
Inevitability
Tron used to have perfect inevitability in the form of Eye of Ugin. This one Land could tutor up every threat in our Deck until we won. Tron threats are already extremely hard to deal with, so eventually they would get overrun with value and die. Now that it's gone, some people would have you think that the Deck isn't consistent with ending games anymore. But I can promise you, 2 Sanctum of Ugin easily fill the void that Eye left. In 99% of games, getting 2 Tron threats is more than enough to end the game. They can usually deal with the first one, but not the second one. In some situations, Sanctum of Ugin is actually better than Eye of Ugin because you don't have to waste 7 mana to search up a threat. You just sac 1 mana worth of Land and it goes straight to your hand. Was Eye of Ugin better? Of course it was! But Sanctum of Ugin is a perfect replacement and gives us the late-game inevitability that we needed. You can even play 1 threat, sacrifice 2 Sanctums and search for 2 threats at the same time. And this is all not included in the Cards you draw naturally.
Conclusion
Tron is the only Deck of its kind in Modern. There is no Deck that runs and functions the way it does. If you want a Deck that takes on the world completely unique and faces down Hate completely different than every other Deck, as well as treating every surprise Brew to the works of Ugin and O-Stone, then Tron is perfect for you.
(maindeck is pretty stock, 2 ulamog at the top end, 2 ugin in the main, but I'm still running 3:1 pyroclasm/kozilek's return maindeck and not bolt like some people)
1 crumble to dust
1 pithing needle
2 relic of progenitus
1 wurmcoil engine
3 dragon's claw
3 Nature's Claim
1 Emrakul, the aeons torn
2 boil
1 undecided
What should my last slot be, and what matchups am I missing?
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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
(maindeck is pretty stock, 2 ulamog at the top end, 2 ugin in the main, but I'm still running 3:1 pyroclasm/kozilek's return maindeck and not bolt like some people)
1 crumble to dust
1 pithing needle
2 relic of progenitus
1 wurmcoil engine
3 dragon's claw
3 Nature's Claim
1 Emrakul, the aeons torn
2 boil
1 undecided
What should my last slot be, and what matchups am I missing?
Emrakul and Boil seem unnecessary. Seeing as we don't use our own grave much, 1 Relic / 1 Grafdigger's can be better than 2 Relic. Then I feel like Warping Wail is needed for opponent's Crumble to Dust. Thragtusk is probably better than Wurmcoil, e.g. it answers Path.
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Here's the current list I'll be testing:
3 Spellskite
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 World Breaker
2 Wurmcoil Engine
Sorceries (11)
4 Ancient Stirrings
3 Pyroclasm
4 Sylvan Scrying
Artifacts (15)
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Karn Liberated
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Lands (20)
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
2 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Emrakul, the Promised End
2 Thragtusk
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Nature's Claim
3 Warping Wail
2 Crumble to Dust
2 Relic of Progenitus
I'm really liking the Mindslaver effect on Emrakul 2 as a way to really mess up any outs or combos my opponent may have. However, I'm not really sure I'm ready to commit to having them in the main until I've tested them.
C Kozilek C
GB Gitrog GB
G Titania G
WU Brago WU
GB MerenGB
Duel Commander Decks
UR Keranos UR
BRG Jund BRG
GR Tron GR GW Tron GW
C Eldrazi Tron (SB) C
BG Lantern Control BG
UW Control (SB) UW
I think bolts probably have more all-purpose value for a game 1, whereas clasm is dead vs certain matchups. I've been testing a mix of bolts, clasm and kozilek's return, which is nice for devoid, instant speed sweep, and 5 dmg exile ability. I am probably biased though since I'm always playing against grixis delver and the big Return hits Tasigur and Gurmag Angler nicely. To be honest though, if I was going sweeper, I'd much rather see it turn 2 than turn 3.
In my opinion it is worth a try. The mana base will get tougher, true. However i think a 1 or 2 of coax may be worth it if you are already playing something like All is dust in the board. you can get a sweeper, you can get a fatty depending on the MU (TKS, Newrakul, Oldrakul, Newlamog). You would probably want to adjust your mana base to something like this:
12 Tron Pieces
3 Grove
2 Sanctum (if you play them)
2 Yavimaya Coast
1 Forest
That would be the way for me to test it. The rest of the fixing has to come from the Chromatics.
As with many things: Time will tell if this card is interesting. I can very well imagine it.
Edit: I forgot to ask my own question...
Apparently the "Eldrazi & Taxes" Deck gains a lot of popularity lately. With the new Thalia spoiled i am pretty sure we will see a surge of this deck. A friend of mine plays it and the Matchup is abysmal. Turn 2 4/4 Body with Thoughseize, Realitysmasher, Leonin Arbiter, Thalias etc. etc. It's just too much disruption and fat bodies for Tron to handle.
What can we do again that? I was actually thinking about playing 4 Flame Slash. Obviously it's not as good as Bolt but it handles everything except the Reality Smasher for R. I would keep the Bolts and/or Clasms in the board. What do you guys think?
BRGJundGRB
GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
My thoughts: what were they even thinking with Thought-Knot?
BRGJundGRB
GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4pplrm/rules_update_controlling_another_player_and/
Small but significant downgrade to Newmrakul, given how reliant on sideboards modern is.
Edit: The post was deleted. According to the reddit mods it was done by Tabak himself, so they may be rethinking this. More details: https://www.reddit.com/r/magicTCG/comments/4pubgv/the_rules_update_controlling_another_player_and/
Original text:
Honestly I didn't even know Mindslavering them let you see their sideboard. Kind of dumb that you can't even see it with a Wish though.
RGTron
UGInfect
URStorm
WUBRAd Nauseam
BRGrishoalbrand
URGScapeshift
WBGAbzan Company
WUBRGAmulet Titan
BRGLiving End
WGBogles
Too bad Moment's Peace isn't legal in Modern. That would be amazing.
(maindeck is pretty stock, 2 ulamog at the top end, 2 ugin in the main, but I'm still running 3:1 pyroclasm/kozilek's return maindeck and not bolt like some people)
1 crumble to dust
1 pithing needle
2 relic of progenitus
1 wurmcoil engine
3 dragon's claw
3 Nature's Claim
1 Emrakul, the aeons torn
2 boil
1 undecided
What should my last slot be, and what matchups am I missing?