This thread is intended to be a short guide for new players to this deck, but also an open forum to discuss some of the more intricate parts of the deck.
What is Gx Tron?
Tron is a (mainly) green deck that's goal is to assemble the Urzatron (Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine, and Urza's Power Plant) as quickly as possible. Once they have been assembled, the goal is to generate insurmountable advantage. The main route to this is Karn Liberated, who is the cornerstone to the deck (yes, just as much as the Tron lands themselves). Once Karn takes the field, it becomes difficult or impossible for opponents to retake the game. A T3 Karn is this deck's goal, and often seals the game on the spot. Other than Karn, this deck has perhaps the best inevitability in the format. When you're done assembling the Urzatron with your land search, it's time to play big threats. While older versions of this deck played the now-banned Eye of Ugin, current versions rely on tutoring up a second threat by playing a first with an active Sanctum of Ugin.
If a T3 Karn isn't in the works, this deck is more than happy stalling out the game with a flurry of Oblivion Stones and Ugin, the Spirit Dragons from turn 4 on. This version of Tron is the most consistent in assembling a fast Tron, and seeks to leverage that in its gameplay.
For redundancy, we run 8 Chromatic Stars and Chromatic Spheres. With additional land slots, this opens the road for splashing another color, mainly for sideboard options. Originally this deck ran red due to the sheer power of Grove of the Burnwillows. Grove, as a land that gives our opponent life, could almost be treated as a Taiga. Our opponent's life total is almost never relevant, as we have the best inevitability and late-game in all of modern. The longer the game goes, the more it is in our favor. For a short period of time it ran white as the format shifted from 2-toughness creatures that could be effectively checked by Pyroclasm to threats that were weaker to Path to Exile. Then it ended up splashing black after the printing of Fatal Push and Collective Brutality.
However, after the recent addition of Field of Ruin to the format, there is a higher emphasis than ever on running a high number of basic lands. Most current versions of the deck are mono-green. This allows the deck to shave a land (most current builds run 19), while managing to run a full 4-5 basics plus utility lands. This allows for the deck to consistently tutor up basics even after multiple Field of Ruins and Paths to Exile.
Why Should I Play This Deck?
Gx Tron is fast, consistent, and has the best lategame in all of Modern (yes, that's right - ALL of Modern). It has generally positive matchups against all decks other than fast combo and extremely fast aggro (Burn, Infect - Zoo isn't really a problem). It has the unique distinction of being one of the few decks in Modern with a definitively positive MU against control and midrange, both pre-board and post-board. Additionally, it's a relatively simple deck to pick up, while still holding a lot of intricacies in terms of its card choices, and large decision trees rising from certain corner-case scenarios.
With our purpose laid out, let us examine the "core" of green Tron (you will have a very difficult time playing this deck without ANY of these cards). The core of Gx Tron is as follows:
4 Expedition Map
4 Sylvan Scrying
For most intents and purposes the same card, these 8 tutors are what allows Tron to assemble its game-winning combination with such consistency. Expedition Map is often preferred, both for its non-reliance on colored mana sources, and the fact that it can be tutored with Ancient Stirrings (which will be mentioned later). Some people cut 1 Sylvan Scrying, but it's not something I can personally recommend. Not only does it slightly cut down on your consistency, but it also opens you up to people removing your Tron pieces without recourse.
4 Karn Liberated
This deck is often called "KarnTron". After assembling your early tron, your #1 goal is to land one of these. The advantage gained by exiling your opponents' hands and fields is enormous. Not only that, but his ultimate will win you the game from the most dire circumstances, so just +4'ing him is its own form of pressure. To see how to play with Karn, go to the "Strategy" section.
1 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
This is what I like to call the "inevitability package". Tron's not the fastest combo deck out there. There are certainly faster combo decks in Modern. However, none of those decks can offer the pure inevitability offered by landing a Sanctum of Ugin followed by an Ulamog. Neither the Sanctum trigger nor the Ulamog trigger are counterable by counterspells, so the ability to exile to two problem permanents (or even just lands) is extremely powerful and not to be underestimated.
4 Ancient Stirrings
With the exception of Scrying and other copies of Stirrings, every card in this deck is colorless. All your threats are colorless, and more importantly, so are your lands. This makes Ancient Stirrings both a Tron piece tutor in the early game, as well as a tutor for your threats and win conditions later in the game. Perhaps the best comparison to make to this card is Impulse, one of the most infamous and powerful card selection spells in the game. In this deck, Ancient Stirrings is a sorcery-speed Impulse that looks at an extra card for half the cost. Yes, it's that good.
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
These are often called the "eggs". If you've read up to here, you'll notice we're only playing 4 colored sources, and a whole host of colored spells. These "eggs" turn the colorless mana from your Tron pieces to whatever colors you need. As each "cantrips", or replaces itself with a card, they both fix your mana and replace themselves in exchange for either one unimportant colorless mana in the early game, or one (mostly) meaningless mana once you assemble Tron. A staple for the deck.
3-4 Oblivion Stone
Oblivion Stone, as much as Karn, is a real staple of this deck. Why Oblivion Stone and not Ugin, you may ask? A simple answer: speed and flexibility. While Ugin may seem more flexible at first (multiple activations, an eventual wincon), O-Stone really shines from how it can be activated at instant speed. Modern is both a fast and powerful enough format that sorcery-speed Wraths simply don't cut it. However, instant-speed Wraths are the real deal.
The Cards You Will Generally Play
Apart from the "core" mentioned above, there are a number of cards that generally deserve a space in your list. However, if you really need room for other cards, these are the cards that should be cut before the ones above.
3 Wurmcoil Engine
As was mentioned above (and will be discussed more in-depth later), the decks Tron loses to are generally those that are faster than it. Of these, a good portion are aggressive decks, that seek to deal damage to you quickly with creatures and burn spells. Wurmcoil is a brick wall against these decks. Not only does he stop your opponents' attacks, but often deals more damage by attacking than your opponent will be able to deal back by attacking you. As this deck has to also worry about combo decks, the correct number of MD Wurmcoils is usually 3. Just remember that these cards become not that good in every matchup where your life total no longer matters (such as combo). Weak to Path to Exile, but other than that, a real all-star.
2-4 Relic of Progenitus
Providing general utility, Relic of Progenitus is a card that just makes Gx Tron "tick." Its exile effect can be key to shrinking Goyfs, nullifying Past in Flames, stopping Vengevines and Bridges, stopping Scrap Trawler triggers, and stripping Snapcaster Mages of value. In matchups where it isn't relevant, it will still "cycle" (or replace itself). While you probably want a couple in your MD, 1-2 copies will generally be some of the first cards to be dropped for interesting "tech" additions.
1 Ghost Quarter
As you look over many Tron lists, you will often see a lonely Ghost Quarter wandering in their midsts. You may be wondering what could possibly cause people to want to run a THIRTEENTH colorless land (after the 12 Tron pieces). There is one answer: Ghost Quarter is THAT good. Ghost Quarter does a few things. The first, and most important, is that it kills manlands. "Manlands," or lands that turn into creatures, can be very troublesome for Tron. They can't be dealt with by Oblivion Stone, and provide those decks with inevitability in the form of constant, hard-to-interact-with damage. Ghost Quarter comes in and puts an end to these problems. Only 1 is needed, as in can be searched with via any of the 8 land tutors. Additionally, it disrupts your opponent's Tron in the mirror, it mana-fixes yourself in a pinch, and it can even stop Sowing Salts. A real role-player, and hard to go without.
2-3 Walking Ballista
One of the problems with mono-green Tron is that you don't have access to the same removal suite other colors give you. A problem with Tron in a post-Eye Modern is that you still need to topdeck threats after you assemble Tron (even if you fetch a Sanctum). Ballista solves both these problems; early to mid game it can be played X=1 or X=2 to slow your opponent down. Late-game you can play it for X=4 or X=5, gun down your opponent's board, and even use it to fetch Ulamog via Sanctum. It can also get more counters quite easily to continue locking down your opponents' board.
1-3 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Ugin is an extremely powerful card that will steal games from board-centric decks. The most important of his abilities is his -X, which continually exiles the board for no additional mana investment. His +2 can be valuable for picking off individual threats, and his -10 is a way of putting pressure onto control and combo decks to deal with him or die. However, the fact that he cannot be played off Tron alone, his cost can't be split across multiple turns, and his inability to meaningfully impact the board quickly vs powerful artifact-based decks (KCI, Affinity, other Tron, Hollowed One) generally relegates him to a supplementary role to O-Stone. It's also worth pointing out that he's somewhat awkward vs. the cards Gurmag Angler and Bedlam Reveler. Each have more than 3 toughness and high CMCs; Ugin has to use all his loyalty to get rid of Angler (and die in the process), and Ugin cannot deal with Reveler the turn he comes into play. Still, in spite of all these issues, his ability to almost immediately win the game vs. Company, Elves, and other creature-based decks makes him an extraordinarily powerful threat (although a slightly inconsistent one). Finally, he's also a threat that will trigger Sanctum and search for Ulamog later in the game.
1 World Breaker
A threat that's resistant to non-Path removal, World Breaker provides inevitability by recurring itself, the ability to block your opponent's flyers via Reach, and just another large threat to draw into to crack your Sanctum and exile your opponent's lands.
The "Tech"
These are the cards you will see show up every once in a while. Some may be very good, even. But because they for whatever reason aren't as prolific as the above cards, they fall into neither of the above categories.
1 Urza's Factory
In a post-Eye world, Sanctum can be very awkward. While it can be very powerful, it does nothing while you're flooding out; it requires you to have a second threat before you can activate it, which can often come too late. By comparison, all Urza's Factory requires is for you to have access to 7 mana. However, its biggest problem is that 2/2 tokens are generally nothing more than speedbumps and rarely allow you to close the game completely.
1 Scavenger Grounds
GY decks are very popular in Modern. While Relic is a powerful card, Relic can't be hit off our Maps and Scryings. Having a piece of GY hate that we have an effective 8 tutors for and that occupies a land slot is very powerful, even if the 2 mana activation cost can be expensive.
1-2 Horizon Canopy
Even in non-white Tron decks, Horizon Canopy is good value. It's currently the only land in the format that can reasonably be converted into a real card while coming into play untapped and providing green mana. The life loss can be relevant, though the ability to both cycle and provide colored mana makes it powerful. Additionally, it has synergy with Crucible of Worlds out of the SB.
1-2 Dismember
Dismember is a powerful removal spell that can be played without access to colored mana. However, the 4 life required to cast it can make it extremely painful in several matchups.
1-4 All Is Dust
Run instead of or in additon to Oblivion Stone, All Is Dust offers a similar effect. Its advantages are that the permanents are sacrificed (getting around indestructibility and totem armor), and that it leaves your colorless nonland permanents intact. Additionally, it can be cast strictly off Tron (costs 1 less total - 7 vs a total of 8), and it can be cast for 1 less mana without Tron. However, its downside is that it cannot be used at instant speed, it cannot be paid in installments, and it is considerably worse in a couple matchups (such as the Affinity and KCI MUs). Because of its poor showing in the Affinity MU, it is generally run in addition to a full complement of O-Stones if at all.
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
Potentially more powerful than Ulamog vs Combo and Control, Emrakul suffers from consistency issues in that it's both more expensive than Ulamog to cast and that its weaker Mindslaver effect is very dependent on your opponents' hand (unlike Ulamog, which is always good if not exceptional).
1 Field of Ruin
An option for nonbasic land removal that maintains parity, unlike Ghost Quarter. However, the additional 2 required to activate it means that it can be difficult tempo-wise to destroy Affinity's manlands or keep your opponents off Tron in the mirror.
1-4 Thought-Knot Seer
Thought-Knot Seer serves double-duty as both a body to slow down aggressive decks as well as disruption vs combo and control decks. However, not coming down until turn we assemble Tron means that it competes with more powerful spells that cost 6 or 7 mana.
1-4 Thragtusk
Faster lifegain vs. Burn and Zoo, but really suffers from not being colorless (for Ancient Stirrings), as well as not being able to be cast strictly off Tron/colorless sources. Like above, will many times be a worse Wurmcoil Engine. However, the immediate ability to gain life can be just what you need vs. certain faster decks.
1-2 Fog
A card often lampooned by seasoned players, Fog does occasionally show up in Tron. It effectively serves as a lifegain spell vs. fast decks.
Sideboard Composition
These are some cards that generally see play in Gx Tron's sideboard.
MOST COMMON
3-4 Nature's Claim
As was stated earlier, your opponent's life total is irrelevant when playing Tron. Therefore, Nature's Claim is a near-strictly better Naturalize (in the sense that it kills things for half the cost AND you can blow up your own stuff in order to gain life). A staple at blowing up irritating "hate" cards such as Stony Silence and Blood Moon. It is also good vs. Affinity, and alright against Infect (it blows up Inkmoth Nexus).
3-4 Thragtusk
While Wurmcoil is powerful, Wurmcoil suffers from being unable to have any immediate impact and completely dying to exile-based removal. Thragtusk solves both of these issues. First of all, it immediately gains 5 life, which is an important distinctions against aggressive decks running lots of burn. Secondly, Thragtusk leaves behind a body when it leaves the battlefield for any reason, meaning you still get the 3/3 beast even if your opponent hits it with a Path to Exile.
3-4 Thought-Knot Seer
Thought-Knot Seer is a swiss army knife of a card. It hits combo pieces, hate pieces, removal that would target it, and leaves your opponent down on cards until they find an answer for it. Its 4/4 body is difficult to answer profitably, and acts as a roadblock to aggressive decks.
2-3 Surgical Extraction
As Modern is dominated more and more by fast GY strategies, the most powerful GY hate is the hate you can play quickly and cheaply. Surgical excels in both of these fronts; it can be played before your first turn of the game, and requires no mana to do so. When combined with your Ghost Quarters, it can also act as a powerful hate piece vs land-based strategies. Additionally, the ability to exile all additional copies of a specific card can shut down combo decks that rely on their GY. Finally, there's a neat trick you can pull off where you can Surgical your own Tron piece in response to your opponents' Surgical to protect the Tron pieces in your hand/deck (you can "fail to find" off your own Surgical).
2-3 Warping Wail
Warping Wail is a flexible card that has a variety of uses. Against aggressive decks or decks with mana dorks, it can be used as straight removal. Against decks that SB in Crumble against us, it can be used to counter their Crumble (or potentially other powerful sorceries). Finally, it can be used as a source of ramp in a pinch when our Tron is disrupted with the Scion token it can potentially generate.
2-3 Spatial Contortion
Spatial Contortion is a powerful removal spell that can get rid of any creature with 3 or less toughness with no colored mana requirement. As a removal spell, it is more powerful than Warping Wail and doesn't have the life loss associated with Dismember.
SOMEWHAT COMMON
1-2 Grafdigger's Cage
A powerful hate piece against both Collected Company and GY-based strategies, Cage excels at shutting down multiple styles of opposing decks. However, it's very fragile to artifact removal opponents will generally SB in anyway, and the floodgates are opened from the second it's removed. Additionally, it can make activating our own O-Stones awkward.
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
A powerful threat that can threaten your control and combo opponents with its uncounterable Mindslaver effect. However, it loses a lot of power post-SB, where your opponents will likely be playing disruption. Additionally, relies on you having multiple card types in your GY to be reasonably playable before T6 even with your Tron undisrupted, which can be very awkward.
1 Crucible of Worlds/Life from the Loam
Powerful hate against LD strategies, and allows you to recur your own Ghost Quarters to battle against your opponents' land-based strategies. Crucible costs less mana for multiple activations, but LftL is a lot more resilient to the artifact hate your opponents will likely be SBing in anyway.
