I'm splashing Red for 2 Chandra TOD and 2 Lightning Bolt main, and then some red sideboard options like Pyroclasm and By Force.
Chandra has been an all-star for me so far. She can win games with her -7, but many times the value she provides makes it so I win before I ult with her. The best use of her is either on turn 4 and +1ing into a Howling Mine, or turn 7 (or when you have 7 mana) when you can add 2 red and cast a Time Warp. The value in those plays are so huge. Plus she can "draw" cards and act as a pseudo mine effect.
Planeswalkers are always going to be good with extra turn effects. That said, I have one concern with it here:
Once we start chaining turns, we have basically won, right? Our win condition is usually part the waterveil, conveniently a turn itself.
My concern is that Chandra as a four mana spell doesn't help you get to the stage where you can chain turns, and as a "card that gives you advantage when you start chaining turns" it's fighting for space with howling mine and dictate at 2 and 3 mana respectively.
Tough call, I'd say the deck potentially doesn't have to commit slots in the deck to Leverage cards like Chandra when the turn spells are all we really need & can dedicate those slots to cheap interaction or filtering. Right? Make sense?
The exception would be jace the mindsculptor. If Mr wallet sculptor ever reared his head in modern, we'd play it for sure.
Still, keep testing, keep brewing, keep iterating, keep thinking carefully in all your games whether the four mana planeswalker is necessary or whether PtW would win the game regardless. Its easy to get sidetracked by confirmation bias by winning games with a specific card and thinking the card is necessary. Truth is, this deck could probably win with Storm Crow if we wanted to build it that way, because of the nature of the deck. The difficult question is whether there is truly a better option that PtW in terms of win condition, and whether it's worth diluting the deck to include other options that may not be necessary.
I think this depends.
Adding Chandra to a stock Turns list, then, yes, I agree with what you are saying. As you said, once you hit turns, the actual win condition doesn't matter - you just need one.
But, if you are adding Chandra into something like Marcus Ewaldh's As Foretold Turns deck, then, no, I think Chandra becomes a synergistic win condition which is stronger than something like Part the Waterveil. She gives you mana, she gives you cards, and she gives you an emblem to win the game. The question comes down to what is the better meta-call at that point - Stock Turns or an Alternate Build Turns?
To me, Stax is more about power level than CMC. 3cc is fine as long as the power level is there.
I'm interested in this, though...
3WW Angel of Sanctions
Flying
When Angel of Sanctions enters the battlefield, you may exile target nonland permanent an opponent control until Angel of Sanctions leaves the battlefield.
Embalm 5W
3/4
An Oblivion Ring which can attack looks interesting...
The effect would be awesome if you could protect him easily in White Stax. Even with Humility, you need the Moat to protect him. I'm not sure it's strong enough without it. 3 damage is too easy to deal to remove the Gideon planeswalker. Ally of Zendikar would certainly be stronger.
It would be difficult to say the least. Gearhulk represents a card advantage, tempo swing, and acts as a win condition - you get to play 2 spells and beat for 5 for 6 mana. If you want to go without Gearhulk, I don't know that you'd call it UW Control (at least in the 'traditional' sense), you'd probably want to look at UW Spirits or a UW Angel Control build.
The last deck I took through a league is the second deck posted a few up from here - UW with Gideon. 2-3 to 4-1 finishes usually. Some of it is me, some of it is the deck.
Straight UW seems to do the best vs aggro strategies because you don't have to counter every creature. You can let them overplay into Fumigate. Vs planeswalker control or Tower control, it struggles and games become much more skill intensive. You have to hold counters for 'real' threats and have no way to deal with a resolved, non-creature threat short of bounce (or attacking the PW or Disallow the ability). [I'm not going to lie, casting Disallow onto a planeswalker ultimate feels great]. I've more recently been playing the UWb list I posted earlier. I'm still struggling with the mana. I really just want an answer to resolved, non-creature threats.
