How to deal with tron?
Modern forum
Posted on Aug. 13, 2013, 12:05 a.m. by mmdw34
I keep playing this clown every week who plays mono blue tron, is there anything that can screw over or shut down tron? I currently play blue, black and white in my deck
mstancea Its not creatures that are my problem, its stupid mindslaver locks and him just spellburst with buyback for infinite its really annoying.
August 13, 2013 12:11 a.m.
MagicalHacker says... #5
Against Spell Burst , run some man-lands (Creeping Tar Pit is my favorite).
Against Mindslaver , run cards that give you hexproof (Leyline of Sanctity is my favorite).
August 13, 2013 12:16 a.m.
If he's infinite there is very few cards that can deal with it. Trickbind can be quite efficient against those lock. especially if you respond to the use of Mindslaver with it. I also like the use of Sudden Spoiling against Voltron, although layering makes that Equip, Auras and Counters still buffs the creature.
Split Second can save the day depending on your opponent. But yeah, a lock is still a lock, you're better off predicting when it will get in to prevent it from happening.
Ixidron also shut down several strategy pretty efficiently.
August 13, 2013 12:18 a.m.
You want to shut him down early. Ghost Quarter and Tectonic Edge are solid choices.
Show us the deck and we can help?
August 13, 2013 2:52 a.m.
MagicalHacker says... #8
I disagree, MurasakiRose. There are tons of cards that shutdown the possibility of combos all the time. Take a look at my article Do you HATE infinite combos?
And land hate is the best thing against tron lol
August 13, 2013 3:58 a.m.
Once the Mindslaver lock is in play, there's very little you can do about it. The good thing is that it takes 12 mana plus an Academy Ruins to play the lock...6 to play the Mindslaver , 4 to activate it, and 2 plus tapping the Ruins to get the Mindslaver back on top of the library. Your best bet by far is to prevent your opponent from ever getting 12 mana, an Academy Ruins , or both.
How depends on your colors. Tectonic Edge is always an option and is better than Ghost Quarter because they play plenty of basics...and their deck can beat you with a Wurmcoil Engine for 6 mana just as easily as it can beat you otherwise. Fulminator Mage and Avalanche Riders are options in some decks, particularly Pod decks and Living End decks. Some Pod decks run Realm Razer specifically because the Tron matchup is so bad.
The best option though is certainly Sowing Salt . If you get one to resolve through their counters (cast it on a land that they only have one of in play), you can reasonably expect that they will never have the mana to play the lock.
If you go the land destruction route, remember two things: 1) Tron tends to only play one Academy Ruins and does not often play anything like Crucible of Worlds to get the land back if it gets destroyed or discarded, and 2) the reason why they don't play land recursion is because they have lots of other ways to beat you. You're almost always better off trying to destroy land to keep them off Tron than trying to destroy the Academy Ruins , unless you're at the point of the game where there's enough land in play that no single land destruction effect will keep them off Tron anyway.
Another very good option is an early Stony Silence . This prevents them from tutoring up whatever land they want to via Expedition Map .
I took a look at mstancea's article, and there is one option there: Leyline of Sanctity to keep him from targeting you. His article seems to ignore infinite combos out of the graveyard, so he doesn't mention Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace , but those are other options. Alas the rest of the list, with the exception of the irrelevant (in this case) Ghostly Prison really isn't Modern-playable.
After the lock is in play, you don't really have much of a chance. Almost anything (Deathrite Shaman , Scavenging Ooze , etc.) can be responded to by recurring with the Academy Ruins . Extirpate is the only exception and will definitely save you from the combo. Of course, it still leaves him with 13 mana and a lot of other options.
Definitely, keeping him off huge mana is the best solution.
August 13, 2013 8:55 a.m.
MagicalHacker says... #10
I wrote the article with EDH in mind since that's where most of the complaining tends to happen, and I focused on stopping the way an infinite combo wins, not stopping the way it works (infinite casting, infinite reanimating, infinite flickering, infinite spell copying, infinite ability activating, etc.). Although, that might be a good topic for a second article.
August 13, 2013 2:43 p.m.
So i actually talked about this I did add white for rest in peace, this is a mill deck I run by the way. surgical extraction one of the urza lands so he gets screwed over, rest in peace so when ulamong hits he cant do anything about it and most of the time I mill out academy ruins just so they cant do anything. I put 4 extractions in the side board as well as 2 rest in peace just to stop that kinda nonsense from happening thank you all for suggestions, ill test and see how it goes
August 13, 2013 2:59 p.m.
