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View Full Version : [Discussion] Legacy Tron - Viable or Waste of Time?



Bane of the Living
12-09-2006, 01:55 PM
Do you think there's any chance for tron to shine in legacy? Or does wasteland hamper the strategy too much? I've been trying to build a successfull tron deck in legacy for some time now. There are so many things to be done with all that colorless mana. I immediately think of Tooth and Nail when brainstorming this but I suppose it could be any pile of brown and green cards.

Sure theres wasteland but we have Crop Rotation to help play around and through the hate. If we went mono brown we could adopt Cloudpost as another mana machine. The new time spiral land Vesuva can copy cloudpost to give you 8 locus lands to draw mana from.

Any ideas we can stem from?

SpatulaOfTheAges
12-09-2006, 03:32 PM
How does Tron hamper combo? Doesn't it spend it's first couple turns digging up pieces?

Bane of the Living
12-09-2006, 03:38 PM
Considering it could drop CotV from 0-4 I think you have a more robust matchup than you think. Besides, thats what a sideboard is for.

freakish777
12-09-2006, 03:47 PM
Yes, please, everyone play Tron. I will love you forever.

MasterBlaster
12-09-2006, 03:52 PM
Tron would be pretty horrendous in a format inhabited by Wasteland, Rishadan Port, Armageddon, Back to Basics, Pox, Smallpox, and Sinkhole.

Rastadon
12-09-2006, 04:17 PM
G/W Stax w/ maindeck Sacred Ground would do nicely. Green for land fetch and Tooth, white for Wrath of God and Sacred Ground. With Tron online, dropping Lock components should be uber easy. Hell, you could even go the Mindslaver route with that much mana.

aisman132000
12-09-2006, 04:22 PM
i agree with master blaster. The best deck in the format, or at least the most common tier 1 deck runs a full set of ports and wastelands. I just don't see tron being that viable. maybe r/u with main deck pyroclasm? something similar to r/u wildfire in standard? i'm not sure but it doesn't seem that good.

Cait_Sith
12-09-2006, 05:39 PM
I am trying out a Legacy Tron deck now.

xsockmonkeyx
12-09-2006, 05:46 PM
1) Isnt ancient tomb as good as what you are trying to accomplish with tron only faster? 2)Considering diversity of the legacy card pool, how much does tron fall under the category of "doing cool things"?

Cait_Sith
12-09-2006, 05:50 PM
Alot. I have done Decree of Justice where x=6. I have done Brainstorms where X = 7 refilling my entire hand. I have endlessly recurred Mindslavers.

etrigan
12-09-2006, 05:52 PM
To be quite honest with you, I'm not sure how Tron survives in Standard with Ghost Quarter in the format. With better nonbasic hate, better land destruction, and better ways to accelerate your land destruction, it's even worse off here.

Unless you want to pack main deck Teferi's Response/Sacred Ground/Crop Rotation to protect it, I dont think it has a chance. Even then, that would mean you need colored mana early, which kind of defeats the purpse of Tron.

Cait_Sith
12-09-2006, 05:55 PM
Tron does incredibly well in standard despite those. The trick to 'Tron is... all you figure it out. SB Sacred Ground. Got it.

Eldariel
12-09-2006, 09:58 PM
Tron does incredibly well in standard despite those. The trick to 'Tron is... all you figure it out. SB Sacred Ground. Got it.

What about the bigger problem of dying turn 4, by the time you get your deck online? I'd be more worried about Wastes directed at the coloured sources, since you run precious few of those. Couple that with artifact removal for any potential non-land sources you run and you're seriously boned. I just can't see the deck having a good Goblins-MU, no matter what. And the fact that Tron is online turn 4 earliest makes the early game of the deck look horrible. I just don't see why you'd ever play Tron over the 2-mana lands in the format, that aren't reliant on each other to accelerate you, and don't force you to play with 12 colourless sources, making your coloured mana available inconsistently, and in small quantities. My biggest gripe with it is though that it only gets online turn 3-4. That's when the games end. That's no time to be sculpting a cute landbase, that's when you should be winning. Tron simply appears worse than the alternatives available, and more vulnerable while at that. The reason it works in T2 is because the decks that have trouble with it can't pack the hate. I've got a WW with Wayfarer and 4 Ghost Quarters in T2, I tend to smash Tron every day of the week. Let's not even get to the LD-decks in the format.

Anyways, I think you need to MD Sacred Ground if you want to compete in Legacy and even then, it's sketchy with only 4 in the deck. Dropping game 1 against the most common deck in the format seems like major stupidity.

