Modern Gx Tron Primer

What is Gx Tron?

Tron is a (mainly) green deck that's goal is to assemble the Urzatron (Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine, and Urza's Power Plant) as quickly as possible. Once they have been assembled, the goal is to generate insurmountable advantage. The main route to this is Karn Liberated, who is the cornerstone to the deck (yes, just as much as the Tron lands themselves). Once Karn takes the field, it becomes difficult or impossible for opponents to retake the game. A T3 Karn is this deck's goal, and often seals the game on the spot. Other than Karn, this deck has perhaps the best inevitability in the format. When you're done assembling the Urzatron with your land search, it's time to play big threats. While older versions of this deck played the now-banned Eye of Ugin, current versions rely on tutoring up a second threat by playing a first with an active Sanctum of Ugin.

If a T3 Karn isn't in the works, this deck is more than happy stalling out the game with a flurry of Oblivion Stones and Ugin, the Spirit Dragons from turn 4 on. This version of Tron is the most consistent in assembling a fast Tron, and seeks to leverage that in its gameplay.

For redundancy, we run 8 Chromatic Stars and Chromatic Spheres. With additional land slots, this opens the road for splashing another color, mainly for sideboard options. Originally this deck ran red due to the sheer power of Grove of the Burnwillows. Grove, as a land that gives our opponent life, could almost be treated as a Taiga. Our opponent's life total is almost never relevant, as we have the best inevitability and late-game in all of modern. The longer the game goes, the more it is in our favor. For a short period of time it ran white as the format shifted from 2-toughness creatures that could be effectively checked by Pyroclasm to threats that were weaker to Path to Exile. Then it ended up splashing black after the printing of Fatal Push and Collective Brutality.

However, after the recent addition of Field of Ruin to the format, there is a higher emphasis than ever on running a high number of basic lands. Most current versions of the deck are mono-green. This allows the deck to shave a land (most current builds run 19), while managing to run a full 4-5 basics plus utility lands. This allows for the deck to consistently tutor up basics even after multiple Field of Ruins and Paths to Exile.

Why Should I Play This Deck?

Gx Tron is fast, consistent, and has the best lategame in all of Modern (yes, that's right - ALL of Modern). It has generally positive matchups against all decks other than fast combo and extremely fast aggro (Burn, Infect - Zoo isn't really a problem). It has the unique distinction of being one of the few decks in Modern with a definitively positive MU against control and midrange, both pre-board and post-board. Additionally, it's a relatively simple deck to pick up, while still holding a lot of intricacies in terms of its card choices, and large decision trees rising from certain corner-case scenarios.

Finally, playing with Karn Liberated and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon is a blast.

The Core

With our purpose laid out, let us examine the "core" of green Tron (you will have a very difficult time playing this deck without ANY of these cards). The core of Gx Tron is as follows:

4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
Rather self-explanatory. This deck's goal is to assemble a turn 3 Tron, and these form Tron.

4 Expedition Map
4 Sylvan Scrying
For most intents and purposes the same card, these 8 tutors are what allows Tron to assemble its game-winning combination with such consistency. Expedition Map is often preferred, both for its non-reliance on colored mana sources, and the fact that it can be tutored with Ancient Stirrings (which will be mentioned later). Some people cut 1 Sylvan Scrying, but it's not something I can personally recommend. Not only does it slightly cut down on your consistency, but it also opens you up to people removing your Tron pieces without recourse.

4 Karn Liberated
This deck is often called "KarnTron". After assembling your early tron, your #1 goal is to land one of these. The advantage gained by exiling your opponents' hands and fields is enormous. Not only that, but his ultimate will win you the game from the most dire circumstances, so just +4'ing him is its own form of pressure. To see how to play with Karn, go to the "Strategy" section.

1 Sanctum of Ugin
2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
This is what I like to call the "inevitability package". Tron's not the fastest combo deck out there. There are certainly faster combo decks in Modern. However, none of those decks can offer the pure inevitability offered by landing a Sanctum of Ugin followed by an Ulamog. Neither the Sanctum trigger nor the Ulamog trigger are counterable by counterspells, so the ability to exile to two problem permanents (or even just lands) is extremely powerful and not to be underestimated.

