If the game gets to the point where it can be considered "late" your probably already beating burn. Also Burn has only so many revelries for all our Wurmcoils and O-Stones
I worked my deck over a bit and it is running fairly well now.
Still not content with Slaughter Games though. Yes, it can not be countered and it can screw Splintertwin decks up. But then again: Splintertwin costs 4 Mana, just like Slaughter Games. I am not sure if some other "removal" like an Inquisition or Thoughtseize would be better since you can splash it earlier with chromatics and llanowar wastes.
Also: What are your opinions about Defense Grid as sideboard card? I found it to be pretty useful.
I worked my deck over a bit and it is running fairly well now.
Still not content with Slaughter Games though. Yes, it can not be countered and it can screw Splintertwin decks up. But then again: Splintertwin costs 4 Mana, just like Slaughter Games. I am not sure if some other "removal" like an Inquisition or Thoughtseize would be better since you can splash it earlier with chromatics and llanowar wastes.
Slaughter Games isn't for Twin. Slaughter Games is primarily for Scapeshift (there's other decks it hits, including the mirror, but Scapeshift is the main reason to play it). Scapeshift is an atrocious matchup--worse than Twin--and having an "I win" button that can't be countered is extremely useful against it (well, okay, I guess I just described Emrakul, but he's slow and they're very likely to combo off before you get him). The only card they're likely to play that can stop it is Shadow of a Doubt, and you still take any copies out of their hand.
The problem with Slaughter Games against Twin is that if you name Splinter Twin, they can just beat you down with their creatures. Happened to me once; cast Slaughter Games, then got killed by 2x Pestermite 1x Vendilion Clique. That said, I don't think it's bad against Twin; if you pull it off, you can play the rest of the game without having to worry about getting combo'd out (unless they have Kiki-Jiki, but of course SG lets you know if they have Kiki-Jiki). It's just generally not as good as the other stuff you could be bringing in or the stuff you'd be taking out. If you're low on Twin hate otherwise it might be worth bringing it in.
Also: What are your opinions about Defense Grid as sideboard card? I found it to be pretty useful.
Well, it's good against counterspell decks like Scapeshift, UR Delver (it's less useful against Grixis Delver), Twin, and various control builds. I'm considering putting it back into my sideboard because running into Remand can be so annoying.
Guys, quick question.
I'm always afraid of the Burn MU, and currently run 3 Feed the clan. I was wondering if it would be interesting to replace it by Elixir of immortality?
On 1 hand it's reachable by Ancient stirrings and doesn't need green, on the other hand you can't play it instant and can by destroyed. What do you think ? Other MU help / cards welcome by the way.
I prefer Nature's Claim + Feed the Clan because they're instant. With them, either the Burn player has to play with Skullcrack/Command mana open (slower), or tap out and give us an opportunity to gain life.
Fun fact, though: If you have three lands in play, play a Ghost Quarter, and throw it at an opposing Tectonic Edge immediately after playing it, they're unable to activate their Tectonic Edge in response because by the time they get priority, it's in your graveyard and you no longer have four lands in play.
I love the deck and have been doing extremely well with it. The only problem is that I'm having trouble with my flex spot. Currently I have a spellskite. He's good if I randomly have him game 1 against twin, infect and burn.
My understanding is that all of those matchups are pretty back pre-board anyway (haven't had a chance to play against infect yet). In my ~30 games so far the skite has been pretty lame. So Here's some different options I'm considering instead:
Nature's Claim
Also good against twin and burn (pop on a sphere to gain life) and provides a small level of insurance against path on wurm. Of all my flex cards, this is the only one that can't be dug for with stirrings.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Good because it destoys something on cast + indestructible. Bad because it's a minimum of T5. I already hate openers that have emrakul + eye, I can see Ulamog being further unplayable clog.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Good because he can be cast T4. Not sure the card draw is super relevant for us though. Dies to all removal. I'm leaning more toward koz than ula for some reason.
All is Dust
Great because a baord-wipe on T3 using only tron. Bad because it's easier to leak/remand than o-stone. I personally love o-stone though and don't see having a fifth as a bad thing.
