Thanks for you replies and input @BloodyRabbit_01 and @SwissRolls, I am still sold on GC but could be bias, more testing is needed from my side. I thought I would do a little write up of the FNM I 4-0’d at last week as well as post my list.
Round 1 vs Dredge, 2-0
Game 1 I’m on the draw. After a mull to 6, I keep a hand with a mine, island, map, remand, condescend and Karn GC and scry a 2nd island to the bottom.
He leads off with gemstone mine into a shriekhorn and mills a land and loam. I play mine->map and pass back. He dredges back his loam then mills with the horn netting him a narcomoeba and amalgam on end step, then plays a second shriekhorn but no second land. I untap and draw into a repeal, play the island and pass holding up remand. He mills in my 2nd main and finds a creeping chill to put me to 17, next turn he takes a natural draw and manages to find a second land – casts the loam in hand (removing the last counter from gemstone mine) which I quickly remand and draw into a powerplant. The rest of the game goes smoothly for me as his clock is too slow to race natural tron with karn getting cage and wurmcoil for the win.
I bring in the 2 spell pierce and 2 relics and side out the talismans and chalices, my opponent seems to bring in about a thousand cards. I have a pretty bland hand with only 2 non-tron lands, a spell pierce, ugin, remand and a pair of thirsts, but keep because I can turn 0 spell pierce with a gemstone caverns so I keep and pray to the Karnfather that I draw more lands. I exile one of the thirsts for the caverns and pierce a turn 1 looting, much to my opponents dismay. The next few turns consist of my being blessed by the top of my deck and my opponent milling/dredging all his over-sideboard tech (x4 alpine moons, x2 natures claims and a couple of ancient grudges). The game ends when I overload cyclonic rift and follow it up with an ugin.
Round 2 vs Artifact Burn? 2-1
My opponent is a local who I know quite well, I also know that he loves dredge – thankfully he is playing something a bit janky this week so I don’t have to play dredge twice in a row. I’m on the play and lead with power plant->map, he follows up with a mountain into bomat courier and chips in for 1. Turn two I land a tower and play chalice for 1, thinking he is on burn – he follows up by playing a darksteel citadel, mox opal, cranial plating and equipping to the bomat – ouch. Fortunately I draw into a ballista and fetch for the mine to play it on 2 and shoot down the bomat. My opponent struggles to finish me and reveals his hand with x3 galvanic blasts before scooping to karn+lattice locking him out of the game.
For game 2 I once again bring in the spell pierces and take out the talismans. I keep what I think is a strong hand with natural tron+karn, unfortunately I then get blown apart on turn 3 by 2 shrapnel blasts.
Game 3 I snap keep a god hand of 2 tron pieces, island, pierce, x2 condescend, karn, ballista, pierce on a mox opal slows his explosiveness and the condescends keep him from committing too much to the board. He ends up with a mox, an unequipped cranial plating and an ornithopter vs karn and ensnaring bridge in play, he spends a long time debating what he should sac and what he should target with a shrapnel blast – eventually deciding to shoot down karn saccing his ornithopter. This blasphemy is punished as our lord and saviour is reborn from the top of the deck.
Round 3 vs Traditional Affinity 2-0
Blessed Karn is a house both games, one sided stony silence is good against affinity – who knew. Game one he isn’t able to flood the board too hard and repeals keep him from doing too much damage before karn locks his key pieces from doing anything.
I don’t sideboard anything game two I lead with repeal on a mox opal and play a chalice for 0 to keeps him honest for a while before it gets smashed to smithereens. A few turns later I cast a karn and in response he floats red with a mox opal – signalling galvanic blast. I uptick to keep him alive as a stony silence and next turn he has to use a second galv blast to finish him off. My opponent has committed too much damage to the first karn and isn’t able to kill me before I draw a second and tutor a lattice for the win. Praise be to Karn and his delicious lettuce.
Round 4 vs Hogaak Bridgevine 2-1
It’s the new hotness, it’s 3-0 after just beating G tron and I have little experience playing against it – but with faith in the Karnfather anything is possible.