4 Ancient Stirrings
With the exception of Scrying and other copies of Stirrings, every card in this deck is colorless. All your threats are colorless, and more importantly, so are your lands. This makes Ancient Stirrings both a Tron piece tutor in the early game, as well as a tutor for your threats and win conditions later in the game. Perhaps the best comparison to make to this card is Impulse, one of the most infamous and powerful card selection spells in the game. In this deck, Ancient Stirrings is a sorcery-speed Impulse that looks at an extra card for half the cost. Yes, it's that good.

4 Chromatic Star
4 Chromatic Sphere
These are often called the "eggs". If you've read up to here, you'll notice we're only playing 4 colored sources, and a whole host of colored spells. These "eggs" turn the colorless mana from your Tron pieces to whatever colors you need. As each "cantrips", or replaces itself with a card, they both fix your mana and replace themselves in exchange for either one unimportant colorless mana in the early game, or one (mostly) meaningless mana once you assemble Tron. A staple for the deck.

3-4 Oblivion Stone
Oblivion Stone, as much as Karn, is a real staple of this deck. Why Oblivion Stone and not Ugin, you may ask? A simple answer: speed and flexibility. While Ugin may seem more flexible at first (multiple activations, an eventual wincon), O-Stone really shines from how it can be activated at instant speed. Modern is both a fast and powerful enough format that sorcery-speed Wraths simply don't cut it. However, instant-speed Wraths are the real deal.

The Cards You Will Generally Play

Apart from the "core" mentioned above, there are a number of cards that generally deserve a space in your list. However, if you really need room for other cards, these are the cards that should be cut before the ones above.

3 Wurmcoil Engine
As was mentioned above (and will be discussed more in-depth later), the decks Tron loses to are generally those that are faster than it. Of these, a good portion are aggressive decks, that seek to deal damage to you quickly with creatures and burn spells. Wurmcoil is a brick wall against these decks. Not only does he stop your opponents' attacks, but often deals more damage by attacking than your opponent will be able to deal back by attacking you. As this deck has to also worry about combo decks, the correct number of MD Wurmcoils is usually 3. Just remember that these cards become not that good in every matchup where your life total no longer matters (such as combo). Weak to Path to Exile, but other than that, a real all-star.

2-4 Relic of Progenitus
Providing general utility, Relic of Progenitus is a card that just makes Gx Tron "tick." Its exile effect can be key to shrinking Goyfs, nullifying Past in Flames, stopping Vengevines and Bridges, stopping Scrap Trawler triggers, and stripping Snapcaster Mages of value. In matchups where it isn't relevant, it will still "cycle" (or replace itself). While you probably want a couple in your MD, 1-2 copies will generally be some of the first cards to be dropped for interesting "tech" additions.

1 Ghost Quarter
As you look over many Tron lists, you will often see a lonely Ghost Quarter wandering in their midsts. You may be wondering what could possibly cause people to want to run a THIRTEENTH colorless land (after the 12 Tron pieces). There is one answer: Ghost Quarter is THAT good. Ghost Quarter does a few things. The first, and most important, is that it kills manlands. "Manlands," or lands that turn into creatures, can be very troublesome for Tron. They can't be dealt with by Oblivion Stone, and provide those decks with inevitability in the form of constant, hard-to-interact-with damage. Ghost Quarter comes in and puts an end to these problems. Only 1 is needed, as in can be searched with via any of the 8 land tutors. Additionally, it disrupts your opponent's Tron in the mirror, it mana-fixes yourself in a pinch, and it can even stop Sowing Salts. A real role-player, and hard to go without.

4-5 Forest
Good old basic lands. The things that stop your opponents' Path to Exiles from becoming better Swords to Plowshares, your opponents' Ghost Quarters from becoming Strip Mines, your opponents' Field of Ruins from being both Wasteland and Terramorphic Expanse in one package. You'll want 4-5 of these in your deck, for all the above reasons in addition and being able to break out your board hate vs Blood Moon (through Expedition Map).

2-3 Walking Ballista
One of the problems with mono-green Tron is that you don't have access to the same removal suite other colors give you. A problem with Tron in a post-Eye Modern is that you still need to topdeck threats after you assemble Tron (even if you fetch a Sanctum). Ballista solves both these problems; early to mid game it can be played X=1 or X=2 to slow your opponent down. Late-game you can play it for X=4 or X=5, gun down your opponent's board, and even use it to fetch Ulamog via Sanctum. It can also get more counters quite easily to continue locking down your opponents' board.