Sundering Titan
If you can resolve this, T4 against any 2+ colour deck it is awesome. But still... It's T4 minimum and gets remanded pretty hard. I feel like it's spot is in U Tron rather than here.
Relic of Progenitus
Taking one from the board and putting into the main. Relevant against anything with blue or goyf in it, plus living end. Cantrips itself in all other matchups. It seems like a solid choice, but not hugely exciting to me. Goyf decks seem fairly easy for us. I like it against living end, but still as a 1-of in the main it feels feeble.
All the options don't seem super awesome. I'd say that perhaps All is Dust offers the most. On the draw against URx delver, if you don't have the pyroclasm you can just be dead before your T4. Any thoughts on this flex-spot would be appreciated!
On another note I just wanna talk about the two forests. I used to run llanowar in the main + slaughter games SB. I found slaughter games rarely ended up coming in, so have decided to abandon it. I've placed a second forest in space because the number of times I couldn't get anything from a path/ghost quarters has been high. On the other hand I wonder if a Cavern of Souls would be good. Guarantee your wurmcoils, or you could maybe run it with ula/koz/sundering in the flex spot for a tad more robustness there.
I love the fact that even though we're talking about 1-2 slots in a deck, there's SO much impact from them, given how much digging/tutoring the deck has! Of all the modern decks I've piloted RG Tron has been my favourite by a long mile.
I love the fact that even though we're talking about 1-2 slots in a deck, there's SO much impact from them, given how much digging/tutoring the deck has! Of all the modern decks I've piloted RG Tron has been my favourite by a long mile. Smile
I totally agree on that. imo GR Tron does not have many flex spots, so the few you have are more important.
Have you considered Firespout or Combust as Flexspots? I think Firespout is a great card, i run 2 in my SB because, well, 3 damage is better than 2 i guess.
Combust is a great sideboard card. I prefer it over Rending Volley. Just a personal thing i guess. Other than that you could think about Prophetic Prism for Mana Conversion. Also pays for itself since it lets you draw a card.
However i am not that familiar with GR Tron in different Matchups yet. So this is just "intuition"
I love the deck and have been doing extremely well with it. The only problem is that I'm having trouble with my flex spot. Currently I have a spellskite. He's good if I randomly have him game 1 against twin, infect and burn.
My understanding is that all of those matchups are pretty back pre-board anyway (haven't had a chance to play against infect yet). In my ~30 games so far the skite has been pretty lame.
Personally, I love Spellskite, and I'm running 4 copies of him maindeck (plan to reduce it to 3, though). What's confusing is your reasoning: You reject Spellskite because it's good against matchups that are "pretty bad preboard anyway"? That's an argument for Spellskite, the fact that it helps you immensely against decks that normally beat you Game 1. And in truth, there's only a few decks it has no real relevance against.
Honestly, I'm a strong believer in running at least 1 Spellskite maindeck. It's true you probably won't draw it, but it's a card that can be tutored for with Eye of Ugin.
As a side note, unless you're actually running a 56-card deck, I'm pretty sure you're leaving out 4x Sylvan Scrying. Also, I really can't agree with running 3x Nature's Claim 2x Ancient Grudge. Nature's Claim is so good that I'd be going 4x Nature's Claim 1x Ancient Grudge. I can't really think of any decks that I'd bring in Ancient Grudge in that I wouldn't already be bringing in those Nature's Claims, but there are decks where Nature's Claim is good but Ancient Grudge is either dead or not useful enough to come in. For example, Nature's Claim is great against Burn and Boggles, but Ancient Grudge is useless. in against Merfolk because it hits 8+ cards in the deck (Aether Vial and Spreading Seas, plus it can counteract a Vapor Snag), but Ancient Grudge isn't (as it only hits Aether Vial). These are all decks that I'd bring in 4x Nature's Claim but never 3x Nature's Claim 1x Ancient Grudge.
All is Dust
Great because a baord-wipe on T3 using only tron. Bad because it's easier to leak/remand than o-stone. I personally love o-stone though and don't see having a fifth as a bad thing.
