I'm not very optimistic on new Karn's chances in either this deck or any other Tron variant. The problems of wishboards in general come at the very real expense of valuable SB space. A lot of times I feel like I'm struggling to find space for a 4th Claim or 4th Tusk I really want, so it feels annoying to have to shave down my SB from 15 to ~10 cards because I have to put a bunch of cards in my SB that I'm never intending to actually SB in.
I think that finding a way to put 4th O-Stone and 4th Wurm in the SB isn't that difficult. Some builds were already 3 Stone/3 Wurm/1 Dust, so that part I don't see as much a problem. The biggest problem I see is that it's really difficult to convert Karn into meaningful advantage the turn that he lands. The closest a 3-drop artifact comes to immediate impact is something like Ensnaring Bridge, but Ensnaring Bridge has a really big problem in that it's hard for us to empty our hand and Karn gives us more cards. That means T3 Bridge is backed by a 6-7 card hand and will only really stop Thing if you're lucky.
The "consistency" argument is kind of weird to me, because most builds don't currently play 4th Wurmcoil or 3rd-4th Ballista or copies of All Is Dust. Karn's extremely anemic in his immediate-impact if you treat him as a 7-drop. If you treat him as a 10-drop you do get instant Lattice combo, but the Lattice combo only works if your opponent can't immediately hit back for 3 damage with creatures or instants.
A lot of the same arguments remind me of when Planar Bridge was spoiled, and everyone was harping about "consistency." The problem is that Karn isn't himself tutorable, and he's not very playable w/o Tron active either (and doesn't help you get Tron). Like Bridge, he firmly is a "payoff" card. That means he's fighting with cards like extra copies of Wurmcoil or Ballista. A lot of his ability to toolbox is really stymied by the fact that he comes down pretty late in the context of Modern, so most of the time his -2 should just be grabbing payoffs instead of actual toolbox cards. Which kind of brings up the question, why not run more payoffs in his place? If I have 7 mana I could Karn+3-drop, but I could also just slam Wurmcoil or All Is Dust/Ballista, which are on average far more impactful threats.
I think there are 3 reasons to play this Karn in the end.
1. He's a 4-drop, so he's very playable in grindy games vs Trophy/Blood Moon.
2. He's a 10-mana win condition with Mycosynth in certain matchups.
3. Certain decks die to his static ability, even w/o Mycosynth.
I'm honestly not sure if that's worth the SB space of a ~5-card wishboard (which I think is a cost that's hard to overexaggerate). I think I could foresee running a couple copies in the SB with a Mycosynth, and then SBing out a limited number of artifacts that turn into a quasi-wishboard in addition to the Mycosynth for G2 and G3 in certain matchups. It's just annoying that the cards you'd SB out for a wishboard are cards you'd generally want to SB in to draw them (Crucible/Wurmcoil/O-Stone vs land disruption/grindy MUs). On the other hand, it's a very good hate piece vs decks like Whir and Affinity even w/o a wishboard, so it might be playable when you consider that factor.
Now, I'm not suggesting you shouldn't test it out, but I'm just trying to temper expectations, when we've seen this kind of hype before for several different cards.
I'm not sure we want this one, feels more like a card for our Mono-U cousins, but it's pretty neat.
Karn, the Great Creator (4)
Artifact abilities of artifacts your opponents control can't be activated
+1 Until your next turn, up to one target noncreature artifact become an artifact creature with power and toughness equal to it's converted mana cost
-2 You may choose an artifact card you own from outside the game or in exile, reveal that card and add it to your hand
(5)
I wonder if a different, more toolboxy build would be viable with this. I also like this being a one-sided Stony Silence, since that's a powerful hoser we didn't have access to before.
If it's real, I feel like the primary thing you're paying for is the Stony Silence effect. It's especially good vs. Affinity, since you can +1 pop their Citadels and Opals after shutting down their deck. The -2's nice and all, but I think it's more of a bonus than anything. If you SB it in, you can also SB out artifacts in order to turn on its ability. For either us or U Tron, I don't think it's really an MD card, as it has no guaranteed immediate impact, and it can't be easily tutored for.
Also, if you build your SB to be a toolbox, you really lose out on powerful SB options that are necessary for G2 and G3.
Tons of fair decks in the queues, both UWx and BGx, with BG Rock in particular taking almost all the meta share from Jund. That deck is our nemesis right now - very close matchup and I like having additional sideboard cards for it.
Thanks for the writeup! This statement interested me. What additional cards do you like in the SB for it? Your most recent SB guide seemed to have a fairly standard SB; are you talking about the move to 4 Tusk? How do you feel about the mill MU with Ulamog in your SB? What does your SB look like right now?
