Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle could be a potential Myr Retriever replacement. Retriever has the added benefit of being an artifact. Does Teshar have have an upside for the combo that Retriever does not?
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle could be a potential Myr Retriever replacement. Retriever has the added benefit of being an artifact. Does Teshar have have an upside for the combo that Retriever does not?
Only upside I can think of is it doesn't die to Gutshot
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I am happy to share the creation of Tron Trawler. It combines Urzatron and Krark Clan to make a devastating and consistent combo deck. It has had amazing results at my local. I am wanted to share this deck concept with the community so this is my first time posting the list. If someone could help add the proper formatting it would be greatly appreciated. We know KCI is top 8 deck and this variant could put it over the top. Please take a look at what I have been working on.
Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard
Creatures:12
4 Hangarback Walker
1 Walking Ballista
4 Scrap Trawler
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Spells:27
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
4 Ichor Wellspring
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
Sideboard:15
1 Walking Ballista
3 Spellskite
2 ThoughKnot Seer
3 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Warping Wail or spatial contortion
1 All is dust or oblivion stone
Three Main Modes
1. Mana banking for 15 mana Emrakul - turn 3-4 "Breakfast of Urza"
2. KCI, Scrap Trawler combo into finish - turn 3-4 "Eggs cycle"
3. Defense that helps plan 1. and 2. - Hangarback walker,oblivion stone Updated "Tron Trawler"
Awesome Play lines
1. Find the game winner: Turn 1-3 play lands and artifacts. Turn 3 or 4 play Krark-Clan Ironworks then, gather 8 mana to cast Hangarback Walker which banks 10 mana, trigger Sanctum of Ugin grab Emrakul of Aeon Torns. Game
2. Mishra Bauble activate at end of opponents turn to give opponent fewer discard targets. Looking at opponents deck if you will draw your card. If expedition map is in play, can look at top of own library before shuffle.
3. Hangarback walker can use 1 mana to tap and increase mana bank by 2. +1/+1 counters are 1/1 flyers that sac for 2 mana. Block tap is good too.
4. Oblivion stone is your friend. There is an option to continue to play artifacts with oblivion stone on the board. If Oblivion stone goes to graveyard with scrap trawler many targets can return to hand. Most artifacts draw cards anyway.
5. Lands!! This iteration has Tron lands, Sanctum of Ugin, Inventor's Fair, and 1 buried rain (optional) to keep the engine going.
Discussion:
Why combine Urza lands? You win if Tron land combo or you win with Trawler graveyard combo. Expedition map recurs with scrap trawler to return Mishra bauble without Krark Clan-Iron Works. Think of card draw as +2 mana to your 15 mana plan. This deck does not whiff like some of the combo only iterations. Most people will be confused why not just play combo trawler, but weak to graveyard hate, glint nest crane and ancient stirrings are negative 2 or 1 mana to the plan. Tron lands gives you beat down plan paired with Hangarback walkers.
Other variants
What if they play Stony Silence - it hurts but can still win. The sideboard contains Wurmcoils for game 2. I do not play Karn but still have Ceaseless because you will need to rely on Urza lands to win the game.
Dampening sphere does not hurt this deck because on turn 4 it can bank all of the mana into 8 casting cost hangarback walkers then sac (10 mana) search for Emrakul and cast Emrakul as the second spell with the cost of the additional (1) mana. There is usually 16 mana available with 3 artifacts in play- dark steel citadel, chromatic star, and at times remember to save Mishra Bauble for Krark-clan mana.
What about creature removal - The deck prefers to play Krark-clan first then on same turn scrap trawler so if opponent uses removal on scrap trawler. In response you sac e.g. Mox opal, Chromatic star, then Ichor wellspring. The scrap trawler returns the Ichor, Ichor returns the Chromatic, and Chromatic returns the Mox. Then draw 2 cards, and are +6 mana. You can then follow up with Inventor's fair for scrap trawler, or more likely return hangarback walker, cast for 8 and search for Emrakul for the win. Turn 4 never looked so scarry. Funny thing is opponent doesn't know all of this going through your head.