Except you already have a fifth Oblivion Stone. And a sixth, as you're running two copies of Ugin. When you're already running 4x Oblivion Stone 2x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon 4x Pyroclasm, I don't see why you'd think you need more sweepers.
Relic of Progenitus
Taking one from the board and putting into the main. Relevant against anything with blue or goyf in it, plus living end. Cantrips itself in all other matchups. It seems like a solid choice, but not hugely exciting to me. Goyf decks seem fairly easy for us. I like it against living end, but still as a 1-of in the main it feels feeble.
Yeah, that's my problem also, having just 1 in the maindeck feels overly wishy-washy. I know I defended a 1-of Spellskite in the maindeck, but as noted, Spellskite is far easier to find a copy of than Relic of Progenitus thanks to Eye of Ugin.
All the options don't seem super awesome. I'd say that perhaps All is Dust offers the most. On the draw against URx delver, if you don't have the pyroclasm you can just be dead before your T4. Any thoughts on this flex-spot would be appreciated!
But again, at a whopping 10 sweepers, I don't see what All is Dust offers you. You won't usually have Tron on turn 3, so the idea of "I can cast it before turn 4!" seems dubious. If you really want another sweeper that can be cast on turn 3, you'd be better off with Firespout, though that's more of a sideboard card.
On another note I just wanna talk about the two forests. I used to run llanowar in the main + slaughter games SB. I found slaughter games rarely ended up coming in, so have decided to abandon it. I've placed a second forest in space because the number of times I couldn't get anything from a path/ghost quarters has been high. On the other hand I wonder if a Cavern of Souls would be good. Guarantee your wurmcoils, or you could maybe run it with ula/koz/sundering in the flex spot for a tad more robustness there.
Personally, I'm actually running 1x Forest 1x Mountain. Even if it doesn't come up that much, the ability to Ghost Quarter one of your lands for a Red source can actually be pretty useful.
That said, Cavern of Souls can be nice for getting Wurmcoil Engines against URx Delver decks, or a Sundering Titan against Scapeshift.
I run one main deck spellskite for the reason you listed. I disagree with more then one main though. I don't want to lose to abzan because I drew three spellskites instead of action.
Alright, so what I'm getting is that All is Dust is not happening T3 and that Ugin is simply 100% better. This seems true, the only exception being Tombstalker. Gurmag/Tasi seem the most played though.
Honestly, I'm a strong believer in running at least 1 Spellskite maindeck. It's true you probably won't draw it, but it's a card that can be tutored for with Eye of Ugin.
To be honest I never considered tutoring skite with eye. I'd mistakenly thought it was a Treasure Mage effect. I guess if you go long enough in game 1 against infect or twin then that's good. Ancient Stirrings too makes the skite more relevant.
As a side note, unless you're actually running a 56-card deck, I'm pretty sure you're leaving out 4x Sylvan Scrying. Also, I really can't agree with running 3x Nature's Claim 2x Ancient Grudge. Nature's Claim is so good that I'd be going 4x Nature's Claim 1x Ancient Grudge. I can't really think of any decks that I'd bring in Ancient Grudge in that I wouldn't already be bringing in those Nature's Claims, but there are decks where Nature's Claim is good but Ancient Grudge is either dead or not useful enough to come in. For example, Nature's Claim is great against Burn and Boggles, but Ancient Grudge is useless. in against Merfolk because it hits 8+ cards in the deck (Aether Vial and Spreading Seas, plus it can counteract a Vapor Snag), but Ancient Grudge isn't (as it only hits Aether Vial). These are all decks that I'd bring in 4x Nature's Claim but never 3x Nature's Claim 1x Ancient Grudge.
Yep - thanks for spotting the missing Scryings, I'll add them in now. I think that's a fair call re: claim vs grudge. The one matchup where it could be better is 8-rack, but yeah, better off with claims.
But again, at a whopping 10 sweepers, I don't see what All is Dust offers you. You won't usually have Tron on turn 3, so the idea of "I can cast it before turn 4!" seems dubious. If you really want another sweeper that can be cast on turn 3, you'd be better off with Firespout, though that's more of a sideboard card.
