Tron vs. BGx is (IMO) one of the most polarizing matchups in all of Modern. It shouldn't always be used as the example because there are plenty of matchups that are closer to 50/50, like UW Control vs. Burn.
Didn't ktkenshinx crunch numbers at some point and determine that the Tron vs. BGx matchup was actually a lot closer to 50/50 than was commonly believed?
I don't give a damn what those numbers say, every single GBx player, writer/columnist and famous GBx player says it's one of the most lopsided matchup's in modern; I can count on one hand the times I have beaten Tron with Abzan. Jund is a little better but still supremely awful. No Jund or Junk player will tell you this a 40/60 matchup
You should care about what the numbers say, because the numbers are objective data rather than the anecdotal evidence you are presenting.
Tron vs. BGx is (IMO) one of the most polarizing matchups in all of Modern. It shouldn't always be used as the example because there are plenty of matchups that are closer to 50/50, like UW Control vs. Burn.
Didn't ktkenshinx crunch numbers at some point and determine that the Tron vs. BGx matchup was actually a lot closer to 50/50 than was commonly believed?
You play Tron, I sure as hell know you don't believe this is a 40/60 or 50/50
Not sure why you felt the need to double post... in response to the same post.
Tron has some big advantages against Jund, sure. But contrariwise, Jund players tend to pack a lot of anti-Tron stuff. Running 3 or 4 Fulminator Mages in the sideboard isn't done for the heck of it. It's the same thing as Tron vs. Twin: Because Twin was so favored against Tron, Tron players packed lots of hate in the sideboard or even maindeck, which ironically makes the matchup rather even. I remember how (I think this was mid 2015) there was a several-month-long time period when I never lost a match against Splinter Twin while playing Tron--and it wasn't for lack of playing against Splinter Twin, I can tell you that.
Now, if you want a truly miserable matchup, Abzan Pod, even when it was Tier 0.5, was amazingly bad against Tron. It's like if you took every way Tron was good against Jund and made it better, and then removed any of the possible strengths Jund had against Tron (e.g. possibility of a few Tarmogoyfs providing a quick clock, good sideboard hate).
Fulminator is an atrocious hate card though. This format still has no good answer to ramp decks. Fulminator is a bad card, and let's not pretend it's not.
[Tron has some big advantages against Jund, sure. But contrariwise, Jund players tend to pack a lot of anti-Tron stuff. Running 3 or 4 Fulminator Mages in the sideboard isn't done for the heck of it. It's the same thing as Tron vs. Twin: Because Twin was so favored against Tron, Tron players packed lots of hate in the sideboard or even maindeck, which ironically makes the matchup rather even. I remember how (I think this was mid 2015) there was a several-month-long time period when I never lost a match against Splinter Twin while playing Tron--and it wasn't for lack of playing against Splinter Twin, I can tell you that.
Now, if you want a truly miserable matchup, Abzan Pod, even when it was Tier 0.5, was amazingly bad against Tron. It's like if you took every way Tron was good against Jund and made it better, and then removed any of the possible strengths Jund had against Tron (e.g. possibility of a few Tarmogoyfs providing a quick clock, good sideboard hate).
No offense, but it's no way anything like Tron versus Twin. The SB Tron could use was insane versus Twin (Spellskite, Nature's Claim, Dismember, Boil, Rending Volley) all, usually, stopped Twin dead. Fulminator Mage is, nearly always, a slight inconvenience for Tron.
I recall many Twin players were complaining about having poor game 2-3s against Tron from around the end of March 2015 due to Rending Volley being printed.
Yeah.
Complains about Twin
Boil>>>>>>>>>>>>>Fulminator
Rending Volley as a 2 for 1>>>>>>>>>>>>>Fulminator
They literally could dedicate 8 cards for Twin
GBx can maybe dedicate 3---4 to make an atrocious matchup just a bad matchup?
I don't buy it.
Tron isn't really a deck right now anyway, although BG Tron doesn't look that bad to me in this meta, it seems underplayed.
