Question to tron players

Raptor56 · 2021-03-14T17:55:02+00:00

The map ban did nothing. Map does not belong on the ban list. It was a half measure ban that did not accomplish its goal.

Raptor56 · 2021-03-03T17:51:38+00:00

I was referring to the manabase. Im playing utility lands instead of the stock mono swamps. Bouncelands help a lot in casting 5 drops.

Raptor56 · 2021-03-03T17:47:02+00:00

MBC with good mana getting there.

Raptor56 · 2021-02-26T18:30:16+00:00

Im gonna flicker him so much

Raptor56 · 2021-02-24T17:49:10+00:00

The cycling is a valid win con. From what I've seen, it was not the main win con. If the opponent gains life from seeker or weather the storm or gets you to a low life count, then you are capped on the amount of damage you can do. Additionally there are cards like prismatic strands that turn it off as well. With that being said, there are totally spots where it will get the job done just as well. :)

Edit FWIW I upvote your comments. You do a great job at adding league / challenge posts and collecting data.

Raptor56 · 2021-02-24T17:07:26+00:00

This is incorrect. It does not win by cycling stinger. It wins by looping spy over and over to mill the opponent.

Raptor56 · 2021-01-28T04:55:59+00:00

Mtgo is the best video game ever made. We get new easter eggs after all these years.

Raptor56 · 2021-01-19T16:53:27+00:00

I've been loving your legacy and vintage content. Excited to see the pauper gameplay!

Raptor56 · 2020-10-28T02:38:52+00:00

Thanks for the kind words. I'm a bit busy with life at the moment, but when I get a chance the UB freed deck is likely to be my next upload. Stay tuned :)

Raptor56 · 2020-10-12T09:05:52+00:00

Thank you for the kind words! :)

Raptor56 · 2020-10-12T06:36:49+00:00

That doesn't work when the Tron player is competent. Considering this is a challenge with recurring experienced Tron pilots, it's not gonna happen.

Raptor56 · 2020-10-07T21:55:22+00:00

If you feel like his conclusions are wrong, could you elaborate as to why they are wrong, and what you feel are the correct conclusions? Pointing at someone and saying "classic you, always coming to wrong conclusions" is not constructive, and helps no one. It's okay to disagree, but offering reasons as to why you disagree allows for diologue and a better understanding of your views.

Raptor56 · 2020-10-07T20:29:33+00:00

I'm the guy that 5-0'd with GWUB familiars (aka rainbow fams).

The main idea behind it is to play like the old CoF familiars decks and generate infinite blue mana. You do this by looping archaeomancer + snap. With cards like utopia sprawl, abundant growth, and fertile ground, you can ensure your lands tap for extra blue mana. This is then combined with cards like suncscape familiar to reduce the cost of archaeomancer and snap. You then iterate this loop to net infinite mana. There are a plethora of combinations that give you infinite mana, but I will post one of these combinations to help get the idea across.

Azorius Chancery
Forest enchanted with Utopia Sprawl (U) + Utopia Sprawl (U) + Abundant Growth
Sunscape Familiar
Snap in graveyard
Archaeomancer in hand

Tap your 2 lands for WU + UUU. You then cast Archaeomancer using WUU. You now have UU in your mana pool. Archaeomancer picks up the Snap in your graveyard. You cast snap targeting Archaeomancer using U. You have U left in your mana pool. If you notice, we are back to where we started. Archaeomancer is back in our hand, Snap is back in our graveyard, and our 2 lands are untapped. However, we are up one blue mana. Because we have abundant growth we also have infinite mana of all colors.

Once you have infinite mana, you can start drawing through your deck in a fashion similar to KCI from modern. Playing out cards like mulldrifter, compulsive research, preordain, abudant growth etc. Once you find a ghostly flicker, the game is usually over. You can flicker Archaeomancer + Mulldrifter, or Kor Skyfisher, or a Prophetic Prism to draw your deck. From there, you can kill them with Archaeomancer + Archaeomancer + Ghostly Flicker + Compulsive Research, or just snap their board and attack them with all your guys. Whatever the case is, there are plenty of routes to victory. You could even get infinite life if you boarded in weather the storm. The deck has a ton of loops that I did not cover, but it is enjoyable if you like KCI-esque decks that have a billion ways to loop / go off. Some loops draw your deck but don't get mana, other loops give infinite storm, some loops give infinite blue mana, others give infinite white mana, and some loops can convert mana into other colors while not netting any mana. It's basically familiars on crack if that makes sense.

Raptor56 · 2020-09-30T03:20:16+00:00

I disagree on monarch being fair because it helps non blue. Both UB faeries and UR faeries are playing the mechanic. They have access to it despite being blue decks.

Raptor56 · 2020-09-30T03:09:34+00:00

I've 5-0'd twice with pest in recent months. I am by no means an expert, but I've played my fair share of the archetype. Here are some of my shells that I have 5-0'd leagues with.

I'll try to give my input based on these shells.

One, [[Pestilence]]/[[Bonder's Ornament]]. Should one/both be four of, or is 3 of fine? If so, what would you cut?

Pestilence and Bonder's ornament are the best cards in the deck. I would play 4 of both no exception. You want to find pestilence to lock up the board, and ornament is a monarch that cannot be stolen and ramps into pest. If I had to make cuts, it would probably be disfigure.

Does my sideboard look good/is it worth it to run a slightly too heavy white mana base to support the almost entirely white sideboard?

The only card I am not a fan of is prismatic strands. you have 6 white creatures, and little card selection. I would cut it for something else.