I’m on the draw but lead off with a gemstone caverns turn 0, he plays a faithless looting and discards a vengevine and a bloodghast. I land a tower into talisman and map. Next turn he plays a second land to trigger bloodghast and follows up with two stitchers supplier’s getting two bridge from below in the yard. I play a second tron piece and slam down almighty Karn (Turn 2!), pull a ballista from the sideboard and play it for 0 to exile the bridges. His next turn consists of playing a bunch of small dudes to bring back vengevine, which in turn he uses to convoke out a hogaak. I minus Karn for an ensnaring bridge and leave up condescend and repeal. Next turn he drops an altar which I condescend and scry the final tron piece to the top. I get hit for a lot but next assemble tron and land ugin to -7 to exile his board (including hogaak), from there I counter everything he plays and bounce a few bloodghasts until I draw into a wurmcoil and stabilise.
Game 2 I keep a hand with natural tron, a talisman and ugin with the plan of getting him out turn 3. Unfortunately he drops a thalia turn 2 and delays that plan, I lose without playing a single spell on turn 3 – deck’s busted.
Final game, I’m on the play which helps a LOT in this matchup (and most matchups tbf). I play mine into map, he evokes an ingot chewer to destroy it. This feels pretty good as I have the follow up chalice on 1 for turn 2, he struggles to play through this the entire game and I win with a mindslaver lock gifted to me by the great creator himself.
Some takeaways:
Karn GC was really impressive, a game winner against both the artifact decks I played and really useful in getting sideboard tech game 1 against the graveyard strategies.
Gemstone caverns really overperformed, I got quite lucky and saw them often when I needed to. These really helped against the unfair decks where having the extra land is necessary to keep up.
Talismans were surprisingly good, I usually hate these cards as they are often don’t have enough impact. But by having stronger, more impactful 4 drops (karn and karn), setting this up on turn 2 is now a more reasonable line to take.
Many of the sideboard cards, such as trinisphere and crucible, were never used and I am uncertain about running both mindslaver and lattice in the side – maybe this is overkill and it would be better to include some removal or extra non-artifact hate.
Hey guys, long time lurker here - finally posting because I have embraced the latest iteration of our lord and saviour Karn and wanted to spread his gospel.
Wanted to say a big thanks to all the previous posters who have discussed and developed the deck over the years, truly a great community has formed around our love for best tron.
@BloodyRabbit_01 I have been a big fan of your posts, I loved and fully embraced your innovation of maxing out on dismembers and ballistae to great success. However, after reading your analysis of Karn GC I have to disagree with you. To expand on why, I have laid out my thoughts on Karn's unique strengths/advantages below:
Firstly, he gives us the toolbox that was previously only achievable using the sub-par treasure and trinket mages or fabricate. Having to dedicate cards to your sideboard gives both positives and negatives, however overall in my meta not being able to switch to non-artifact sideboard tech G2 hasn’t negatively affected me as much as grabbing sideboard cards game 1 has positively.
It is also worth mentioning that this effect is also potentially repeatable should Karn survive, which leads me onto my second point.
Opponents have to respect the ability of Karn to be game-ending. An example of this could be, playing him turn 4 off 2 separate tron pieces and 2 islands, which wouldn’t be a threatening play with any other 4 drop we would potentially play (TKS, Solemn). Given the chance that on the following turn you could play the third tron piece, minus for lattice and essentially win the game on the spot. Although this line does revolve around you top-decking the final tron piece needed which is quite unlikely, I often find many opponents thinking “what is the worst possible outcome for me?” when deciding whether to attack Karn or me.
Finally the versatility of the cards Karn is available to fetch for in modern is incredible, as Shok mentioned a few pages back, you can essentially grab any kind of card needed (disruption, interaction or game enders). I have even taken to running a dampening sphere in the side (due to local meta full of our green cousins).
I would love for you to expand on your points a little more and continue this discussion – I’m not able to post my list right now but will do later when I get home.
On your inclusion of force of negation: It sounds super interesting, I can certainly see it being a lifesaver. However my concern is that it pushes us further into blue and "bad UW control" rather than into the niche space between control and big mana that we currently sit in - I will definitely be trying it out as a 1-2 of and see how I feel about it.