1 Wurmcoil Engine
By running an extra copy of Wurmcoil in the SB, you can bring in the rest vs aggressive decks, such as Zoo, Burn, etc.
1-2 Relic of Progenitus
Likewise, Relics that do not make it to the MD often get pushed to the SB.
RARELY PLAYED
1-2 Spellskite
Formerly a mainstay of Gx Tron decks in the days of Splinter Twin, the card is nowadays extremely narrow vs. almost specifically Infect and Bogles (where it's absurdly powerful, stealing all of their pump spells). Some other tricks it can pull include redirecting Paths from Wurmcoils, causing Bolts to deal 1 less damage, and redirecting Modular triggers from Arcbound Ravager (though a savvy Affinity player can just not put counters on Skite on resolution). In general it's very niche and not worth a valuable SB slot.
1-2 Fog
Another powerful hate piece against Infect, the card can buy a valuable turn vs. certain aggressive decks (but is generally not recommended).
1-2 Pithing Needle
Needle can have a variety of roles, from stopping LD hate such as Fulminator Mage and Field of Ruin, as well as powerful planeswalkers such as Teferi and Jace. However, many of the fast combo decks in the format rely very little on non-mana activated abilities, making its powerful silver-bullet capabilities somewhat niche vs powerful combo decks like Storm, Hollowed One, and Counters Company.
1-2 Sorcerous Spyglass
A more expensive Needle that allows you to look at your opponent's hand and dodge Chalice X=1.
1-2 Seal of Primordium
An artifact/enchantment hate spell that allows you to pay in advance and dodge Chalice X=1. However, the general downfall of Chalice decks in Modern mean that its primary function (in dodging Chalice) is no longer necessary.
Strategy
Tips and tricks for playing the deck.
How to play with Karn Liberated
Playing with Karn is fairly simple once you get used to it, but takes some getting used-to. Basically, against any deck that has the potential to deal 3 to it, you want to +4 immediately. Keeping Karn alive is KEY to winning the game. Against any deck that can't damage Karn, you generally want to do what makes the most impact on the game (-3 if that's getting rid of a permanent, +4 if it's forcing them to pitch a card, or to scramble to his ult). Finally, if you're really up against the wall against damage-dealing decks, it may be the correct play to -3 Karn immediately. But realize that this is a desperation tactic, and it will generally end up with Karn trading with that permanent (and 3 points of damage).
How to play with your Eggs (Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere)
While it may be tempting to crack these ASAP (after you cast them), realize that they're essentially "free" to crack (they cost 1 mana to make one mana). Therefore, there are many points in the game where you'll want to "save" them for when you need to cast color spells. However, if you need to dig, or the game gets late enough, it can also be the correct play to crack them ASAP. Post-board vs. white decks, you'll also want to cycle them more aggressively due to the constant threat of Stony Silence
How to "beat" Crumble to Dust
There are a few ways to handle Crumble to Dust. None of them are perfect - to get this straight, Crumble to Dust is the PERFECT board card against us. It's like Cranial Extraction that can hit nonbasic lands combined with a Caustic Rain. To beat it, there are three routes you can take. One is preventative, which involves you tutoring up a Ghost Quarter and keeping it up to blow up a targeted Tron piece. The second is reactive, and involves running Warping Wail in your SB. However, this can be awkward, as Wail can be a very marginal SB card against the decks that could run Crumble, as it's often the only relevant mode, and relies on you gambling that your opponent will have the Crumble to convert it. The final, and my favorite, is to simply race the Crumble. You can't truly know if your opponent has it. However, if you land an early Wurmcoil or Karn, you can often just take over the game before it lands, and start to drop O-Stones, Karns, and more Wurmcoils afterward.
Nature's Claim vs. Burn Nature's Claim is a great board card vs. Burn. Not only to blow up their Eidolon of the Great Revels, but also to blow up your own artifacts. Being able to exchange two cards for 4 life doesn't sound pretty, but sometimes it's what you have to do to stay alive. If you Claim a Chromatic Star (but not Sphere), you still draw the card (1 card for 4 life), and if you Claim a Wurmcoil in response to Destructive Revelry, you manage to gain yourself a virtual 6 life (Claiming Wurmcoil in response to Path gives you the tokens + 4 life). If you need to board in cards vs. Burn, but you don't want to devote more space in your SB, consider this strategy.
Extraction/Relic vs Extraction
Casting Surgical Extraction in response to an opponent's Extraction can counter their extraction. The same trick can be performed with either the first or second ability of Relic of Progenitus.
Match-Up Analysis and Sideboarding Guide
In-depth SB guide generously provided by sicsmoo (source here).
sicsmoo’s Mono Green Tron guide v3
March 30, 2019
Decklist
2 Walking Ballista
1 World Breaker
3 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Oblivion Stone
5 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
Disclaimer: This guide is not meant to be definitive or a holy grail. These are just some of my thoughts as a grinder who loves the deck and has played it a lot. There are certainly other viable strategies and things will always change as the metagame does.
Also, if you have any questions or comments I’m happy to answer them as time permits. I’m on Discord as sic#3384 and sicsmoo on the MTGSalvation forums.
Decklist/metagame discussion
It’s been about 5 months since I last updated the guide so I thought now would be a good time. As things stand now, UR Phoenix is the deck to beat, having seen over 20% day 2 metagame shares at multiple GPs recently, though on Magic Online the number is much lower - not more than 10-12% by my metrics. This is fine for Tron pilots in any case, as our Izzet matchup is favorable.
The other new deck making a splash is Whir Prison, the current iteration of the artifact-based lock-out strategies. It’s widely considered to be tier 1 in power level, but hasn’t generally seen more than a few percent in metagame shares because it is easily hated out. Historically these matchups are very favorable for Tron but this one is different - read the entry to see why.
Additionally, there is the Sultai Wilderness Reclamation deck. An interesting big mana combo/control deck that has seen a fair bit of play in the MTGO queues but hasn’t made a big splash in paper as of yet.
Dredge is still well represented, as are usual suspects Tron, Humans, UW Control, Grixis Shadow, Burn, and BG Rock.
Readers of my previous guide will notice that the decklist here is almost the exact same as the previous one, the only difference being Dismembers over Contortions in the side. Has that little changed over the past 5 months? I would say from the Tron perspective essentially yes. The archetype hasn’t gained any relevant new tools since Walking Ballista almost 2 years ago, but this doesn’t really matter because it still has everything it needs against the field. You can tweak the numbers of certain cards here and there to hedge certain matchups/metagame trends, and in fact I do this all the time, but for the most part the deck is optimized, and this list in particular is very well balanced. As for why Dismember over Contortion - Dismember kills everything Contortion does, plus Thing In the Ice, Gurmag Angler, Tireless Tracker, smaller Goyfs and Death’s Shadows, Hollow One etc, for less mana. I think that’s a much larger upside than the loss of 4 life is a downside against the current field.
Notable omissions:
Emrakul, the Promised End: A great card in unfair matchups such as Ad Nauseam, Storm, and Titan Shift, and also against UW as you can often cast it through disruption/without Tron and they have a very hard time dealing with it. Also probably worth bringing in against Whir Prison.
Warping Wail: At its best when there are a lot of relevant sorceries you want to counter, ie Scapeshift or Living End. Also solid against Dredge and Hollow One, being able to counter all their enabler spells, and very good against Storm as it can kill Baral or counter Past in Flames. The other 2 modes are really mediocre though so it is a bit of a narrow card. Solid against Phoenix as well to kill Thing In the Ice or counter Looting.
Crucible of Worlds: Great for fighting attrition battles, at its best against UW and GBx. Really powerful in the matchups it’s good in but again a bit narrow.
Matchup outlooks/spreadsheet
Matchup outlooks: I received some feedback about these from the last guide. A few people were curious about some of them, questioning how I have Tron vs Storm as even matchup, for example. The main basis for the outlooks is my winrate in each matchup, using generally large sample sizes (I have 94 matches played against Storm, as of this writing). For matchups with smaller samples, I’m thinking more about what actually happened in the matches, adjusting for variance and changes in decklists over time and extrapolating from there. Obviously there is a missing element here that I can’t factor in, which is deck pilot skill level/experience. In a Tron/Storm matchup where each pilot has an equal skill level, Storm is clearly favored, as is the conventional wisdom. But if the Tron player is experienced (and has a good sideboard, such as the one listed here), and the Storm player is average, the matchup becomes even. This is the perspective the outlooks are derived from - the outcome you can expect as an experienced pilot of the deck vs the field, or at least as an experienced pilot in Modern with a solid grasp of Tron.
Legend:
Extremely favorable: 75%+ Win
Very favorable: ~65% Win
Favorable: ~60% Win
Slightly favorable: ~55% Win
Even: ~50% Win
Slightly unfavorable: ~45% Win
Unfavorable: ~40% Win
Very unfavorable: ~35% Win
Extremely unfavorable: 25% or less
Spreadsheet:
This is my games record that the outlooks are based on, now around 2600 matches:
This is already a pretty good matchup but we have some solid tweaks to make post-board. The Cage and Surgicals fight back against Phoenixes, and the Nature's Claims are for their Blood/Alpine Moons, and also Pyromancer’s Ascension. Once we have the Phoenixes under control (and even if not), Karn matches up very well against Thing In the Ice and Crackling Drake. Beware they do have countermagic, but as of this writing it's generally just Spell Pierce, usually 2 copies, so keep that in mind and play around it when it seems appropriate/possible. Occasionally they have Ceremonious or Negate as well which are not as easy to play around. This is all post-board though, game 1 they generally have no counters, other than a rare 1-of Izzet Charm. The way we lose is tons of fast pressure so having access to cards like Dismember and Warping Wail to kill TiTi will improve your odds. Keep in mind they do have a “combo” to take us off Tron - Thought Scour/Surgical. It’s pretty unlikely to happen but it’s definitely something to be aware of and play around if possible - keep your graveyard empty, tap to target yourself with Relic while holding mana up to exile.
This is a very polarizing matchup - the games when you have graveyard hate are vastly different from the ones you don’t, and it is quite simply necessary to have it to have a reasonable expectation of winning. This is why we’re playing 3 Relics maindeck, as the deck is super popular right now. Basically the only hand without graveyard hate post-board I would keep is turn 3 Wurmcoil on the play. The good news is that with 6 hate cards in the 75, you have a very high chance of hitting one in your opening 7 or 6, but I have also won plenty of games in this matchup by going to 5 and even 4. Mulliganing aggressively to find the hate is key, to slow them down and bridge you to your turn 4 plays that they can’t compete with. Thragtusk is excellent because if you’re mulling to 5 looking for hate, you don’t always have the luxury of setting up Tron early and it’s a big play for only 5 mana. Do keep in mind the counter-hate cards such as Ancient Grudge and Nature’s Claim. Grudge is the most common, so not playing Relic on turn 1 on the draw is wise. Remember to time Surgical correctly - ie stopping on their draw step after they dredge to hit Bloodghast or Amalgam before they can play a land.
I think this is the most challenging matchup to sideboard for in the format. The first reason is that most of the cards in the 75 are either strictly medium in the mirror and you can make a case for any of them, and the other reason is that how good particular cards are depend on what your opponent is doing, which is not clear. I run into more weird configurations in the Tron mirror than any other matchup by far. Case in point: Surgical Extraction. Seems like a clearly great inclusion. Ghost Quarter their land, Surgical it, and now it's much harder for them to cast their bombs. They can probably never cast Ulamog in the game. They likely do have Thought-Knot Seer that they can cast though - it's one of the better cards in the matchup. This is an OK compromise. But what about Thragtusk? This is one of the medium/it depends cards. If they decided to bring in the 3 copies of Thragtusk in addition to TKS, then the Surgical plan is actively bad because now you're down 2 resources and they have spells to cast all the way up the curve. Now think about the card Oblivion Stone...
Nature's Claim is a weird one too. Sometimes you can pick off their early Map and it feels amazing, but other times it's a dead card. I like it on the play but not really on the draw, but it can be good in general if you know they kept in multiple O-Stones or if they have Crucible.
It's a super weird matchup because it's either over in 2 minutes (the first Karn on an empty board), or it turns into a confusing grind-fest. You really just have to see what your opponent decided to do and react to it, but I think the listed configuration is a good starting point.
At first glance it seems like this matchup is quite close and I thought the same thing initially, because they do have a reasonable amount of disruption and a reasonable amount of aggression, but in practice, most of the time they both come up a bit short. Oblivion Stone or Ugin generally win the game on the spot so they have to use their Freebooter or Meddling Mage to neutralize one of those, but then they’re left with Ballista, Karn, Wurmcoil and Ulamog as serious problems. Most of the time they can’t kill until turn 5, so you usually have plenty of time to set up. Of course sometimes they have busted fast draws you can’t do anything about, almost always involving Aether Vial, but those aren’t very common. The cards you have to worry about the most are Thalia, Heretic Cathar which sometimes gets played in their flex slots, and Damping Sphere out of the sideboard. It’s fairly common for them to have 2 Spheres these days so I like to hedge with the Nature’s Claims. It’s not the worst if they don’t have it either because it can kill Vial or even your own Wurmcoil if they try to Reflector Mage/Deputy of Detention it.
The goal in this matchup is just to overload them with threats. Always try to play your less impactful ones first ie Wurmcoil, Thragtusk, TKS, or those with cast triggers - World Breaker and Ulamog, and sandbag your planeswalkers as long as possible to try to run them out of answers or force them to tap out first. Hold extra copies of Map or Scrying to play around future Field of Ruins. Nature’s Claim is necessary to kill Stony Silence, getting Damping or Detention Sphere in a pinch is good, as well as sniping Search for Azcanta if they don’t have anything else. Don’t be afraid to play Walking Ballista on 1 - they don’t have Lightning Bolt so it often forces them to use a Path on it to clear way for their planeswalker.
This matchup is actually fairly similar to the Humans one in that they aren’t very good at keeping us off Tron, generally are a turn too slow and almost all our payoff cards are a big problem for them. Though similar to Humans they do have nut draws we just can’t beat. They can’t really beat a Wurmcoil Engine without Temur Battle Rage, and they have no counters for it game 1. Thragtusk is fantastic post-board because it doesn't get countered by Ceremonious or Stubborn Denial, though it still gets snagged by one of their 2 Disdainful Strokes. It trades with Angler and buys you tons of time in general. We just want to stay alive until the mid-late game and they don't play any land destruction so Ulamog's trigger is always live and almost always ends the game because they have so few threats.
Burn
Matchup outlook: Slightly unfavorable
-4 Oblivion Stone, -3 Relic of Progenitus, -2 Ugin, -1 World Breaker
+3 Thought-Knot Seer, +4 Thragtusk, +3 Nature's Claim
To win game 1 we need fast tron into Wurmcoil or at least Karn with a follow up. Fast Ulamog has gotten me there against Burn a lot. It gets easier post-board with 10 cards to bring in. Nature’s Claim is really good to play around Skullcrack, making sure we gain life if they use it in response to Wurmcoil lifeline or Thragtusk trigger. Blowing up Chromatic Star in particular is ideal because we get a card out of it, but a Sphere or an extra Map is fine too. Claiming Wurmcoil itself is just fine as well and is the correct play fairly often. Being able to look at their hand with TKS is really valuable because they play an assortment of weird cards post-board (Path, Revelry/Smash to Smithereens, Deflecting Palm, Skullcrack, etc) and knowing which ones to play around can make all the difference.