I don't want full blown 'Esper' because I think there are problems/limitations with several of the 'best' cards in that deck. I think a strong start includes Torrential Gearhulk (plus instants), Fumigate, and a finisher...
I don't disagree with you at all. People are definitely afraid of Dovin Baan when he hits the board and he usually buys a turn or 3 while the opponent tries to deal with him. Outside of 'he replaces himself', though, I haven't gotten much use. I've never gotten his ultimate off and there are too many 'wide' strategies or vehicles that his uptick cannot keep him around. I'd love it for him to work, just haven't found the right situations...
I do think the top-16 decklist would be better with Anticipate. The pilot seemed to disagree in the comments on Channel Fireball, but I find I lose to flood/screw or poor draws as much as getting runover by a good deck. And that's playing 4 Anticipates to smooth my draw. Removal is great, if you need it. There's a lot of control online and playing 15 removal spells won't get the job done in a more open meta. If I was to face a league of 5 Mardu Vehicles decks, sure, but I've not been that 'lucky'.
For me, I like to play my walkers later. Turns 2-4 are set-up. I keep counters for walkers and will remove things that can get out of hand, but I usually won't worry about creatures if I know I can Fumigate and/or Gearhulk into a tempo shift. This is one of the reasons I don't care for Stasis Snare. I understand the benefits, but that 1 extra mana holds me back a turn. As was pointed out in the comments on CF, you really want to be able to remove creatures outside of combat. I like Dynavolt Tower, but I'm not sure it's enough for UW. UR and URG both use it better. I don't feel like white is the color you want for an optimized Tower build.
I haven't played this specific build, but reading the pilot's comments after EFro's article, I've found some of the same things.
This build is heavily set up for aggro and I'm not convinced it needs to be that heavily slanted to do well against Mardu and B/G. I've been playing 8 maindeck removal spells online and have been having a fine time. Blessed Alliance is the weakest, in my opinion, as it's the easiest to play around and the most expected. At 15 removal spells, I feel like you are not going to be recurring much besides removal and, as you take control, I would think you would like more counters to shift from reactive to proactive. That could just be the way I play, though. I also find that recurring creature removal just seems sub-optimal. If you flash in Gearhulk, he can take down most creatures on his own. Casting Glare or Alliance from the graveyard just never seems like the best play... Great as an option, but it's usually low on the wishlist...
I couldn't make Dovin Baan work. I want him to be relevant, but he just doesn't turn out to be as good as you want.
I may try a couple test games just to see how it plays, but I'm not sold on needing that much removal. I'd prefer something else or a better answer to walkers.
I don't know that I would call those 'great' options. I've tried Stasis Snare in the sideboard and almost never wanted to side it in. WW1 might seem like it's low cost, but it's really not in this format. Unless you're willing to take a hit and cast at EOT, you won't always have enough mana up to stop the next Gideon from landing. Stasis Snare is an answer, but I don't think it's particularly good. It's slow and it still leaves you vulnerable to the other threats. Not to mention it does nothing against an active Chandra.
Most of the better players I've played recently play around Alliance, too. Having Gideon throw out a couple soldiers before they attack isn't hard.
Quarantine Field looks great on paper, but, in my experience, it's just too slow. 4 mana to remove 1 card and 6 mana to remove 2 provides a huge opportunity, especially when you have to tap out on your turn. It can work, but you have to have a lot of things already going your way and you need to be able to either set it up or follow it up effectively. Personally, I tend to like to have more open lines of play as opposed to being forced into certain paths.
So, I started tinkering with UR (Energy) Control and found it was a lot of fun to play. I used to love playing Draw-Go Control and it was great getting to play a deck again where I wasn't tapping out on my turn. The problem I was running into was that if they landed a Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, you scooped it up. The options seemed scarce. If he got into play, you have Shock and Dynavolt Tower. Beyond that, it was tough. Planeswalkers are not a 'new' issue for blue-based control and when you have a way to stop them from landing, it's not bad. It just didn't feel right.