Fulminator mage is just way too slow to do what it needs to do. If we keep seeing decks that are centered around non basic lands we are going to eventually need some hate for them
This is where anecdotal evidence makes no sense. Tron was unloseable to jund, pod, and jeskai control. Its twin and affinity matchips were apparently 50/50. Why did it never do anything if it was that good?
Doesn't running Goyf in Vines only make graveyard hate that much better against the deck?
On one hand, yes. On the other, grave hate is already really good against the deck. It's not like Goyf will be the deciding factor on whether people bring it in. It'll just be a determination on if Goyf is strong enough to risk not diversifying your threats with stuff like goblin guide.
Tron just accepted the auto-loss from infect and burn back then.
I think this is the kind of hyperbole ktkenshinx has been alluding to. It doesn't do us any favors as far as a community supposedly beholden to statistics.
What counts as an auto-loss? An 80-20 matchup? A 60-40? They were terrible matchups for tron, absolutely, but unwinnable? I wouldn't go that far.
It's the Delve creatures in that deck I don't like.
Why don't you like the Delve creatures? Strictly speaking the deck isn't graveyard based. The only spell it can cast from the yard is Faithless Looting, and while the deck does recur Vengevines en masse as it's Plan A, that is the only card that has an interaction with being in the graveyard.
The Delve creatures that advantage on the fact that you are filling your graveyard with a bunch of cards to get you cheap creatures. If you're playing green, Hooting Mandrills is a great creature since you can most often cast it for 1 mana. While the same can be said about Gurmag Angler for black, personally I feel Tasigur, the Golden Fang is better as it costs less overall.
Honestly I've been playing the deck on MTGO and having a crap-ton of 1 mana creatures is essential to make the deck work. It's why personally I don't like the idea of running Tarmogoyf in the list. If you're casting a Goyf, you'd most likely not be casting another creature on Turn 2, meaning that you won't be recurring your Vengevines.
Tron just accepted the auto-loss from infect and burn back then.
I think this is the kind of hyperbole ktkenshinx has been alluding to. It doesn't do us any favors as far as a community supposedly beholden to statistics.
What counts as an auto-loss? An 80-20 matchup? A 60-40? They were terrible matchups for tron, absolutely, but unwinnable? I wouldn't go that far.
That wasn't hyperbole, RG Tron v Infect was one of the most popular, lopsided matchups in all of modern. I think it was closer to 25/75. Burn was bad too.
We still hear it now, people in the past were frustrated by RG Tron because it caused the issue of "non-games" were very little happened and there were huge blow outs.
Infect is less than 0.50% of the meta, and it looks like BG Tron is more the thing now with CB's, so I'm sure it's not like that anymore.
To add some anecdotal 'evidence' to the RG Tron VS Infect discussion:
A friend of mine played RG Tron religiously a few years back. I remember his deck actually ran not only 4 Pyroclasm mainboard, but he had made room for 4 Dismember as well. When I asked him about it he said it was solely due to Infect being his worst match up and he needed to make it better. Though he did concede the the Dismembers did help make the [REDACTED] match up a bit better as well.
The Infect VS Tron match up was so lopsided he warped his deck around trying to make it better. He also pointed out to me that it could be just as bad for the Infect player if he had say natural Tron into Oblivion Stone into Karn to keep the Infect creatures at bay. Honestly I still feel like that match up was the most luck based match up of any two decks I have ever seen. It seemed to come down to who was on the play Game 1 and who drew the wombo combo first.
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#PayThePros
Hey if WOTC wants to bring Gitaxian Probe back I will gladly sleeve up my Kiln Fiend deck again no problem.
I don't think probe is too powerful in the context of kiln fiend decks or even infect. However, I'd be concerned with the impact probe may have on death's shadow decks.
Hey if WOTC wants to bring Gitaxian Probe back I will gladly sleeve up my Kiln Fiend deck again no problem.
I don't think probe is too powerful in the context of kiln fiend decks or even infect. However, I'd be concerned with the impact probe may have on death's shadow decks.
Yeah, with Probe the Death's Shadow decks get another way to get out sizable Shadows more quickly, while also essentially shrinking their deck down to 52 cards.