A prison deck that can actually beat Tron, quite a change of pace. It resembles Lantern but is actually much harder because they have a number of things that are really problematic for us in the maindeck - namely 3/4 Chalice of the Void, 2 Sorcerous Spyglass (and 2 more in the board), Damping Sphere and Crucible/Tec Edge combo. Claim is great for obvious reasons and Surgical can be quite useful - Whir is a strong target, and it can also strip their Tec Edge but gotta hope they don’t have Chalice. Thought-Knot Seer can do good work if their hand is a bit clunked up with powerful spells, and it plays well through Spyglass and Damping Sphere. Try to not pop Relic unless you really need to because they can’t do their loops through it.
Hardened Scales Affinity
Matchup outlook: Even
-2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, -3 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Dismember, +3 Nature's Claim
The sideboard plan is the same as against traditional Affinity, but this version is a bit tougher. Oblivion Stone isn't as much of a blowout because Ravager gets superpowered by Hardened Scales and they can make a lethal creature-land much more easily. They also have maindeck Welding Jars and Hangarback Walkers which are both quite effective against O-Stone. Ballista also isn’t as good for similar reasons. If you have the option, kill Hardened Scales on sight as the deck can’t really go nuts without it. Damping Sphere is also an important target post-board.
Interesting times we’re living in where the midrange deck has an edge on Tron. This is the case because they have 7-8 cards capable of destroying our lands maindeck (4 Field of Ruin, 3-4 Assassin’s Trophy), along with 2-3 more (Fulminator Mages) post-board. But of course, our deck is full of land tutors as well. We can still assemble Tron, particularly in game 1, but it is more challenging. Post-side you should operate under the assumption that you’ll basically never have Tron, and try to win with Ostone activations, and casting Thragtusks, Wurmcoils and Karns naturally on turns 5,6,7, etc, hopefully pinging their Bob off with Ballista and shrinking Goyf with Relic in the meantime. With the listed configuration I think we are a slight underdog, so if you want more confidence, play Crucible of Worlds or Tarmogoyfs in the side.
Game 1 it’s a race to do our respective broken things, but tends to slow down and become more interactive post-board. A resolved titan is very still beatable, because we can destroy it with O-Stone and then ideally Surgical it which is basically game over for them. Surgical on Summoner’s Pact is also quite effective, as it stops their tutor chain, leaving them with naturally drawing one of the remaining titans to have a shot. Most of our payoff plays are quite problematic for them - Wurmcoil stonewalls titan, Karn and Ulamog eat it. Amulet is the real issue because it gives the titan haste so we want to destroy that with Nature's Claim.
Spirits
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-3 Relic, -2 Karn
+3 Nature's Claim, +2 Dismember
They generally have both Damping Sphere and Stony Silence so Nature's Claim is important here. Karn is good on a clear board but is bad against hexproof/CoCo so I don't want more than 2. Stony and Selfless Spirit throw a wrench into O-Stone but if we can dodge/get around those it's your best card along with Ugin. They play a wide variety of counterspells - Negate, Unified Will, Disdanful Stroke, Ceremonious Rejection, but only a couple copies of whichever one so just jam your stuff. Don’t play low cmc stuff into Spell Queller mana if you can avoid it.
Affinity
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, -3 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Dismember, +3 Nature's Claim
Oblivion Stone destroys them and Walking Ballista is a huge threat as well. 5 spot removal spells are nice upgrades post-board. They have an assortment of tools against us such as Blood Moon, Damping Sphere, Thoughtseize, Ancient Grudge, Stubborn Denial and Spell Pierce, but these also slow them down so it’s kind of a wash. Keep the counterspells in mind.
Similar to Titan Shift, it's tough to interact with them and we want to be aggressively attacking their mana. As opposed to Titan Shift though, they have permanents such as Pentad Prism and Phyrexian Unlife so Oblivion Stone actually does something. Again, the Thought-Knots help a lot post-board and Nature's Claim is a nice tool. You can destroy their Lotus Bloom in their upkeep after it comes off suspend, which will buy you time unless they have the combo in hand already.
The mono-red version is more difficult for us as it's more aggressive and really functions more like a Burn deck. Again shaving threats for Nature's Claims and Grafdigger's Cage. Cage stops Phoenixes and Looting flashbacks, Claims kill their Blood Moons and can also kill our own artifacts for life in a pinch. I don't like Surgicals here as they can easily kill us without the graveyard and the 2 life matters. The Thragtusks are great here for the lifegain and it does block most of their threats.
Jund
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-2 Ulamog, -1 Relic, -1 World Breaker
+4 Thragtusk
Traditional Jund has been mostly supplanted by BG Rock, which is unfortunate because this is the better matchup for us. It’s not uncommon for the deck to play 0 copies of Assassin’s Trophy (generally the range is 0-2), and their manabase can’t support Field of Ruin so the chances that they can disrupt our mana are much lower. While the unbanning of Bloodbraid Elf did give them a few percentage points in this matchup back, we are still just doing much more powerful things overall.
This is one of our worst matchups because they kill us pretty quickly and we have very few ways to effectively stop them. We need to attack their manabase aggressively with Karn, World Breaker and Ulamog to steal it. Post-board the Thought-Knot Seers help a lot - hopefully they only have 1 payoff card and we lock them out before they draw another. Also, though a fairly niche play, Surgical on a Ghost Quartered Valakut totally neuters them. Damping Sphere is common out of their sideboard so we want Nature’s Claim to kill that, and even if they don’t have it we don’t lose much because the cards we’re removing are basically useless anyway. Also it can potentially snipe a Khalni Heart Expedition or Prismatic Omen. Warping Wail is a card to play if you want a few more percentage points - it counters Scapeshift.
You can't really beat their really busted draws, but on the other hand it's really hard for them to beat ours ie T3 Wurmcoil in this context. Whoever does their thing best wins. Sideboarding for this matchup is interesting. I definitely want the 4 Tusks and the Cage, but Surgical is so-so. A lot of our payoff cards are medium or slow, but we still need enough of them in the deck to take control. It’s a balancing act. I’ve seen some people bring in Nature’s Claim to hedge against broken Hollow One starts but I don’t really like that as it only has the one target. Occasionally they play Blood Moon or Damping Sphere and in that case I like it more, but I think Dismember is better overall.
Game 1’s are tough but sometimes you can just get them with a fast Karn, and Relics help slow them down a lot to try to bridge into an Ulamog. Quite a few solid cards to bring in. The priority is to kill their mana creatures because they can win through graveyard hate if they have enough mana/spells, but this isn’t super easy in this version with only 2 spot removal spells. If you want to win this matchup play more spot removal. Try to Surgical Grapeshot if they Gifts for it or dump it with Pieces of the Puzzle. Empty is less threatening because you have 6 answers to it. Surgical on Past in Flames is often game-winning as well.
They have a lot of annoying disruptive elements and pressure, but we can stabilize and take over a good amount of the time. Nature's Claim is important to kill Stony Silence, Aether Vial and it also hits Tidehollow Sculler.
Ugin is unbeatable for them and O-Stone is pretty close, but if you stumble they can kill by turn 4. Dismembers are required to kill Teeg post-board along with Kor Spiritdancer. Be aware that you can make Daybreak Coronet fall off by removing the only other enchantment attached to the boggle.
The best matchup in the format for us. My current record is an incredible 64-9 for 88%. Unfortunately for us this deck doesn’t line up very well with the current meta and so it isn’t seeing a lot of play at the moment. The way we lose is early pressure + disruption, so having Dismembers to kill Young Pyromancer or Goblin Rabblemaster out of the board is nice.
Counters Company
Matchup outlook: Even
-2 Wurmcoil, -1 World Breaker
+2 Dismember, +1 Cage
Very similar to Elves - they are racing to combo and we're racing to sweep their board. But here the cheap interaction is a bit more important because they can go off faster. Kill Devoted Druid on sight if possible. Be aware that they can search for Selfless Spirit in response to O-Stone and play accordingly.
I'm not a big fan of this matchup because rarely are 2 lists ever the same and I find myself wondering what to play around a lot, and so sideboard plans will vary a bit. But what they all have in common is a lot of durdling. It's a slow deck so you have a lot of time to build up mana even under a Blood Moon and you have 4 O-Stone to deal with those, Jace and pesky Snapcasters. A resolved planeswalker or even a Wurmcoil Engine is really hard for them to deal with.
Not quite as easy as it used to be as 3 Field of Ruin main seems to be the norm now, which is really the key card in these matchups. This deck isn’t seeing much play right now but based on current lists they aren’t playing Stony Silence so I wouldn’t bother with Nature’s Claim in the dark. The Relics do work against their 4 Snapcasters and can also protect you against having your Tron land Field+Surgicaled. Tap to target yourself and remove the Tron land. It’s common for them to have 2 Vendilion Cliques post-board as well, so Ballista does a lot of work. Occasionally they have additional threats like Spell Queller and/or Geist of St Traft. If so you can leave in some O-Stones.
This is a deck that has been around in Modern forever, usually sitting around Tier 3. I had always found it to be a favorable matchup but over the past year or so it has evolved and become tougher for us. The main change being 4 Deprive maindeck. Having that hard counter in addition to pressure plus Spreading Seas screwing up our mana can be too much to handle. They also usually have additional counters post-board, and sometimes even Tectonic Edges, which is truly horrendous. Of course we can still get there - Oblivion Stone not only kills all their creatures but any Spreading Seas or Aether Vials as well. A resolved Ugin is close to unbeatable as well, and Walking Ballista is also very strong in the matchup.
Pretty annoying matchup with 4 maindeck Fulminators and sometimes Beast Withins, but similar to Dredge, we can steal game 1s with the mainboard Relic. Surgical can snipe Fulminator or ideally the card Living End if you can survive the first one. I feel like this is probably at least slightly unfavorable but my record is 10-5 so I’m calling it even for now.
The goal in this matchup is just to resolve your planeswalkers as they have a very hard time dealing with them, and conversely their threats are generally not very scary for us. They do have quite a few counterspells so do your best to play around them (having Condescend mana) or run out World Breaker or Thought-Knot first. They do have a few pieces of land destruction but generally we can weather this pretty easily and recover because they are so slow. Ulamog really puts the boots to them. Be aware of the Mindslaver loop - 12 mana plus Academy Ruins to bring it back every turn. Hold up Relic if possible to nullify it. They generally have some number of Chalice of the Void and also Spreading Seas post-board which is why I like keeping O-Stones.
Tron’s eternal nemesis. The worst possible matchup for years, though now a new contender has taken that crown(read on). It doesn't really get much better post-board. Try to kill their guys on your turn if possible. If you want to have a shot in this matchup play 4 Ballista and more Dismembers.
Any deck using Through the Breach is gonna be tough for us and this is no exception. Similar to Titan Shift and Ad Naus we want to aggressively attack their mana so they can't cast their spell in the first place. Unfortunately they have an even more efficient secondary plan which is Goryo's Vengeance on Griselbrand which they can pull off as early as turn 2. Post-board we have 6 grave-hates which help a lot, especially if you can snipe Griselbrand with Surgical as their deck is much worse without it. Wurmcoil can absorb a lot of the brunt of a hasty Worldspine Wurm, and O-Stone/Ugin can clean up the tokens it leaves. Thought-Knot is fantastic because the deck is quite a glass cannon and often loses to itself even without disruption, so just taking their one key card can be game-winning. Occasionally they have Blood Moon and if so you can bring in Nature's Claims.
They are trying to accelerate into Chalice, Blood Moon and Goblin Rabblemaster using Rituals and Simian Spirit Guides. If they get a Chalice or Rabblemaster on turn 1 it can be hard to beat but our spells also just totally overpower them if they don’t have an explosive start/fast Blood Moon, and cards like O-Stone and Thragtusk just ignore it anyway.
This matchup plays out similarly to BTL/RUG Scapeshift in that they're trying to stall the game out with 3/4 Remand and 4 Cryptic Command until they can safely play their 4 drop (In this case Wilderness Reclamation) and win. It's a bit different in this case though because it doesn't win the game on the spot (it's more likely the longer the game goes/the more mana they have), and we can actually interact with the namesake card, which helps. Oblivion Stone is a clunky though effective way of dealing with it game 1 (preferably we have it in play before they cast it), and Nature's Claim is a powerful upgrade post-board, especially when they tap out for it expecting to untap again. Just be sure to destroy it before the beginning of their end step, or the ability will trigger and they will get to untap their lands. Ideally we Surgical it immediately after, which reduces their ability to win to just a few Snapcaster Mages and Creeping Tar Pits. Similarly to the Scapeshift matchup, Karn and Ulamog should target their lands, unless of course they have an active Reclamation, in which case hit that.
Lantern
Matchup outlook: Extremely favorable
-3 Wurmcoil Engine
+3 Nature's Claim
O-Stone, Karn, Ugin, World Breaker and Ulamog are all huge problems for them and they only have so many Pithing Needles/Thoughtseizes. We have 10 cards that can draw at instant speed to interfere with their Lantern lock. That being said there are versions of this deck which make for a much closer matchup - namely those with maindeck Surgicals and Ghost Quarters. Neither see much play currently though - Whir Prison is filling this niche.
It seems a lot worse than it actually is. Their draws without infinite land destruction are very beatable, and even when they do have a lot, they often don’t have much in the way of threats. It just takes one slammed Thragtusk or an O-Stone activation to get back into the game. Dismembering a mana dork on turn 1 is a great tempo play, and cutting down Tireless Tracker is very relevant too.
Elves
Matchup outlook: Even
-2 Wurmcoil, -1 World Breaker, -3 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Dismember, +1 Cage, +3 Nature’s Claim
They're racing to kill us, we're racing to sweep their board. It's a coin flip. Nature’s Claim is to kill Damping Sphere post-board.
Here it is, the deck that stole the crown from Infect as our worst matchup in the format. They have 5-6 Surgical effects post-board and in addition to the 3-4 Fields and all the milling they're naturally doing, taking us off Tron for the whole game is very easy for them. Combine that with a relatively fast clock and it's pretty much a nightmare scenario. Of course they don't always have it, and we can potentially sneak a Karn in and start eating their lands, but this will not happen very often. Post-board we do get a bit of interaction - Nature's Claim which kills Mesmeric Orb or Ensnaring Bridge if they keep it in, and Dismembers which kill Hedron Crab. Thought-Knot Seer can hit a relevant card, and Thragtusk is simply a beater we can cast on turn 5 to try to close it out. Relic of Progenitus is particularly good to play around their Surgicals - you can use the tap ability to target yourself and remove a Tron land they may want to strip, and exiling the graveyards entirely powers down their Visions From Beyond. Warping Wail is a solid card to combat this matchup despite the fact that they no longer usually have Mind Funeral, because it hits their creatures and Glimpse the Unthinkable. This is not a widely played deck, but if it is in your meta, one thing you can do to gain some percentage points back is playing one of the ROE eldrazi titans in your sideboard. It's not super narrow because it would also be good in the control matchups. The eldrazi aren't true trump cards because opponents do have all the Surgical effects, but the trigger still resolves if they exile it so it can buy you a good amount of time/cards. Tarmogoyfs would also help as they get large quickly and put the pressure on.
Bridgevine
Matchup outlook: Unfavorable
-4 Karn, -1 World Breaker, -1 Sphere, -1 Oblivion Stone
+2 Surgical, +4 Thragtusk, +1 Cage
This deck has all but disappeared, but it still rears its head on rare occasions. A fairly difficult matchup. They can put a lot of power on the board really quickly and are resilient to Oblivion Stone due to Bridge From Below along with cards like Bloodghast and Gravecrawler. We want a fast Wurmcoil but even that is sometimes not enough because they can stop the lifelink in combat with Viscera Seer, Ballista, and Insolent Neonate. Our best play is Ugin, but that isn't perfect either because they have Ballista and Hangarback and can potentially sac Bloodgast to Seer to bring it back with haste the following turn. The maindeck Relics do help steal game 1s and make O-Stone better. It's often correct to play Walking Ballista for 0 on an early turn to kill any Bridges in their graveyard.