From there, I decided to try UW. I started with this list
It played out pretty well. The synergy of Dynavolt Tower and all the instants combined with the white removal felt a little nicer than the red splash version. Fumigate is strong enough to be worth it as a Sorcery and Dovin Baan and Jace, Unraveler of Secrets both work to give you time to draw into the long game where this deck wins with inevitability. The issue was that Dynavolt Tower never seemed 'right'. It was good, no doubt, but it often felt underpowered. It's slow, and doesn't hit several problem creatures. It gives a 'sometimes' answer to a planeswalker, but often took two turns (and several spells) to finish one off. So I started looking at just replacing it with a walker of my own and have been playing this...
It plays a little better. Games definitely close out faster once you take control, but it's still miserable not being able to do anything against a Chandra as she ticks up...
The options I'm looking at right now are Imprisoned in the Moon and Anguished Unmaking with Anguished Unmaking looking like the best alternative. After reading quite a few of the things Shaheen Soorani, I like the idea of Esper Control, but I'm not sure that the commitment to black is as necessary as it looks. The white removal is very good and very easy on the mana. If white (or blue) could deal with walkers more efficiently, there would be no reason to look to black. With black, though, we get a lot of efficient ways to deal with them. Here's what I'm looking at now...
I just built this online last night and ran a few games. I have a pretty standard list. However, I have two questions about card choices:
1) All Is Dust - for 7 mana, we get to destroy all colored permanents, which really hurts most opponents and doesn't affect us. Why not run Ugin instead? For 8 mana, we get to do exactly the same thing while also keeping a large planewalker on the board do do the same thing next turn or just Bolt them to death. Ugin is a win condition and removal. Dust is just removal. Dust IS a tribal card so we can sometimes cast it for 6 using Temples, but how often does that come up? And is Dust on turn 3 so critical that it's better than Ugin?
2) Karn - I realize it's great in traditional Tron, but is it really needed in Eldrazi? Yes, it is great against a few decks, but so are a ton of other cards that won't be super clunky when we don't have Tron online or when the board is already flooded with creatures later in the game.
All is Dust gives you much higher flexibility. This deck is not at all consistent at getting Tron online compared to other Tron versions and it doesn't need to be while still 'cheating' threats into play. As others have said, turning your Eldrazi Temples into sol lands for the purpose of wiping the board is very powerful. That it doesn't affect you at all makes it even bigger. You are able to use early turns to develop a board (with or without Tron) and then sweep. If you've played Gx Tron, they run Ugin in addition to O-Stone. All in Dust is this deck's version of O-Stone, not Ugin.
Karn is another card that is probably not needed depending on your build. I have a couple lists that run 1-2 in Eldrazi Tron, but I don't think he's a must-have at all.
In my games with this deck, I feel like I see a lot of variance in how it performs. It never seems to 'curve'. I feel like I'm either mana rich and threat poor (i.e. no finisher) or that I'm mana poor and threat poor (i.e. stuck at 3-4 mana, usually with a Chalice on 1 and an Expedition Map in hand). Am I mulliganing wrong? Is that the 'norm'?
What do people think of sacred ground vs gq and extraction?
It will get around Ghost Quarter, but not the Extraction, right? It would be Opponent Ghost Quarter Tron Land, Tron Land to Graveyard, Sacred Ground to Stack, Extraction Tron Land, Nothing in Graveyard to Come Back... Is that right?
Well, the reason buried ruin is in there is because I played 4 ghost quarter, 1 buried ruin and 2 forests in testing. When I tuned it, I changed it because I felt like every time I drew a ghost quarter I would have rather it been a buried ruin. And ghost quarter was so unimpressive in this list that it was easily swapped with a forest, which, again, I felt I needed throughout testing. You don't need to sell me on ghost quarter, I love the card and is why I started with the easy 4 of in testing. It was like the second or third reason for me to try mono colored: I was stoked to play ghost quarter. But again, testing proved otherwise.
