Modern Tron
Masters sets have an interesting relationship with the Magic player base. Since the release of the original Modern Masters in 2013, Masters sets have had the goal of providing reprints of powerful and pricy cards as well as boasting one of the best draft environments available. For various reasons some sets are smash hits while others are wild misses, but overall it's fair to say that Masters sets are a net positive for the average Magic Player. Recently, Double Masters hit shelves, and while some players are up in arms about the overall price of the set as far as sealed packs go, the contents of the set are undeniably very valuable. Today we're going to be looking at a modern deck that was almost reprinted in Double Masters in its entirety, Green Tron.
For those who are either new to modern or have been living under a rock, Tron has been modern's premier ramp deck since just after the banning of Cloudpost back in 2011. The first recorded Tron variant with a winning record was actually a Blue White variant that looked to take advantage of Gifts Ungiven and the original Eldrazi Titans to create an insurmountable late game. Green tron wasn't too far behind, showing up on MTGO Qualifiers in 2012 with a list that looks almost unchanged from today. The Green Tron game plan is to power out UrzaTron (so named because assembling its three components - Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine and Urza's Power Plant - feels a lot like assembling Voltron, the giant space robot from that one 90's cartoon your dad probably remembers watching) as quickly as possible by means of Sylvan Scrying, Expedition Map, and Ancient Stirrings to find the pieces you need. If you can manage to get these three powerful lands together, you will have access to 7 colorless mana as early as turn 3. From there, it's not terribly difficult to land any myriad of powerful threats and close out the game. The threats have changed slightly over the years, ranging from Mindslaver to Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to Wurmcoil Engine, though Karn Liberated has always been the best turn three play.
So why jump through all these hoops? Why sit around twiddling your thumbs for the first couple turns with no interaction hoping your opponent doesn't kill you in the meantime? Why should you play Green Tron in modern?
Tron demands a certain type of player to pilot it to its fullest. It requires someone who likes non-games, someone who doesn't mind having a bad matchup or two, and someone who doesn't feel bad about how any particular game of Magic ends. Tron offers a very high amount of non-games, or games that are completely one sided with little to no interaction or game actions. Landing a turn three Karn is pretty game-over for a lot of decks in the format. Other decks are going to take full advantage of the free 2-3 turns that Tron gives them to absolutely steamroll it. This is what I mean by non-games. A lot of players aren't looking for this style of play, as they want to flex their knowledge and experience with a long interactive game. I used to say that “Tron is the deck for people who don't actually like playing Magic”. That's not to say that the deck is totally brainless though. Tron is also for those timmy-types who enjoy playing huge gigantic creatures and spells, with every spell cast having a devastating effect on the board.
As far as Tron's place in the metagame, it holds this sometimes niche, sometimes linchpin role of “deck that keeps midrange decks in check / deck with the inevitable endgame.” Many slower decks (think: Decks that don't mind if the game goes past turn 5 are going to struggle against Green Tron because of either the speed at which it slams out huge threats or the effects that the threats themselves have on a typical boardstate. Most decks, for example, that want to win the game by attacking with more than one creature are going to struggle greatly against the Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and Oblivion Stone combo wiping their board every turn. Other decks like those that want to gain card advantage off of planeswalkers aren't going to have fun when the Karn Father is in town because he so easily cleans up anything on the board. Depending on what's popular at the moment, Tron's either going to be the obvious choice or a surprise underdog at any given tournament, only ever being a poor choice when the obvious choice for a tournament is a quick turn 3 aggro or combo deck like Prowess or Infect.
“Two guys at my FNM play Tron every week. What can I do about the matchup?”
Up next we're going to cover some common tactics used to take Tron down a peg. The most obvious answer that most people come to is “I need to deal with those lands”. The common line of thought is that “As long as I can throw them off assembling Tron by turn 3, i'll be golden”. This is often not the case though, as these same people fail to realise that this plan only works if they can take full advantage of the turn that they buy with their land destruction. Most newer people to modern see cards like Blood Moon or Damping Sphere and think that a Tron player will instantly concede once these cards hit the table. Tron is actually fairly resilient in the face of land disruption, however, and can work around any singular hate piece with relative ease. Oblivion Stone can wipe a Blood Moon by turn 5, and the deck will also sideboard in artifact and enchantment destruction in the form of Nature's Claim to deal with whatever hate piece you might be bringing in. So if you are relying on this form of land disruption, you need to also provide the clock to beat the Tron deck down before they can recover.
“But I play a grindy Jund deck, I don't have that insane clock! What can I do?”
Traditionally, Tron has been Jund's worst matchup. In recent years though, the GBx decks have picked up a couple of tools that have swung the matchup to be more 50/50. If you're a slower midrange deck, you need to spread out your disruption to keep the Tron player off axis from all angles. Thoughtseize away their Sylvan Scrying and follow it up with a land destruction spell. If they fetch up a land and play it immediately, it's highly likely that that's the piece that you should target with your hate. The common line of thought is “Tower makes the most mana, so that's the one i'm going to destroy.” While this is a fine line if you intend to take the game very long against Tron, if you're going for the short game disruption you need to think about the cards that they could have in their hand instead of just looking at what's on the board. If they go Turn 1 Tower, Turn Two Powerplant play Sylvan Scrying for Mine, it's likely best to go after the mine because that's the piece that they “needed”, which means it's the piece that they're not going to be able to easily replace. Whereas in that same line, you target the tower, and it's more likely that they can replace their tower by turn 4, because they led with the one that they wanted you to target. Playing against Tron, just like any other deck, will get easier in practice. Just know what sorts of disruption your deck has access to, and the method that's going to most effectively leverage that hate piece.
Tron has the capacity to tear through its deck looking for the pieces it needs at lightning speed. With the “eggs”, it can draw multiple cards a turn while fixing its mana, and Ancient Stirrings digs extremely deep to find Tron whatever it's looking for. The deck is extremely resilient and devastatingly powerful. There's a reason that the deck's been a piece of the format for the past 8 years. If you're looking through your Double Masters box at all of these Tron lands and Chromatic Stars and Oblivion Stones, considering giving Tron a try, I think it's a deck that every Modern player should give a go at least once in their career. For as much as people like to hate on the deck, playing it gives you a different perspective on the format, and will teach you the best ways to combat the deck for whichever other strategy you may favor.
Anyway, that's all we've got this time. Tron's always been a favorite deck of mine, and I've learned to think about games from a different angle by playing it. I hope if you give the deck a spin that you're also able to learn from it and have some fun ruining people's days in the meantime.
Until next time, stay safe, stay smart, and thanks for reading!