You and Henkie both mention T3 tron being ambitious. Is it really *that* ambitious though? I would think we have a 15, maybe 20% chance of assembling it, even with disruption. Granted you have to multiply that chance with the odds of having the Dust in hand... So yeah the chance of dusting T3 in general must be in the low single digits. I think I'm sold off Dust now, yet I'm still terrified of double delver starts with no pyro.
[Sundering Titan is a] Great card in certain metagames (UWx, Scapeshift, slow decks). Usually ran together with Cavern of Souls, as the counterspell decks are destroyed by him. Also, Cavern of Souls is generally not considered worth running unless you have Titan, as uncounterable Wurmcoils are often lackluster against the counterspell decks (UWx has Path to Exile, I find they rarely counter a Wurmcoil and just let it resolve instead). I suppose it's decent against Delver.
I DO want to try cavern with sundering too. The thing that bugs me though is that usually you'd have to eye for the titan, using a turn, then you'd have to play the cavern and have tron assembled, THEN you can blow their lands up. That means you're gonna be having minimum 5 lands out. At this point it seems like you might as well be playing towards emrakul.
I had one game against UWR where he tec-edged a tron piece and cryptic-bounced another at end of my turn and then played Ajani Vengeant on his turn, tapping down a land. He basically continued to bounce tron until ajani ulti. It felt helpless and not so sure what can be done in this situation...
I run one main deck spellskite for the reason you listed. I disagree with more then one main though. I don't want to lose to abzan because I drew three spellskites instead of action.
Actually, Spellskite isn't that bad against Abzan. Their strategy is to just run you over before you can manage to go bigger than them, and having a blocker (and a card that can save Wurmcoil Engine from Path to Exile) is a way to stop them from doing it.
Not to mention, you really don't lose against Abzan due to not drawing "action." You tend to draw your action quite naturally. You lose against Abzan if you can't assemble Tron to cast that action, which Spellskite doesn't stop you from doing (unless you're actually removing Tron lands, Ancient Stirrings, Sylvan Scrying, Expedition Map, or the Chromatics to make room for Spellskite).
Coco is a deck we already beat; the abundant sweepers we run take them out pretty hard. Some versions might pack Stony Silence, Fulminator Mage, or even Magus of the Moon, so watch for those, but you shouldn't have too many problems here.
RG Tron is a match where having Slaughter Games in the side can really shine, as eliminating opposing Karn Liberated threats to your Tron set while pressuring with your own is backbreaking. Multiple Ghost Quarters are also nice (especially if you run Life From the Loam or Crucible of Worlds in your side), and Spellskites can eat Karn activations if it comes to that.
For Twin, you want Spellskite, Rending Volley/Combust, and Oblivion Stone to do your heavy lifting. Torpor Orb isn't as good without Pod around, but it does still stop the Twin combo, and has benefits against Bloom Titan, Coco decks (not that you really need the help here, but it is good against them), and Soul Sisters or Faeries if you see them in your local meta.
If Affinity isn't around your local meta, I'd run 2-3 Pyroclasm in the main, with the rest in the side; in place of the 1-2 you take out, put as many copies of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in. He's especially good pre-board, before your opponent can side in all of the things that slow your ramping down. He also wipes out any chance for Coco decks to beat you, and is a threat instead of a dead card against the mirror (especially since he can snipe Karn if they use his -3 on one of your lands first).
If manlands aren't a real presence, you could use the last land slot for Llanowar Wastes instead of the second Ghost Quarter. Against control, Infect, Merfolk, and Affinity, GQ by itself is better. Being able to bring in SG to break combo and the mirror match open is probably worth packing 3 of them in your sideboard in the meta you described.
Always beware of Burn, by the way; you have to respect that deck and have enough slots to cope with it. Accordingly, I'm tweaking my list for the Open in Columbus this weekend, and have gone back to using three Feed the Clan instead of two Elixir of Immortality (plus my singleton Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre for other matches).
I actually prefer Elixir in this deck if I were staying at a two-count, but Burn is prevalent enough that I feel an extra card is necessary to reliably handle that match. As a three-of, I'm less concerned about using Ancient Stirrings to hit them reliably, and there have been spots where I would have been able to gain 10 life in a shot. Although being able to fetch Elixir is nice, and it combos well with Nature's Claim, simple redundancy seems to be more effective.