Let's put it this way, the philosophy of this version, for me, is to race to tron. If you have time to cycle chromatics and search for lands, then you should have time to reuse an expedition map to ensure you hit tron. Think of buried ruin as expedition maps 5-8, but with upside and bad alone. It's another way of getting to tron with only one piece in hand.
And again, this isn't theory, it's testing. I would just be in this position where if I could just land my last tron piece, I would dominate the game, but I drew a ghost quarter. Awesome. In those situations, I wanted to either draw an expedition map or keep cycling through my deck, and assuming I was doing that in the first couple of turns of the game, buried ruin gives me that.
Fog is cool and all, but ballista is a real card. Like really real. You will see it as a main stay, probably as a two of, in a few lists in the future, and I expect affinity to be one of those lists, along with eldrazi tron. Plus, the only real contender, as I said above, to ballista is warping wail, definitely not fog, though it does look good in the board, just haven't had it come up that I need it. I usually build my sideboards as a result of notes on why I lost, and I was losing more to not hitting tron while having a big mana answer in hand, rather than just buying a turn so I could drop that tron piece I had in hand or use that expedition map I drew.
All this being said, lol, mono green is admittedly not the best choice right now, but it is a fun learning exercise that I still recommend to any tron players. I certainly learned a lot, mainly that ballista is a real magic card in modern.
Thanks for taking time to respond.
I'm still going to disagree on Buried Ruin. I understand your point and I understand how you are using it. It may work, but it's not 'good' or 'optimal'. It may be fine in your testing or with your specific meta, but I do not believe that it is an across-the-board improvement. I've played GW, GB, GR, and G, mostly with 18-19 lands and, in every version, it's a race to Tron. My average to assemble Tron feels like it is probably between Turn 4 and 5 (if I calculated it, I'm guessing it would be 4.x turns, but I'm going to go through my MTGO replays and find out this weekend). There are certainly games where I don't get it until Turn 6/7 (and the recurring Fulminator Mage and Ghost Quarter or Crumble to Dust games where it never happens), but those are balanced with the occasional Turn 3 (more often than a Turn 7 if I'm guessing). I think I tend to evaluate my opening hand on whether I am taking a line to Turn 3, 4, or 5 Tron. Buried Ruin requires 2 mana plus sac'ing it meaning it isn't active until Turn 3. If you use it on Turn 3, whatever you return cannot be played until Turn 4, meaning you are on, best case scenario, a Turn 5 Tron. I don't see the benefit to playing a card which narrowly provides me with a minor chance at improving my odds at a Turn 5 Tron. At that point, cyclers or draw would seem about the same in terms of efficiency.
With Buried Ruin: Turn 1 - Mine, Map. Turn 2 - BR, Activate Map. Turn 3 - Power Plant, Activate Ruin. Turn 4 - Land?, Map, Best Case Activate Map. Turn 5 - Tower, XXX
Or: Turn 1 - Mine, Chromatic. Turn 2 - BR, Chromatic for Green, Scrying. Turn 3 - Power Plant, Activate Ruin. Turn 4 - Land?, Chromatic, Best Cast Activate Chromatic for Green, Scrying. Turn 5 - Tower, XXX.
As you can see, you are on a Turn 5 (or 6 if you don't have a 4th land drop) Tron. In the Chromatic Scenario, it also requires you to have or draw into 2/8 colored search spells by Turn 4. To me, it's just not worth it. I would much rather have the Ghost Quarters (my mono-green build has 2x GQ, 1x Mikokoro, 1x Forest for your 4x BR), but you, of course, can do whatever you feel is strongest.
I don't disagree with you on Walking Ballista. I think you need another 'sweeper', though. Ballista will cost you 4 mana to take down 1-of a Goblin Guide, Eidolon, or Swiftspear. If you are on a turn 5 Tron, you need Fog as early interaction with aggro decks to get you to a point where a Ballista could be used or you can activate an O-Stone or Ugin. I wouldn't recommend just giving away Game 1 against Burn/Aggro and 4x Ballista is too much.