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Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
I've mentioned it before and either been ignored or lampooned, but as a Jund player I've actually never lost to Tron or Eldrazi, whether it be U-Tron, Gx-Tron, Eldra-Tron, or Bant Eldrazi. I did take off Eldrazi Winter, so I have no matchups against Eldrazi decks that had Eye.
Tron isn't hugely represented in my area but I've played my fair share of the matchups. Honestly I think what happens is that the Tron player treats it like a bye and doesn't pay attention until it's too late and I don't treat it as an auto-loss and actually gun for the wins. You have to be very aggressive with your plays and mulls, though.
I am so glad i was right that if you remove infect from modern, big mana decks will become the no.1 strategy one must be following if you want to win.
DS keeps the balances though now but Modern is certainly slowly and steadily becoming format with a bigger representation of big mana, but its not a big mana format yet.
Infect should not be wiped off the face of Earth, especially with fatal push on its way.
I don't mean to be contrary, but I really don't think your position on this is tenable. There hasn't been any consistent evidence to suggest that "big mana decks" have become the "no.1 strategy" required to win in modern as a format. Far from it, we've been seeing an abundance of interactive or alternative types of decks doing very well recently. Coco, burn, shadow, abzan, affinity etc are all at the top, with only Eldrazi really giving any weight at all to your suggestion. Scapeshift is better at the moment that it's been for a long while, which I'd hasten to add is probably a good thing, for quite a few reasons (not least is keeping decks like Tron in check, which the community for some reason despise)
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Modern: G Tron, Vannifar, Jund, Druid/Vizier combo, Humans, Eldrazi Stompy (Serum Powder), Amulet, Grishoalbrand, Breach Titan, Turns, Eternal Command, As Foretold Living End, Elves, Cheerios, RUG Scapeshift
I am so glad i was right that if you remove infect from modern, big mana decks will become the no.1 strategy one must be following if you want to win.
DS keeps the balances though now but Modern is certainly slowly and steadily becoming format with a bigger representation of big mana, but its not a big mana format yet.
Infect should not be wiped off the face of Earth, especially with fatal push on its way.
I don't mean to be contrary, but I really don't think your position on this is tenable. There hasn't been any consistent evidence to suggest that "big mana decks" have become the "no.1 strategy" required to win in modern as a format. Far from it, we've been seeing an abundance of interactive or alternative types of decks doing very well recently. Coco, burn, shadow, abzan, affinity etc are all at the top, with only Eldrazi really giving any weight at all to your suggestion. Scapeshift is better at the moment that it's been for a long while, which I'd hasten to add is probably a good thing, for quite a few reasons (not least is keeping decks like Tron in check, which the community for some reason despise)
I pride myself on never agreeing with gkorou about anything at all, but I think he might be right here. I'm very close to believing Titanshift and E-Tron are the overall best things you can be doing in Modern.
To apply some context here I would want to know the meta % of all valakut and tron decks currently and where they were immediately before probe was banned. Have they significantly gained ground compared to where they were last year?
I personally think that infect was a bad match-up for valakut and tron decks so I expect their shares would be higher now that one of their predators has been removed.
It's the Delve creatures in that deck I don't like.
Why don't you like the Delve creatures? Strictly speaking the deck isn't graveyard based. The only spell it can cast from the yard is Faithless Looting, and while the deck does recur Vengevines en masse as it's Plan A, that is the only card that has an interaction with being in the graveyard.
The problem with them is there usually isn't enough cards in the GY to cast them reliably. You obviously can't exile the Vengevines and exiling a Faithless Looting is bad too, since you're going to want it to filter and discard later. Also, unlike GDS, you don't have a bunch of cantrips like Serum Visions and Thoughtscour to dump cards in the GY. So you're stuck with high CC cards in your hand with cards in the yard you can't exile. That just sux.
But as always, in Modern, what you see doesn't have to be what it is, and the fact that the deck is perceived as dead has to do more with random reasons such as Wizards not having published one of my decklists since January. I've done more than 15 5-0s in that span. Had a good number of them been published, people would have seen them, some people would have tried it, some would have 5-0ed with it, thus reinforcing the loop.
