MTG Combo: Ghost Quarter + Surgical Extraction

Xica on Redesigned Vampire Midrange (for modern)

7 years ago

Well tron is tron.
If you can race t3 Karn Liberated into t4 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, or you must devote a lot of sideboard to it.
Either you ramp into (or hope for luck) Sowing Salt/Crumble to Dust
Or use the combo of Ghost Quarter + Surgical Extraction (then a least half of your hate will have other uses)

Or bet on the imposibility that they won't have answer for your Blood Moon.

Bottom line is you can't have only good matchups.

TheAnnihilator on

8 years ago

The maindeck looks really solid, I only have a few criticisms for it:

I don't like Shadow of doubt despite having tried it a lot (I actually posted about it just now on MTGS -- I'm TheAnnihilator0798 on there).

The other thing I noticed is that Condemn is pretty poor against the Eye of Ugin decks, I'm running Doom Blade right now (maybe it should be Go for the Throat).

Now the sideboard:

I wouldn't run nearly as many counterspells as you are. What deck do you want them against? Scapeshift? There really aren't any other decks to bring them in against (maybe burn, but the common list plays more Nacatls and less burn anyways). If you were playing them to protect the T0 Leyline, I could see running a pair of Dispels, but as of your current list, I'd just play 1x Negate.

In the 2 opened spots, I'd throw in some Surgical Extraction. The Ghost Quarter + Surgical Extraction combo is how we win against Tron, but Surgical Extraction + Thoughtseize is great against combo too. Surg is also just randomly amazing against a few decks: Scapeshift (stripping countermagic or Scapeshift itself), G Devotion (stripping Garruks and EWits), Kiki Chord (stripping Chord of Calling or Resto), Reanimator (stripping whatever they target in the graveyard), and other decks too -- I'm thinking about using it against Eldrazi to get rid of Reality Smashers.

kengiczar on [Community Discussion]: Modern Chat

8 years ago

@ Femme_Fatale - I'm worried about tron as well. I am probably going to end up play Pila-Pala combo with lots of Ghost Quarter + Surgical Extraction , Snapcaster Mage, Remand, Mana Leak, and either Shadow of Doubt + Kolaghan's Command or Leonin Arbiter + Path to Exile. If I go grixis I could side into Delver of Secrets + Young Pyromancer . If I go I get Monastery Mentor and...not sure what else I haven't mentioned yet for .

I'm probably overly focused on the Ghost Quarter angle but I really like GQ and Surgical Extraction together since SE also helps Overwhelming Denial.

Jack-Frost on Garbage Gifts: A Four Color Junk

8 years ago

The best advice I can give you to counter tron is targeted exile. Tron typically focuses exclusively on getting it's creatures out quickly and destroying their opponents field, to the exclusion of most if not all protection of it's creatures (they run spellskite for this so you need removal to take out these defenses first). The ones you really need to deal with is it's massive eldrazi, all of which will have indestructible as well as either targeted exile or annihilator. Furthermore, any of the old elrazi will reshuffle back into their decks if they are sent to the graveyard, so it's best to avoid that.

Based on what I see of your deck you could run another Path to Exile, some more Thoughtseize, and cards like Sadistic Sacrament which will remove the problem before you encounter it. You can also use Ghost Quarter + Surgical Extraction to remove all of one particular tron land. That will completely shut down a tron deck (or at least heavily slow it down), though beware cards like Life from the Loam and Crucible of Worlds which will bring them back.

The primary reason that tron runs so well is it is simple and overwhelms complex decks quickly. Most people give up the tron matchup and hope to get lucky since to strengthen your deck against tron takes up a number of slots that you need for other decks too.

If you want, take a look at my G/R tron deck Karn, the Spirit Dragon. I have an entire description of tron and every card I use in it, and that may help you figure out how to better counter it.