My counterspell friends are scarred to tap out any turn, so they do nothing. I threaten combo after turn 4, so I don't play primary spells wait and with longer games Emrakul becomes more and more probable with each land drop like classic Tron with the now banned Eye of Ugin. One crazy idea is cavern of souls naming "construct"
Sideboarding:
I think Wurmcoil plays magically in this deck. It banks 6 mana. If resolved his life gain and never die spirit end most creature based match ups. With Krark-Clan it protects it against Path to Exile and pairs with Oblivion stone. Heck he helps return other artifacts with scrap trawler with no mana loss. Except he cant trigger Sanctum of Ugin. Another option is Platinum emperion.
All is dust over the 4th oblivion stone is an option. I like the exile of Warping Wail at instant speed, since this deck can expedition map or exile a pesky creature at end of turn. I tried Ugin planeswalker but limited uses.
Sword of the meek goes infinite with Krark-clan + Scrap trawler + hangarback walker or walking ballista. Through my play testing, Sword of the meek is a win more card. Walking ballista is a good finisher. Remember to grab him after Emrakul to end the game that turn. And shoot Walking Ballista in a way to thwart deflecting palm.
Yup this deck was posted on mtgtop8 and was a really good foundation of a pure turn 3-4 kci combo deck. I compare it to wuick splinter twin that used simmian Spirit guides to ramp like Mox opals. With few interactions.
I posted a colourless variants that goes alot wider and uses Oblivion stones over engineered explosives for board control.
Dumping some thoughts from trying this deck out for a spin the past few weeklies.
If you're running a mostly standard manabase, is there any reason not to include a 1-of Academy Ruins? It's been really good vs. the blue decks compared to Buried Ruin, and there's no reason you can't run both. I get that it's tough to produce U sometimes, but you can just shift the manabase away from Groves and run more rainbow lands (Spires/Hubs). Hub is still good enough for letting you Stirrings T1 in a pinch without an artifact on board. At the point in the game where you want to use it (T4+/during combo) you normally have pretty easy access to a blue source anyway. All my color-producing lands are rainbow atm anyway for SB options. Ruins gets you 1 card deeper and easier to use mid-combo if you saved your land drop, but again I don't think they're exclusive.
The more colorless variant without Whirs has been a lot more consistent for me. I found myself bending over backwards and taking suboptimal lines to produce UUU mid-combo. I see it as parallel to the difference between legacy TES and ANT; the colorless KCI deck gets easier/faster, probabilistic kills, while the Whir version has more deterministic lines. The problem is that the difference here is less clearly defined, as both builds have ways to find deterministic kills, and in a deck where you more often have 10 floating instead of UUU I think I like biasing towards more colorless lands to just Sanctum them.
I've been flooding a lot on 18 lands, going back down to 17. 16 is too ballsy for me. It's actually not too bad to draw lands during combo if you've saved your land drop, given that some of them double as tutors, Rituals, or Regrowths, but getting flooded pre-combo was a problem.
Re: Urza's lands above, I actually used to play this deck years ago when it was called Breakfast at Urza's and Scrap Trawler wasn't released. The problem was vs. white decks, you have almost no outs if they land a Stony Silence since 16 of your lands produced colorless and you can't filter to G with artifacts. I haven't had that problem with the new version of the deck, and in fact the first thing that jumped out to me when I saw this list was that you have a ton of ways to naturally Nature's Claim with lands. Sure, I sometimes Turn 3'd them through Mana Leak with a natural Tron but it wasn't worth taking a fat L games 2 and 3.
Recent lists have been cutting Sanctum of Ugin in favour of more Inventors' Fairs and Buried Ruins. I still am not sure about going up to 3 Fairs, since I've already been ****ed enough from drawing 2 Fairs and not being able to get up to 4 mana vs. faster clocks. Killing them off drawing Fair > tutoring Retriever is sweet but I think 2 is still a reasonable midground. Sanctum of Ugin also does a reasonable impression of Fair, it just can't grab KCI and is ***** before the combo turn. With an X-cost artifact, you have similar lines anyway:
Tap Sanctum, +1. Cast EE, -7, tutor wincon off Sanctum (e.g. Retriever). Sac EE, +2. Net: -4
Tap + crack Fair, -4 (additional opportunity cost of -1 since you don't get to tap for mana). Tutor wincon. Sac X-drop, +2. Net: -3.