Walking Ballista is a wrecking ball here and you’d love to have the 3rd copy. There is an argument for playing Nature’s Claims - they have a standard 2 Alpine Moon in the sideboard which is a pretty big wrench for us. But Claim has no other targets in the matchup, beyond blowing up our own things. Considering they only have 2 it’s pretty unlikely they’ll see it in their opener, so I don’t mind just ignoring it. If they do have it, it’s one less action spell for them, which can hopefully buy us enough time get to our natural turn 5 plays - blowing Ostone or slamming Thragtusk. Dismember and Ballista help bridge the gap as well.
8-Whack/Goblins
Matchup outlook: Very unfavorable
-4 Karn, -3 Relic
+4 Thragtusk, +3 Claim
Pretty difficult matchup because they just go so wide so quickly and our turn 4 sweepers are generally too slow. Goblin Grenade provides a crazy amount of reach in addition to their pingers and Bolts. Hope you win the die roll and have turn 3 Wurmcoil or at least a 3/3 Ballista, or that their draw is below average and the turn 4 plays are enough. They also tend to have Damping Sphere post-board which only makes things worse.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion as a backup plan. Best part about Tooth is that its unexpected in Tron and 99% of the time if they don't have any imediate response, you win.
thanks for the imput, I like the idea of Tooth and Nail combo, although the Mikaeus seems cool, his mana is just too much for this deck. I will definitely add the tooth and nail. Thanks!
thanks for the imput, I like the idea of Tooth and Nail combo, although the Mikaeus seems cool, his mana is just too much for this deck. I will definitely add the tooth and nail. Thanks!
I dont have a side built yet, apart from the 4 Pyroclasms that will be in there. The main combo with tooth is to pump out Flame-kin and Emrakul and win on the spot.
I run four rule of law sideboard with one temple garden main. Storm and Eggs are still a very real threat even with four relic of progenitus main. A lot of MTGO lists are doing the same.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Level 1 Judge.
Currently playing
Competitive. Modern:UWRSplinter TwinUWR
EDH: URMelek, Izzet ParagonUR BWGGhave, Guuru of sporesBWG
So what decks are we good/bad against? I would start out by saying Melaria-pod. I have also heard that w/u tron is a good machup but I have not played it.
I will be working on that when I get to it. But we own W/U Tron (8:2 Win:Loss),k we can handle Jund, affinity, rdw, more less its the deck we don't do good against. We suck against infect until we sb, and combo decks give us trouble. I will need you guys help with the sidebaord section. Please let me know what your sideboard is what you side in and out vs different decks. Thanks
I've been testing out Slaughter Games against various combo decks and this is how I ended up boarding (board plans are mostly optimal but may not be all the way there in terms of what to board out--if you have better suggestions for the boarded-out flex slots, please tell me!):
Note that I play 2 Wurmcoil Engine and 1 Ulamog, so I have room to pull a Wurmcoil against combo. I also play 2 Prophetic Prism to support Slaughter Games. I'll also give tips on what not to board out, as some of the stuff I board out seem to be flex slots and can be exchanged with other cards.
Vs. Exarch Twin:
+4 Slaughter Games (I generally name Splinter Twin, then Kiki-Jiki)
+2 Combust
+1 Nature's Claim (hits Splinter Twin)
+1 Seal of Primordium (see above)
-4 Pyroclasm (we'll handle Grim Lavamancer and Vendilion Clique later)
-1 Wurmcoil Engine (stop them now, win later--don't pull the last one or Eye of Ugin will be sad)
-3 Relic of Progenitus (they don't use the graveyard)
{-0 Oblivion Stone (intimidates their "Exarchs" into needing to tap it pre-combo (then you blow up the "Exarch" in response), may make them board in bounce or Ancient Grudge, blows up Blood Moon if they board it in)}
Vs. UR Storm:
+4 Slaughter Games (name Grapeshot, then Ignite Memories if some punk plays it and you found it in the deck, then Empty the Warrens, then Goblin Electromancer if they haven't already scooped)
+1 Nature's Claim (hits Pyromancer Ascension)
+1 Seal of Primordium (see above)
-2 Pyroclasm (don't board them all out or Empty the Warrens will get you)
-1 Wurmcoil Engine (stall now, win later)
-1 Ancient Stirrings (help me! I don't know exactly what to board out at this point--should I board out a Karn instead? Hitting lands or exposed Ascensions/Electromancers is the best strategy for him)
-2 Sylvan Scrying (help me! It's slower than Expedition Map, at least)
{-0 Relic of Progenitus (...and this is why boarding against UR Storm is a *****)}
{-0 Prophetic Prism (see above--I don't want Slaughter Games stranded in hand)}
Vs. Scapeshift:
+4 Slaughter Games (name Scapeshift, then Rude Awakening if you saw it, then Prismatic Omen if you saw any, then fatties if you saw any)
-4 Pyroclasm (Slaughter Games turns Scapeshift into a bad aggro deck, so you should be able to handle the rest of their dudes)
Vs. Hive Mind:
+4 Slaughter Games (name Hive Mind, then Pact of the Titan, then Blood Moon if you saw any, then Simian Spirit Guide)
+1 Nature's Claim (always assume they board in Blood Moon)
+1 Seal of Primordium (see above)
-4 Pyroclasm (again, Slaughter Games turns Hive Mind into a bad aggro deck, and RG Artifact Tron creams bad aggro decks)
-1 Wurmcoil Engine (stall now, win later)
-1 Relic of Progenitus (they don't use the graveyard)
{-0 Oblivion Stone (still hits Pentad Prism, Blood Moon, Leyline of Sanctity, and their Plan B)}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, I've found that the Slaughter Games plan works well enough to turn match-ups into not auto-losses. Hive Mind and Scapeshift basically crumble after one Slaughter Games, but Exarch Twin and UR Storm will fight back. You need to Slaughter Games them twice or Exarch Twin can still find Kiki-Jiki and UR Storm will pump out Empty the Warrens. Twice. Through a Pyroclasm killing the first wave. Even then, I've still lost to Exarch Twin once after Slaughter Games'ing it twice because V. Clique and Pestermite got there. (At least I've Slaughter Games'ed UR Storm twice in two games so far and I've won post-Slaughter Games against Exarch Twin three times (once with only 1 Games, twice with 2 Games)!)
I think because of the diversity between sideboards, I am going to put all the different sideboard options, and what decks they are good to side in against. Compared to putting the deck and what you would side in. What do you guys think?
One missing thing I see is the lack of a match-ups section. While it may be obvious to someone who plays the deck, to someone fresh, they may not know what to expect and such...
Explain me please how does
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion combo works?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
This is not how bans/unbans work. Its always the enabler that gets the ban, not the card that is being abused. If you would have Yawgmoths will + whatever cards - it would be Yawgs that would be banned. If you would have Stoneforge and batterskull - it would be stone who would be banned and that is exactly how it works. Furthermore, banning a card in order to unban a different card is a thought process that was and wont be never applied in practical means.
Explain me please how does
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion combo works?
Ok, so essentially you shoot the opponent for 1 and shoot triskellion for 2 with itself. It dies with no +1/+1 counters and thus undying (due to mikaeus).
You now shoot your opponent for 2 and triskellion for 2. It dies and since no +1/+1 counters, undies again.
I dont have a side built yet, apart from the 4 Pyroclasms that will be in there. The main combo with tooth is to pump out Flame-kin and Emrakul and win on the spot.
I think it would be better to move the triskellion combo to the sideboard and try to have some pyroclasms maindeck. At least 3.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Legacy Decks:
Elves
Loam Depths
Goblin Stompy
Kobold Aggro
GB Nic Fit
Pod Nic Fit
12 Post
Pattern Combo
Squirrel Stompy
Modern Decks:
Amulet of Vigor Combo
Restore Balance
Cascade Swans
Mono U Tron
Through the Breach
Elves
Mono Red Control
Tooth and Nail Tron
Leviathans
One missing thing I see is the lack of a match-ups section. While it may be obvious to someone who plays the deck, to someone fresh, they may not know what to expect and such...
@Lectrys: what does your MD look like?
Here it is. It's pretty boring for a Slaughter Games Rock Tron list:
...Okay, the lands probably require some explanation. In testing, I've gotten a lot of land search late-game after already assembling the Tron with the Eye of Ugin, so turning a land search card into a cantrip (albeit an expensive one) with Horizon Canopy has been decent. It's also helped me dig when drawn naturally, and it's decent early-game as a semi-Karplusan Forest.
My current land to search for when I need to cast Slaughter Games and no Chromatic Eggs or Prophetic Prisms arrive is Tendo Ice Bridge, as it produces any colour of mana without paying any life or being tapped when it ETB, and I generally don't need its coloured mana more than once a game. I've sometimes wished it were Llanowar Wastes, though, when I need to cast Slaughter Games twice (I never anticipate needing the coloured mana more than twice and I anticipate needing its mana quite a bit early-game, so I don't want to play Overgrown Tomb).
Ulamog is testing fine--he eats Path to Exile fairly often and sometimes gets countered, but against a lot of decks, he's a significantly cheaper Emrakul with 2/3s of the Annihilator (feels like 1/2 the Annihilator, though), no evasion, and no extra turn (but with a free, uncounterable Vindicate attached). Then again, most combo decks don't give a hoot about the "no evasion" part--they're just scared about the "Sacrifice all lands you control every turn for the rest of the game" part (but thankful that they get one more turn to combo off).
My 61st card would be a second Forest to dodge Blood Moon harder.
I still tend to keep 1-land hands (I find the no-Tron hands are the bigger traps than the one-Tron hands), and whenever I've been mana-screwed, I've always been worse off than when I've been mana-flooded, so I like 20 lands.
Hey guys I will be finishing the match up and sidebaords tomorrow. Then we will have an up a running primer, let me know if you feel something should be added. Thanks!
Definitely spellskite, they don't get killed by 1 lightning bolt, and can ruin a storm players plan.
EDIT NEED HELP: Guys I need your help to finish the sideboarding and match up section. I haven't played allot of the decks that are run in Modern due to local meta. if you want to help please pick a deck and follow the same format I have already used. Please only include cards from the sideboard que already set up. (We can add more later but for now lets keep it the same)
Definitely spellskite, they don't get killed by 1 lightning bolt, and can ruin a storm players plan.
EDIT NEED HELP: Guys I need your help to finish the sideboarding and match up section. I haven't played allot of the decks that are run in Modern due to local meta. if you want to help please pick a deck and follow the same format I have already used. Please only include cards from the sideboard que already set up. (We can add more later but for now lets keep it the same)
I can give you Storm, I have tested from both sides quite well
In Sideboard section you may want to add Trinisphere, it makes Infect and Storm extremely easy after board and hampers Control as well
The Staff will likely become O-Stone or another Sundering Titan
VS Storm
Even, + Grafdigger's Cage, + Electrickery, + Thorn Of Amethyst/Trinisphere. Game 1 comes down closer to a die roll and depends greatly on their build if they are running Epic Experiment then it is unfavorable, if you can drop an active early Relic Of Progenitus you can cause them to fizzle or earn yourself a few turns to drop a Karn and start eating their hand. After board Thorn Of Amethyst/Trinisphere make the match-up much easier while Grafdigger's Cage will prevent Past In Flames, keep in at least one-two sweepers in case they board in Bushwacker + Empty The Warrens or board into Splinter Twin
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget I stream!
The Staff will likely become O-Stone or another Sundering Titan
VS Storm
Even, + Grafdigger's Cage, + Electrickery, + Thorn Of Amethyst/Trinisphere. Game 1 comes down closer to a die roll and depends greatly on their build if they are running Epic Experiment then it is unfavorable, if you can drop an active early Relic Of Progenitus you can cause them to fizzle or earn yourself a few turns to drop a Karn and start eating their hand. After board Thorn Of Amethyst/Trinisphere make the match-up much easier while Grafdigger's Cage will prevent Past In Flames, keep in at least one-two sweepers in case they board in Bushwacker + Empty The Warrens or board into Splinter Twin
How does one actually use Karn Liberated in a deck. I was excited because he was my first planes-walker, (and apparently a good one) and then an't a clue how to have enough to protect him whilst needing him.
RDW/Burn I need to test more against, but I am pretty sure the board is Leyline Of Santity (if you have it), Trinisphere/Thorn Of Amethyst, Krosan Grip (for Blood Moon), and Rule Of Law (if you have it)
Game 1 I know is a race if you can turn 3 Wurmcoil at around 10 life you can easily outrace their burn, Karn can work if they are stuck on 1-2 lands, Goblin Guide can help accelerate your plan by finding Tron Pieces. Post board your hate should slow them down enough to land Wurmcoil and bring your life total high enough so it doesn't matter
Overall it is very favorable after board, they don't have Sowing Salt as it is to mana intensive for the deck and K. Grip can easily handle Blood Moon
Martyr Proc and B/W Tokens I'll proxy up and test with and against to see what to do
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern:
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget I stream!
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane Studios for the great banner!
This thread is intended to be a short guide for new players to this deck, but also an open forum to discuss some of the more intricate parts of the deck.
What is Gx Tron?
Tron is a (mainly) green deck that's goal is to assemble the Urzatron (Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine, and Urza's Power Plant) as quickly as possible. Once they have been assembled, the goal is to generate insurmountable advantage. The main route to this is Karn Liberated, who is the cornerstone to the deck (yes, just as much as the Tron lands themselves). Once Karn takes the field, it becomes difficult or impossible for opponents to retake the game. A T3 Karn is this deck's goal, and often seals the game on the spot. Other than Karn, this deck has perhaps the best inevitability in the format. When you're done assembling the Urzatron with your land search, it's time to play big threats. While older versions of this deck played the now-banned Eye of Ugin, current versions rely on tutoring up a second threat by playing a first with an active Sanctum of Ugin.
If a T3 Karn isn't in the works, this deck is more than happy stalling out the game with a flurry of Oblivion Stones and Ugin, the Spirit Dragons from turn 4 on. This version of Tron is the most consistent in assembling a fast Tron, and seeks to leverage that in its gameplay.
For redundancy, we run 8 Chromatic Stars and Chromatic Spheres. With additional land slots, this opens the road for splashing another color, mainly for sideboard options. Originally this deck ran red due to the sheer power of Grove of the Burnwillows. Grove, as a land that gives our opponent life, could almost be treated as a Taiga. Our opponent's life total is almost never relevant, as we have the best inevitability and late-game in all of modern. The longer the game goes, the more it is in our favor. For a short period of time it ran white as the format shifted from 2-toughness creatures that could be effectively checked by Pyroclasm to threats that were weaker to Path to Exile. Then it ended up splashing black after the printing of Fatal Push and Collective Brutality.
However, after the recent addition of Field of Ruin to the format, there is a higher emphasis than ever on running a high number of basic lands. Most current versions of the deck are mono-green. This allows the deck to shave a land (most current builds run 19), while managing to run a full 4-5 basics plus utility lands. This allows for the deck to consistently tutor up basics even after multiple Field of Ruins and Paths to Exile.
Why Should I Play This Deck?
Gx Tron is fast, consistent, and has the best lategame in all of Modern (yes, that's right - ALL of Modern). It has generally positive matchups against all decks other than fast combo and extremely fast aggro (Burn, Infect - Zoo isn't really a problem). It has the unique distinction of being one of the few decks in Modern with a definitively positive MU against control and midrange, both pre-board and post-board. Additionally, it's a relatively simple deck to pick up, while still holding a lot of intricacies in terms of its card choices, and large decision trees rising from certain corner-case scenarios.
Finally, playing with Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is a blast.