So what you're saying is that Wizards not giving us metagame data has instead of helping to metagame feel open and diverse, has instead pushed us towards making it seems very closed and narrow since we can't see what people are innovating with.
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I just can't buy into this idea that big mana decks are terrorizing tier 1. E-tron has close to a 50-50 MU against GDS, the most played deck. It's a dog against affinity, and titanshift isn't much better there. Titanshift is still weak to combo and storm seems to be keeping things in check there. Of course they're both really good decks, but I don't think they're warping things, and I DEFINITELY don't things are anywhere close to clear enough to be saying they're the strongest decks in the format right now.
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Modern
Affinity
Death & Taxes
Mardu Nahiri
Forcing people to merge with twitch is stupid
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Not sure why you felt the need to double post... in response to the same post.
Tron has some big advantages against Jund, sure. But contrariwise, Jund players tend to pack a lot of anti-Tron stuff. Running 3 or 4 Fulminator Mages in the sideboard isn't done for the heck of it. It's the same thing as Tron vs. Twin: Because Twin was so favored against Tron, Tron players packed lots of hate in the sideboard or even maindeck, which ironically makes the matchup rather even. I remember how (I think this was mid 2015) there was a several-month-long time period when I never lost a match against Splinter Twin while playing Tron--and it wasn't for lack of playing against Splinter Twin, I can tell you that.
Now, if you want a truly miserable matchup, Abzan Pod, even when it was Tier 0.5, was amazingly bad against Tron. It's like if you took every way Tron was good against Jund and made it better, and then removed any of the possible strengths Jund had against Tron (e.g. possibility of a few Tarmogoyfs providing a quick clock, good sideboard hate).
Yeah.
Complains about Twin
Boil>>>>>>>>>>>>>Fulminator
Rending Volley as a 2 for 1>>>>>>>>>>>>>Fulminator
They literally could dedicate 8 cards for Twin
GBx can maybe dedicate 3---4 to make an atrocious matchup just a bad matchup?
I don't buy it.
Tron isn't really a deck right now anyway, although BG Tron doesn't look that bad to me in this meta, it seems underplayed.
Fatal Push, Faithless Looting, Tarmogoyf.
It needed all those cards to become even. They literally dedicated 8 SB cards, it definitely wasn't bad games 2 and 3.
Tron just accepted the auto-loss from infect and burn back then.
Fair point about Push. But, the RG deck already ran looting. And Goyf is a nonbo with hooting mandrills. Might be worth it though.
On one hand, yes. On the other, grave hate is already really good against the deck. It's not like Goyf will be the deciding factor on whether people bring it in. It'll just be a determination on if Goyf is strong enough to risk not diversifying your threats with stuff like goblin guide.
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
I think this is the kind of hyperbole ktkenshinx has been alluding to. It doesn't do us any favors as far as a community supposedly beholden to statistics.
What counts as an auto-loss? An 80-20 matchup? A 60-40? They were terrible matchups for tron, absolutely, but unwinnable? I wouldn't go that far.
It's the Delve creatures in that deck I don't like.
Why don't you like the Delve creatures? Strictly speaking the deck isn't graveyard based. The only spell it can cast from the yard is Faithless Looting, and while the deck does recur Vengevines en masse as it's Plan A, that is the only card that has an interaction with being in the graveyard.
The Delve creatures that advantage on the fact that you are filling your graveyard with a bunch of cards to get you cheap creatures. If you're playing green, Hooting Mandrills is a great creature since you can most often cast it for 1 mana. While the same can be said about Gurmag Angler for black, personally I feel Tasigur, the Golden Fang is better as it costs less overall.
Honestly I've been playing the deck on MTGO and having a crap-ton of 1 mana creatures is essential to make the deck work. It's why personally I don't like the idea of running Tarmogoyf in the list. If you're casting a Goyf, you'd most likely not be casting another creature on Turn 2, meaning that you won't be recurring your Vengevines.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
That wasn't hyperbole, RG Tron v Infect was one of the most popular, lopsided matchups in all of modern. I think it was closer to 25/75. Burn was bad too.