I don't mind being on greedy rainbow lands as much with this deck since Wasteland doesn't exist. There are enough painless rainbow lands to stand in for Grove. Death's Shadow decks get bopped by EE anyway, the +1 life from Grove is more marginal.
Tried Abrupt Decay in the board but every match I either don't want to bring it in or it rots in my hand for a while. I think just having 4 Nature's Claim is good enough to fight Burn and white enchantments. You can't overboard anyway or you just brick from diluting the deck too much. Also thinking hard about whether there's another SB option to race/disrupt Affinity besides Grudge/more EE. Counter-intuitively, boarding in Claims feels really bad. More often, I've had games where EE + Trawler/Retriever/Academy Ruins just sweeps them several times and they can't rebuild at all.
EDIT: I'd run Arcbound Reclaimer instead of the new Teshar if I wanted a 4-drop for combo turns. Colorless and lets you grab countered KCIs or whatever.
Yeah, I don't think this deck is really in the market for a 4 drop that isn't KCI. Less of a focus on value pieces and more ways to just set up an infinite
looks like a whir list got into the top 32 in an scg. still kinda worried about dampin sphere killing that list though.
That was me
Went 2-1 vs humans
lost to that btl scape that t8d, g3 he found UUU+Cryptic before I could find kci
lost to hawkins on aff, I used to run grid in the board but cut it when aff got unpopular, wish I would have kept it in
and other loss was to GDS, didn't see souls in the top 30 cards either post board games, pretty sure I would have won either if I did
Depends on how widely played damping sphere is, it's no where near as good as stony silence and it dies to EE unlike stony
@ghostson any updates from you on how your tourney results have been going? Also any feedback on my colourless Tron variant. I think my weakest part is oblvion stone instead of engineered explosives. But my thought is. I'm weak turn 3, but turn 4+ I can combo or Tron off. Oblivion stone can be turned on turn 4. Oblivion stone keeps graveyard combo going especially if ichor is in graveyard, where as EE is only 2 Mana. My variant has 12 zero casting cost artifacts which is plenty.
Consistent Emrakul finishes by turn 6. With interaction of hangarback walker blocks, oblivion stone defense. The decks gets more exponential each turn even a scrap trawler block is an option and recover next turn too. In combo only option turn 5-6 are all searching Krark-clan options where as my colourless option has big hangarbacks and hard cast Ceaseless or Emrakul options with sanctum search.
I played mono blue, blue green, and splashy ancient stirrings and even 1 faith rewards variants and find those very Krark exclusive options. Ive been brewing on paper with arcbound ravenger with modular lines but can't seem to find a win con with the counters.
So I'm not sure if my colourless slower turn 3 and powers up turn 4-5 stacks up so I continue to play test. Thoughts anyone ? Or everyone ?
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Was an old School Blue Player during Revised. Now I play modern.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
Ee is pretty mandatory, not sure how you will ever beat humans/dnt/etc without it, trawler inherently makes us the best ee deck so not playing it is a bit of a crime.
I'm not really an expert on the sanctum+hangar build, this thread is already full of arguments myself and plenty of others made against it. I'm 99% sure the only reason nass and friends played emmy is because they play exclusively online and you can't do loops online
That said, my buddy got 16th at the team scg with same list but he likes having emmy main
Edit:
What do you mean by "more stable?" Also whir doesn't suggest thopter sword, plenty of lists do not play it.
I made a post on the r/EggsMTG subreddit about the history of the deck and a compilation of cards used throughout the years. Link here
Solid, great post, I'm definitely going to favorite it for workingon the board
But yeah 2 spellbomb is important since it kills thalia, overseer, etc.
Md bridge just instantly wins vs a huge amount of the meta g1 and it's a huge roadblock post board. I've played a lot of lantern and can't leave home without whir + bridge
Ee is pretty mandatory, not sure how you will ever beat humans/dnt/etc without it, trawler inherently makes us the best ee deck so not playing it is a bit of a crime.
I'm not really an expert on the sanctum+hangar build, this thread is already full of arguments myself and plenty of others made against it. I'm 99% sure the only reason nass and friends played emmy is because they play exclusively online and you can't do loops online
That said, my buddy got 16th at the team scg with same list but he likes having emmy main
Edit:
What do you mean by "more stable?" Also whir doesn't suggest thopter sword, plenty of lists do not play it.