Sample Lists
For those who immediately want to see the current "base" green Tron build, look no further:
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
5 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
3 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Walking Ballista
1 World Breaker
Spells (33)
4 Karn Liberated
4 Expedition Map
4 Sylvan Scrying
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Oblivion Stone
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Ancient Stirrings
3 Relic of Progenitus
The Core
With our purpose laid out, let us examine the "core" of green Tron (you will have a very difficult time playing this deck without ANY of these cards). The core of Gx Tron is as follows:
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
Rather self-explanatory. This deck's goal is to assemble a turn 3 Tron, and these form Tron.
4 Expedition Map
4 Sylvan Scrying
For most intents and purposes the same card, these 8 tutors are what allows Tron to assemble its game-winning combination with such consistency. Expedition Map is often preferred, both for its non-reliance on colored mana sources, and the fact that it can be tutored with Ancient Stirrings (which will be mentioned later). Some people cut 1 Sylvan Scrying, but it's not something I can personally recommend. Not only does it slightly cut down on your consistency, but it also opens you up to people removing your Tron pieces without recourse.
4 Karn Liberated
This deck is often called "KarnTron". After assembling your early tron, your #1 goal is to land one of these. The advantage gained by exiling your opponents' hands and fields is enormous. Not only that, but his ultimate will win you the game from the most dire circumstances, so just +4'ing him is its own form of pressure. To see how to play with Karn, go to the "Strategy" section.
1 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
This is what I like to call the "inevitability package". Tron's not the fastest combo deck out there. There are certainly faster combo decks in Modern. However, none of those decks can offer the pure inevitability offered by landing a Sanctum of Ugin followed by an Ulamog. Neither the Sanctum trigger nor the Ulamog trigger are counterable by counterspells, so the ability to exile to two problem permanents (or even just lands) is extremely powerful and not to be underestimated.
4 Ancient Stirrings
With the exception of Scrying and other copies of Stirrings, every card in this deck is colorless. All your threats are colorless, and more importantly, so are your lands. This makes Ancient Stirrings both a Tron piece tutor in the early game, as well as a tutor for your threats and win conditions later in the game. Perhaps the best comparison to make to this card is Impulse, one of the most infamous and powerful card selection spells in the game. In this deck, Ancient Stirrings is a sorcery-speed Impulse that looks at an extra card for half the cost. Yes, it's that good.
4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
These are often called the "eggs". If you've read up to here, you'll notice we're only playing 4 colored sources, and a whole host of colored spells. These "eggs" turn the colorless mana from your Tron pieces to whatever colors you need. As each "cantrips", or replaces itself with a card, they both fix your mana and replace themselves in exchange for either one unimportant colorless mana in the early game, or one (mostly) meaningless mana once you assemble Tron. A staple for the deck.
3-4 Oblivion Stone
Oblivion Stone, as much as Karn, is a real staple of this deck. Why Oblivion Stone and not Ugin, you may ask? A simple answer: speed and flexibility. While Ugin may seem more flexible at first (multiple activations, an eventual wincon), O-Stone really shines from how it can be activated at instant speed. Modern is both a fast and powerful enough format that sorcery-speed Wraths simply don't cut it. However, instant-speed Wraths are the real deal.
The Cards You Will Generally Play
Apart from the "core" mentioned above, there are a number of cards that generally deserve a space in your list. However, if you really need room for other cards, these are the cards that should be cut before the ones above.
As was mentioned above (and will be discussed more in-depth later), the decks Tron loses to are generally those that are faster than it. Of these, a good portion are aggressive decks, that seek to deal damage to you quickly with creatures and burn spells. Wurmcoil is a brick wall against these decks. Not only does he stop your opponents' attacks, but often deals more damage by attacking than your opponent will be able to deal back by attacking you. As this deck has to also worry about combo decks, the correct number of MD Wurmcoils is usually 3. Just remember that these cards become not that good in every matchup where your life total no longer matters (such as combo). Weak to Path to Exile, but other than that, a real all-star.
2-4 Relic of Progenitus
Providing general utility, Relic of Progenitus is a card that just makes Gx Tron "tick." Its exile effect can be key to shrinking Goyfs, nullifying Past in Flames, stopping Vengevines and Bridges, stopping Scrap Trawler triggers, and stripping Snapcaster Mages of value. In matchups where it isn't relevant, it will still "cycle" (or replace itself). While you probably want a couple in your MD, 1-2 copies will generally be some of the first cards to be dropped for interesting "tech" additions.
1 Ghost Quarter
As you look over many Tron lists, you will often see a lonely Ghost Quarter wandering in their midsts. You may be wondering what could possibly cause people to want to run a THIRTEENTH colorless land (after the 12 Tron pieces). There is one answer: Ghost Quarter is THAT good. Ghost Quarter does a few things. The first, and most important, is that it kills manlands. "Manlands," or lands that turn into creatures, can be very troublesome for Tron. They can't be dealt with by Oblivion Stone, and provide those decks with inevitability in the form of constant, hard-to-interact-with damage. Ghost Quarter comes in and puts an end to these problems. Only 1 is needed, as in can be searched with via any of the 8 land tutors. Additionally, it disrupts your opponent's Tron in the mirror, it mana-fixes yourself in a pinch, and it can even stop Sowing Salts. A real role-player, and hard to go without.
4-5 Forest
Good old basic lands. The things that stop your opponents' Path to Exiles from becoming better Swords to Plowshares, your opponents' Ghost Quarters from becoming Strip Mines, your opponents' Field of Ruins from being both Wasteland and Terramorphic Expanse in one package. You'll want 4-5 of these in your deck, for all the above reasons in addition and being able to break out your board hate vs Blood Moon (through Expedition Map).
2-3 Walking Ballista
One of the problems with mono-green Tron is that you don't have access to the same removal suite other colors give you. A problem with Tron in a post-Eye Modern is that you still need to topdeck threats after you assemble Tron (even if you fetch a Sanctum). Ballista solves both these problems; early to mid game it can be played X=1 or X=2 to slow your opponent down. Late-game you can play it for X=4 or X=5, gun down your opponent's board, and even use it to fetch Ulamog via Sanctum. It can also get more counters quite easily to continue locking down your opponents' board.
1-3 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Ugin is an extremely powerful card that will steal games from board-centric decks. The most important of his abilities is his -X, which continually exiles the board for no additional mana investment. His +2 can be valuable for picking off individual threats, and his -10 is a way of putting pressure onto control and combo decks to deal with him or die. However, the fact that he cannot be played off Tron alone, his cost can't be split across multiple turns, and his inability to meaningfully impact the board quickly vs powerful artifact-based decks (KCI, Affinity, other Tron, Hollowed One) generally relegates him to a supplementary role to O-Stone. It's also worth pointing out that he's somewhat awkward vs. the cards Gurmag Angler and Bedlam Reveler. Each have more than 3 toughness and high CMCs; Ugin has to use all his loyalty to get rid of Angler (and die in the process), and Ugin cannot deal with Reveler the turn he comes into play. Still, in spite of all these issues, his ability to almost immediately win the game vs. Company, Elves, and other creature-based decks makes him an extraordinarily powerful threat (although a slightly inconsistent one). Finally, he's also a threat that will trigger Sanctum and search for Ulamog later in the game.
1 World Breaker
A threat that's resistant to non-Path removal, World Breaker provides inevitability by recurring itself, the ability to block your opponent's flyers via Reach, and just another large threat to draw into to crack your Sanctum and exile your opponent's lands.
The "Tech"
These are the cards you will see show up every once in a while. Some may be very good, even. But because they for whatever reason aren't as prolific as the above cards, they fall into neither of the above categories.
In a post-Eye world, Sanctum can be very awkward. While it can be very powerful, it does nothing while you're flooding out; it requires you to have a second threat before you can activate it, which can often come too late. By comparison, all Urza's Factory requires is for you to have access to 7 mana. However, its biggest problem is that 2/2 tokens are generally nothing more than speedbumps and rarely allow you to close the game completely.
1 Scavenger Grounds
GY decks are very popular in Modern. While Relic is a powerful card, Relic can't be hit off our Maps and Scryings. Having a piece of GY hate that we have an effective 8 tutors for and that occupies a land slot is very powerful, even if the 2 mana activation cost can be expensive.
1-2 Horizon Canopy
Even in non-white Tron decks, Horizon Canopy is good value. It's currently the only land in the format that can reasonably be converted into a real card while coming into play untapped and providing green mana. The life loss can be relevant, though the ability to both cycle and provide colored mana makes it powerful. Additionally, it has synergy with Crucible of Worlds out of the SB.
1-2 Dismember
Dismember is a powerful removal spell that can be played without access to colored mana. However, the 4 life required to cast it can make it extremely painful in several matchups.
1-4 All Is Dust
Run instead of or in additon to Oblivion Stone, All Is Dust offers a similar effect. Its advantages are that the permanents are sacrificed (getting around indestructibility and totem armor), and that it leaves your colorless nonland permanents intact. Additionally, it can be cast strictly off Tron (costs 1 less total - 7 vs a total of 8), and it can be cast for 1 less mana without Tron. However, its downside is that it cannot be used at instant speed, it cannot be paid in installments, and it is considerably worse in a couple matchups (such as the Affinity and KCI MUs). Because of its poor showing in the Affinity MU, it is generally run in addition to a full complement of O-Stones if at all.
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
Potentially more powerful than Ulamog vs Combo and Control, Emrakul suffers from consistency issues in that it's both more expensive than Ulamog to cast and that its weaker Mindslaver effect is very dependent on your opponents' hand (unlike Ulamog, which is always good if not exceptional).
1 Field of Ruin
An option for nonbasic land removal that maintains parity, unlike Ghost Quarter. However, the additional 2 required to activate it means that it can be difficult tempo-wise to destroy Affinity's manlands or keep your opponents off Tron in the mirror.
1 Platinum Angel
Good in some MUs like Infect, but generally a worse Wurmcoil Engine.
1-4 Thought-Knot Seer
Thought-Knot Seer serves double-duty as both a body to slow down aggressive decks as well as disruption vs combo and control decks. However, not coming down until turn we assemble Tron means that it competes with more powerful spells that cost 6 or 7 mana.
1-4 Thragtusk
Faster lifegain vs. Burn and Zoo, but really suffers from not being colorless (for Ancient Stirrings), as well as not being able to be cast strictly off Tron/colorless sources. Like above, will many times be a worse Wurmcoil Engine. However, the immediate ability to gain life can be just what you need vs. certain faster decks.
1-2 Fog
A card often lampooned by seasoned players, Fog does occasionally show up in Tron. It effectively serves as a lifegain spell vs. fast decks.
Sideboard Composition
These are some cards that generally see play in Gx Tron's sideboard.
3-4 Nature's Claim
As was stated earlier, your opponent's life total is irrelevant when playing Tron. Therefore, Nature's Claim is a near-strictly better Naturalize (in the sense that it kills things for half the cost AND you can blow up your own stuff in order to gain life). A staple at blowing up irritating "hate" cards such as Stony Silence and Blood Moon. It is also good vs. Affinity, and alright against Infect (it blows up Inkmoth Nexus).
3-4 Thragtusk
While Wurmcoil is powerful, Wurmcoil suffers from being unable to have any immediate impact and completely dying to exile-based removal. Thragtusk solves both of these issues. First of all, it immediately gains 5 life, which is an important distinctions against aggressive decks running lots of burn. Secondly, Thragtusk leaves behind a body when it leaves the battlefield for any reason, meaning you still get the 3/3 beast even if your opponent hits it with a Path to Exile.
3-4 Thought-Knot Seer
Thought-Knot Seer is a swiss army knife of a card. It hits combo pieces, hate pieces, removal that would target it, and leaves your opponent down on cards until they find an answer for it. Its 4/4 body is difficult to answer profitably, and acts as a roadblock to aggressive decks.
2-3 Surgical Extraction
As Modern is dominated more and more by fast GY strategies, the most powerful GY hate is the hate you can play quickly and cheaply. Surgical excels in both of these fronts; it can be played before your first turn of the game, and requires no mana to do so. When combined with your Ghost Quarters, it can also act as a powerful hate piece vs land-based strategies. Additionally, the ability to exile all additional copies of a specific card can shut down combo decks that rely on their GY. Finally, there's a neat trick you can pull off where you can Surgical your own Tron piece in response to your opponents' Surgical to protect the Tron pieces in your hand/deck (you can "fail to find" off your own Surgical).
2-3 Warping Wail
Warping Wail is a flexible card that has a variety of uses. Against aggressive decks or decks with mana dorks, it can be used as straight removal. Against decks that SB in Crumble against us, it can be used to counter their Crumble (or potentially other powerful sorceries). Finally, it can be used as a source of ramp in a pinch when our Tron is disrupted with the Scion token it can potentially generate.
2-3 Spatial Contortion
Spatial Contortion is a powerful removal spell that can get rid of any creature with 3 or less toughness with no colored mana requirement. As a removal spell, it is more powerful than Warping Wail and doesn't have the life loss associated with Dismember.
SOMEWHAT COMMON
1-2 Grafdigger's Cage
A powerful hate piece against both Collected Company and GY-based strategies, Cage excels at shutting down multiple styles of opposing decks. However, it's very fragile to artifact removal opponents will generally SB in anyway, and the floodgates are opened from the second it's removed. Additionally, it can make activating our own O-Stones awkward.
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
A powerful threat that can threaten your control and combo opponents with its uncounterable Mindslaver effect. However, it loses a lot of power post-SB, where your opponents will likely be playing disruption. Additionally, relies on you having multiple card types in your GY to be reasonably playable before T6 even with your Tron undisrupted, which can be very awkward.
1 Crucible of Worlds/Life from the Loam
Powerful hate against LD strategies, and allows you to recur your own Ghost Quarters to battle against your opponents' land-based strategies. Crucible costs less mana for multiple activations, but LftL is a lot more resilient to the artifact hate your opponents will likely be SBing in anyway.
1 Wurmcoil Engine
By running an extra copy of Wurmcoil in the SB, you can bring in the rest vs aggressive decks, such as Zoo, Burn, etc.
1-2 Relic of Progenitus
Likewise, Relics that do not make it to the MD often get pushed to the SB.
RARELY PLAYED
1-2 Spellskite
Formerly a mainstay of Gx Tron decks in the days of Splinter Twin, the card is nowadays extremely narrow vs. almost specifically Infect and Bogles (where it's absurdly powerful, stealing all of their pump spells). Some other tricks it can pull include redirecting Paths from Wurmcoils, causing Bolts to deal 1 less damage, and redirecting Modular triggers from Arcbound Ravager (though a savvy Affinity player can just not put counters on Skite on resolution). In general it's very niche and not worth a valuable SB slot.
1-2 Fog
Another powerful hate piece against Infect, the card can buy a valuable turn vs. certain aggressive decks (but is generally not recommended).
1-2 Pithing Needle
Needle can have a variety of roles, from stopping LD hate such as Fulminator Mage and Field of Ruin, as well as powerful planeswalkers such as Teferi and Jace. However, many of the fast combo decks in the format rely very little on non-mana activated abilities, making its powerful silver-bullet capabilities somewhat niche vs powerful combo decks like Storm, Hollowed One, and Counters Company.
1-2 Sorcerous Spyglass
A more expensive Needle that allows you to look at your opponent's hand and dodge Chalice X=1.
1-2 Seal of Primordium
An artifact/enchantment hate spell that allows you to pay in advance and dodge Chalice X=1. However, the general downfall of Chalice decks in Modern mean that its primary function (in dodging Chalice) is no longer necessary.
Strategy
Tips and tricks for playing the deck.