Also, with all the aggro and midrange decks not playing Path, have you considered moving to 4 Wurmcoil (potentially over 4th Stone)?
Agreed on Whir Prison being a rough MU; they have far more tutoring power than Lantern, and they run a lot more relevant cards vs. us than Lantern did. Maybe Sam Black taking Lantern all the way will be good for us, but the Whir Prison MU feels nightmarish sometimes.
In other news, I liked the Top 8 GP Tampa and Jim Davis' Top 16 SCG Open/Classic lists; both had a number of things in common which I liked:
-5 basics: BGx (especially straight BG running Field) is on an uptick, so having access to all 5 copies feels really good. Kudos to sicsmoo for pointing that out earlier.
-3 O-Stones in favor of a Tron-enabled threat (4th Wurmcoil/1 All Is Dust) - both the Phoenix variants really pressure our ability to answer their boards, so having another threat with immediate impact feels pretty good right now.
It's also worth pointing out that neither list ran SB Surgicals.
Finally, there was a weird version in the Top 8 of SCG Philadelphia that swapped MD Thought-Knots for SB Ballistas.
sting list. Trimmed down on Ballistas and World Breaker for a pair of MD Thrags, and is running both Horizon Canopy and Buried Ruin in exchange for running only three basics.
I'm not sold on path enough to stretch the manabase. Path is definitely our best removal for shadow, but they have ways to counter the path very easy and I think we are more likely to win by playing threats on our turn. I'm in no way saying path is bad against grixis shadow, but I think it's not good enough to force it into our deck in the current meta.
I really don't like path against primetime decks. Against both decks your winrate plummets if they resolve a titan at all (unless you can surgical the primetime away from amulet, but path doesn't help that line at all). Primetime decks being popular are the largest reason I'm not all in on white for paths right now.
Edit: I think burn is worth mentioning as well. It's probably the deck that benefits the most against us from being ramped by path. And the deck is quite popular and at least 55% winrate over tron. Do you path their creature on turn 1 or 2 and allow them to start double casting 2 drops on turn 3? They often operate on very low land counts and we can steal games when they stumble on mana.
I agree on all this, but especially the bit about not playing specific removal if it's bad vs. Burn. Path not only suffers from this, but also Dismember, in my opinion.
Just came across a 5-0 list that was playing 3 Wall of Roots SB. Weird choice, but I guess it seems decent with all the cheap 2-3 power creatures running around.
You can read it in your own post @Slivortal, it is a must-answer situation for UW. And both cards (Blood Sun and Oblivion Stone) have impact on the game; disabling Field of Ruin, Celestial Colonnade and any fetchland is huge (while it cantrips at least) and O-Stone deals with any PW. A 1-for-1 trade with either Jace or Teferi is acceptable, because like you said, both generate CA.
The problem is that O-Stone doesn't trade 1-for-1 with Walkers; it trades 1-for-2 since both Jace and Teferi generate a free card before you have to 1-for-1 them with Stone (and slightly worse vs. Jace, thanks to the Brainstorm). The only real way to answer walkers in a neutral fashion is via creature combat, since the creature that sticks around makes up for the free card they get with the first activation (or with a cast trigger, of course). Answering a walker via Stone on a 1-for-1 basis is sometimes necessary, but not really something you actively want to be doing.
Let me show you this: if you can deploy an O-Stone and a Blood Sun with a fate counter, UW Control cannot win the game. Those two are a hardlock against their deck.
Greetings
I mean, O-Stone + BS is a soft lock at best. If UW lands a Jace 0 or Teferi +1, you're forced to pop the Stone and leaves you down 1 card (since they're threatening to drown you in CA). They can also Teferi -3 it or Blood Sun, D-Sphere it or Blood Sun, Cryptic bounce it or Blood Sun, Stony shut down Stone, or Disenchant it or Blood Sun. Thragtusk is a much better answer for the PWs since it sticks around after it takes them out, and can actually pressure your opponent so they can't just wait forever to draw into an answer. UW will win the waiting game if they stick a threat first.
Titans are great, but Ulamog often is double Vindicate + eat Path. If it comes down too late it's good, but not backbreaking. Emrakul the Promised End is an absolute MU breaker, but I personally have a hard time finding room in my 75 after the death of KCI and UW taking up less than 3% of the meta.
My boarding was:
-3 Pyroclasm
-2 Wurmcoil Engine (1 left)
-1 Sylvan Scrying
-1 Expedition Map (Stony Silence)
+3 Nature's Claim
+2 Blood Sun
+2 Thought-Knot Seer
It played out nicely G2, but G3 I mulled 7 with 4 Lands, then mulled to 4 to have any Land, then lost due to offensive plays into outs instead of deploying Planeswalkers and lost (also due to some cheating I didn't call the judge for - next time I will for sure).