I meant that Oblivion stones helps to continue the scrap trawler combo. But I thought about it some more. I use hangarback, Mox opal, and Mishra bauble for the zero cmc. You don't use hangarbacks so the EE fill that role. In my mind you must use EE for defense. I have hangarbacks and Oblivion stone only that Oblivion stones need 8 Mana where as EE only needs like 3. I say you have advantage except my colourless variant if have Urza Tron lands can afford it and long term will have more Mana.
This is in theory for me. I need to play more human decks. I played death shadow and it was okay.
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Was an old School Blue Player during Revised. Now I play modern.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
Actually I can see what you're getting at with Whir. I've been pretty frustrated in post board games from trying not to dilute too much. Whir solves it with a bunch of 1 ofs and lets you cheat a bit with some narrow cards in the main. I'm gonna go to a weekly tomorrow and just run 4 Whir on 8 rainbow lands + basics, no Sanctum no Buried Ruin. I was being too stubborn in trying to run some arbitrary "best" combination of eggs, but making some small concessions to support UUU seems okay since you free up a ton of MB slots from ditching Sanctum, Everflowing Chalice, some Spheres/Mind Stones, and Hangarback.
The more dishonest this deck gets the better.
Actually I can see what you're getting at with Whir. I've been pretty frustrated in post board games from trying not to dilute too much. Whir solves it with a bunch of 1 ofs and lets you cheat a bit with some narrow cards in the main. I'm gonna go to a weekly tomorrow and just run 4 Whir on 8 rainbow lands + basics, no Sanctum no Buried Ruin. I was being too stubborn in trying to run some arbitrary "best" combination of eggs, but making some small concessions to support UUU seems okay since you free up a ton of MB slots from ditching Sanctum, Everflowing Chalice, some Spheres/Mind Stones, and Hangarback.
The more dishonest this deck gets the better.
Yeah I like Whir. It can be used at end of turn for Krark Clan on turn 4-5 ideally. Then go off. It is a bit faster than Tezzeret the seeker. It is like a wild card. During combo, I found that the didn't help as much. But maybe I was playing it wrong. Expect to draw a Whir during combo and tap the Ichor before sacing it?
I tried it with sword of the meek combo which was win more. The three blue made it harder to use and was usually Krark or Scrap. Like a chord of calling. My trouble with Whir is after you cast Krark you can't whir out a scrap trawler very often cause of the three blue mana. But I could be wrong maybe someone can shed some light on the usual play lines with Whir.
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GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
UUU is pretty easy to come up with mid-combo, all of your 1 cmcs are picking up an Opal anyway, you just add U and sac it for 2 each time so stars are netting you either 4U or 2UU
I have a few leagues posted from a few months ago, I think the list was different than this but not by much
twitch.tv/thursdayisgo
If there's a particular time you want me to go live so we can talk about lines just let me know, I haven't been streaming much lately though
Whir is great mid-combo since most of the time it tutors for the missing piece of an infinite loop and stops you from bricking. Normally this is going to be a Retriever, sometimes an Opal or 1 CMC egg, and less often a Trawler. I never feel bad about just finding a Chromatic Star if it's the last piece needed to start the double 1CMC egg loop. Just have to get used to recognizing where you can steer the combo turn into a loop.
You don't even have to Whir for a Trawler mid-combo. I goldfished a ton and found I was comfortable tutoring a Trawler T3 at the end of their turn if I had KCI in hand.
@Thursdayisgod: I think 2 Pyrites feels really clunky. Do you ever find yourself using Whir for them? If so, would it make sense to cut it to a singleton?
UUU is pretty easy to come up with mid-combo, all of your 1 cmcs are picking up an Opal anyway, you just add U and sac it for 2 each time so stars are netting you either 4U or 2UU
I have a few leagues posted from a few months ago, I think the list was different than this but not by much
twitch.tv/thursdayisgo
If there's a particular time you want me to go live so we can talk about lines just let me know, I haven't been streaming much lately though
Yeah I'd like to chat about it. Im not too familiar with streaming although I do make clash Royale screen capture commentaries
But my statement about whir expensive is true. It cost 3 blue minimum worse case 7 Mana krarkclan if they disrupt board. Casting krark and scrap tralwer same turn is delayed for end of turn for one and cast the other. Whir has it's delays? although gives selection.