1-3 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
Ugin is an extremely powerful card that will steal games from board-centric decks. The most important of his abilities is his -X, which continually exiles the board for no additional mana investment. His +2 can be valuable for picking off individual threats, and his -10 is a way of putting pressure onto control and combo decks to deal with him or die. However, the fact that he cannot be played off Tron alone, his cost can't be split across multiple turns, and his inability to meaningfully impact the board quickly vs powerful artifact-based decks (KCI, Affinity, other Tron, Hollowed One) generally relegates him to a supplementary role to O-Stone. It's also worth pointing out that he's somewhat awkward vs. the cards Gurmag Angler and Bedlam Reveler. Each have more than 3 toughness and high CMCs; Ugin has to use all his loyalty to get rid of Angler (and die in the process), and Ugin cannot deal with Reveler the turn he comes into play. Still, in spite of all these issues, his ability to almost immediately win the game vs. Company, Elves, and other creature-based decks makes him an extraordinarily powerful threat (although a slightly inconsistent one). Finally, he's also a threat that will trigger Sanctum and search for Ulamog later in the game.

1 World Breaker
A threat that's resistant to non-Path removal, World Breaker provides inevitability by recurring itself, the ability to block your opponent's flyers via Reach, and just another large threat to draw into to crack your Sanctum and exile your opponent's lands.

The Tech

These are the cards you will see show up every once in a while. Some may be very good, even. But because they for whatever reason aren't as prolific as the above cards, they fall into neither of the above categories.

1 Urza's Factory
In a post-Eye world, Sanctum can be very awkward. While it can be very powerful, it does nothing while you're flooding out; it requires you to have a second threat before you can activate it, which can often come too late. By comparison, all Urza's Factory requires is for you to have access to 7 mana. However, its biggest problem is that 2/2 tokens are generally nothing more than speedbumps and rarely allow you to close the game completely.

1 Scavenger Grounds
GY decks are very popular in Modern. While Relic is a powerful card, Relic can't be hit off our Maps and Scryings. Having a piece of GY hate that we have an effective 8 tutors for and that occupies a land slot is very powerful, even if the 2 mana activation cost can be expensive.

1-2 Horizon Canopy
Even in non-white Tron decks, Horizon Canopy is good value. It's currently the only land in the format that can reasonably be converted into a real card while coming into play untapped and providing green mana. The life loss can be relevant, though the ability to both cycle and provide colored mana makes it powerful. Additionally, it has synergy with Crucible of Worlds out of the SB.

1-2 Dismember
Dismember is a powerful removal spell that can be played without access to colored mana. However, the 4 life required to cast it can make it extremely painful in several matchups.

1-4 All Is Dust
Run instead of or in additon to Oblivion Stone, All Is Dust offers a similar effect. Its advantages are that the permanents are sacrificed (getting around indestructibility and totem armor), and that it leaves your colorless nonland permanents intact. Additionally, it can be cast strictly off Tron (costs 1 less total - 7 vs a total of 8), and it can be cast for 1 less mana without Tron. However, its downside is that it cannot be used at instant speed, it cannot be paid in installments, and it is considerably worse in a couple matchups (such as the Affinity and KCI MUs). Because of its poor showing in the Affinity MU, it is generally run in addition to a full complement of O-Stones if at all.

1 Emrakul, the Promised End
Potentially more powerful than Ulamog vs Combo and Control, Emrakul suffers from consistency issues in that it's both more expensive than Ulamog to cast and that its weaker Mindslaver effect is very dependent on your opponents' hand (unlike Ulamog, which is always good if not exceptional).

1 Field of Ruin
An option for nonbasic land removal that maintains parity, unlike Ghost Quarter. However, the additional 2 required to activate it means that it can be difficult tempo-wise to destroy Affinity's manlands or keep your opponents off Tron in the mirror.

1 Platinum Angel
Good in some MUs like Infect, but generally a worse Wurmcoil Engine.

1-4 Thought-Knot Seer
Thought-Knot Seer serves double-duty as both a body to slow down aggressive decks as well as disruption vs combo and control decks. However, not coming down until turn we assemble Tron means that it competes with more powerful spells that cost 6 or 7 mana.