4 Urza’s Mine
4 Urza’s Power Plant
4 Urza’s Tower
7 Island
2 Gemstone Caverns
1 Field of Ruin
1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
Creatures (4)
2 Walking Ballista
2 Wurmcoil Engine
Artifacts (10)
4 Expedition Map
2 Oblivion Stone
2 Talisman of Dominance
2 Chalice of the Void
4 Condescend
3 Remand
4 Repeal
4 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Cyclonic Rift
PlanesWalkers (6)
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
4 Karn, the Great Creator
1 Karn, Scion of Urza
1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Walking Ballista
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
3 Relic of Progenitus
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Trinisphere
1 Mindslaver
1 Sorcerous Spyglass
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Spell Pierce
Round 1 vs Dredge, 2-0
Game 1 I’m on the draw. After a mull to 6, I keep a hand with a mine, island, map, remand, condescend and Karn GC and scry a 2nd island to the bottom.
He leads off with gemstone mine into a shriekhorn and mills a land and loam. I play mine->map and pass back. He dredges back his loam then mills with the horn netting him a narcomoeba and amalgam on end step, then plays a second shriekhorn but no second land. I untap and draw into a repeal, play the island and pass holding up remand. He mills in my 2nd main and finds a creeping chill to put me to 17, next turn he takes a natural draw and manages to find a second land – casts the loam in hand (removing the last counter from gemstone mine) which I quickly remand and draw into a powerplant. The rest of the game goes smoothly for me as his clock is too slow to race natural tron with karn getting cage and wurmcoil for the win.
I bring in the 2 spell pierce and 2 relics and side out the talismans and chalices, my opponent seems to bring in about a thousand cards. I have a pretty bland hand with only 2 non-tron lands, a spell pierce, ugin, remand and a pair of thirsts, but keep because I can turn 0 spell pierce with a gemstone caverns so I keep and pray to the Karnfather that I draw more lands. I exile one of the thirsts for the caverns and pierce a turn 1 looting, much to my opponents dismay. The next few turns consist of my being blessed by the top of my deck and my opponent milling/dredging all his over-sideboard tech (x4 alpine moons, x2 natures claims and a couple of ancient grudges). The game ends when I overload cyclonic rift and follow it up with an ugin.
Round 2 vs Artifact Burn? 2-1
My opponent is a local who I know quite well, I also know that he loves dredge – thankfully he is playing something a bit janky this week so I don’t have to play dredge twice in a row. I’m on the play and lead with power plant->map, he follows up with a mountain into bomat courier and chips in for 1. Turn two I land a tower and play chalice for 1, thinking he is on burn – he follows up by playing a darksteel citadel, mox opal, cranial plating and equipping to the bomat – ouch. Fortunately I draw into a ballista and fetch for the mine to play it on 2 and shoot down the bomat. My opponent struggles to finish me and reveals his hand with x3 galvanic blasts before scooping to karn+lattice locking him out of the game.
For game 2 I once again bring in the spell pierces and take out the talismans. I keep what I think is a strong hand with natural tron+karn, unfortunately I then get blown apart on turn 3 by 2 shrapnel blasts.
Game 3 I snap keep a god hand of 2 tron pieces, island, pierce, x2 condescend, karn, ballista, pierce on a mox opal slows his explosiveness and the condescends keep him from committing too much to the board. He ends up with a mox, an unequipped cranial plating and an ornithopter vs karn and ensnaring bridge in play, he spends a long time debating what he should sac and what he should target with a shrapnel blast – eventually deciding to shoot down karn saccing his ornithopter. This blasphemy is punished as our lord and saviour is reborn from the top of the deck.
Round 3 vs Traditional Affinity 2-0
Blessed Karn is a house both games, one sided stony silence is good against affinity – who knew. Game one he isn’t able to flood the board too hard and repeals keep him from doing too much damage before karn locks his key pieces from doing anything.
I don’t sideboard anything game two I lead with repeal on a mox opal and play a chalice for 0 to keeps him honest for a while before it gets smashed to smithereens. A few turns later I cast a karn and in response he floats red with a mox opal – signalling galvanic blast. I uptick to keep him alive as a stony silence and next turn he has to use a second galv blast to finish him off. My opponent has committed too much damage to the first karn and isn’t able to kill me before I draw a second and tutor a lattice for the win. Praise be to Karn and his delicious lettuce.