I don't think Tron is worried about the Collected Company decks with either splash color. As for Twin, GW Tron has Path in the main, but GR Tron has Rending volley in the side. Spellskite is the key card against twin, so in my experience both decks have about the same Twin matchup (it's not great either way.) If it comes down to the mirror, I definitely want access to Slaughter Games because Karn is the only card that really matters. So I guess overall for that meta RG would be a better choice. GW is mainly tuned to beat burn with Timely Reinforcements in the sb.
I found Karplusan Forest to be a nice budget alternative to the Grove of the Burnwillows. When you have a chromatic you don't really need to take the damage anymore. Until then i managed to survive when playtesting vs. my friends
You need to live as long as possible. Thus you don't want to take damage from the "shock" of the shockland. On the other hand you don't really care about your opponents lifetotal. When Emrakul hits the board or Karn Ultimate goes off all that does not really matter anymore. It is basically like a Taiga for Tron.
Our smallest offensive creature is Wurmcoil, a 6/6, so giving the opponent him a point of two of life won't matter much. On the other hand, we tend to stabilize at very low life against aggro, so not losing any life to our lands is a small but significant advantage.
Our smallest offensive creature is Wurmcoil, a 6/6, so giving the opponent him a point of two of life won't matter much. On the other hand, we tend to stabilize at very low life against aggro, so not losing any life to our lands is a small but significant advantage.
Having stabilized against 4c Zoo at 3 life and boggles at 2 life last night I can attest this is true.
What is the current oppionion of 4 Leyline of Sanctity in the sideboard for burn/discard, and what should I cut from the sideboard??
Leyline of Sanctity hurts Burn, but a lot of them are running Destructive Revelry now, which they will bring in against us, lowering its effectiveness. That said, they have to draw the card for it to get rid of Leyline.
I'm not sure Leyline is that great for us against Discard. We're fairly redundant and the most critical things (the Urza lands) can't be hit by discard spells, so we're less vulnerable to discard than the decks that normally run Leyline to try to beat discard. And the especially big issue is that Leyline might thwart their Thoughtseize, but otherwise is dead against their board. Leyline of Sanctity won't help you against a Tarmogoyf, for example. The only deck that's really "all-discard" is 8Rack, and we're practically made to beat that deck. I guess it makes Liliana a bit worse, but again I don't feel it's doing enough against Jund/Junk to warrant bringing in a card that's really only good for our deck if it's in your opening hand.
I'd only be running Leyline of Sanctity if I was really worried about Burn, because that's the main reason you'd be running it. There's some other matchups it's okay in (it at least forces Scapeshift to have the Cryptic Command before going off), but Burn is the main reason.
If the worry is Burn, I'd swap out the Dismembers in the sideboard for Spellskites. The main matchups where Dismember is good are Twin and Infect, where, what do you know, Spellskite is great as well, while also being a good card against Burn and some other decks.
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Modern
Value Town
Amulet Titan
Legacy
4C Loam
My Peasant Cube
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/11667
I worked my deck over a bit and it is running fairly well now.
Still not content with Slaughter Games though. Yes, it can not be countered and it can screw Splintertwin decks up. But then again: Splintertwin costs 4 Mana, just like Slaughter Games. I am not sure if some other "removal" like an Inquisition or Thoughtseize would be better since you can splash it earlier with chromatics and llanowar wastes.
Also: What are your opinions about Defense Grid as sideboard card? I found it to be pretty useful.
Opinions?
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The problem with Slaughter Games against Twin is that if you name Splinter Twin, they can just beat you down with their creatures. Happened to me once; cast Slaughter Games, then got killed by 2x Pestermite 1x Vendilion Clique. That said, I don't think it's bad against Twin; if you pull it off, you can play the rest of the game without having to worry about getting combo'd out (unless they have Kiki-Jiki, but of course SG lets you know if they have Kiki-Jiki). It's just generally not as good as the other stuff you could be bringing in or the stuff you'd be taking out. If you're low on Twin hate otherwise it might be worth bringing it in.