Daze
12-10-2006, 02:41 AM
I don't know why everybody wants to play white for Sacred Ground... Play 4 Ptihing Needles and you have a 1-drop protecting you from Wastes or Ports. It does not help against Sinkhole, but since Sacred Ground doesn't help against Ports, that seems to be a fair deal.

laststepdown
12-10-2006, 03:24 AM
Crop Rotation? Mindslaver? Tron? Academy Ruins? I like the sound of this.

Eldariel
12-10-2006, 09:09 AM
I don't know why everybody wants to play white for Sacred Ground... Play 4 Ptihing Needles and you have a 1-drop protecting you from Wastes or Ports. It does not help against Sinkhole, but since Sacred Ground doesn't help against Ports, that seems to be a fair deal.

Port isn't that much of a problem. Tapping a Tron-piece doesn't keep Tron offline, just cuts 3 mana. Wasting/Sinking a Tron-piece prevents the Tron from working, leaving the deck with a deckful of crap.

TheRock
12-10-2006, 09:18 AM
Tron in this format? About half of the decks in this format have a game one auto-win, and with one of about 15 maindeck cards, you practically go "w00t I scoop". There are quite a few sideboard cards that you cannot recover from either.

Faerie Stompy is already a pretty good deck that does run a similar manabase style (Tomb and City), so if this is an idea that you feel is worth pursuing, I would look at that list before considering Tron.

Cait_Sith
12-10-2006, 10:07 AM
Legacy also has excellent stop and area removal. Depending on your deck 'Tron can be online as early as turn 1, although turns 3-4 are the more likely ones. Also, the first rule of making a good 'Tron deck is have the deck where 'Tron = I WIN! and no 'Tron = We fight to the death! Also, the more I play my 'Tron deck the more I am convinced that 4 of each is just too many, except for the time I did Decree of Justice for 6 (they promplty were Punishment'd by Alex). The big advantage to 'Tron is that it can feed immense amounts of mana into something, the trick is just to balance out how many you need.

City of Traitors blows itself up at the sight of another land and to generate a comperable amount of mana from Ancient Tomb would cost you 4-6 life. A turn. Even Snow White and MartyrTron would be intimidated by that amount of life sink.

troopatroop
12-10-2006, 10:22 AM
Legacy also has excellent stop and area removal. Depending on your deck 'Tron can be online as early as turn 1, although turns 3-4 are the more likely ones. Also, the first rule of making a good 'Tron deck is have the deck where 'Tron = I WIN! and no 'Tron = We fight to the death! Also, the more I play my 'Tron deck the more I am convinced that 4 of each is just too many, except for the time I did Decree of Justice for 6 (they promplty were Punishment'd by Alex). The big advantage to 'Tron is that it can feed immense amounts of mana into something, the trick is just to balance out how many you need.

City of Traitors blows itself up at the sight of another land and to generate a comperable amount of mana from Ancient Tomb would cost you 4-6 life. A turn. Even Snow White and MartyrTron would be intimidated by that amount of life sink.

If you can make a Tron deck that consistantly activates Mindslaver by say, oh, turn 3-4? Then it may be viable. Even under those circumstances, you would have to play an absolutely horrible manabase that a single Wasteland would actually devastate.

Look, it's a cute idea, but you're looking at about a turn 4-5 fundamental turn. Legacy is about turn 3-4. Even if the Tron pieces weren't terribly vulnerable, (which they are) The deck would probably be too slow to do anything relevant. When an entire deck is based around sculpting your manabase, (Which get's destroyed by the most commonly played card in the format) and dropping a bomb, You are so... so easy to play around.

If you wanna Mindslaver or Sundering Titan someone, play 7/10 or something... Welder survival. Not Tron.

Cait_Sith
12-10-2006, 10:42 AM
Are you proclaming that the Rock sucks?

troopatroop
12-10-2006, 09:53 PM
Are you proclaming that the Rock sucks?

Yes. Were you serious?

troopatroop
12-10-2006, 11:18 PM
Yes. Were you serious?

Alright, without being an asshole this time. Yes. I think Rock is a bad deck in Legacy because it just isn't broken enough. Yea sure, it can draw what it needs for certain matchups and go 50/50 alot. Big deal. Rock is decent against everything and good against nothing. Why would you play something like that at a tournament? Why not just play Goblins or Iggy and just go broken?

Where did that reference come from? How did Rock coorelate to what I said?

Cait_Sith
12-11-2006, 03:17 AM
Ben's BoaB deck has answered this thread.

Eldariel
12-11-2006, 08:39 AM
What does online Extended Cloudpost-deck tested in Casual Room have to do with Legacy Tron?