With Tron, Kwark-clan and scrap tralwer play turn 3. Depending on opponent I don't even rush into combo because I can play less rushed strategies for more Mana banking ideas. Turn 4 when I have 8-10 Mana it can be Oblvion stone defend, don't blow it up and play combo while sacing Oblivion stone in the combo. Haha.
Against discard I don't really want to even see krark until a bit later so I hold my Mishra bauble until turn 4 and based on my life total and opponents board state. One way we can all play kci is to wait until super fireball has been set up.
I guess the part I'm missing is the consistency of the combo. I played the green blue one and Kci, scrap tralwer and an ichor wellspring could whiff. You prefer a chromatic in graveyard to be confidant. The thing I found was drawing land land even with a Mox opal and no card draw a huge problem because I would generate 7-8 Mana but run out of card draw or something to do with all the Mana. This is why I moved towards hangarback walker because when you combo, hangarback is 2 Mana and then at end you put all the Mana into hangarback even activating sanctum .
In comparison I think some people are playing myr retriever I am missing what my retriever adds if scrap trawler is not in play. With krark it is kind of Mana neutral with a grave yard card. Without krark it's not as good as a hangarback which banks 4 Mana and +1 each turn, but does not have graveyard card.
Also anyone have any thoughts about Mox amber .. it's an artifact and can help cast Karn liberated or the New Karn. Not bad
WWUGeist of Saint TraftUWW
UUBBLazav, Dimir MastermindBBUU
BRMalfegorRB
RGThromok the InsatiableGR
GGWWTrostani, Selesnya's VoiceWWGG
WBTeysa, Orzhov ScionBW
BGGGlissa, the TraitorGGB
GGUUPrime Speaker ZeganaUUGG
URJhoira of the GhituRU
RRWWAurelia, the WarleaderWWRR
UBRJeleva, Nephalias ScourgeRBU
Only upside I can think of is it doesn't die to Gutshot
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I am happy to share the creation of Tron Trawler. It combines Urzatron and Krark Clan to make a devastating and consistent combo deck. It has had amazing results at my local. I am wanted to share this deck concept with the community so this is my first time posting the list. If someone could help add the proper formatting it would be greatly appreciated. We know KCI is top 8 deck and this variant could put it over the top. Please take a look at what I have been working on.
Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard
Creatures:12
4 Hangarback Walker
1 Walking Ballista
4 Scrap Trawler
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Spells:27
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
4 Ichor Wellspring
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Krark-Clan Ironworks
Lands:21
4 Darksteel Citadel
2 Inventors' Fair
3 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
Sideboard:15
1 Walking Ballista
3 Spellskite
2 ThoughKnot Seer
3 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Tormod's Crypt
3 Warping Wail or spatial contortion
1 All is dust or oblivion stone
Three Main Modes
1. Mana banking for 15 mana Emrakul - turn 3-4 "Breakfast of Urza"
2. KCI, Scrap Trawler combo into finish - turn 3-4 "Eggs cycle"
3. Defense that helps plan 1. and 2. - Hangarback walker,oblivion stone Updated "Tron Trawler"
Awesome Play lines
1. Find the game winner: Turn 1-3 play lands and artifacts. Turn 3 or 4 play Krark-Clan Ironworks then, gather 8 mana to cast Hangarback Walker which banks 10 mana, trigger Sanctum of Ugin grab Emrakul of Aeon Torns. Game
2. Mishra Bauble activate at end of opponents turn to give opponent fewer discard targets. Looking at opponents deck if you will draw your card. If expedition map is in play, can look at top of own library before shuffle.
3. Hangarback walker can use 1 mana to tap and increase mana bank by 2. +1/+1 counters are 1/1 flyers that sac for 2 mana. Block tap is good too.
4. Oblivion stone is your friend. There is an option to continue to play artifacts with oblivion stone on the board. If Oblivion stone goes to graveyard with scrap trawler many targets can return to hand. Most artifacts draw cards anyway.
5. Lands!! This iteration has Tron lands, Sanctum of Ugin, Inventor's Fair, and 1 buried rain (optional) to keep the engine going.