Sorry for the double post, but as I was typing my previous replay I was thinking about some of my recent matches...
How often do your games end up where you take a resource denial line? I find myself taking these lines a lot in the online meta. I wait until they tap out and then go for an Ulamog to cut off a color or similar. I think Ghost Quarter is my most searched land after Tron-lands.
Now, I enjoy Stax in eternal formats, so maybe I'm just pre-disposed to these lines, but I do notice Tron is pretty effective at resource denial once you have your plan in place for assembling Tron.
Hey there, so I used to play tron back in the eye of ugin days and put it aside for a long time since. Getting back into it now, specifically wanting to test a mono green version with walking ballista in the removal slot. After going with a full playset of ghost quarters and being underwhelmed, I actually really liked buried ruin and all the synergies it had with the deck. I also threw in a maindeck crucible of worlds for abuse and tweaked my sideboard to take some advantage of that.
ballista is pretty strong with buried ruin. so are the cyclers and especially expedition map and especially especially oblivion stone. that was a great unintended consequence. tormod's crypt in the board is also awesome to loop with ruin and getting back ratchet bomb is also awesome.
Beast within is weird i know, but i like it in the mirror.
Overall, big takeaways include:
-it's great to be on 3 forests, wow. Mono green is a treat and i highly encourage any tron player to play it with their own tweaks. it feels like the "pure" version. you really get a fundamental sense of the deck. it's cool.
-in mono green, warping wail is probably better than walking ballista, but I'm not sure a 2/2 split isn't actually correct. ballista is real, but 4 may be too much?
-buried ruin is really good in mono color. recurring expedition map early and oblivion stone late makes it really versatile. I do think buried ruin takes walking ballista over the top as it can be repeatable removal and win condition.
-maindeck crucible was fantastic, and not just when it wasn't cute with buried ruin, which I do think was more than cute. Obviously it's a sideboard card, but running ruin makes it acceptable to have it maindeck and it's awesome to hose opps' maindeck ghost quarters
Definitely an interesting take.
I have a mono-green saved on MTGO. I don't play it much as GR and GB are much better in the current online meta. I haven't updated my list since Ballista came out, though.
Ballista may fit in for some additional removal, but I really liked Fog until you could get Ugin or an O-stone. It encouraged opponents to overcommit into a sweeper. I have been playing Ballista in my GR build. It's easily the worst creature/threat and I'd say it's one of the first cards to come out against anything but fast aggro decks. I like that it acts as a mana sink, but it's so slow that I would rather be doing literally anything else.
Buried Ruin is not good. Sorry. If you have time to activate Buried Ruin for value, you have a very unique meta. In the online meta, the time and mana required to recur something useful just isn't there enough to warrant inclusion. If it works for you, great, but, in general, Ghost Quarter has infinitely more value.
Thanks for the feedback. Is dredge really off the map entirely now? According to http://mtgtop8.com/archetype?a=275&meta=51&f=MO dredge is still making top8s without Golgari Grave Troll but I haven't played modern since the bans. That could free up a bunch of sideboard slots. Thanks for pointing out the star/sphere finetuning. I do like to optimize my turn 3 plays with both Karn and Worldbreaker + egg, but I probably want to test the full 8 chromatics.
The sideboard definitely could use some work given the post-ban meta. I don't know what to trade the explosives for to be honest.. Any suggestions?
Spellskite and a third O-Stone are both things I like in my 75. Pithing Needles and, potentially, a second Ghost Quarter could also be considerations if you redesign your sideboard.
I think this depends.
Adding Chandra to a stock Turns list, then, yes, I agree with what you are saying. As you said, once you hit turns, the actual win condition doesn't matter - you just need one.
But, if you are adding Chandra into something like Marcus Ewaldh's As Foretold Turns deck, then, no, I think Chandra becomes a synergistic win condition which is stronger than something like Part the Waterveil. She gives you mana, she gives you cards, and she gives you an emblem to win the game. The question comes down to what is the better meta-call at that point - Stock Turns or an Alternate Build Turns?