1-4 Thragtusk
Faster lifegain vs. Burn and Zoo, but really suffers from not being colorless (for Ancient Stirrings), as well as not being able to be cast strictly off Tron/colorless sources. Like above, will many times be a worse Wurmcoil Engine. However, the immediate ability to gain life can be just what you need vs. certain faster decks.

1-2 Fog
A card often lampooned by seasoned players, Fog does occasionally show up in Tron. It effectively serves as a lifegain spell vs. fast decks.

Sideboard Composition

These are some cards that generally see play in Gx Tron's sideboard.

MOST COMMON
3-4 Nature's Claim
As was stated earlier, your opponent's life total is irrelevant when playing Tron. Therefore, Nature's Claim is a near-strictly better Naturalize (in the sense that it kills things for half the cost AND you can blow up your own stuff in order to gain life). A staple at blowing up irritating "hate" cards such as Stony Silence and Blood Moon. It is also good vs. Affinity, and alright against Infect (it blows up Inkmoth Nexus).

3-4 Thragtusk
While Wurmcoil is powerful, Wurmcoil suffers from being unable to have any immediate impact and completely dying to exile-based removal. Thragtusk solves both of these issues. First of all, it immediately gains 5 life, which is an important distinctions against aggressive decks running lots of burn. Secondly, Thragtusk leaves behind a body when it leaves the battlefield for any reason, meaning you still get the 3/3 beast even if your opponent hits it with a Path to Exile.

3-4 Thought-Knot Seer
Thought-Knot Seer is a swiss army knife of a card. It hits combo pieces, hate pieces, removal that would target it, and leaves your opponent down on cards until they find an answer for it. Its 4/4 body is difficult to answer profitably, and acts as a roadblock to aggressive decks.

2-3 Surgical Extraction
As Modern is dominated more and more by fast GY strategies, the most powerful GY hate is the hate you can play quickly and cheaply. Surgical excels in both of these fronts; it can be played before your first turn of the game, and requires no mana to do so. When combined with your Ghost Quarters, it can also act as a powerful hate piece vs land-based strategies. Additionally, the ability to exile all additional copies of a specific card can shut down combo decks that rely on their GY. Finally, there's a neat trick you can pull off where you can Surgical your own Tron piece in response to your opponents' Surgical to protect the Tron pieces in your hand/deck (you can "fail to find" off your own Surgical).

2-3 Warping Wail
Warping Wail is a flexible card that has a variety of uses. Against aggressive decks or decks with mana dorks, it can be used as straight removal. Against decks that SB in Crumble against us, it can be used to counter their Crumble (or potentially other powerful sorceries). Finally, it can be used as a source of ramp in a pinch when our Tron is disrupted with the Scion token it can potentially generate.

2-3 Spatial Contortion
Spatial Contortion is a powerful removal spell that can get rid of any creature with 3 or less toughness with no colored mana requirement. As a removal spell, it is more powerful than Warping Wail and doesn't have the life loss associated with Dismember.

SOMEWHAT COMMON
1-2 Grafdigger's Cage
A powerful hate piece against both Collected Company and GY-based strategies, Cage excels at shutting down multiple styles of opposing decks. However, it's very fragile to artifact removal opponents will generally SB in anyway, and the floodgates are opened from the second it's removed. Additionally, it can make activating our own O-Stones awkward.

1 Emrakul, the Promised End
A powerful threat that can threaten your control and combo opponents with its uncounterable Mindslaver effect. However, it loses a lot of power post-SB, where your opponents will likely be playing disruption. Additionally, relies on you having multiple card types in your GY to be reasonably playable before T6 even with your Tron undisrupted, which can be very awkward.

1 Crucible of Worlds/Life from the Loam
Powerful hate against LD strategies, and allows you to recur your own Ghost Quarters to battle against your opponents' land-based strategies. Crucible costs less mana for multiple activations, but LftL is a lot more resilient to the artifact hate your opponents will likely be SBing in anyway.

1 Wurmcoil Engine
By running an extra copy of Wurmcoil in the SB, you can bring in the rest vs aggressive decks, such as Zoo, Burn, etc.

1-2 Relic of Progenitus
Likewise, Relics that do not make it to the MD often get pushed to the SB.