Why do you SB out the Map over a Sphere? I usually like going -1 Sphere to hedge vs Silence, personally.
It probably sounds contradictory after just talking about wanting to maximize threat count by not cutting Stones, but I find it difficult to SB out Scrying/Map, since running less than 8 affects mulligans so hard. I could also be wrong, though.
My RG list posted on the previous page payed off yet again. Small Tournament today, 4 rounds of Swiss.
R1 vs UW Spirits - 2:0 (Ugin won it)
R2 vs Esper Control - 2:0 (Eldrazi Titans G1, Powerwalkers G2)
R3 vs BW Eldrazi'n'Taxes - 2:0 (Pyroclasm, Blood Sun and Walking Ballista)
R4 vs UW Control - ID for saving prizes for both
We played for fun and who gets first or second prize (UMA Goyf or M25 Moon in foil). I lost that 1:2, though I am sure I'd won it all if I played safer G3 and my opp wouldn't have cheated - though I mulled to 4 in that game.
So I won the foil Moon. For the UWx Control MU, I'd add some Boil to my SB - not gonna happen soon, because no other MU benefits.
Greetings
PS: keep some O-Stone in your 60 for post-board games, it kills any PW and stuff like Detention Sphere.
I really don't like Stones vs. UW because how high your threat density needs to be to work through all their removal. You already need to bring in Claims to deal with Stonies that also deal with Spheres, and I'd much rather keep in 1 or 2 Wurmcoils if I wanted to pressure walkers. YMMV though, of course.
Please,how sideboarding versus U/W Control and U/W/R Jeskay Control
Sideboard
4 Natures Claim
2 Surgical
3 Through not Seer
2 Spatial contortion
3 Thraghtusk
1 Crucible of world
¿4 claim and 3 Thraghtusk or 3 Claim and 4 Thraghtusk?
3 Claim/4 Tusk. You're far more likely to use the 4th Tusk than the 4th Claim. As for SBing vs UW, bring in Thragtusks, Thought-Knots, Claims, and the Crucible. Take out Stones, Wurmcoils, and Relics.
TBH TKS does still feel a bit underwhelming to me in this meta, but it's never a bad call to have at least a couple copies handy for the unfair matchups.
I've been having a lot of trouble with these Arclight Phoenix decks, both the mono-red and UR versions. Graveyard hate is okay but generally not enough on its own because they still have a lot of burn + Swiftspear or Thing in the Ice, or even Hollow One/Flameblade. That's the other issue - the lists are still very much evolving so it makes it tough to plan for. They have Alpine/Blood Moon post-board, and can fly over a Thragtusk or Wurmcoil or Abrade it. Feels like a tough one for sure.
This GW list that 5-0'd recently (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1417016#online) is a reasonable response to these types of decks, the Rest in Peace and Timely Reinforcements both being good cards in the matchup. You also get to be better against Burn and even better against Dredge, not that I think that was really necessary.
The main issue I see is that this configuration is quite a bit worse against UW, with only 3 Forest to search for, and only 4 midrange threats to bring in post-board, in addition to the 4th Wurmcoil which is such a lackluster card in the matchup, at the expense of the World Breaker which is fantastic. The list has similar issues against BGx, with only 2 Thragtusk to board in, although the 4th Wurmcoil helps here. But of course, you can't be great against everything. If these Phoenix decks remain popular GW might be a good choice.
I remember seeing this list a little while back. What do you think about splashing the SB cards off the back of only 2 Canopy? You definitely gain a lot of points against Burn w/Timely, but don't you risk losing those points back G1 off of the life loss from the Canopies? Splashing SB cards off of only 2 colored sources also seems a little greedy, but they did manage to 5-0 with it, so I could just be completely off-kilter. I'll have to test it sometime.
I think that finding a way to put 4th O-Stone and 4th Wurm in the SB isn't that difficult. Some builds were already 3 Stone/3 Wurm/1 Dust, so that part I don't see as much a problem. The biggest problem I see is that it's really difficult to convert Karn into meaningful advantage the turn that he lands. The closest a 3-drop artifact comes to immediate impact is something like Ensnaring Bridge, but Ensnaring Bridge has a really big problem in that it's hard for us to empty our hand and Karn gives us more cards. That means T3 Bridge is backed by a 6-7 card hand and will only really stop Thing if you're lucky.
The "consistency" argument is kind of weird to me, because most builds don't currently play 4th Wurmcoil or 3rd-4th Ballista or copies of All Is Dust. Karn's extremely anemic in his immediate-impact if you treat him as a 7-drop. If you treat him as a 10-drop you do get instant Lattice combo, but the Lattice combo only works if your opponent can't immediately hit back for 3 damage with creatures or instants.