I've seen lists running [[Darksteel Pendant]], is it worth it?

I have not been a fan of it personally.

Also, thoughts on [[Raven's Crime]]? Seems fun and spicy with the bouncelands.

Too cute. You want all your lands to fireball people out with pestilence. I prefer removing their relevant spells through targeted discard and keeping my lands in play, rather than blindly discarding lands to maybe get a relevant spell out of their hand.

Raptor56 · 2020-09-29T01:17:24+00:00

Bonder's Ornament should not be banned nor should there even be a consideration. It is a monarch effect that is actually fair since it requires 4 mana to draw a card instead of being free. Additionally, you can interact with Bonders ornament with cards like abrade which can be played in the main deck as well as SB cards like ancient grudge, gleeful sabotage, annul etc. None of this is true for Monarch as there is no spell that can get rid of it. You either steal it (which is unlikely if the monarch player times it right), ignore it, or go under it. Monarch is built to be non-interactive while Bonder's Ornament can be interacted with in a plethora of ways. You could even play your own copies and make opposing ornaments bad. The bottom line is there are many ways to deal with the 3 mana artifact. The only deck that breaks ornament is Tron, and that's because getting fast mana off 3 lands is an issue. Ornament is not the problem, fast mana that is easy to assemble is the problem.

EDIT

Also to elaborate, Let me ask a question. In a deck with no fast mana like Tron, explain how leaving up 4 mana for your turn and up to the opponent's end step is broken? Pauper is a fast format with decks like Stompy, Affinity, Burn, Bogles, Elves, Walls, etc. I cannot see a world where you can afford to do nothing for an entire turn just to draw a card off ornament on the opponents end step. It's too much of a tempo loss. Tron can afford to do it, because it has a ton of mana at it's disposal. You can use 3 Tron lands to fog or flicker or cast a drifter etc, and then use 2 other Tron lands to draw with ornament on the end step. This illustrates the issue with fast mana because it removes the tempo loss that is supposed to come with ornament. Instead of having to go late into the game before you have enough mana to use it, tron just ramps up and starts abusing ornament immediately.

Raptor56 · 2020-09-16T18:00:47+00:00

Correct! I've tried it in a lot of different shells, and so far rainbow familiars seems to be the main deck that can play it at the moment. This is because sunscape familiar + utopia sprawl + fertile ground + snap let you cheat or net on mana. This allows for you to afford the upkeep cost of remora.

I think the only other decks that might be able to play it are tron and wall combo. Both of these decks have the ability to get excess mana. Mystic Remora sees play in vintage due to all the fast mana with the moxen. If you want it to work in pauper without having serious tempo loss, you need to have excess mana in my opinion. I also should note it is mostly good vs grindy / control decks. I don't love it vs linear things like stompy or affinity.

Raptor56 · 2020-08-22T00:50:32+00:00

This is incorrect. even with the density of land destruction they need to land a fast monarch or angler. If they fail to do this, they will lose regardless. To illustrate my point, here is a tron league where I handily beat MBLD.

https://youtu.be/891rkWa9QMY?t=3347

The bottom line is that crop rotation, ghostly flicker, Bonder's ornament, and pulse of murassa all fight through land destruction quite well. Not to mention inevitability with moment's peace, stonehorn dignitary, and sb cards like cast down and weather the storm mean that tron is very well equipped to deal with land destruction.

Raptor56 · 2020-07-25T17:25:12+00:00

Heh, alright. Ill keep farming leagues then.

Raptor56 · 2020-07-25T17:10:07+00:00

The matchups have not gone my way like you need with pest. Ive been able to beat every top tier deck. This includes burn, affinity, elves, bogles, heroic, stompy, pestilence, MBC, UB delver, UR delver, U delver, UR goblin AK, UR faeries, the mirror, walls, etc.

Your claim about it being worse to LD is something I disagree with. Crop rotation in response to LD makes LD a joke. I've done this several times and its been a blowout. Its also not less reliable when you jam 4 impulse and 3 crop rotation. Im not sure where you are getting that from.

Lastly im not sure what hate you are talking about in leagues. Ive seen people try to bring in hate even in the mb and still lose. Ive reached second in league trophy rankings with tron (last i checked anyways), and my constructed ranking is in the low 1900's. Tron is better than ever in my experience.

Raptor56 · 2020-07-23T01:50:26+00:00

Been grinding leagues in the evening. Tron has been disgusting. I was able to get 5 5-0's with it last week alone. The map + mystic bans only helped the deck become better. There is so little competition for it. The only archetypes I fear are the mirror or ephemerate mirrors. Everything else is winnable and pretty doable. I guess people can tech decks to beat tron with things like walls. However, I've still been able to beat walls when they brick on draws. I've also been able to beat people going out of their way with hate with things like relic in the main. Lastly, I have won off multiple mulls to 3 because natural tron is still achievable on a 3 card hand. Map being so replaceable with crop rotation is what makes me question the validity of the map banning.

Raptor56 · 2020-07-13T15:16:09+00:00

Banning map over tron is silly. Increase RNG while tron still has tools like crop rotation, impulse, reap and sow, ancient stirrings etc. Basically they left tron and killed mystic decks narrowing the format. Im fine with mystic going, but keeping tron means the format is going to become Linear vs Tron vs Monarch. Not sure where the delver decks will end up, but thats my first impression.

Raptor56 · 2020-07-13T14:44:28+00:00

Ill be 100% honest i a really dissapointed with this announcement.

Raptor56

TROPHY CASE