1+1+1=7
Lets face it! There are people playing jund, Uw control, company and humans. There are a lot of solid mathcups, for tron, in the current modern metagame (especially now with Jace and BBE). Tron has never been the best modern deck, but always been one of the best modern decks (i believe). Tron has been my first actual modern deck, and now i've played it for almost 4 years, with good results as top 64 at GP Copenhagen, ptq and wmcq top 8, lcq win, and about 10 fnm wins. For me personally, it really shows how valuable it can be, to be well experienced with a deck. Also, tron is very satisfying to play with, by making the lifes of other people miserable.
The deck is based around the combination of the three tron lands (
Urza's Tower
,
Urza's Mine
and
Urza's Power Plant
). With all of those in play, you have access to seven mana, not counting additional lands.
Playing a karn or wurmcoil on turn three, is sometimes just to much for your opponent. People where more prepared for turn seven
Karn Liberated
, not a turn three one.
People keeps telling how lucky i am when it comes to having turn three tron, but actually there's really not that much luck to it (of course there is, but not as much as you might think). The deck basicly plays 20 tron lands (if you count
Expedition Map
and
Sylvan Scrying
), plus 8 artifact cantrips alongside 4
Ancient Stirrings
. Having acces tron on turn three happens over 1/2 of the games, and having acces to it by turn 4 happens about 90% procent of the games.
Karn is usually better than wurmcoil engine, but wurmcoil engine is just "the way" to beat very aggressive decks, like burn and aggressive zoo, wich are hard matchups. some decks litteraly can't beat wurmcoil engine, if they don't have an answer in some way.
What makes tron good, is that it's a combo deck that is very effective at finding what it needs, while destroying the late game, and ways to clear the board with
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
and
Oblivion Stone
. What makes o-stone good in longer games, is that you keeps putting fate counters on your permanents, so you get more value out of your o-stone later on, once you blow it up. Remember to put counters on your permanents on the end step, also on o-stone itself, since it works with other o-stones.
Gx Tron is probably on of the most (if not the most) resillient modern decks.
The bannings of
Eye of Ugin
has made tron a bit worse, since you now has to naturally draw your long game threads (wich is now why i'm playing with
World Breaker
), but it's not that bad for tron, since i've so far only had one game, where not having eye was a problem. I will say i've had games where eye would have made it easier to win, but wasen't a big deal. The bannings of
Gitaxian Probe
has also been good, since infect and
Death's Shadow
aggro really isen't that much of a part in the format anymore.
Death's Shadow
still is a very big part of the format, but that is more of a midrange deck now, which is much better for tron than the aggro version was.
Tron does require you to have all the three tron lands in play, so let's take a look at what cantrips G/W tron uses to find what it's looking for. That's why tron is a combo deck, and NOT a control deck. It does have controlling elements, but it's pretty much just a combo/ramp deck.
Expedition Map
and
Sylvan Scrying
pretty much just says "find a tron land", wich is exactly what this deck is looking for (of course you sometimes needs to get colored mana, and sometimes
Ghost Quarter
as well). There are other cards like
Reap and Sow
that you can play, but all of those costs too much mana. You want cards that helps you set up turn three tron. Also,the deck only plays 19 lands, so you're more looking for cheap spells. There a big difference between playing a karn on turn three, four or five. You just have to play four copies of both
Expedition Map
and
Sylvan Scrying
. You needs as many ways as possible to get your tron lands quickly, since modern is not a slow format. The chances of you winning the game, if you have tron on turn three, is much higer than you winning if you only get it on turn four.
The best card/cantrip in the deck is
Ancient Stirrings
.
Ancient Stirrings
allows you for one mana to look at five cards and choose whatever you want.
There are decks that just hammers tron, but there also a good portion of the modern field that just gets crushed by tron. Burn is rough and combo decks are pretty terrible. That's why we're on black, so we can play
Collective Brutality
. The best matchups Includes, boggles, Jund, jace control, living end and chord/company decks. Lantern control is also good, as long as they dosen't draw Ghost Quarter + Surgical Extraction
early. Dregde is another nice deck to play against.
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
is game over on most spots, and the rest of the pay off are also very good here, like
Wurmcoil Engine
and oblivion stone as sweeper that gives you a lot of time. Plus, there's also relic in the main and bord.
Scapeshift is bad, since you don't have the right desruption and a too slow clock.
There's other decks that are weak/good against tron as well, but those decks aren't seeing very much play.
Playing tron is usually pretty straight forward, but there is some nice plays you can make with tron. Fx, the decision between either playing
Chromatic Sphere
or
Chromatic Star
is relevant. If you're going to tap out playing Sphere/Star, always go with star, since if they have artifact removal like
Abrupt Decay
and
Ancient Grudge
, Star will still draw you a card when it dies, whereas Sphere won't.
There's been a lot of conversation about which version of tron is the best one. Is it, red-green, green-white or green-black? All of these versions of green-x tron have their own values. So i'm gonna talk about when to play which version.