Round 4 vs Hogaak Bridgevine 2-1
It’s the new hotness, it’s 3-0 after just beating G tron and I have little experience playing against it – but with faith in the Karnfather anything is possible.
I’m on the draw but lead off with a gemstone caverns turn 0, he plays a faithless looting and discards a vengevine and a bloodghast. I land a tower into talisman and map. Next turn he plays a second land to trigger bloodghast and follows up with two stitchers supplier’s getting two bridge from below in the yard. I play a second tron piece and slam down almighty Karn (Turn 2!), pull a ballista from the sideboard and play it for 0 to exile the bridges. His next turn consists of playing a bunch of small dudes to bring back vengevine, which in turn he uses to convoke out a hogaak. I minus Karn for an ensnaring bridge and leave up condescend and repeal. Next turn he drops an altar which I condescend and scry the final tron piece to the top. I get hit for a lot but next assemble tron and land ugin to -7 to exile his board (including hogaak), from there I counter everything he plays and bounce a few bloodghasts until I draw into a wurmcoil and stabilise.
Game 2 I keep a hand with natural tron, a talisman and ugin with the plan of getting him out turn 3. Unfortunately he drops a thalia turn 2 and delays that plan, I lose without playing a single spell on turn 3 – deck’s busted.
Final game, I’m on the play which helps a LOT in this matchup (and most matchups tbf). I play mine into map, he evokes an ingot chewer to destroy it. This feels pretty good as I have the follow up chalice on 1 for turn 2, he struggles to play through this the entire game and I win with a mindslaver lock gifted to me by the great creator himself.
Some takeaways:
Karn GC was really impressive, a game winner against both the artifact decks I played and really useful in getting sideboard tech game 1 against the graveyard strategies.
Gemstone caverns really overperformed, I got quite lucky and saw them often when I needed to. These really helped against the unfair decks where having the extra land is necessary to keep up.
Talismans were surprisingly good, I usually hate these cards as they are often don’t have enough impact. But by having stronger, more impactful 4 drops (karn and karn), setting this up on turn 2 is now a more reasonable line to take.
Many of the sideboard cards, such as trinisphere and crucible, were never used and I am uncertain about running both mindslaver and lattice in the side – maybe this is overkill and it would be better to include some removal or extra non-artifact hate.
Wanted to say a big thanks to all the previous posters who have discussed and developed the deck over the years, truly a great community has formed around our love for best tron.
@BloodyRabbit_01 I have been a big fan of your posts, I loved and fully embraced your innovation of maxing out on dismembers and ballistae to great success. However, after reading your analysis of Karn GC I have to disagree with you. To expand on why, I have laid out my thoughts on Karn's unique strengths/advantages below:
Firstly, he gives us the toolbox that was previously only achievable using the sub-par treasure and trinket mages or fabricate. Having to dedicate cards to your sideboard gives both positives and negatives, however overall in my meta not being able to switch to non-artifact sideboard tech G2 hasn’t negatively affected me as much as grabbing sideboard cards game 1 has positively.
It is also worth mentioning that this effect is also potentially repeatable should Karn survive, which leads me onto my second point.
Opponents have to respect the ability of Karn to be game-ending. An example of this could be, playing him turn 4 off 2 separate tron pieces and 2 islands, which wouldn’t be a threatening play with any other 4 drop we would potentially play (TKS, Solemn). Given the chance that on the following turn you could play the third tron piece, minus for lattice and essentially win the game on the spot. Although this line does revolve around you top-decking the final tron piece needed which is quite unlikely, I often find many opponents thinking “what is the worst possible outcome for me?” when deciding whether to attack Karn or me.
Finally the versatility of the cards Karn is available to fetch for in modern is incredible, as Shok mentioned a few pages back, you can essentially grab any kind of card needed (disruption, interaction or game enders). I have even taken to running a dampening sphere in the side (due to local meta full of our green cousins).
I would love for you to expand on your points a little more and continue this discussion – I’m not able to post my list right now but will do later when I get home.
On your inclusion of force of negation: It sounds super interesting, I can certainly see it being a lifesaver. However my concern is that it pushes us further into blue and "bad UW control" rather than into the niche space between control and big mana that we currently sit in - I will definitely be trying it out as a 1-2 of and see how I feel about it.