Discussion:
Why combine Urza lands? You win if Tron land combo or you win with Trawler graveyard combo. Expedition map recurs with scrap trawler to return Mishra bauble without Krark Clan-Iron Works. Think of card draw as +2 mana to your 15 mana plan. This deck does not whiff like some of the combo only iterations. Most people will be confused why not just play combo trawler, but weak to graveyard hate, glint nest crane and ancient stirrings are negative 2 or 1 mana to the plan. Tron lands gives you beat down plan paired with Hangarback walkers.
Other variants
What if they play Stony Silence - it hurts but can still win. The sideboard contains Wurmcoils for game 2. I do not play Karn but still have Ceaseless because you will need to rely on Urza lands to win the game.
Dampening sphere does not hurt this deck because on turn 4 it can bank all of the mana into 8 casting cost hangarback walkers then sac (10 mana) search for Emrakul and cast Emrakul as the second spell with the cost of the additional (1) mana. There is usually 16 mana available with 3 artifacts in play- dark steel citadel, chromatic star, and at times remember to save Mishra Bauble for Krark-clan mana.
What about creature removal - The deck prefers to play Krark-clan first then on same turn scrap trawler so if opponent uses removal on scrap trawler. In response you sac e.g. Mox opal, Chromatic star, then Ichor wellspring. The scrap trawler returns the Ichor, Ichor returns the Chromatic, and Chromatic returns the Mox. Then draw 2 cards, and are +6 mana. You can then follow up with Inventor's fair for scrap trawler, or more likely return hangarback walker, cast for 8 and search for Emrakul for the win. Turn 4 never looked so scarry. Funny thing is opponent doesn't know all of this going through your head.
My counterspell friends are scarred to tap out any turn, so they do nothing. I threaten combo after turn 4, so I don't play primary spells wait and with longer games Emrakul becomes more and more probable with each land drop like classic Tron with the now banned Eye of Ugin. One crazy idea is cavern of souls naming "construct"
Sideboarding:
I think Wurmcoil plays magically in this deck. It banks 6 mana. If resolved his life gain and never die spirit end most creature based match ups. With Krark-Clan it protects it against Path to Exile and pairs with Oblivion stone. Heck he helps return other artifacts with scrap trawler with no mana loss. Except he cant trigger Sanctum of Ugin. Another option is Platinum emperion.
All is dust over the 4th oblivion stone is an option. I like the exile of Warping Wail at instant speed, since this deck can expedition map or exile a pesky creature at end of turn. I tried Ugin planeswalker but limited uses.
Sword of the meek goes infinite with Krark-clan + Scrap trawler + hangarback walker or walking ballista. Through my play testing, Sword of the meek is a win more card. Walking ballista is a good finisher. Remember to grab him after Emrakul to end the game that turn. And shoot Walking Ballista in a way to thwart deflecting palm.
Cheers and happy playing everyone.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
I plan on picking up the full art promo.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
I posted a colourless variants that goes alot wider and uses Oblivion stones over engineered explosives for board control.
Cheers
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
If you're running a mostly standard manabase, is there any reason not to include a 1-of Academy Ruins? It's been really good vs. the blue decks compared to Buried Ruin, and there's no reason you can't run both. I get that it's tough to produce U sometimes, but you can just shift the manabase away from Groves and run more rainbow lands (Spires/Hubs). Hub is still good enough for letting you Stirrings T1 in a pinch without an artifact on board. At the point in the game where you want to use it (T4+/during combo) you normally have pretty easy access to a blue source anyway. All my color-producing lands are rainbow atm anyway for SB options. Ruins gets you 1 card deeper and easier to use mid-combo if you saved your land drop, but again I don't think they're exclusive.
The more colorless variant without Whirs has been a lot more consistent for me. I found myself bending over backwards and taking suboptimal lines to produce UUU mid-combo. I see it as parallel to the difference between legacy TES and ANT; the colorless KCI deck gets easier/faster, probabilistic kills, while the Whir version has more deterministic lines. The problem is that the difference here is less clearly defined, as both builds have ways to find deterministic kills, and in a deck where you more often have 10 floating instead of UUU I think I like biasing towards more colorless lands to just Sanctum them.
I've been flooding a lot on 18 lands, going back down to 17. 16 is too ballsy for me. It's actually not too bad to draw lands during combo if you've saved your land drop, given that some of them double as tutors, Rituals, or Regrowths, but getting flooded pre-combo was a problem.
Re: Urza's lands above, I actually used to play this deck years ago when it was called Breakfast at Urza's and Scrap Trawler wasn't released. The problem was vs. white decks, you have almost no outs if they land a Stony Silence since 16 of your lands produced colorless and you can't filter to G with artifacts. I haven't had that problem with the new version of the deck, and in fact the first thing that jumped out to me when I saw this list was that you have a ton of ways to naturally Nature's Claim with lands. Sure, I sometimes Turn 3'd them through Mana Leak with a natural Tron but it wasn't worth taking a fat L games 2 and 3.
Recent lists have been cutting Sanctum of Ugin in favour of more Inventors' Fairs and Buried Ruins. I still am not sure about going up to 3 Fairs, since I've already been ****ed enough from drawing 2 Fairs and not being able to get up to 4 mana vs. faster clocks. Killing them off drawing Fair > tutoring Retriever is sweet but I think 2 is still a reasonable midground. Sanctum of Ugin also does a reasonable impression of Fair, it just can't grab KCI and is ***** before the combo turn. With an X-cost artifact, you have similar lines anyway:
Tap Sanctum, +1. Cast EE, -7, tutor wincon off Sanctum (e.g. Retriever). Sac EE, +2. Net: -4
Tap + crack Fair, -4 (additional opportunity cost of -1 since you don't get to tap for mana). Tutor wincon. Sac X-drop, +2. Net: -3.
I don't mind being on greedy rainbow lands as much with this deck since Wasteland doesn't exist. There are enough painless rainbow lands to stand in for Grove. Death's Shadow decks get bopped by EE anyway, the +1 life from Grove is more marginal.
Tried Abrupt Decay in the board but every match I either don't want to bring it in or it rots in my hand for a while. I think just having 4 Nature's Claim is good enough to fight Burn and white enchantments. You can't overboard anyway or you just brick from diluting the deck too much. Also thinking hard about whether there's another SB option to race/disrupt Affinity besides Grudge/more EE. Counter-intuitively, boarding in Claims feels really bad. More often, I've had games where EE + Trawler/Retriever/Academy Ruins just sweeps them several times and they can't rebuild at all.
EDIT: I'd run Arcbound Reclaimer instead of the new Teshar if I wanted a 4-drop for combo turns. Colorless and lets you grab countered KCIs or whatever.
Tooth & Nail........Grishoalbrand....Living Dominance....Tezzerator.........Vannifar Pod
My Decks that have been BANNED
DRS Jund | Kiki-Pod | Bloom Titan | Splinter Twin | KCI
That was me
Went 2-1 vs humans
lost to that btl scape that t8d, g3 he found UUU+Cryptic before I could find kci
lost to hawkins on aff, I used to run grid in the board but cut it when aff got unpopular, wish I would have kept it in
and other loss was to GDS, didn't see souls in the top 30 cards either post board games, pretty sure I would have won either if I did
Depends on how widely played damping sphere is, it's no where near as good as stony silence and it dies to EE unlike stony
Since you are a top 8 active tournament kind of guy. What you think about my colourless Tron variant
Pros are a more stable combo. Weakness is no EE so can die ?
I've played the Whir line but I find it slower and thoptor sword doesn't necessarily win.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
Consistent Emrakul finishes by turn 6. With interaction of hangarback walker blocks, oblivion stone defense. The decks gets more exponential each turn even a scrap trawler block is an option and recover next turn too. In combo only option turn 5-6 are all searching Krark-clan options where as my colourless option has big hangarbacks and hard cast Ceaseless or Emrakul options with sanctum search.
I played mono blue, blue green, and splashy ancient stirrings and even 1 faith rewards variants and find those very Krark exclusive options. Ive been brewing on paper with arcbound ravenger with modular lines but can't seem to find a win con with the counters.
So I'm not sure if my colourless slower turn 3 and powers up turn 4-5 stacks up so I continue to play test. Thoughts anyone ? Or everyone ?
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
Ee is pretty mandatory, not sure how you will ever beat humans/dnt/etc without it, trawler inherently makes us the best ee deck so not playing it is a bit of a crime.
I'm not really an expert on the sanctum+hangar build, this thread is already full of arguments myself and plenty of others made against it. I'm 99% sure the only reason nass and friends played emmy is because they play exclusively online and you can't do loops online
That said, my buddy got 16th at the team scg with same list but he likes having emmy main
Edit:
What do you mean by "more stable?" Also whir doesn't suggest thopter sword, plenty of lists do not play it.
Solid, great post, I'm definitely going to favorite it for workingon the board
But yeah 2 spellbomb is important since it kills thalia, overseer, etc.
Md bridge just instantly wins vs a huge amount of the meta g1 and it's a huge roadblock post board. I've played a lot of lantern and can't leave home without whir + bridge
On a side note I like that you included the Urza lands
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
I meant that Oblivion stones helps to continue the scrap trawler combo. But I thought about it some more. I use hangarback, Mox opal, and Mishra bauble for the zero cmc. You don't use hangarbacks so the EE fill that role. In my mind you must use EE for defense. I have hangarbacks and Oblivion stone only that Oblivion stones need 8 Mana where as EE only needs like 3. I say you have advantage except my colourless variant if have Urza Tron lands can afford it and long term will have more Mana.
This is in theory for me. I need to play more human decks. I played death shadow and it was okay.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
The more dishonest this deck gets the better.
Yeah I like Whir. It can be used at end of turn for Krark Clan on turn 4-5 ideally. Then go off. It is a bit faster than Tezzeret the seeker. It is like a wild card. During combo, I found that the didn't help as much. But maybe I was playing it wrong. Expect to draw a Whir during combo and tap the Ichor before sacing it?
I tried it with sword of the meek combo which was win more. The three blue made it harder to use and was usually Krark or Scrap. Like a chord of calling. My trouble with Whir is after you cast Krark you can't whir out a scrap trawler very often cause of the three blue mana. But I could be wrong maybe someone can shed some light on the usual play lines with Whir.
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer
I have a few leagues posted from a few months ago, I think the list was different than this but not by much
twitch.tv/thursdayisgo
If there's a particular time you want me to go live so we can talk about lines just let me know, I haven't been streaming much lately though
You don't even have to Whir for a Trawler mid-combo. I goldfished a ton and found I was comfortable tutoring a Trawler T3 at the end of their turn if I had KCI in hand.
@Thursdayisgod: I think 2 Pyrites feels really clunky. Do you ever find yourself using Whir for them? If so, would it make sense to cut it to a singleton?
Yeah I'd like to chat about it. Im not too familiar with streaming although I do make clash Royale screen capture commentaries
But my statement about whir expensive is true. It cost 3 blue minimum worse case 7 Mana krarkclan if they disrupt board. Casting krark and scrap tralwer same turn is delayed for end of turn for one and cast the other. Whir has it's delays? although gives selection.
With Tron, Kwark-clan and scrap tralwer play turn 3. Depending on opponent I don't even rush into combo because I can play less rushed strategies for more Mana banking ideas. Turn 4 when I have 8-10 Mana it can be Oblvion stone defend, don't blow it up and play combo while sacing Oblivion stone in the combo. Haha.
Against discard I don't really want to even see krark until a bit later so I hold my Mishra bauble until turn 4 and based on my life total and opponents board state. One way we can all play kci is to wait until super fireball has been set up.
I guess the part I'm missing is the consistency of the combo. I played the green blue one and Kci, scrap tralwer and an ichor wellspring could whiff. You prefer a chromatic in graveyard to be confidant. The thing I found was drawing land land even with a Mox opal and no card draw a huge problem because I would generate 7-8 Mana but run out of card draw or something to do with all the Mana. This is why I moved towards hangarback walker because when you combo, hangarback is 2 Mana and then at end you put all the Mana into hangarback even activating sanctum .
In comparison I think some people are playing myr retriever I am missing what my retriever adds if scrap trawler is not in play. With krark it is kind of Mana neutral with a grave yard card. Without krark it's not as good as a hangarback which banks 4 Mana and +1 each turn, but does not have graveyard card.
Also anyone have any thoughts about Mox amber .. it's an artifact and can help cast Karn liberated or the New Karn. Not bad
GreenTron, Aggro Burn, Devoted Company Variants, and Off Meta Brewer