Playing with Karn is fairly simple once you get used to it, but takes some getting used-to. Basically, against any deck that has the potential to deal 3 to it, you want to +4 immediately. Keeping Karn alive is KEY to winning the game. Against any deck that can't damage Karn, you generally want to do what makes the most impact on the game (-3 if that's getting rid of a permanent, +4 if it's forcing them to pitch a card, or to scramble to his ult). Finally, if you're really up against the wall against damage-dealing decks, it may be the correct play to -3 Karn immediately. But realize that this is a desperation tactic, and it will generally end up with Karn trading with that permanent (and 3 points of damage).
How to play with your Eggs (Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere)
While it may be tempting to crack these ASAP (after you cast them), realize that they're essentially "free" to crack (they cost 1 mana to make one mana). Therefore, there are many points in the game where you'll want to "save" them for when you need to cast color spells. However, if you need to dig, or the game gets late enough, it can also be the correct play to crack them ASAP. Post-board vs. white decks, you'll also want to cycle them more aggressively due to the constant threat of Stony Silence
How to "beat" Crumble to Dust
There are a few ways to handle Crumble to Dust. None of them are perfect - to get this straight, Crumble to Dust is the PERFECT board card against us. It's like Cranial Extraction that can hit nonbasic lands combined with a Caustic Rain. To beat it, there are three routes you can take. One is preventative, which involves you tutoring up a Ghost Quarter and keeping it up to blow up a targeted Tron piece. The second is reactive, and involves running Warping Wail in your SB. However, this can be awkward, as Wail can be a very marginal SB card against the decks that could run Crumble, as it's often the only relevant mode, and relies on you gambling that your opponent will have the Crumble to convert it. The final, and my favorite, is to simply race the Crumble. You can't truly know if your opponent has it. However, if you land an early Wurmcoil or Karn, you can often just take over the game before it lands, and start to drop O-Stones, Karns, and more Wurmcoils afterward.
Nature's Claim vs. Burn
Nature's Claim is a great board card vs. Burn. Not only to blow up their Eidolon of the Great Revels, but also to blow up your own artifacts. Being able to exchange two cards for 4 life doesn't sound pretty, but sometimes it's what you have to do to stay alive. If you Claim a Chromatic Star (but not Sphere), you still draw the card (1 card for 4 life), and if you Claim a Wurmcoil in response to Destructive Revelry, you manage to gain yourself a virtual 6 life (Claiming Wurmcoil in response to Path gives you the tokens + 4 life). If you need to board in cards vs. Burn, but you don't want to devote more space in your SB, consider this strategy.
Extraction/Relic vs Extraction
Casting Surgical Extraction in response to an opponent's Extraction can counter their extraction. The same trick can be performed with either the first or second ability of Relic of Progenitus.
Match-Up Analysis and Sideboarding Guide
In-depth SB guide generously provided by sicsmoo (source here).
March 30, 2019
Decklist
2 Walking Ballista
1 World Breaker
3 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Oblivion Stone
5 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
SB
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
3 Nature's Claim
2 Dismember
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Thragtusk
Disclaimer: This guide is not meant to be definitive or a holy grail. These are just some of my thoughts as a grinder who loves the deck and has played it a lot. There are certainly other viable strategies and things will always change as the metagame does.
Also, if you have any questions or comments I’m happy to answer them as time permits. I’m on Discord as sic#3384 and sicsmoo on the MTGSalvation forums.
Decklist/metagame discussion
It’s been about 5 months since I last updated the guide so I thought now would be a good time. As things stand now, UR Phoenix is the deck to beat, having seen over 20% day 2 metagame shares at multiple GPs recently, though on Magic Online the number is much lower - not more than 10-12% by my metrics. This is fine for Tron pilots in any case, as our Izzet matchup is favorable.
The other new deck making a splash is Whir Prison, the current iteration of the artifact-based lock-out strategies. It’s widely considered to be tier 1 in power level, but hasn’t generally seen more than a few percent in metagame shares because it is easily hated out. Historically these matchups are very favorable for Tron but this one is different - read the entry to see why.
Additionally, there is the Sultai Wilderness Reclamation deck. An interesting big mana combo/control deck that has seen a fair bit of play in the MTGO queues but hasn’t made a big splash in paper as of yet.
Dredge is still well represented, as are usual suspects Tron, Humans, UW Control, Grixis Shadow, Burn, and BG Rock.
Readers of my previous guide will notice that the decklist here is almost the exact same as the previous one, the only difference being Dismembers over Contortions in the side. Has that little changed over the past 5 months? I would say from the Tron perspective essentially yes. The archetype hasn’t gained any relevant new tools since Walking Ballista almost 2 years ago, but this doesn’t really matter because it still has everything it needs against the field. You can tweak the numbers of certain cards here and there to hedge certain matchups/metagame trends, and in fact I do this all the time, but for the most part the deck is optimized, and this list in particular is very well balanced. As for why Dismember over Contortion - Dismember kills everything Contortion does, plus Thing In the Ice, Gurmag Angler, Tireless Tracker, smaller Goyfs and Death’s Shadows, Hollow One etc, for less mana. I think that’s a much larger upside than the loss of 4 life is a downside against the current field.
Notable omissions:
Emrakul, the Promised End: A great card in unfair matchups such as Ad Nauseam, Storm, and Titan Shift, and also against UW as you can often cast it through disruption/without Tron and they have a very hard time dealing with it. Also probably worth bringing in against Whir Prison.
Warping Wail: At its best when there are a lot of relevant sorceries you want to counter, ie Scapeshift or Living End. Also solid against Dredge and Hollow One, being able to counter all their enabler spells, and very good against Storm as it can kill Baral or counter Past in Flames. The other 2 modes are really mediocre though so it is a bit of a narrow card. Solid against Phoenix as well to kill Thing In the Ice or counter Looting.
Crucible of Worlds: Great for fighting attrition battles, at its best against UW and GBx. Really powerful in the matchups it’s good in but again a bit narrow.
Matchup outlooks/spreadsheet
Matchup outlooks: I received some feedback about these from the last guide. A few people were curious about some of them, questioning how I have Tron vs Storm as even matchup, for example. The main basis for the outlooks is my winrate in each matchup, using generally large sample sizes (I have 94 matches played against Storm, as of this writing). For matchups with smaller samples, I’m thinking more about what actually happened in the matches, adjusting for variance and changes in decklists over time and extrapolating from there. Obviously there is a missing element here that I can’t factor in, which is deck pilot skill level/experience. In a Tron/Storm matchup where each pilot has an equal skill level, Storm is clearly favored, as is the conventional wisdom. But if the Tron player is experienced (and has a good sideboard, such as the one listed here), and the Storm player is average, the matchup becomes even. This is the perspective the outlooks are derived from - the outcome you can expect as an experienced pilot of the deck vs the field, or at least as an experienced pilot in Modern with a solid grasp of Tron.
Legend:
Extremely favorable: 75%+ Win
Very favorable: ~65% Win
Favorable: ~60% Win
Slightly favorable: ~55% Win
Even: ~50% Win
Slightly unfavorable: ~45% Win
Unfavorable: ~40% Win
Very unfavorable: ~35% Win
Extremely unfavorable: 25% or less
Spreadsheet:
This is my games record that the outlooks are based on, now around 2600 matches:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ysFDPLK2vAYUwj0zgcAAekmtwAlxrJypwg8PU-VqD3E/edit?usp=sharing
And, without further ado, the matchups, in rough order of MTGGoldfish metagame presence:
UR Phoenix
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-2 Ballista, -1 Ugin, -2 Ostone, -1 Ulamog, -1 Sphere, -1 Ghost Quarter
+1 Cage, +2 Surgical, +3 Nature's Claim, +2 Dismember
This is already a pretty good matchup but we have some solid tweaks to make post-board. The Cage and Surgicals fight back against Phoenixes, and the Nature's Claims are for their Blood/Alpine Moons, and also Pyromancer’s Ascension. Once we have the Phoenixes under control (and even if not), Karn matches up very well against Thing In the Ice and Crackling Drake. Beware they do have countermagic, but as of this writing it's generally just Spell Pierce, usually 2 copies, so keep that in mind and play around it when it seems appropriate/possible. Occasionally they have Ceremonious or Negate as well which are not as easy to play around. This is all post-board though, game 1 they generally have no counters, other than a rare 1-of Izzet Charm. The way we lose is tons of fast pressure so having access to cards like Dismember and Warping Wail to kill TiTi will improve your odds. Keep in mind they do have a “combo” to take us off Tron - Thought Scour/Surgical. It’s pretty unlikely to happen but it’s definitely something to be aware of and play around if possible - keep your graveyard empty, tap to target yourself with Relic while holding mana up to exile.
Dredge
Matchup outlook: Very favorable
-4 Karn Liberated, -1 World Breaker, -1 Oblivion Stone, -1 Walking Ballista
+1 Cage, +2 Surgical, +4 Thragtusk
This is a very polarizing matchup - the games when you have graveyard hate are vastly different from the ones you don’t, and it is quite simply necessary to have it to have a reasonable expectation of winning. This is why we’re playing 3 Relics maindeck, as the deck is super popular right now. Basically the only hand without graveyard hate post-board I would keep is turn 3 Wurmcoil on the play. The good news is that with 6 hate cards in the 75, you have a very high chance of hitting one in your opening 7 or 6, but I have also won plenty of games in this matchup by going to 5 and even 4. Mulliganing aggressively to find the hate is key, to slow them down and bridge you to your turn 4 plays that they can’t compete with. Thragtusk is excellent because if you’re mulling to 5 looking for hate, you don’t always have the luxury of setting up Tron early and it’s a big play for only 5 mana. Do keep in mind the counter-hate cards such as Ancient Grudge and Nature’s Claim. Grudge is the most common, so not playing Relic on turn 1 on the draw is wise. Remember to time Surgical correctly - ie stopping on their draw step after they dredge to hit Bloodghast or Amalgam before they can play a land.
Gx Tron
Matchup outlook: Even
-4 Oblivion Stone, -3 Relic, -2 Ugin, -2 Walking Ballista
+3 Thought-Knot Seer, +3 Thragtusk, +2 Surgical Extraction, +3 Nature's Claim
I think this is the most challenging matchup to sideboard for in the format. The first reason is that most of the cards in the 75 are either strictly medium in the mirror and you can make a case for any of them, and the other reason is that how good particular cards are depend on what your opponent is doing, which is not clear. I run into more weird configurations in the Tron mirror than any other matchup by far. Case in point: Surgical Extraction. Seems like a clearly great inclusion. Ghost Quarter their land, Surgical it, and now it's much harder for them to cast their bombs. They can probably never cast Ulamog in the game. They likely do have Thought-Knot Seer that they can cast though - it's one of the better cards in the matchup. This is an OK compromise. But what about Thragtusk? This is one of the medium/it depends cards. If they decided to bring in the 3 copies of Thragtusk in addition to TKS, then the Surgical plan is actively bad because now you're down 2 resources and they have spells to cast all the way up the curve. Now think about the card Oblivion Stone...
Nature's Claim is a weird one too. Sometimes you can pick off their early Map and it feels amazing, but other times it's a dead card. I like it on the play but not really on the draw, but it can be good in general if you know they kept in multiple O-Stones or if they have Crucible.
It's a super weird matchup because it's either over in 2 minutes (the first Karn on an empty board), or it turns into a confusing grind-fest. You really just have to see what your opponent decided to do and react to it, but I think the listed configuration is a good starting point.
Humans
Matchup outlook: Very favorable
-4 Karn Liberated, -3 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Dismember, +2 Thragtusk, +3 Nature’s Claim
At first glance it seems like this matchup is quite close and I thought the same thing initially, because they do have a reasonable amount of disruption and a reasonable amount of aggression, but in practice, most of the time they both come up a bit short. Oblivion Stone or Ugin generally win the game on the spot so they have to use their Freebooter or Meddling Mage to neutralize one of those, but then they’re left with Ballista, Karn, Wurmcoil and Ulamog as serious problems. Most of the time they can’t kill until turn 5, so you usually have plenty of time to set up. Of course sometimes they have busted fast draws you can’t do anything about, almost always involving Aether Vial, but those aren’t very common. The cards you have to worry about the most are Thalia, Heretic Cathar which sometimes gets played in their flex slots, and Damping Sphere out of the sideboard. It’s fairly common for them to have 2 Spheres these days so I like to hedge with the Nature’s Claims. It’s not the worst if they don’t have it either because it can kill Vial or even your own Wurmcoil if they try to Reflector Mage/Deputy of Detention it.
UW Control
Matchup outlook: Slightly favorable
-4 Oblivion Stone, -2 Wurmcoil Engine, -1 Chromatic Sphere, -3 Relic
+4 Thragtusk, +3 Thought-Knot Seer, +3 Nature's Claim
The goal in this matchup is just to overload them with threats. Always try to play your less impactful ones first ie Wurmcoil, Thragtusk, TKS, or those with cast triggers - World Breaker and Ulamog, and sandbag your planeswalkers as long as possible to try to run them out of answers or force them to tap out first. Hold extra copies of Map or Scrying to play around future Field of Ruins. Nature’s Claim is necessary to kill Stony Silence, getting Damping or Detention Sphere in a pinch is good, as well as sniping Search for Azcanta if they don’t have anything else. Don’t be afraid to play Walking Ballista on 1 - they don’t have Lightning Bolt so it often forces them to use a Path on it to clear way for their planeswalker.
Grixis Shadow
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-2 Ballista, -1 Ugin, -1 World Breaker, -1 Sphere, -1 Ghost Quarter
+4 Thragtusk, +2 Dismember
This matchup is actually fairly similar to the Humans one in that they aren’t very good at keeping us off Tron, generally are a turn too slow and almost all our payoff cards are a big problem for them. Though similar to Humans they do have nut draws we just can’t beat. They can’t really beat a Wurmcoil Engine without Temur Battle Rage, and they have no counters for it game 1. Thragtusk is fantastic post-board because it doesn't get countered by Ceremonious or Stubborn Denial, though it still gets snagged by one of their 2 Disdainful Strokes. It trades with Angler and buys you tons of time in general. We just want to stay alive until the mid-late game and they don't play any land destruction so Ulamog's trigger is always live and almost always ends the game because they have so few threats.
Burn
Matchup outlook: Slightly unfavorable
-4 Oblivion Stone, -3 Relic of Progenitus, -2 Ugin, -1 World Breaker
+3 Thought-Knot Seer, +4 Thragtusk, +3 Nature's Claim
To win game 1 we need fast tron into Wurmcoil or at least Karn with a follow up. Fast Ulamog has gotten me there against Burn a lot. It gets easier post-board with 10 cards to bring in. Nature’s Claim is really good to play around Skullcrack, making sure we gain life if they use it in response to Wurmcoil lifeline or Thragtusk trigger. Blowing up Chromatic Star in particular is ideal because we get a card out of it, but a Sphere or an extra Map is fine too. Claiming Wurmcoil itself is just fine as well and is the correct play fairly often. Being able to look at their hand with TKS is really valuable because they play an assortment of weird cards post-board (Path, Revelry/Smash to Smithereens, Deflecting Palm, Skullcrack, etc) and knowing which ones to play around can make all the difference.
Whir Prison
Matchup outlook: Unfavorable
-3 Wurmcoil, -2 Ballista, -2 Sphere
+3 Nature’s Claim, +2 Surgical, +2 Thought-Knot Seer
A prison deck that can actually beat Tron, quite a change of pace. It resembles Lantern but is actually much harder because they have a number of things that are really problematic for us in the maindeck - namely 3/4 Chalice of the Void, 2 Sorcerous Spyglass (and 2 more in the board), Damping Sphere and Crucible/Tec Edge combo. Claim is great for obvious reasons and Surgical can be quite useful - Whir is a strong target, and it can also strip their Tec Edge but gotta hope they don’t have Chalice. Thought-Knot Seer can do good work if their hand is a bit clunked up with powerful spells, and it plays well through Spyglass and Damping Sphere. Try to not pop Relic unless you really need to because they can’t do their loops through it.