We still hear it now, people in the past were frustrated by RG Tron because it caused the issue of "non-games" were very little happened and there were huge blow outs.
Infect is less than 0.50% of the meta, and it looks like BG Tron is more the thing now with CB's, so I'm sure it's not like that anymore.
A friend of mine played RG Tron religiously a few years back. I remember his deck actually ran not only 4 Pyroclasm mainboard, but he had made room for 4 Dismember as well. When I asked him about it he said it was solely due to Infect being his worst match up and he needed to make it better. Though he did concede the the Dismembers did help make the [REDACTED] match up a bit better as well.
The Infect VS Tron match up was so lopsided he warped his deck around trying to make it better. He also pointed out to me that it could be just as bad for the Infect player if he had say natural Tron into Oblivion Stone into Karn to keep the Infect creatures at bay. Honestly I still feel like that match up was the most luck based match up of any two decks I have ever seen. It seemed to come down to who was on the play Game 1 and who drew the wombo combo first.
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 don't think probe is too powerful in the context of kiln fiend decks or even infect. However, I'd be concerned with the impact probe may have on death's shadow decks.
Yeah, with Probe the Death's Shadow decks get another way to get out sizable Shadows more quickly, while also essentially shrinking their deck down to 52 cards.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Tron isn't hugely represented in my area but I've played my fair share of the matchups. Honestly I think what happens is that the Tron player treats it like a bye and doesn't pay attention until it's too late and I don't treat it as an auto-loss and actually gun for the wins. You have to be very aggressive with your plays and mulls, though.
Standard: lol no
Modern: BG/x, UR/x, Burn, Merfolk, Zoo, Storm
Legacy: Shardless BUG, Delver (BUG, RUG, Grixis), Landstill, Depths Combo, Merfolk
Vintage: Dark Times, BUG Fish, Merfolk
EDH: Teysa, Orzhov Scion / Krenko, Mob Boss / Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
I don't mean to be contrary, but I really don't think your position on this is tenable. There hasn't been any consistent evidence to suggest that "big mana decks" have become the "no.1 strategy" required to win in modern as a format. Far from it, we've been seeing an abundance of interactive or alternative types of decks doing very well recently. Coco, burn, shadow, abzan, affinity etc are all at the top, with only Eldrazi really giving any weight at all to your suggestion. Scapeshift is better at the moment that it's been for a long while, which I'd hasten to add is probably a good thing, for quite a few reasons (not least is keeping decks like Tron in check, which the community for some reason despise)
To apply some context here I would want to know the meta % of all valakut and tron decks currently and where they were immediately before probe was banned. Have they significantly gained ground compared to where they were last year?
I personally think that infect was a bad match-up for valakut and tron decks so I expect their shares would be higher now that one of their predators has been removed.
The problem with them is there usually isn't enough cards in the GY to cast them reliably. You obviously can't exile the Vengevines and exiling a Faithless Looting is bad too, since you're going to want it to filter and discard later. Also, unlike GDS, you don't have a bunch of cantrips like Serum Visions and Thoughtscour to dump cards in the GY. So you're stuck with high CC cards in your hand with cards in the yard you can't exile. That just sux.
I think there are more interesting choices like Bombat Courier, Blisterpod, Bloodsoaked Champion, Wild Cantor, Dryad Militant, Glitterfang, Hope of Ghirapur, Flameblade Adept, Fourth Bridge Prowler, Fume Spitter, Gnarlwood Dryad, Heap Doll, Hex Parasite, Permeating Mass, Plagued Rusalka, Sludge Crawler, Thoughtpicker Witch, etc.
I really think the deck ought to try to go wide and be a little disruptive, then swing big on turn 3.
So what you're saying is that Wizards not giving us metagame data has instead of helping to metagame feel open and diverse, has instead pushed us towards making it seems very closed and narrow since we can't see what people are innovating with.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
Affinity
Death & Taxes
Mardu Nahiri
Forcing people to merge with twitch is stupid