RARELY PLAYED
1-2 Spellskite
Formerly a mainstay of Gx Tron decks in the days of Splinter Twin, the card is nowadays extremely narrow vs. almost specifically Infect and Bogles (where it's absurdly powerful, stealing all of their pump spells). Some other tricks it can pull include redirecting Paths from Wurmcoils, causing Bolts to deal 1 less damage, and redirecting Modular triggers from Arcbound Ravager (though a savvy Affinity player can just not put counters on Skite on resolution). In general it's very niche and not worth a valuable SB slot.

1-2 Fog
Another powerful hate piece against Infect, the card can buy a valuable turn vs. certain aggressive decks (but is generally not recommended).

1-2 Pithing Needle
Needle can have a variety of roles, from stopping LD hate such as Fulminator Mage and Field of Ruin, as well as powerful planeswalkers such as Teferi and Jace. However, many of the fast combo decks in the format rely very little on non-mana activated abilities, making its powerful silver-bullet capabilities somewhat niche vs powerful combo decks like Storm, Hollowed One, and Counters Company.

1-2 Sorcerous Spyglass
A more expensive Needle that allows you to look at your opponent's hand and dodge Chalice X=1.

1-2 Seal of Primordium
An artifact/enchantment hate spell that allows you to pay in advance and dodge Chalice X=1. However, the general downfall of Chalice decks in Modern mean that its primary function (in dodging Chalice) is no longer necessary.

Strategy

Tips and tricks for playing the deck.

How to play with Karn Liberated
Playing with Karn is fairly simple once you get used to it, but takes some getting used-to. Basically, against any deck that has the potential to deal 3 to it, you want to +4 immediately. Keeping Karn alive is KEY to winning the game. Against any deck that can't damage Karn, you generally want to do what makes the most impact on the game (-3 if that's getting rid of a permanent, +4 if it's forcing them to pitch a card, or to scramble to his ult). Finally, if you're really up against the wall against damage-dealing decks, it may be the correct play to -3 Karn immediately. But realize that this is a desperation tactic, and it will generally end up with Karn trading with that permanent (and 3 points of damage).

How to play with your Eggs (Chromatic Star, Chromatic Sphere)
While it may be tempting to crack these ASAP (after you cast them), realize that they're essentially "free" to crack (they cost 1 mana to make one mana). Therefore, there are many points in the game where you'll want to "save" them for when you need to cast color spells. However, if you need to dig, or the game gets late enough, it can also be the correct play to crack them ASAP. Post-board vs. white decks, you'll also want to cycle them more aggressively due to the constant threat of Stony Silence

How to "beat" Crumble to Dust
There are a few ways to handle Crumble to Dust. None of them are perfect - to get this straight, Crumble to Dust is the PERFECT board card against us. It's like Cranial Extraction that can hit nonbasic lands combined with a Caustic Rain. To beat it, there are three routes you can take. One is preventative, which involves you tutoring up a Ghost Quarter and keeping it up to blow up a targeted Tron piece. The second is reactive, and involves running Warping Wail in your SB. However, this can be awkward, as Wail can be a very marginal SB card against the decks that could run Crumble, as it's often the only relevant mode, and relies on you gambling that your opponent will have the Crumble to convert it. The final, and my favorite, is to simply race the Crumble. You can't truly know if your opponent has it. However, if you land an early Wurmcoil or Karn, you can often just take over the game before it lands, and start to drop O-Stones, Karns, and more Wurmcoils afterward.

Nature's Claim vs. Burn
Nature's Claim is a great board card vs. Burn. Not only to blow up their Eidolon of the Great Revels, but also to blow up your own artifacts. Being able to exchange two cards for 4 life doesn't sound pretty, but sometimes it's what you have to do to stay alive. If you Claim a Chromatic Star (but not Sphere), you still draw the card (1 card for 4 life), and if you Claim a Wurmcoil in response to Destructive Revelry, you manage to gain yourself a virtual 6 life (Claiming Wurmcoil in response to Path gives you the tokens + 4 life). If you need to board in cards vs. Burn, but you don't want to devote more space in your SB, consider this strategy.

Extraction/Relic vs Extraction
Casting Surgical Extraction in response to an opponent's Extraction can counter their extraction. The same trick can be performed with either the first or second ability of Relic of Progenitus.

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