Hardened Scales Affinity
Matchup outlook: Even
-2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, -3 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Dismember, +3 Nature's Claim
The sideboard plan is the same as against traditional Affinity, but this version is a bit tougher. Oblivion Stone isn't as much of a blowout because Ravager gets superpowered by Hardened Scales and they can make a lethal creature-land much more easily. They also have maindeck Welding Jars and Hangarback Walkers which are both quite effective against O-Stone. Ballista also isn’t as good for similar reasons. If you have the option, kill Hardened Scales on sight as the deck can’t really go nuts without it. Damping Sphere is also an important target post-board.
BG Rock
Matchup outlook: Slightly unfavorable
-2 Ulamog, -1 Sphere, -1 Relic, -1 World Breaker, -1 Ugin
+4 Thragtusk, +2 Dismember
Interesting times we’re living in where the midrange deck has an edge on Tron. This is the case because they have 7-8 cards capable of destroying our lands maindeck (4 Field of Ruin, 3-4 Assassin’s Trophy), along with 2-3 more (Fulminator Mages) post-board. But of course, our deck is full of land tutors as well. We can still assemble Tron, particularly in game 1, but it is more challenging. Post-side you should operate under the assumption that you’ll basically never have Tron, and try to win with Ostone activations, and casting Thragtusks, Wurmcoils and Karns naturally on turns 5,6,7, etc, hopefully pinging their Bob off with Ballista and shrinking Goyf with Relic in the meantime. With the listed configuration I think we are a slight underdog, so if you want more confidence, play Crucible of Worlds or Tarmogoyfs in the side.
Amulet
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-2 Ballista, -1 Ugin, -3 Relic, -1 Sphere
+3 Thought-Knot, +2 Surgical, +3 Nature's Claim
Game 1 it’s a race to do our respective broken things, but tends to slow down and become more interactive post-board. A resolved titan is very still beatable, because we can destroy it with O-Stone and then ideally Surgical it which is basically game over for them. Surgical on Summoner’s Pact is also quite effective, as it stops their tutor chain, leaving them with naturally drawing one of the remaining titans to have a shot. Most of our payoff plays are quite problematic for them - Wurmcoil stonewalls titan, Karn and Ulamog eat it. Amulet is the real issue because it gives the titan haste so we want to destroy that with Nature's Claim.
Spirits
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-3 Relic, -2 Karn
+3 Nature's Claim, +2 Dismember
They generally have both Damping Sphere and Stony Silence so Nature's Claim is important here. Karn is good on a clear board but is bad against hexproof/CoCo so I don't want more than 2. Stony and Selfless Spirit throw a wrench into O-Stone but if we can dodge/get around those it's your best card along with Ugin. They play a wide variety of counterspells - Negate, Unified Will, Disdanful Stroke, Ceremonious Rejection, but only a couple copies of whichever one so just jam your stuff. Don’t play low cmc stuff into Spell Queller mana if you can avoid it.
Affinity
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, -3 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Dismember, +3 Nature's Claim
Oblivion Stone destroys them and Walking Ballista is a huge threat as well. 5 spot removal spells are nice upgrades post-board. They have an assortment of tools against us such as Blood Moon, Damping Sphere, Thoughtseize, Ancient Grudge, Stubborn Denial and Spell Pierce, but these also slow them down so it’s kind of a wash. Keep the counterspells in mind.
Ad Nauseam
Matchup outlook: Slightly unfavorable
-3 Wurmcoil, -1 Ugin, -2 Ballista
+3 Thought-Knot Seer, +3 Nature's Claim
Similar to Titan Shift, it's tough to interact with them and we want to be aggressively attacking their mana. As opposed to Titan Shift though, they have permanents such as Pentad Prism and Phyrexian Unlife so Oblivion Stone actually does something. Again, the Thought-Knots help a lot post-board and Nature's Claim is a nice tool. You can destroy their Lotus Bloom in their upkeep after it comes off suspend, which will buy you time unless they have the combo in hand already.
Mono Red Phoenix
Matchup outlook: Slightly unfavorable
-2 Ballista, -2 Ostone, -2 Karn, -1 Ugin, -1 Ulamog
+3 Claim, +4 Thragtusk, +1 Cage
The mono-red version is more difficult for us as it's more aggressive and really functions more like a Burn deck. Again shaving threats for Nature's Claims and Grafdigger's Cage. Cage stops Phoenixes and Looting flashbacks, Claims kill their Blood Moons and can also kill our own artifacts for life in a pinch. I don't like Surgicals here as they can easily kill us without the graveyard and the 2 life matters. The Thragtusks are great here for the lifegain and it does block most of their threats.
Jund
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-2 Ulamog, -1 Relic, -1 World Breaker
+4 Thragtusk
Traditional Jund has been mostly supplanted by BG Rock, which is unfortunate because this is the better matchup for us. It’s not uncommon for the deck to play 0 copies of Assassin’s Trophy (generally the range is 0-2), and their manabase can’t support Field of Ruin so the chances that they can disrupt our mana are much lower. While the unbanning of Bloodbraid Elf did give them a few percentage points in this matchup back, we are still just doing much more powerful things overall.
Titan Shift
Matchup outlook: Very unfavorable
-4 Oblivion Stone, -2 Walking Ballista, -2 Ugin
+3 Thought-Knot Seer, +2 Surgical Extraction, +3 Nature’s Claim
This is one of our worst matchups because they kill us pretty quickly and we have very few ways to effectively stop them. We need to attack their manabase aggressively with Karn, World Breaker and Ulamog to steal it. Post-board the Thought-Knot Seers help a lot - hopefully they only have 1 payoff card and we lock them out before they draw another. Also, though a fairly niche play, Surgical on a Ghost Quartered Valakut totally neuters them. Damping Sphere is common out of their sideboard so we want Nature’s Claim to kill that, and even if they don’t have it we don’t lose much because the cards we’re removing are basically useless anyway. Also it can potentially snipe a Khalni Heart Expedition or Prismatic Omen. Warping Wail is a card to play if you want a few more percentage points - it counters Scapeshift.
Hollow One
Matchup outlook: Even
-2 Walking Ballista, -1 Ulamog, -1 Ugin, -2 Karn, -1 Ghost Quarter
+4 Thragtusk, +1 Cage, +2 Dismember
You can't really beat their really busted draws, but on the other hand it's really hard for them to beat ours ie T3 Wurmcoil in this context. Whoever does their thing best wins. Sideboarding for this matchup is interesting. I definitely want the 4 Tusks and the Cage, but Surgical is so-so. A lot of our payoff cards are medium or slow, but we still need enough of them in the deck to take control. It’s a balancing act. I’ve seen some people bring in Nature’s Claim to hedge against broken Hollow One starts but I don’t really like that as it only has the one target. Occasionally they play Blood Moon or Damping Sphere and in that case I like it more, but I think Dismember is better overall.
Storm
Matchup outlook: Even
-4 Karn Liberated, -1 Wurmcoil, -2 Walking Ballista, -1 World Breaker
+3 Thought-Knot Seer, +2 Dismember, +2 Surgical Extraction, +1 Cage
Game 1’s are tough but sometimes you can just get them with a fast Karn, and Relics help slow them down a lot to try to bridge into an Ulamog. Quite a few solid cards to bring in. The priority is to kill their mana creatures because they can win through graveyard hate if they have enough mana/spells, but this isn’t super easy in this version with only 2 spot removal spells. If you want to win this matchup play more spot removal. Try to Surgical Grapeshot if they Gifts for it or dump it with Pieces of the Puzzle. Empty is less threatening because you have 6 answers to it. Surgical on Past in Flames is often game-winning as well.
Eldrazi Taxes
Matchup outlook: Slightly unfavorable
-4 Karn Liberated, -3 Relic, -2 Ulamog
+2 Dismember, +4 Thragtusk, +3 Nature's Claim
They have a lot of annoying disruptive elements and pressure, but we can stabilize and take over a good amount of the time. Nature's Claim is important to kill Stony Silence, Aether Vial and it also hits Tidehollow Sculler.
Boggles
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-3 Relic, -1 Ballista, -1 Sphere
+2 Dismember, +3 Nature's Claim
Ugin is unbeatable for them and O-Stone is pretty close, but if you stumble they can kill by turn 4. Dismembers are required to kill Teeg post-board along with Kor Spiritdancer. Be aware that you can make Daybreak Coronet fall off by removing the only other enchantment attached to the boggle.
Mardu Pyromancer
Matchup outlook: Extremely favorable
-2 Ulamog, -3 Relic of Progenitus, -1 Ugin
+4 Thragtusk, +2 Dismember
The best matchup in the format for us. My current record is an incredible 64-9 for 88%. Unfortunately for us this deck doesn’t line up very well with the current meta and so it isn’t seeing a lot of play at the moment. The way we lose is early pressure + disruption, so having Dismembers to kill Young Pyromancer or Goblin Rabblemaster out of the board is nice.
Counters Company
Matchup outlook: Even
-2 Wurmcoil, -1 World Breaker
+2 Dismember, +1 Cage
Very similar to Elves - they are racing to combo and we're racing to sweep their board. But here the cheap interaction is a bit more important because they can go off faster. Kill Devoted Druid on sight if possible. Be aware that they can search for Selfless Spirit in response to O-Stone and play accordingly.
Blue Moon
Matchup outlook: Even
-3 Relic, -1 Ugin, -1 Chromatic, -1 Ballista
+3 Nature's Claim, +3 Thragtusk
I'm not a big fan of this matchup because rarely are 2 lists ever the same and I find myself wondering what to play around a lot, and so sideboard plans will vary a bit. But what they all have in common is a lot of durdling. It's a slow deck so you have a lot of time to build up mana even under a Blood Moon and you have 4 O-Stone to deal with those, Jace and pesky Snapcasters. A resolved planeswalker or even a Wurmcoil Engine is really hard for them to deal with.
Jeskai Control
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-4 Oblivion Stone, -1 Wurmcoil Engine, -1 Karn, -1 Ugin
+4 Thragtusk, +3 Thought-Knot Seer
Not quite as easy as it used to be as 3 Field of Ruin main seems to be the norm now, which is really the key card in these matchups. This deck isn’t seeing much play right now but based on current lists they aren’t playing Stony Silence so I wouldn’t bother with Nature’s Claim in the dark. The Relics do work against their 4 Snapcasters and can also protect you against having your Tron land Field+Surgicaled. Tap to target yourself and remove the Tron land. It’s common for them to have 2 Vendilion Cliques post-board as well, so Ballista does a lot of work. Occasionally they have additional threats like Spell Queller and/or Geist of St Traft. If so you can leave in some O-Stones.
Merfolk
Matchup outlook: Even
-1 Ulamog, -2 Karn, -3 Relic, -1 Sphere
+3 Nature’s Claim, +2 Dismember, +2 Thragtusk
This is a deck that has been around in Modern forever, usually sitting around Tier 3. I had always found it to be a favorable matchup but over the past year or so it has evolved and become tougher for us. The main change being 4 Deprive maindeck. Having that hard counter in addition to pressure plus Spreading Seas screwing up our mana can be too much to handle. They also usually have additional counters post-board, and sometimes even Tectonic Edges, which is truly horrendous. Of course we can still get there - Oblivion Stone not only kills all their creatures but any Spreading Seas or Aether Vials as well. A resolved Ugin is close to unbeatable as well, and Walking Ballista is also very strong in the matchup.
Living End
Matchup outlook: Even
-2 Karn Liberated, -2 Ballista, -1 Dismember
+3 Thought-Knot Seer, +2 Surgical
Pretty annoying matchup with 4 maindeck Fulminators and sometimes Beast Withins, but similar to Dredge, we can steal game 1s with the mainboard Relic. Surgical can snipe Fulminator or ideally the card Living End if you can survive the first one. I feel like this is probably at least slightly unfavorable but my record is 10-5 so I’m calling it even for now.
Mono Blue Tron
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-1 Oblivion Stone, -2 Walking Ballista, -1 Wurmcoil, -1 Sphere
+3 Thought-Knot Seer, +2 Nature’s Claim
The goal in this matchup is just to resolve your planeswalkers as they have a very hard time dealing with them, and conversely their threats are generally not very scary for us. They do have quite a few counterspells so do your best to play around them (having Condescend mana) or run out World Breaker or Thought-Knot first. They do have a few pieces of land destruction but generally we can weather this pretty easily and recover because they are so slow. Ulamog really puts the boots to them. Be aware of the Mindslaver loop - 12 mana plus Academy Ruins to bring it back every turn. Hold up Relic if possible to nullify it. They generally have some number of Chalice of the Void and also Spreading Seas post-board which is why I like keeping O-Stones.
Infect
Matchup outlook: Extremely unfavorable
-3 Wurmcoil Engine, -3 Relic, -1 Sphere, -1 Ugin
+3 Thought-Knot Seer, +2 Dismember, +3 Nature’s Claim
Tron’s eternal nemesis. The worst possible matchup for years, though now a new contender has taken that crown(read on). It doesn't really get much better post-board. Try to kill their guys on your turn if possible. If you want to have a shot in this matchup play 4 Ballista and more Dismembers.
Grishoalbrand
Matchup outlook: Unfavorable
-2 Ballista, -1 Ugin, -2 O-Stone, -1 Sphere
+3 Thought-Knot Seer, +2 Surgical, +1 Cage
Any deck using Through the Breach is gonna be tough for us and this is no exception. Similar to Titan Shift and Ad Naus we want to aggressively attack their mana so they can't cast their spell in the first place. Unfortunately they have an even more efficient secondary plan which is Goryo's Vengeance on Griselbrand which they can pull off as early as turn 2. Post-board we have 6 grave-hates which help a lot, especially if you can snipe Griselbrand with Surgical as their deck is much worse without it. Wurmcoil can absorb a lot of the brunt of a hasty Worldspine Wurm, and O-Stone/Ugin can clean up the tokens it leaves. Thought-Knot is fantastic because the deck is quite a glass cannon and often loses to itself even without disruption, so just taking their one key card can be game-winning. Occasionally they have Blood Moon and if so you can bring in Nature's Claims.
Mono Red Prison
Matchup outlook: Favorable
-3 Relic, -2 Ulamog, -1 Sphere
+4 Thragtusk, +2 Dismember
They are trying to accelerate into Chalice, Blood Moon and Goblin Rabblemaster using Rituals and Simian Spirit Guides. If they get a Chalice or Rabblemaster on turn 1 it can be hard to beat but our spells also just totally overpower them if they don’t have an explosive start/fast Blood Moon, and cards like O-Stone and Thragtusk just ignore it anyway.
Sultai Wilderness Reclamation
Matchup outlook: Even
+3 Nature's Claim, +2 Surgical Extraction, +3 Thought-Knot Seer
-2 Walking Ballista, -1 Wurmcoil, -2 Ugin, -1 Sphere, -2 Relic
This matchup plays out similarly to BTL/RUG Scapeshift in that they're trying to stall the game out with 3/4 Remand and 4 Cryptic Command until they can safely play their 4 drop (In this case Wilderness Reclamation) and win. It's a bit different in this case though because it doesn't win the game on the spot (it's more likely the longer the game goes/the more mana they have), and we can actually interact with the namesake card, which helps. Oblivion Stone is a clunky though effective way of dealing with it game 1 (preferably we have it in play before they cast it), and Nature's Claim is a powerful upgrade post-board, especially when they tap out for it expecting to untap again. Just be sure to destroy it before the beginning of their end step, or the ability will trigger and they will get to untap their lands. Ideally we Surgical it immediately after, which reduces their ability to win to just a few Snapcaster Mages and Creeping Tar Pits. Similarly to the Scapeshift matchup, Karn and Ulamog should target their lands, unless of course they have an active Reclamation, in which case hit that.