I'm interested in this, though...
3WW Angel of Sanctions
Flying
When Angel of Sanctions enters the battlefield, you may exile target nonland permanent an opponent control until Angel of Sanctions leaves the battlefield.
Embalm 5W
3/4
An Oblivion Ring which can attack looks interesting...
Straight UW seems to do the best vs aggro strategies because you don't have to counter every creature. You can let them overplay into Fumigate. Vs planeswalker control or Tower control, it struggles and games become much more skill intensive. You have to hold counters for 'real' threats and have no way to deal with a resolved, non-creature threat short of bounce (or attacking the PW or Disallow the ability). [I'm not going to lie, casting Disallow onto a planeswalker ultimate feels great]. I've more recently been playing the UWb list I posted earlier. I'm still struggling with the mana. I really just want an answer to resolved, non-creature threats.
I don't want full blown 'Esper' because I think there are problems/limitations with several of the 'best' cards in that deck. I think a strong start includes Torrential Gearhulk (plus instants), Fumigate, and a finisher...
I do think the top-16 decklist would be better with Anticipate. The pilot seemed to disagree in the comments on Channel Fireball, but I find I lose to flood/screw or poor draws as much as getting runover by a good deck. And that's playing 4 Anticipates to smooth my draw. Removal is great, if you need it. There's a lot of control online and playing 15 removal spells won't get the job done in a more open meta. If I was to face a league of 5 Mardu Vehicles decks, sure, but I've not been that 'lucky'.
For me, I like to play my walkers later. Turns 2-4 are set-up. I keep counters for walkers and will remove things that can get out of hand, but I usually won't worry about creatures if I know I can Fumigate and/or Gearhulk into a tempo shift. This is one of the reasons I don't care for Stasis Snare. I understand the benefits, but that 1 extra mana holds me back a turn. As was pointed out in the comments on CF, you really want to be able to remove creatures outside of combat. I like Dynavolt Tower, but I'm not sure it's enough for UW. UR and URG both use it better. I don't feel like white is the color you want for an optimized Tower build.
This build is heavily set up for aggro and I'm not convinced it needs to be that heavily slanted to do well against Mardu and B/G. I've been playing 8 maindeck removal spells online and have been having a fine time. Blessed Alliance is the weakest, in my opinion, as it's the easiest to play around and the most expected. At 15 removal spells, I feel like you are not going to be recurring much besides removal and, as you take control, I would think you would like more counters to shift from reactive to proactive. That could just be the way I play, though. I also find that recurring creature removal just seems sub-optimal. If you flash in Gearhulk, he can take down most creatures on his own. Casting Glare or Alliance from the graveyard just never seems like the best play... Great as an option, but it's usually low on the wishlist...
I couldn't make Dovin Baan work. I want him to be relevant, but he just doesn't turn out to be as good as you want.
I may try a couple test games just to see how it plays, but I'm not sold on needing that much removal. I'd prefer something else or a better answer to walkers.
Most of the better players I've played recently play around Alliance, too. Having Gideon throw out a couple soldiers before they attack isn't hard.
Quarantine Field looks great on paper, but, in my experience, it's just too slow. 4 mana to remove 1 card and 6 mana to remove 2 provides a huge opportunity, especially when you have to tap out on your turn. It can work, but you have to have a lot of things already going your way and you need to be able to either set it up or follow it up effectively. Personally, I tend to like to have more open lines of play as opposed to being forced into certain paths.
