The 1x sword is meant as a way to parallel the mindslaver.

I only need one because I can Fabricate for it late game.

I do find it interesting that I can sacrifice Wurmcoil Engine to Thopter Foundry if it's targeted by a path. I like that, I like that a lot.

The cons are that it doesn't get you blue mana, and you can't pitch it to Thirst, but it's been really strong in testing for me.

So I'm debating again on sad robot V.S. TKS, on the one hand TKS is a great play but on the other Sad Robot has synergy with Thopter Foundry.

Saccing him to Thopter Foundry is great.

Thoughts?

(Also, fetching the swamp for Foundry is nice.)

So muddle is proving to be unnecessary. I can simply Fabricate for the missing piece. This makes room for 2 Spatial Contortions main and allows me to work with the sideboard a little better.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the B vs W discussion?

I have been playing the UB version, and having access to straight kill spells is a good feeling in the mirror match. Black lets you have Grave titan which can take a game over. And then you also have Delve spells that are really flexible with your mana base and deck. Gurmag Angler and Murderous Cut are some of the best spells in the deck. I haven't tested with mindslaver yet though because I don't own a copy right now. I will soon.

White does give you path, and you could run gifts. So there's that.

Some of this will sound critical, sorry, I'm just looking at it in a spikey manner since this is going to be highly competitive. Apologies if I sound rude, not intended.

I don't like gifts with thopter. I feel like it's terrible because you can't gifts for Thopter Foundry.

Mindslaver was the win in the old u tron builds and it does an amazing job of buying you time or just killing someone. Definitely try it

Grave Titan seems not good due to BB, as you know even double U can be hard to get with tron. so that's one I'll pass on for sure since wurmcoil is essentially the same thing but better in this deck.

Angler also doesn't interest me, this is a control deck after all, and my beaters are just bigger. I'd be more inclined to run eldrazi with relevant abilities.

Murderous Cut is something I've played with before in other builds. It CAN be good, and Thirst can feed it for sure, but I've never needed targeted kill THAT badly. Usually all I need is 1-2 spot removal spells to buy enough time to land an o-stone and crack it and that's only against SOME decks. I'll make sure to keep it in mind though, thanks!

To all: I'm gonna kill the SB here, it's gonna go through some growing pains.

Neat! Thopter-tron. o.o How well is this playing against the meta? Does it still play like a blue tron list?

Well I've only got 1 IRL playtest down so far V.S. Tokens. Usually that matchup is terrible since, unlike G/R we don't have much in the way of sweepers mainboarded (something the sideboard will address) but I managed to pull off a handy 2-0, Ye olde looping oblivion stone till he ran out of token producing spells worked well and let me stall till I could land a foundry and start activating with 6 mana available on that turn with 10 mana each following turn.

It's important to mention that SotM's trigger can be abused to avoid grave hate if you have a second artifact to sacrifice. Real good when a Tokens player uses a Tormod's Crypt.

It still plays like U Tron, I felt that was extremely important. The biggest difference is you aren't relying on Platinum Angel alone for the aggro matchups. One Path when shields were down would mean state based death. Now I can actually dig myself out of a hole and it's very hard to be 1:1ed now.

White is probably your best sideboard card. Dismember is good but Path to Exile is likely better, especially against aggressive decks. And I know it's not ideal but Azorius Charm and Oust are cards that exist. You can sort of play this deck like a tempo deck because obviously once you assemble a particular set of cards you are pretty much guranteed the win.

Wrath of God and Day of Judgment could do some work against Zoo etc, and obviously Oblivion Ring can help against planeswalker heavy decks.

All of these options can bolster your existing counterspell strategy by allowing you more flexibility in the matchups where you may not be able to counter everything.

In terms of more generic sideboard options: Timely Reinforcements is great. Valorous Stance is flexible. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben makes things hard for you but does ruin burn. Ethersworn Canonist seems interesting as an option. Suppression Field is a good option versus Podless Pod. Rest in Peace, Detention Sphere and others are also serviceable. Wall of Omens is also a nice little card that stops aggro and gets you further ahead.

What does black give you? Well you get Dismember which is great removal but really hurts you against the aggro decks you need it most against. Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek would be nice but not too impactful against a variety of things. Might catch the odd combo deck off guard but it's less definitive than just playing Suppression Field and stopping it forever (or until they specifically find another card to deal with it).

I don't know. I can't think of many reasons to run black in this deck. Because as a slower deck white seems to fill so many more controlling functions than black does. What's your perspective?

Black gives Leyline of the Void and Nihil Spellbomb

I can't run RIP since it kills both of my combos so I'm left relying on Relic of Progenitus and popping it when I don't have a combo piece in my grave although Grafdigger's Cage is likely better.

The general consensus has been W so far so I'll begin by switching the mainboard over to W splash. Thanks!

I really like your deck. Have you made any updates lately? How do you like the white splash? Would you mind taking a look at mine and see what you think. It's semi budget. Any expensive card I have in there is because I already own it but I am about to sell some cards and will have about $75 to spend, so any suggestions in the price range would be great. Thanks a lot. http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/lock-and-load-tron-1/

It wouldnt let me link my deck for some reason so theres the link. Thanks.

Would you ever consider using sphinxes rev? Seems like you could do some cool stuff with that and tron. Also. I will make a google doc and share it to you, buildingadeck and ducttapedeckbox with the article that I have so far and then we can contribute to it. How does that sound?

Rev is just too mana intensive to be viable. The land base is pushing it for foundry as it is so having to have 3 colored sources is very hard if nigh impossible.

Google doc sounds fine. [email protected] if you need my email

This looks like a very, very interesting deck. Why ugin instead of karn in this deck? T3 tron is a potential thing to happen here, and a T3 Karn is very arguably better than a T4 ugin. However, I don't have much experience with tron so take it with a grain of salt. I really like the mashup between thopter-tron, as opposed to the normal thopter-gift decks. (I'm currently brewing one of those right now). +1

+1

Would you say using a mana base similar to this would work if I wanted to go for a Dimir Tron build that added in Time Sieve to be cheeky with the thopter sword engine?

Yeah, just swap to Talisman of Dominance