A lot of the same arguments remind me of when Planar Bridge was spoiled, and everyone was harping about "consistency." The problem is that Karn isn't himself tutorable, and he's not very playable w/o Tron active either (and doesn't help you get Tron). Like Bridge, he firmly is a "payoff" card. That means he's fighting with cards like extra copies of Wurmcoil or Ballista. A lot of his ability to toolbox is really stymied by the fact that he comes down pretty late in the context of Modern, so most of the time his -2 should just be grabbing payoffs instead of actual toolbox cards. Which kind of brings up the question, why not run more payoffs in his place? If I have 7 mana I could Karn+3-drop, but I could also just slam Wurmcoil or All Is Dust/Ballista, which are on average far more impactful threats.
I think there are 3 reasons to play this Karn in the end.
1. He's a 4-drop, so he's very playable in grindy games vs Trophy/Blood Moon.
2. He's a 10-mana win condition with Mycosynth in certain matchups.
3. Certain decks die to his static ability, even w/o Mycosynth.
I'm honestly not sure if that's worth the SB space of a ~5-card wishboard (which I think is a cost that's hard to overexaggerate). I think I could foresee running a couple copies in the SB with a Mycosynth, and then SBing out a limited number of artifacts that turn into a quasi-wishboard in addition to the Mycosynth for G2 and G3 in certain matchups. It's just annoying that the cards you'd SB out for a wishboard are cards you'd generally want to SB in to draw them (Crucible/Wurmcoil/O-Stone vs land disruption/grindy MUs). On the other hand, it's a very good hate piece vs decks like Whir and Affinity even w/o a wishboard, so it might be playable when you consider that factor.
Now, I'm not suggesting you shouldn't test it out, but I'm just trying to temper expectations, when we've seen this kind of hype before for several different cards.
Also, if you build your SB to be a toolbox, you really lose out on powerful SB options that are necessary for G2 and G3.
Also, with all the aggro and midrange decks not playing Path, have you considered moving to 4 Wurmcoil (potentially over 4th Stone)?
In other news, I liked the Top 8 GP Tampa and Jim Davis' Top 16 SCG Open/Classic lists; both had a number of things in common which I liked:
5 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
Creatures
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Walking Ballista
3 Wurmcoil Engine
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 All Is Dust
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
3 Oblivion Stone
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Sylvan Scrying
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Emrakul, the Promised End
1 Grafdigger's Cage
4 Nature's Claim
3 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Thragtusk
2 Warping Wail
2 Walking Ballista
4 Wurmcoil Engine
1 World Breaker
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Lands
5 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
3 Oblivion Stone
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Thragtusk
1 Dismember
4 Nature's Claim
2 Spatial Contortion
-5 basics: BGx (especially straight BG running Field) is on an uptick, so having access to all 5 copies feels really good. Kudos to sicsmoo for pointing that out earlier.
-3 O-Stones in favor of a Tron-enabled threat (4th Wurmcoil/1 All Is Dust) - both the Phoenix variants really pressure our ability to answer their boards, so having another threat with immediate impact feels pretty good right now.
It's also worth pointing out that neither list ran SB Surgicals.
Finally, there was a weird version in the Top 8 of SCG Philadelphia that swapped MD Thought-Knots for SB Ballistas.
3 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Thragtusk
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Lands
4 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
3 Oblivion Stone
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Torpor Orb
2 Walking Ballista
2 Thragtusk
3 Nature's Claim
2 Spatial Contortion
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Walking Ballista
3 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Thragtusk
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Planeswalkers (6)
4 Karn Liberated
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Lands (19)
3 Forest
1 Buried Ruin
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
4 Oblivion Stone
3 Relic of Progenitus
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Sylvan Scrying
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Thragtusk
3 Nature's Claim
2 Spatial Contortion
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Warping Wail
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Expedition Map
5 Forest
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Karn Liberated
4 Oblivion Stone
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sanctum of Ugin
4 Sylvan Scrying
2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Walking Ballista
1 World Breaker
3 Wurmcoil Engine
3 Nature's Claim
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thought-Knot Seer
3 Thragtusk
3 Wall of Roots
2 Warping Wail
Titans are great, but Ulamog often is double Vindicate + eat Path. If it comes down too late it's good, but not backbreaking. Emrakul the Promised End is an absolute MU breaker, but I personally have a hard time finding room in my 75 after the death of KCI and UW taking up less than 3% of the meta.
It probably sounds contradictory after just talking about wanting to maximize threat count by not cutting Stones, but I find it difficult to SB out Scrying/Map, since running less than 8 affects mulligans so hard. I could also be wrong, though.