From there, I decided to try UW. I started with this list
4 Port Town
4 Prairie Stream
10 Island
3 Plains
3 Blessed Alliance
3 Immolating Glare
4 Anticipate
2 Negate
2 Horribly Awry
4 Disallow
2 Dynavolt Tower
4 Glimmer of Genius
1 Leave in the Dust
1 Dovin Baan
2 Fumigate
2 Confirm Suspicions
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
4 Torrential Gearhulk
It played out pretty well. The synergy of Dynavolt Tower and all the instants combined with the white removal felt a little nicer than the red splash version. Fumigate is strong enough to be worth it as a Sorcery and Dovin Baan and Jace, Unraveler of Secrets both work to give you time to draw into the long game where this deck wins with inevitability. The issue was that Dynavolt Tower never seemed 'right'. It was good, no doubt, but it often felt underpowered. It's slow, and doesn't hit several problem creatures. It gives a 'sometimes' answer to a planeswalker, but often took two turns (and several spells) to finish one off. So I started looking at just replacing it with a walker of my own and have been playing this...
4 Port Town
4 Prairie Stream
10 Island
3 Plains
3 Blessed Alliance
3 Immolating Glare
4 Anticipate
2 Negate
2 Void Shatter
4 Disallow
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Glimmer of Genius
1 Leave in the Dust
1 Dovin Baan
2 Fumigate
2 Confirm Suspicions
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
4 Torrential Gearhulk
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Negate
3 Thing in the Ice
1 Void Shatter
2 Decommission
3 Stasis Snare
1 Fumigate
1 Sphinx of the Final Word
It plays a little better. Games definitely close out faster once you take control, but it's still miserable not being able to do anything against a Chandra as she ticks up...
The options I'm looking at right now are Imprisoned in the Moon and Anguished Unmaking with Anguished Unmaking looking like the best alternative. After reading quite a few of the things Shaheen Soorani, I like the idea of Esper Control, but I'm not sure that the commitment to black is as necessary as it looks. The white removal is very good and very easy on the mana. If white (or blue) could deal with walkers more efficiently, there would be no reason to look to black. With black, though, we get a lot of efficient ways to deal with them. Here's what I'm looking at now...
2 Immolating Glare
4 Anticipate
2 Negate
3 Disallow
3 Void Shatter
2 Anguished Unmaking
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
4 Glimmer of Genius
2 Fumigate
2 Confirm Suspicions
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
4 Torrential Gearhulk
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis
4 Plains
8 Island
4 Aether Hub
4 Prairie Stream
4 Sunken Hollow
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Negate
3 Thing in the Ice
3 Decommission
3 Transgress the Mind
1 Fumigate
1 Sphinx of the Final Word
Any ideas or thoughts?
All is Dust gives you much higher flexibility. This deck is not at all consistent at getting Tron online compared to other Tron versions and it doesn't need to be while still 'cheating' threats into play. As others have said, turning your Eldrazi Temples into sol lands for the purpose of wiping the board is very powerful. That it doesn't affect you at all makes it even bigger. You are able to use early turns to develop a board (with or without Tron) and then sweep. If you've played Gx Tron, they run Ugin in addition to O-Stone. All in Dust is this deck's version of O-Stone, not Ugin.
Karn is another card that is probably not needed depending on your build. I have a couple lists that run 1-2 in Eldrazi Tron, but I don't think he's a must-have at all.
In my games with this deck, I feel like I see a lot of variance in how it performs. It never seems to 'curve'. I feel like I'm either mana rich and threat poor (i.e. no finisher) or that I'm mana poor and threat poor (i.e. stuck at 3-4 mana, usually with a Chalice on 1 and an Expedition Map in hand). Am I mulliganing wrong? Is that the 'norm'?
It will get around Ghost Quarter, but not the Extraction, right? It would be Opponent Ghost Quarter Tron Land, Tron Land to Graveyard, Sacred Ground to Stack, Extraction Tron Land, Nothing in Graveyard to Come Back... Is that right?
Pithing Needle is just better.
Thanks for taking time to respond.
I'm still going to disagree on Buried Ruin. I understand your point and I understand how you are using it. It may work, but it's not 'good' or 'optimal'. It may be fine in your testing or with your specific meta, but I do not believe that it is an across-the-board improvement. I've played GW, GB, GR, and G, mostly with 18-19 lands and, in every version, it's a race to Tron. My average to assemble Tron feels like it is probably between Turn 4 and 5 (if I calculated it, I'm guessing it would be 4.x turns, but I'm going to go through my MTGO replays and find out this weekend). There are certainly games where I don't get it until Turn 6/7 (and the recurring Fulminator Mage and Ghost Quarter or Crumble to Dust games where it never happens), but those are balanced with the occasional Turn 3 (more often than a Turn 7 if I'm guessing). I think I tend to evaluate my opening hand on whether I am taking a line to Turn 3, 4, or 5 Tron. Buried Ruin requires 2 mana plus sac'ing it meaning it isn't active until Turn 3. If you use it on Turn 3, whatever you return cannot be played until Turn 4, meaning you are on, best case scenario, a Turn 5 Tron. I don't see the benefit to playing a card which narrowly provides me with a minor chance at improving my odds at a Turn 5 Tron. At that point, cyclers or draw would seem about the same in terms of efficiency.
As an example:
Ideal: Turn 1 - Mine, Map. Turn 2 - Power Plant, Activate Map. Turn 3 - Tower, XXX.
Or: Turn 1 - Mine, Chromatic. Turn 2 - Power Plant, Chromatic for Green, Scrying. Turn 3 - Tower, XXX.
With Buried Ruin: Turn 1 - Mine, Map. Turn 2 - BR, Activate Map. Turn 3 - Power Plant, Activate Ruin. Turn 4 - Land?, Map, Best Case Activate Map. Turn 5 - Tower, XXX
Or: Turn 1 - Mine, Chromatic. Turn 2 - BR, Chromatic for Green, Scrying. Turn 3 - Power Plant, Activate Ruin. Turn 4 - Land?, Chromatic, Best Cast Activate Chromatic for Green, Scrying. Turn 5 - Tower, XXX.
As you can see, you are on a Turn 5 (or 6 if you don't have a 4th land drop) Tron. In the Chromatic Scenario, it also requires you to have or draw into 2/8 colored search spells by Turn 4. To me, it's just not worth it. I would much rather have the Ghost Quarters (my mono-green build has 2x GQ, 1x Mikokoro, 1x Forest for your 4x BR), but you, of course, can do whatever you feel is strongest.
I don't disagree with you on Walking Ballista. I think you need another 'sweeper', though. Ballista will cost you 4 mana to take down 1-of a Goblin Guide, Eidolon, or Swiftspear. If you are on a turn 5 Tron, you need Fog as early interaction with aggro decks to get you to a point where a Ballista could be used or you can activate an O-Stone or Ugin. I wouldn't recommend just giving away Game 1 against Burn/Aggro and 4x Ballista is too much.
How often do your games end up where you take a resource denial line? I find myself taking these lines a lot in the online meta. I wait until they tap out and then go for an Ulamog to cut off a color or similar. I think Ghost Quarter is my most searched land after Tron-lands.
Now, I enjoy Stax in eternal formats, so maybe I'm just pre-disposed to these lines, but I do notice Tron is pretty effective at resource denial once you have your plan in place for assembling Tron.
Thoughts?
Definitely an interesting take.
I have a mono-green saved on MTGO. I don't play it much as GR and GB are much better in the current online meta. I haven't updated my list since Ballista came out, though.
Ballista may fit in for some additional removal, but I really liked Fog until you could get Ugin or an O-stone. It encouraged opponents to overcommit into a sweeper. I have been playing Ballista in my GR build. It's easily the worst creature/threat and I'd say it's one of the first cards to come out against anything but fast aggro decks. I like that it acts as a mana sink, but it's so slow that I would rather be doing literally anything else.
Buried Ruin is not good. Sorry. If you have time to activate Buried Ruin for value, you have a very unique meta. In the online meta, the time and mana required to recur something useful just isn't there enough to warrant inclusion. If it works for you, great, but, in general, Ghost Quarter has infinitely more value.
Spellskite and a third O-Stone are both things I like in my 75. Pithing Needles and, potentially, a second Ghost Quarter could also be considerations if you redesign your sideboard.