First of all, you should definitely not be using Rest in Peace and Surgical Extraction together. As long as Rest in Peace is in play, cards will never go to the graveyard, so Surgical Extraction will sit dead in your hand without any targets, unable to do anything. (RIP's effect is a replacement effect, not a triggered effect, so cards never touch the graveyard.)
Also keep in mind that Surgical Extraction does take care of Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre and friends at least partially. You can still Extract him in response to the trigger that shuffles the graveyard back into the library. The rest of the library gets shuffled in, but Ulamog and whatever other copies of him are in the deck are exiled.
And lastly, Surgical Extraction is the wrong choice. It can be countered, and you're playing against a mono-blue deck. Extirpate does exactly the same thing, except it has Split Second, so it cannot be countered. It can also not be responded to by Academy Ruins . There is no downside...it's even a less-than-four-dollar card since it was reprinted in Modern Masters.
Just as a general statement to anyone who is trying to figure out how to beat UTron...instant-speed graveyard-exiling effects do not do it. Just tonight I had someone certainly smiling (can't be sure, it was on MTGO) when he laid down Tormod's Crypt , probably wondering why it didn't work when he activated it and I responded by activating Academy Ruins to put Mindslaver back on top of my library anyway. A Slaver lock can only be broken in three ways: a Split Second graveyard interaction card like Extirpate , making yourself untargetable with something like Witchbane Orb or Leyline of Sanctity , or countering the activation with Trickbind or Squelch .
I would choose Extirpate rather than Rest in Peace , because as long as Rest in Peace is in play, you have no way in your colors to exile Tron lands out of his library. (Also, your opponent can interact with Rest in Peace but cannot interact with Extirpate .) He will still have the opportunity to tutor them up and get into a good position even if RIP stops the Slaver lock. The only way I would consider Rest in Peace is if he has more than one different sort of Eldrazi in his deck and milling is your only win condition.
@mstancea...Now that I look back at my post it sort of looks like it, but I wasn't intending to denigrate your article. I figured it wasn't for Modern, but that limited it to just a few cards that translate to Modern.
August 14, 2013 1:55 a.m.
I know I've written plenty, but I'm going to write more! I just played a game with UTron against a Bogle deck. After defeating him with a Platinum Angel followed by a Mindslaver lock in the first game, in the second game he played turn 1 Slippery Bogle , turn 2 Stony Silence , turn 3 Rest in Peace , and turn 4 Leyline of Sanctity .
I went on to AEtherize his attack once, lay down a Wurmcoil Engine , and play Repeal on his auras when he blocked so that his creatures died. The game wasn't even close, and I never felt the need to play the Repeal on any of the three big nasty enchantments that he played out early. (Mostly I was just happy because he wasn't playing auras on his creatures while he was trying to control me.)
The lesson is that stopping the Mindslaver lock does not win you the game. Don't feel secure just because you have a Rest in Peace in play.
August 14, 2013 7:33 p.m.
I would suggest Pithing Needle You can target the Eye of Ugin so they can't search for targets, Karn so he can't exile your hand or permanents, and the Mindslaver so he can't take your turn.
You can even main board pithing needle against a ton of match ups from tron to affinity. If your aggro I would recommend a 1 of and if your control a 2 of with 1 more in the sideboard.
April 12, 2014 12:16 a.m.
Just destroy the tron pieces and if he Expedition Map s more Surgical Extraction it. Pithing Needle is also a really good friend.
April 13, 2014 7:55 p.m.
GlistenerAgent says... #17
As said above, BREAK HIS LANDS. MAKE THEM CRY.
If you want to really beat Tron, you could switch to a very fast combo deck or aggro deck, as Tron is quite slow and only really gets off the ground on turn 3 or later. Reanimator, Zoo, Affinity, Amulet/Bloom Titan, Storm or Living End are all solid options.
April 13, 2014 8:03 p.m.
HarbingerJK says... #19
you could also go Spreading Seas , Contaminated Ground and Blind Obedience
April 14, 2014 8:24 p.m.
I don't know if this would be good but run a Pithing Needle. Friend I used to play with ran the same kind of thing. This shut him down pretty early. Hoped this helped
MagicalHacker says... #2
Ensnaring Bridge might do the trick, no?
August 13, 2013 12:08 a.m.