Well, it's good against counterspell decks like Scapeshift, UR Delver (it's less useful against Grixis Delver), Twin, and various control builds. I'm considering putting it back into my sideboard because running into Remand can be so annoying.
I prefer Nature's Claim + Feed the Clan because they're instant. With them, either the Burn player has to play with Skullcrack/Command mana open (slower), or tap out and give us an opportunity to gain life.
I've recently picked up RG tron and love it. My list is pretty standard:
4x Urza's Mine
4x Urza's Tower
4x Urza's Power Plant
4x Grove of the Burnwillows
2x Forest
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Eye of Ugin
Threats
4x Karn Liberated
2x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4x Wurmcoil Engine
4x Pyroclasm
4x Oblivion Stone
Diggers
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Expedition Map
4x Sylvan Scrying
Filters
4x Chromatic Star
4x Chromatic Sphere
Flex Spot
1x Spellskite
4x Rending Volley
3x Nature's Claim
3x Relic of Progenitus
2x Boil
2x Ancient Grudge
1x Spellskite
I love the deck and have been doing extremely well with it. The only problem is that I'm having trouble with my flex spot. Currently I have a spellskite. He's good if I randomly have him game 1 against twin, infect and burn.
My understanding is that all of those matchups are pretty back pre-board anyway (haven't had a chance to play against infect yet). In my ~30 games so far the skite has been pretty lame. So Here's some different options I'm considering instead:
Nature's Claim
Also good against twin and burn (pop on a sphere to gain life) and provides a small level of insurance against path on wurm. Of all my flex cards, this is the only one that can't be dug for with stirrings.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
Good because it destoys something on cast + indestructible. Bad because it's a minimum of T5. I already hate openers that have emrakul + eye, I can see Ulamog being further unplayable clog.
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
Good because he can be cast T4. Not sure the card draw is super relevant for us though. Dies to all removal. I'm leaning more toward koz than ula for some reason.
All is Dust
Great because a baord-wipe on T3 using only tron. Bad because it's easier to leak/remand than o-stone. I personally love o-stone though and don't see having a fifth as a bad thing.
Sundering Titan
If you can resolve this, T4 against any 2+ colour deck it is awesome. But still... It's T4 minimum and gets remanded pretty hard. I feel like it's spot is in U Tron rather than here.
Relic of Progenitus
Taking one from the board and putting into the main. Relevant against anything with blue or goyf in it, plus living end. Cantrips itself in all other matchups. It seems like a solid choice, but not hugely exciting to me. Goyf decks seem fairly easy for us. I like it against living end, but still as a 1-of in the main it feels feeble.
All the options don't seem super awesome. I'd say that perhaps All is Dust offers the most. On the draw against URx delver, if you don't have the pyroclasm you can just be dead before your T4. Any thoughts on this flex-spot would be appreciated!
On another note I just wanna talk about the two forests. I used to run llanowar in the main + slaughter games SB. I found slaughter games rarely ended up coming in, so have decided to abandon it. I've placed a second forest in space because the number of times I couldn't get anything from a path/ghost quarters has been high. On the other hand I wonder if a Cavern of Souls would be good. Guarantee your wurmcoils, or you could maybe run it with ula/koz/sundering in the flex spot for a tad more robustness there.
I love the fact that even though we're talking about 1-2 slots in a deck, there's SO much impact from them, given how much digging/tutoring the deck has! Of all the modern decks I've piloted RG Tron has been my favourite by a long mile.
I totally agree on that. imo GR Tron does not have many flex spots, so the few you have are more important.
Have you considered Firespout or Combust as Flexspots? I think Firespout is a great card, i run 2 in my SB because, well, 3 damage is better than 2 i guess.
Combust is a great sideboard card. I prefer it over Rending Volley. Just a personal thing i guess. Other than that you could think about Prophetic Prism for Mana Conversion. Also pays for itself since it lets you draw a card.
However i am not that familiar with GR Tron in different Matchups yet. So this is just "intuition"
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Honestly, I'm a strong believer in running at least 1 Spellskite maindeck. It's true you probably won't draw it, but it's a card that can be tutored for with Eye of Ugin.
As a side note, unless you're actually running a 56-card deck, I'm pretty sure you're leaving out 4x Sylvan Scrying. Also, I really can't agree with running 3x Nature's Claim 2x Ancient Grudge. Nature's Claim is so good that I'd be going 4x Nature's Claim 1x Ancient Grudge. I can't really think of any decks that I'd bring in Ancient Grudge in that I wouldn't already be bringing in those Nature's Claims, but there are decks where Nature's Claim is good but Ancient Grudge is either dead or not useful enough to come in. For example, Nature's Claim is great against Burn and Boggles, but Ancient Grudge is useless. in against Merfolk because it hits 8+ cards in the deck (Aether Vial and Spreading Seas, plus it can counteract a Vapor Snag), but Ancient Grudge isn't (as it only hits Aether Vial). These are all decks that I'd bring in 4x Nature's Claim but never 3x Nature's Claim 1x Ancient Grudge.
Except you already have a fifth Oblivion Stone. And a sixth, as you're running two copies of Ugin. When you're already running 4x Oblivion Stone 2x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon 4x Pyroclasm, I don't see why you'd think you need more sweepers.
Yeah, that's my problem also, having just 1 in the maindeck feels overly wishy-washy. I know I defended a 1-of Spellskite in the maindeck, but as noted, Spellskite is far easier to find a copy of than Relic of Progenitus thanks to Eye of Ugin.
But again, at a whopping 10 sweepers, I don't see what All is Dust offers you. You won't usually have Tron on turn 3, so the idea of "I can cast it before turn 4!" seems dubious. If you really want another sweeper that can be cast on turn 3, you'd be better off with Firespout, though that's more of a sideboard card.
Personally, I'm actually running 1x Forest 1x Mountain. Even if it doesn't come up that much, the ability to Ghost Quarter one of your lands for a Red source can actually be pretty useful.
That said, Cavern of Souls can be nice for getting Wurmcoil Engines against URx Delver decks, or a Sundering Titan against Scapeshift.
To be honest I never considered tutoring skite with eye. I'd mistakenly thought it was a Treasure Mage effect. I guess if you go long enough in game 1 against infect or twin then that's good. Ancient Stirrings too makes the skite more relevant.
Yep - thanks for spotting the missing Scryings, I'll add them in now. I think that's a fair call re: claim vs grudge. The one matchup where it could be better is 8-rack, but yeah, better off with claims.
You and Henkie both mention T3 tron being ambitious. Is it really *that* ambitious though? I would think we have a 15, maybe 20% chance of assembling it, even with disruption. Granted you have to multiply that chance with the odds of having the Dust in hand... So yeah the chance of dusting T3 in general must be in the low single digits. I think I'm sold off Dust now, yet I'm still terrified of double delver starts with no pyro.
I DO want to try cavern with sundering too. The thing that bugs me though is that usually you'd have to eye for the titan, using a turn, then you'd have to play the cavern and have tron assembled, THEN you can blow their lands up. That means you're gonna be having minimum 5 lands out. At this point it seems like you might as well be playing towards emrakul.
I had one game against UWR where he tec-edged a tron piece and cryptic-bounced another at end of my turn and then played Ajani Vengeant on his turn, tapping down a land. He basically continued to bounce tron until ajani ulti. It felt helpless and not so sure what can be done in this situation...
Not to mention, you really don't lose against Abzan due to not drawing "action." You tend to draw your action quite naturally. You lose against Abzan if you can't assemble Tron to cast that action, which Spellskite doesn't stop you from doing (unless you're actually removing Tron lands, Ancient Stirrings, Sylvan Scrying, Expedition Map, or the Chromatics to make room for Spellskite).
RG Tron is a match where having Slaughter Games in the side can really shine, as eliminating opposing Karn Liberated threats to your Tron set while pressuring with your own is backbreaking. Multiple Ghost Quarters are also nice (especially if you run Life From the Loam or Crucible of Worlds in your side), and Spellskites can eat Karn activations if it comes to that.
For Twin, you want Spellskite, Rending Volley/Combust, and Oblivion Stone to do your heavy lifting. Torpor Orb isn't as good without Pod around, but it does still stop the Twin combo, and has benefits against Bloom Titan, Coco decks (not that you really need the help here, but it is good against them), and Soul Sisters or Faeries if you see them in your local meta.
If Affinity isn't around your local meta, I'd run 2-3 Pyroclasm in the main, with the rest in the side; in place of the 1-2 you take out, put as many copies of Ugin, the Spirit Dragon in. He's especially good pre-board, before your opponent can side in all of the things that slow your ramping down. He also wipes out any chance for Coco decks to beat you, and is a threat instead of a dead card against the mirror (especially since he can snipe Karn if they use his -3 on one of your lands first).
If manlands aren't a real presence, you could use the last land slot for Llanowar Wastes instead of the second Ghost Quarter. Against control, Infect, Merfolk, and Affinity, GQ by itself is better. Being able to bring in SG to break combo and the mirror match open is probably worth packing 3 of them in your sideboard in the meta you described.
Always beware of Burn, by the way; you have to respect that deck and have enough slots to cope with it. Accordingly, I'm tweaking my list for the Open in Columbus this weekend, and have gone back to using three Feed the Clan instead of two Elixir of Immortality (plus my singleton Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre for other matches).
I actually prefer Elixir in this deck if I were staying at a two-count, but Burn is prevalent enough that I feel an extra card is necessary to reliably handle that match. As a three-of, I'm less concerned about using Ancient Stirrings to hit them reliably, and there have been spots where I would have been able to gain 10 life in a shot. Although being able to fetch Elixir is nice, and it combos well with Nature's Claim, simple redundancy seems to be more effective.
Modern
Value Town
Amulet Titan
Legacy
4C Loam
My Peasant Cube
http://cubetutor.com/viewcube/11667
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Forest
4 Karplusan Forest
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Ghost Quarter
Creatures:
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Ulamog, the infinite Gyre
3 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Pyroclasm
1 Nature's Claim
1 All Is Dust
Artifacts:
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Expedition Map
Planeswalker:
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the spirit Dragon
2 Boil
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Combust
2 Defense Grid
3 Nature's Claim
1 Fracturing Gust
I found Karplusan Forest to be a nice budget alternative to the Grove of the Burnwillows. When you have a chromatic you don't really need to take the damage anymore. Until then i managed to survive when playtesting vs. my friends
BRGJundGRB
GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
You need to live as long as possible. Thus you don't want to take damage from the "shock" of the shockland. On the other hand you don't really care about your opponents lifetotal. When Emrakul hits the board or Karn Ultimate goes off all that does not really matter anymore. It is basically like a Taiga for Tron.
BRGJundGRB
GCTronCG
WBRMardu PyromancerRBW
Legacy:
GElvesG
Our smallest offensive creature is Wurmcoil, a 6/6, so giving the opponent him a point of two of life won't matter much. On the other hand, we tend to stabilize at very low life against aggro, so not losing any life to our lands is a small but significant advantage.
Having stabilized against 4c Zoo at 3 life and boggles at 2 life last night I can attest this is true.
I'm not sure Leyline is that great for us against Discard. We're fairly redundant and the most critical things (the Urza lands) can't be hit by discard spells, so we're less vulnerable to discard than the decks that normally run Leyline to try to beat discard. And the especially big issue is that Leyline might thwart their Thoughtseize, but otherwise is dead against their board. Leyline of Sanctity won't help you against a Tarmogoyf, for example. The only deck that's really "all-discard" is 8Rack, and we're practically made to beat that deck. I guess it makes Liliana a bit worse, but again I don't feel it's doing enough against Jund/Junk to warrant bringing in a card that's really only good for our deck if it's in your opening hand.
I'd only be running Leyline of Sanctity if I was really worried about Burn, because that's the main reason you'd be running it. There's some other matchups it's okay in (it at least forces Scapeshift to have the Cryptic Command before going off), but Burn is the main reason.
If the worry is Burn, I'd swap out the Dismembers in the sideboard for Spellskites. The main matchups where Dismember is good are Twin and Infect, where, what do you know, Spellskite is great as well, while also being a good card against Burn and some other decks.