If you play green-white, you get access to maindeck
Path to Exile
, and in the sideboard, you get access to
Leyline of Sanctity
,
Blessed Alliance
and
Timely Reinforcements
. The main two cards here are
Path to Exile
, and
Blessed Alliance
, since
Timely Reinforcements
is only good against burn, where
Blessed Alliance
also can be used against
Death's Shadow
and eldrazi.
Leyline of Sanctity
to me, has just been very underperfoming and a terrible topdeck. This version is good, when you expect a lot of eldrazi and
Death's Shadow
. Just to make it clear, the reasoning for not mentioning Rest in Piece, is that
Relic of Progenitus
is almost as good graveyard hate AND cycles.
Playing green-red tron, is good when sweepers are important.
Kozilek's Return
is great against, the like of elves and affinity. It's also an answer to Geist of Saint, one of the best cards control can have against tron (believe me, i've had many games, where i lost to an unchecked geist after board).
First
Collective Brutality
and
Ravenous Trap
, then
Dismember
and
Thoughtseize
. Wasen't impressed in the beginning, but after some time, I realized that black is the real deal for tron.
Collective Brutality
alongside with
Thoughtseize
helps you a lot against different combo strategies, like storm and
Ad Nauseam
, as well as doing tons of work against burn and infect. Black is good against combo and burn.
As for cards i'm considering, i've found these to be pretty good: a second
Ghost Quarter
, the fourth
Nature's Claim
and
Warping Wail
. The scethy one, which i'm considering cutting, is
Spellskite
.
All those cards mentioned above, are cards that are very good options for tron, depending on the metagame you expect.
Ghost Quarter
is nice against mirrors and scapeshift.
Warping Wail
is for affinity, infect and sorceries like
Crumble to Dust
, and
Nature's Claim
is when you wanna beat affinity.
Sideboard
(Note: remember only too bring in the nessescary cards, since you wanna keep the deck stay functional, wich is something people sometimes do a bit too much with combo decks)
Affinity
Thanks to
Walking Ballista
,
Oblivion Stone
and sideboard
Nature's Claim
, you're favored.
In:
3x
Nature's Claim
, and 2
Walking Ballista
.
Out:
2
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
, 2
Relic of Progenitus
and 1
Wurmcoil Engine
.
Burn
Burn is a nightmare matchup game one, and a 50% mathcup games 2 and 3, thanks to Brutality and
Thragtusk
. Remember
Ghost Quarter
can be used to cut them of green, to stop them from casting
Destructive Revelry
. Sometimes you can also cut them from white, but don't count on it.
In:
3
Thragtusk
, 3
Nature's Claim
, 1
Spellskite
and 3
Collective Brutality
.
Out:
2
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
, 2
Relic of Progenitus
, 2 Dismember, 3
Oblivion Stone
and 1
World Breaker
.
Jund
This is a very good matchup, since they haven't got enough early pressure, and don't have enough ways to interact. All threads are hard to answer and can win single-handedly.
In:
3x
Thragtusk
Out:
2
Dismember
and 1
Relic of Progenitus
.
Death's Shadow
(jund and grixis)
The matchup is kinda close, since they're faster than normal jund and plays eight discard spells. They usually dosen't play with that many copies of
Liliana of the Veil
though, wich is an excellent card against tron.
Relic of Progenitus
, is great here, since it slows down
Liliana, the Last Hope
,
Gurmag Angler
and
Tasigur, the Golden Fang
, leaving only
Death's Shadow
left as a real big thread.
In:
3
Thragtusk
.
Out:
2 dismember and 1
World Breaker
.
Titanshift
Bad. You really need turn 3 karn to win, and a ulamog to finish the job.
In:
2
Thoughtseize
, 1
Spellskite
, 1
Nature's Claim
and 3
Collective Brutality
.
Out:
2
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
, 2
Dismember
and 2
Relic of Progenitus
and 1
Walking Ballista
.
If they're playing white, you probably want at least another
Nature's Claim
over a
Oblivion Stone
to deal with
Stony Silence
.
Eldrazi tron
Great matchup, terrible deck. Somehow i always run into those t2 TKS and t3
Reality Smasher
draws. But for those of you who dosen't, here's how i would sideboard.
In:
2
Thoughtseize
, 3
Thragtusk
and 1
Nature's Claim
.
Out:
2
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
, 1
Chromatic Sphere
, 2
Relic of Progenitus
and 1
Walking Ballista
.
Counters company
Good matchup. Just make shure they don't combo off.
In:
3
Collective Brutality
, 2
Walking Ballista
and 1
Grafdigger's Cage
.
Out:
1
World Breaker
, 2
Wurmcoil Engine
, 2
Relic of Progenitus
and 1
Chromatic Sphere
.
Storm
Storm is bad. Look for a fast start that also includes graveyard hate.
In:
1
Grafdigger's Cage
, 2
Thoughtseize
and 3
Collective Brutality
.
Out:
2
Oblivion Stone
, 1
Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
, 1
World Breaker
and 2
Wurmcoil Engine
.
Uw/Jeskai control
Control is always good.
In:
3
Thragtusk
, 2
Thoughtseize
and 2
Nature's Claim
.
Out:
2
Dismember
, 2
Oblivion Stone
and 3
Wurmcoil Engine
.
If there's any questions, ideas or whatever, feel free to post a comment.