Lantern
Matchup outlook: Extremely favorable
-3 Wurmcoil Engine
+3 Nature's Claim
O-Stone, Karn, Ugin, World Breaker and Ulamog are all huge problems for them and they only have so many Pithing Needles/Thoughtseizes. We have 10 cards that can draw at instant speed to interfere with their Lantern lock. That being said there are versions of this deck which make for a much closer matchup - namely those with maindeck Surgicals and Ghost Quarters. Neither see much play currently though - Whir Prison is filling this niche.
Eldrazi Tron
Matchup outlook: Very favorable
-3 Relic, -2 Ugin, -2 Walking Ballista, -1 Sphere
+2 Thought-Knot Seer, +4 Thragtusk, +2 Dismember
If they have an early Chalice it can be rough, but we're just the bigger big mana deck and have a bunch of excellent grindy threats to board into.
Ponza
Matchup outlook: Slightly unfavorable
-3 Relic, -2 Ulamog, -1 Ugin, -1 World Breaker, -2 Sphere
+4 Thragtusk, +3 Nature’s Claim, +2 Dismember
It seems a lot worse than it actually is. Their draws without infinite land destruction are very beatable, and even when they do have a lot, they often don’t have much in the way of threats. It just takes one slammed Thragtusk or an O-Stone activation to get back into the game. Dismembering a mana dork on turn 1 is a great tempo play, and cutting down Tireless Tracker is very relevant too.
Elves
Matchup outlook: Even
-2 Wurmcoil, -1 World Breaker, -3 Relic of Progenitus
+2 Dismember, +1 Cage, +3 Nature’s Claim
They're racing to kill us, we're racing to sweep their board. It's a coin flip. Nature’s Claim is to kill Damping Sphere post-board.
UB Mill
Matchup outlook: Comically unfavorable
-4 Oblivion Stone, -3 Wurmcoil, -2 Ugin, -1 Chromatic
+3 Thought-Knot, +3 Claim, +2 Dismember, +2 Thragtusk
Here it is, the deck that stole the crown from Infect as our worst matchup in the format. They have 5-6 Surgical effects post-board and in addition to the 3-4 Fields and all the milling they're naturally doing, taking us off Tron for the whole game is very easy for them. Combine that with a relatively fast clock and it's pretty much a nightmare scenario. Of course they don't always have it, and we can potentially sneak a Karn in and start eating their lands, but this will not happen very often. Post-board we do get a bit of interaction - Nature's Claim which kills Mesmeric Orb or Ensnaring Bridge if they keep it in, and Dismembers which kill Hedron Crab. Thought-Knot Seer can hit a relevant card, and Thragtusk is simply a beater we can cast on turn 5 to try to close it out. Relic of Progenitus is particularly good to play around their Surgicals - you can use the tap ability to target yourself and remove a Tron land they may want to strip, and exiling the graveyards entirely powers down their Visions From Beyond. Warping Wail is a solid card to combat this matchup despite the fact that they no longer usually have Mind Funeral, because it hits their creatures and Glimpse the Unthinkable. This is not a widely played deck, but if it is in your meta, one thing you can do to gain some percentage points back is playing one of the ROE eldrazi titans in your sideboard. It's not super narrow because it would also be good in the control matchups. The eldrazi aren't true trump cards because opponents do have all the Surgical effects, but the trigger still resolves if they exile it so it can buy you a good amount of time/cards. Tarmogoyfs would also help as they get large quickly and put the pressure on.
Bridgevine
Matchup outlook: Unfavorable
-4 Karn, -1 World Breaker, -1 Sphere, -1 Oblivion Stone
+2 Surgical, +4 Thragtusk, +1 Cage
This deck has all but disappeared, but it still rears its head on rare occasions. A fairly difficult matchup. They can put a lot of power on the board really quickly and are resilient to Oblivion Stone due to Bridge From Below along with cards like Bloodghast and Gravecrawler. We want a fast Wurmcoil but even that is sometimes not enough because they can stop the lifelink in combat with Viscera Seer, Ballista, and Insolent Neonate. Our best play is Ugin, but that isn't perfect either because they have Ballista and Hangarback and can potentially sac Bloodgast to Seer to bring it back with haste the following turn. The maindeck Relics do help steal game 1s and make O-Stone better. It's often correct to play Walking Ballista for 0 on an early turn to kill any Bridges in their graveyard.
UR Wizards
Matchup outlook: Even
-4 Karn, -1 Ulamog, -1 Ugin
+4 Thragtusk, +2 Dismember
Walking Ballista is a wrecking ball here and you’d love to have the 3rd copy. There is an argument for playing Nature’s Claims - they have a standard 2 Alpine Moon in the sideboard which is a pretty big wrench for us. But Claim has no other targets in the matchup, beyond blowing up our own things. Considering they only have 2 it’s pretty unlikely they’ll see it in their opener, so I don’t mind just ignoring it. If they do have it, it’s one less action spell for them, which can hopefully buy us enough time get to our natural turn 5 plays - blowing Ostone or slamming Thragtusk. Dismember and Ballista help bridge the gap as well.
8-Whack/Goblins
Matchup outlook: Very unfavorable
-4 Karn, -3 Relic
+4 Thragtusk, +3 Claim
Pretty difficult matchup because they just go so wide so quickly and our turn 4 sweepers are generally too slow. Goblin Grenade provides a crazy amount of reach in addition to their pingers and Bolts. Hope you win the die roll and have turn 3 Wurmcoil or at least a 3/3 Ballista, or that their draw is below average and the turn 4 plays are enough. They also tend to have Damping Sphere post-board which only makes things worse.
Link to Old OP: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=524699
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
thanks for the imput, I like the idea of Tooth and Nail combo, although the Mikaeus seems cool, his mana is just too much for this deck. I will definitely add the tooth and nail. Thanks!
Heres my decklist:
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
6 Forest
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
4 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Triskelion
1 Flame-Kin Zealot
Spells:
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Tooth and Nail
3 Expedition Map
4 Explore
4 Sylvan Scrying
2 Oblivion Stone
4 Chromatic Star
Walkers:
4 Karn Liberated
I dont have a side built yet, apart from the 4 Pyroclasms that will be in there. The main combo with tooth is to pump out Flame-kin and Emrakul and win on the spot.
Currently playing
Modern:UWRSplinter TwinUWR
EDH:
URMelek, Izzet ParagonUR
BWGGhave, Guuru of sporesBWG
Good thing I have book burning.
Sideboard
Note that I play 2 Wurmcoil Engine and 1 Ulamog, so I have room to pull a Wurmcoil against combo. I also play 2 Prophetic Prism to support Slaughter Games. I'll also give tips on what not to board out, as some of the stuff I board out seem to be flex slots and can be exchanged with other cards.
Vs. Exarch Twin:
+4 Slaughter Games (I generally name Splinter Twin, then Kiki-Jiki)
+2 Combust
+1 Nature's Claim (hits Splinter Twin)
+1 Seal of Primordium (see above)
-4 Pyroclasm (we'll handle Grim Lavamancer and Vendilion Clique later)
-1 Wurmcoil Engine (stop them now, win later--don't pull the last one or Eye of Ugin will be sad)
-3 Relic of Progenitus (they don't use the graveyard)
{-0 Oblivion Stone (intimidates their "Exarchs" into needing to tap it pre-combo (then you blow up the "Exarch" in response), may make them board in bounce or Ancient Grudge, blows up Blood Moon if they board it in)}
Vs. UR Storm:
+4 Slaughter Games (name Grapeshot, then Ignite Memories if some punk plays it and you found it in the deck, then Empty the Warrens, then Goblin Electromancer if they haven't already scooped)
+1 Nature's Claim (hits Pyromancer Ascension)
+1 Seal of Primordium (see above)
-2 Pyroclasm (don't board them all out or Empty the Warrens will get you)
-1 Wurmcoil Engine (stall now, win later)
-1 Ancient Stirrings (help me! I don't know exactly what to board out at this point--should I board out a Karn instead? Hitting lands or exposed Ascensions/Electromancers is the best strategy for him)
-2 Sylvan Scrying (help me! It's slower than Expedition Map, at least)
{-0 Relic of Progenitus (...and this is why boarding against UR Storm is a *****)}
{-0 Prophetic Prism (see above--I don't want Slaughter Games stranded in hand)}
Vs. Scapeshift:
+4 Slaughter Games (name Scapeshift, then Rude Awakening if you saw it, then Prismatic Omen if you saw any, then fatties if you saw any)
-4 Pyroclasm (Slaughter Games turns Scapeshift into a bad aggro deck, so you should be able to handle the rest of their dudes)
Vs. Hive Mind:
+4 Slaughter Games (name Hive Mind, then Pact of the Titan, then Blood Moon if you saw any, then Simian Spirit Guide)
+1 Nature's Claim (always assume they board in Blood Moon)
+1 Seal of Primordium (see above)
-4 Pyroclasm (again, Slaughter Games turns Hive Mind into a bad aggro deck, and RG Artifact Tron creams bad aggro decks)
-1 Wurmcoil Engine (stall now, win later)
-1 Relic of Progenitus (they don't use the graveyard)
{-0 Oblivion Stone (still hits Pentad Prism, Blood Moon, Leyline of Sanctity, and their Plan B)}
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, I've found that the Slaughter Games plan works well enough to turn match-ups into not auto-losses. Hive Mind and Scapeshift basically crumble after one Slaughter Games, but Exarch Twin and UR Storm will fight back. You need to Slaughter Games them twice or Exarch Twin can still find Kiki-Jiki and UR Storm will pump out Empty the Warrens. Twice. Through a Pyroclasm killing the first wave. Even then, I've still lost to Exarch Twin once after Slaughter Games'ing it twice because V. Clique and Pestermite got there. (At least I've Slaughter Games'ed UR Storm twice in two games so far and I've won post-Slaughter Games against Exarch Twin three times (once with only 1 Games, twice with 2 Games)!)
@Lectrys: what does your MD look like?
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicyMikaeus, the Unhallowed + Triskelion combo works?
Ok, so essentially you shoot the opponent for 1 and shoot triskellion for 2 with itself. It dies with no +1/+1 counters and thus undying (due to mikaeus).
You now shoot your opponent for 2 and triskellion for 2. It dies and since no +1/+1 counters, undies again.
Repeat until your opponent loses.
540 Peasant cube- Gold EditionSomething SpicyI think it would be better to move the triskellion combo to the sideboard and try to have some pyroclasms maindeck. At least 3.
Elves
Loam Depths
Goblin Stompy
Kobold Aggro
GB Nic Fit
Pod Nic Fit
12 Post
Pattern Combo
Squirrel Stompy
Amulet of Vigor Combo
Restore Balance
Cascade Swans
Mono U Tron
Through the Breach
Elves
Mono Red Control
Tooth and Nail Tron
Leviathans
Krenko Combo
Jaya LD
Zirilan Dragons
Omnath
Here it is. It's pretty boring for a Slaughter Games Rock Tron list:
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Tendo Ice Bridge
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
1 Forest
Creatures
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
2 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Expedition Map
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
2 Prophetic Prism
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Karn Liberated
2 Oblivion Stone
4 Pyroclasm
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Batterskull
1 Timely Reinforcements
2 Combust
1 Seal of Primordium
1 Nature's Claim
4 Slaughter Games
2 Vandalblast
2 Electrickery
...Okay, the lands probably require some explanation. In testing, I've gotten a lot of land search late-game after already assembling the Tron with the Eye of Ugin, so turning a land search card into a cantrip (albeit an expensive one) with Horizon Canopy has been decent. It's also helped me dig when drawn naturally, and it's decent early-game as a semi-Karplusan Forest.
My current land to search for when I need to cast Slaughter Games and no Chromatic Eggs or Prophetic Prisms arrive is Tendo Ice Bridge, as it produces any colour of mana without paying any life or being tapped when it ETB, and I generally don't need its coloured mana more than once a game. I've sometimes wished it were Llanowar Wastes, though, when I need to cast Slaughter Games twice (I never anticipate needing the coloured mana more than twice and I anticipate needing its mana quite a bit early-game, so I don't want to play Overgrown Tomb).
Ulamog is testing fine--he eats Path to Exile fairly often and sometimes gets countered, but against a lot of decks, he's a significantly cheaper Emrakul with 2/3s of the Annihilator (feels like 1/2 the Annihilator, though), no evasion, and no extra turn (but with a free, uncounterable Vindicate attached). Then again, most combo decks don't give a hoot about the "no evasion" part--they're just scared about the "Sacrifice all lands you control every turn for the rest of the game" part (but thankful that they get one more turn to combo off).
My 61st card would be a second Forest to dodge Blood Moon harder.
I still tend to keep 1-land hands (I find the no-Tron hands are the bigger traps than the one-Tron hands), and whenever I've been mana-screwed, I've always been worse off than when I've been mana-flooded, so I like 20 lands.
EDIT NEED HELP: Guys I need your help to finish the sideboarding and match up section. I haven't played allot of the decks that are run in Modern due to local meta. if you want to help please pick a deck and follow the same format I have already used. Please only include cards from the sideboard que already set up. (We can add more later but for now lets keep it the same)
I can give you Storm, I have tested from both sides quite well
In Sideboard section you may want to add Trinisphere, it makes Infect and Storm extremely easy after board and hampers Control as well
My own list:
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Eye of Ugin
1 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
Dig/Tutors:
4 Sylvan Scrying
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Expedition Map
Filter/Cantrips
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Explore
1 Prismatic Lens
1 Prophetic Prism
1 Myr Battlesphere
2 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
3 Karn Liberated
1 Sundering Titan
Removal/Sweep Effects
4 Pyroclasm
1 All Is Dust
Other
1 Staff of Nin
2 Trinisphere
1 Plains
2 Rest in Peace
3 Krosan Grip
1 Pithing Needle
2 Vandalblast
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Ratchet Bomb
The Staff will likely become O-Stone or another Sundering Titan
VS Storm
Even, + Grafdigger's Cage, + Electrickery, + Thorn Of Amethyst/Trinisphere. Game 1 comes down closer to a die roll and depends greatly on their build if they are running Epic Experiment then it is unfavorable, if you can drop an active early Relic Of Progenitus you can cause them to fizzle or earn yourself a few turns to drop a Karn and start eating their hand. After board Thorn Of Amethyst/Trinisphere make the match-up much easier while Grafdigger's Cage will prevent Past In Flames, keep in at least one-two sweepers in case they board in Bushwacker + Empty The Warrens or board into Splinter Twin
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget
I stream!
Hermit Druid Combo:
thanks! Added it.
Game 1 I know is a race if you can turn 3 Wurmcoil at around 10 life you can easily outrace their burn, Karn can work if they are stuck on 1-2 lands, Goblin Guide can help accelerate your plan by finding Tron Pieces. Post board your hate should slow them down enough to land Wurmcoil and bring your life total high enough so it doesn't matter
Overall it is very favorable after board, they don't have Sowing Salt as it is to mana intensive for the deck and K. Grip can easily handle Blood Moon
Martyr Proc and B/W Tokens I'll proxy up and test with and against to see what to do
Paper: WUR Waffle Control, RG and U Tron
MTGO: U Tron, BRG Living End, B Infect
Testing Modern on MTGO and helping to craft decks on a Budget
I stream!
Hermit Druid Combo: