MTG Salvation

Quote from Vegita1998 »

Hey everyone,

I have been playing G/W Tron for the past three weeks at my local LGS and I am just getting stomped every time. It seems that every deck I play against (Merfolk, Eldrazi Tron (played this specific deck three times in one night and lost every time), BW Tokens, Burn, Jund, Goryo's Vengeance) is just too fast for this deck or they just smash me with land hate and i'm drawing dead. Is it not a good time to play this deck or am I just having horrible luck? This is my current list https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/608555#paper. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

As I said to the last guy, Tron is 100% a meta call. Those decks are bad matchups for any flavor. If the midrange and control decks rise up to punish those fast decks then Tron is a good choice. Until then, might I suggest midrange or control? Or even a sturdy aggro deck. If you don't have and don't want to buy one of the premium decks, I think Stompy still comes in under $100 and has a better shot in that meta. You could warp your SB, but I don't even know what you would bring in against those

Thanks for all of your insight on the deck everyone and taking the time to reply to my post

I will do some research to see if there is anything I can tweak (GB looks fun) but it's looking like my meta is simply too strong and I will have to shelve this deck unless I start playing at another store on the other side of town.

Magic isn't always about winning but it also isn't about going 2-11 three weeks in a row and getting land screwed EVERY game lol.

Anyone still playing RG tron to success at all? I have a super aggro heavy LGS so I'm sticking with firespout for now. I play crucible in the side since gw value town has been on the rise locally.

Quote from Kellysandall »

Anyone still playing RG tron to success at all? I have a super aggro heavy LGS so I'm sticking with firespout for now. I play crucible in the side since gw value town has been on the rise locally.

Still playing it, although not in any recent big tournaments. Pyroclasm and relic still deal with goyf just fine, the only problem creatures are reality smasher and death's shadow. Everything else tends to get swept up by oblivion stone or Ugin, so those are the main two offenders in terms of speed.

It's not unreasonable to still be trying red. It doea make your affinity/go wide deck matchups so much better.

I feel as though our worst match ups are those that go wide so I that's why I am still playing red. Tron doesn't normally care much about other creatures cause karn, ugin, wurmcoil, o-stone etc. While playing GB and GW tron I played against tons of zoo, elves, affinity and so forth. I just wish more pro's were working on it so I could get better ideas for sideboard.

Quote from manbrink »

Oath Tron experimenters, what do you make of this new Amonkhet land?

Cascading Cataracts

(In case that link doesn't work yet):
Indestructible
tap: Add {1} colorless to your mana pool.
5,tap: Add five mana in any combination of colors to your mana pool.

I don't know how good it will be, but i am curious to try. I play Oath and i have been phasing out my creatures for walkers (just picked up Apex Predator). It doesn't help in the early game, but those cards fill very different slots. I want to use it to bolster my late game. of course, take what I say with a grain of salt, because when the meta is full of the decks Tron hates, i switch to Burn, I don't put my energy into figuring out how to make it work.

Engineered Explosives is a terrible card for us. There's a reason cards with double colored mana costs aren't played in Tron.

Is Engineered Explosives preferred to Ratchet Bomb because it is one turn faster?

How am I wrong? Tron traditionally sucks against wide decks. My meta is what I listed, zoo, elves, affinity plus some burn. GB has been killing me because I can't deal with the wideness.

Side note, can you send me your pic? It's glorious

Also, has anyone noticed an uptick in grim poppet play? thoughts?

This deck is terribly inconsistent, and mulligans heavily. Opening hands have no lands, or something like 3 urza's tower. Ancient stirrings will miss. Very frustrating. Im also missing pyroclasm, that card created a blowout once in a while buying you a lot of time.

I'm also losing to midrange a lot. Abzan, jund, even mardu. Discard is a beating, and they always find their stony silence/fulminator mage ghost quarter ect.

I think back to the times I was going 3-1 and 4-0 with the deck. I remember games where I was just casting wurmcoil engine on turn 6, doing stuff without urzatron. I don't know, the meta got faster or something, or no pyroclasm doesn't let me control the board.

After sleeping on it, I'm having doubts on Sanctum of Ugin, which feels like a win-more card. Once in a while I have urzatron online and flood out, and wish I had geier reach sanitarium in the board. Or I don't have urzatron but Sanctum in had, and wish I could instead start digging for the combo. Thragtusk does absolutely nothing for me in the sideboard, I think that comes out too. I'd rather use the extra slots for blessed alliance, collective brutality, even feed the clan. Burn needs early interaction if you want to stabilize. Thragtusk doesn't do me much against control, where it just gives them extra targets for flashfreeze (I thought nobody played flashfreeze). Jund and Bant eldrazi don't need any help.

Like I get that when mapping out the sideboard that thragtusk can come in as really good filler for so many matchups, but I think he is too slow to help out our bad matchups. It doesn't help that ancient stirrings doesn't find it either.

Thragtusk doesn't do me much against control, where it just gives them extra targets for flashfreeze (I thought nobody played flashfreeze).

Which is 100% correct. Literally no control deck plays that card. Maybe one brewer in 10,000 plays it.

Tusk can be played turn 3 off tron and a sphere. Also as you said it's really really good in so many MUs. I even board it in against Control and Junk to blank their removal/boardwipes more.

Sanctum of Ugin is not necessarily a "win more" card. It's a card that seals the deal. You cast Newlamog, take 2 Permanents. Your opponent won't scoop from that if he/she has a Path or another Exile effect. Take 2 Permanents and show another Ulamog? Yeah, that's game 99% of the time. Sanitarium is also bad against Death Shadow decks, Jund/Junk, Control, Dredge. These are just decks/archetypes that came to mind right now.

Thragtusk off a turn 3 tron and a sphere? To be fair, out of 4 rounds I maybe get hands like that twice, but it still gets ripped up by discard or a stony gets dropped. And very rare that an opponent doesn't scoop from an ulamog or even a worldbreaker. Or in a different scenario, the opponent gets a fast start and I have to roll out a fatty before even dropping the sanctum of ugin, or risk dying.

I'll think it over and still probably roll out with sanctum of ugin and thragtusks and whatnot, but my biggest problem is putting together tron. Hence why I think this deck needs more cards that can be played when tron is offline. Maybe leyline of sanctity out of the sideboard to beat discard could help, idk. This deck should at least be "okay" in the meta with some midrange and control floating around.

Hey guys, you can edit your posts so that you don't bump the thread repeatedly.

ed06288, it seems like you're down in the dumps on Gx Tron in general at the moment. I must admit that I've also felt some greater inconsistency with flooding out due to the lack of Eye of Ugin. Hard to believe that ban was over a year ago! I'll take some time to address a few points you and others have made here recently.

For years, I was a GR player, and have had pretty solid results overall. GR doesn't have much against Burn or combo, though, so when GB got Collective Brutality, Blooming Marsh, and Fatal Push, a number of people began using that shell instead and have been doing much better. I will admit that when I switched, I was afraid of the wider decks getting under me a bit more (Affinity, Elves, etc), but in practice I haven't had a bad time with those decks afterward. Here is my current list:


Personally, I like to play as if my opponent knows how to beat Tron decks, and I shore up those weaknesses as best I can. I've been running this 75 for a few weeks now, and haven't failed to cash with it (twice a week) for two weeks at this point.

The focus here is to use the black spells early to survive until an O-Stone or bomb-level threat can stabilize and take over the game. I pack the full set of Brutality into the main deck because in the matches where we need it, it needs to come early and often. The flexibility, hand information, and raw power against decks that have traditionally preyed upon Tron, while rarely being dead (even if not always optimal), is fantastic.

Because of losing the cheap red sweepers, this build needs to compensate with more fast, early answers to ensure we can survive to the later turns. For this reason, I have two Fatal Push in the main, along with another two in the side. Since there are matches where this can be totally dead, I feel that running more than two in the main can be more of a liability than with Brutality. For similar reasons, I also put the last copy of Nature's Claim back, as it's so amazingly versatile and reliable at nearly every stage of the game, especially if you see a lot of Stony Silence, Blood Moon, or Affinity.

Losing a degree of sweeping really left me cold sometimes just after transitioning to GB, so I reintroduced the final O-Stone to the board. It's just too amazing of a catch-all for me, and it plays beautifully along with the precision strikes of the black spells to buy time. Engineered Explosives is an option here as well (or in place of some number of Fatal Push), but you do run the risk of early lines being a bit awkward with all of the one-shot colored mana sources we run.

Now I have seen you not liking Thragtusk, but it is a strong role player in this build. Anytime you anticipate land destruction, this is a worthwhile threat that you can realistically stick due to the relatively low mana cost. Against control, I often board out most of my black cards and just jam more threats. Grixis trades the two main delve creatures unfavorably with it, and it's incredible against any spot removal, especially Path. With this deck, you can even bait and strip the lifegain prevention cards with Brutality for maximum value. If I were on GR I would supplement them with a few copies of Thought-Knot Seer, but even there, I feel that a pair of Thragtusks are too worthwhile to cut.

I have noticed that most Gx Tron players have cut back to a single Sanctum, but the ability to tutor for more threats is way too good to cut completely. Geier-Reach isn't terrible, but giving opponents card choice can definitely backfire. Sea-Gate Wreckage actually works a bit better in GB, since Brutality can help pitch excess lands or top-end bloat (especially Worldbreaker since we can recur it) if needed. Even Urza's Factory has been tossed about as an idea to help as a late-game fetchable direct threat; depending on your meta and play style, it might be worth messing around with if you find you're flooding and durdling too much.

Like many of you, I feel that Wurmcoil Engine is very good right now. It's similar to Thragtusk in that it's another life-gaining threat that can also be hard-cast reasonably without Tron online. It's amazing against Death's Shadow, and fantastic as a must-answer threat to most aggro and midrange decks, including Dredge. Brutality can also be used to strip Path and Destructive Revelry prior to landing one, which plays very well against Burn in particular. (Wurmcoils tossed into your yard early with Brutality or Geier-Reach are really good against Living End as well!)

Unlike many of you, I keep all of my graveyard hate in the sideboard: two each of Relic and Surgical. Although Relic in particular is also nearly never dead since you can essentially cycle it, I find personally that the black removal spells are the better mainboard cards. Of course, your playstyle and meta are your most important considerations, so do whatever gets you the most wins. The Surgicals had previously been Pithing Needles, but there are many nice tricks and surprises you can pull with Surgical (including self-defense against those from your opponents), plus you don't have to worry about them removing your Needle and smashing your face.

Pithing Needle, along with Warping Wail and Engineered Explosives, are always on stand-by if the meta makes them more viable. As it stands, I feel that Brutality covers enough of the same space that Wail does to not require both, and K-Command is way too prevalent to consider relying too much on Needle to shut down things like Fulminator Mage.

Of course, if all else fails, you could play another deck for a bit and see if you're having more fun. Sometimes we just need to do something else, or get some perspective so we don't get burned out

Thanks. Yeah I've been running 4 fatal push main with collective brutality in the side. I think I'll try your idea of Brutality in the main alongside a couple push. I like running 20 lands as it lets you run 2 basics, but maybe sideboarding the other basic isn't a bad idea. It also gives me room to run those extra fatal push. I too run grave hate in the sideboard as there's too many matchups i'm boarding them out, despite the prevelance of gb/x midrange decks.

And no, I got bored of playing other decks so switched to tron because putting urza lands together seemed fun. But too often I get openers with no lands and mulligan. Go to 6 and it has ghost quarter, 2 blooming marsh and 3 fatties, so I mulligan again (especially against faster decks, might keep that against control). The 5 hand has no lands again so I go to 4. The 4 hand has one land and ancient stirrings, but ancient stirrings will not reveal any lands. Stuff like that keeps happening. This is why I think it's mandatory to run at least 20 lands.

But maybe collective brutality will let me do more with slower hands and see more top decks.

I've been playing GW Tron with 4x Leyline of Sanctity maindeck. While it's useless in a bunch of matchups, it's amazingly good in others, including some of our bad ones that we could really use a boost against Game 1. I like it maindeck because it's worse postboard where they're more likely to bring in stuff that can deal with it, but Game 1 it can catch a lot of opponents unawares.

I like leyline. Off the top of my head, leyline hits discard decks and burn.
With elves and knightfall picking up in metashare, and affinity everywhere, i'm surprised no one is considering going back to pyroclasm. I'm a little biased though, just simply liking the card and all.

I've also thought of dropping ugin and ulamog and going straight 4x world breaker 4x wurmcoil and 4x karn