Cait_Sith
12-11-2006, 12:43 PM
The idea of any Tron is to ramp up colorless mana to new heights. Cloudpost is faster and more stable and provides more mana at 3 cards. Ultimately the odds of drawing it ARE lower, but just 2 gives 4 mana.

C-Aleric
12-11-2006, 01:18 PM
I'd have to agree with C-Sith here. Especially with Vesuva now, Cloudpost is just fast. Cloudpost/Vesuva/C-rotation can get you some serious colorless mana realllly fast.

It just seems comparable to tron, and a lot less detrimental to one wasteland.

Eldariel
12-11-2006, 02:49 PM
Coming into play tapped is a huge drawback when you need to be answering threats from turn 1 though.

Cait_Sith
12-11-2006, 03:41 PM
This needs more testing then!

Daze
12-11-2006, 04:11 PM
Port isn't that much of a problem. Tapping a Tron-piece doesn't keep Tron offline, just cuts 3 mana. Wasting/Sinking a Tron-piece prevents the Tron from working, leaving the deck with a deckful of crap.

And my point was that Needle helps against the most played LD (Wasteland), costs only 1 and also does shut down Port. And of course, it's much more versatile than Sacred Ground ;-).


Ben's BoaB deck has answered this thread.

Man, i love that deck... still not sure if the idea is playable in 1.5 because it's still quite slow, but I <3 Mindslaver :D.

Lego
12-11-2006, 05:06 PM
Man, i love that deck... still not sure if the idea is playable in 1.5 because it's still quite slow, but I <3 Mindslaver :D.

The deck isn't even playable in Extended, let alone Legacy. If you want to play Cloudpost/Vesuva, I'd say your best bet is probably Flores' old Cloudpost Mono-White Control, but even then it's probably worse than Rabid Wombat. Much as I'd love to do it, I think there's simply no point in Legacy. There are much quicker, more reliable ways to win.

Now Shaheen Soorani's Blink Riders, there's a deck I'd like to port.

Bane of the Living
12-11-2006, 07:23 PM
Cloudpost/Vesuva is probably the stronger way to go for sure. You get 2 mana turn two and if you drop either on turn 3 consecutivly thats 6 mana! Like mentioned above it doesnt matter if one bites the dust either. Green is surely the way to go but Id like a splash for white for the Sacred Grounds. Heres our first list to get off the ground. Just a skeleton.

Land 24
4 Cloudpost
4 Vesuva
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Windswept Heath
1 Boseju
4 Forest
3 Savanah

Creatures 13
4 Sakura Tribe Elder
2 Sundering Titan
1 Blazing Archon
1 Platinum Angel
1 Leonin Abunas
3 Eternal Witness
1 Kiki Jiki

Spells 23
2 Pithing Needle
2 Mindslaver
3 Talisman of Impulse
4 Sensei's Divining Top
4 Tooth and Nail
4 Crop Rotation
4 Sylvian Scrying

Thats a shitty list but it made really quick. What should we work on? I want Decree in there I think. Are the colors right? Meph Trik sucks due to needle and swords. DC sucks due to swords, kiki hussar sucks due to swords and needle. Smashing face with Titans is the way to go.

troopatroop
12-11-2006, 09:04 PM
How is that better Welder Survival? Welder survival gets Titan or Mindslaver on Turn 2.... Draws shit tons of cards.... And can actually win. I don't understand.

Drkdstryer
12-11-2006, 09:42 PM
How is that better Welder Survival? Welder survival gets Titan or Mindslaver on Turn 2.... Draws shit tons of cards.... And can actually win. I don't understand.

Because it's immune to GY hate? Just a thought...

I hate that argument anyway. The decks are obviously different. Why don't you just say everything is inferior to the Big Three and only run them? How is Welder Survival or Truffle Shuffle or IGGy-Pop better than Goblins or Thresh or Solidarity?

C-Aleric
12-11-2006, 10:21 PM
As it happens, I made a deck list today, that heavily abuses the Cloudpost/Vesuva engine. It is based off the idea of Null Rod and Mycosynth Lattice combo. I always wanted to adapt this to legacy, and this engine gave me the answer.

Here we go:

Name:Null Lattice
Creator(s): C-Aleric/Phya

Lands:
4x Cloudpost
4x Vesuva
4x Ancient Tomb
4x Savannah
3x Wooded Foothills
2x Forest
1x Plains

Spells:
4x Enlightened Tutor
4x Crop Rotation
4x Null Rod
4x Mycosynth Lattice
4x Ghostly Prison
3x Nevinyrral's Disk
3x Pithing Needle
3x Defense Grid
3x Chalice of the Void
2x Sylvan Scrying

Creatures:
2x Mycosynth golem
1x Arcbound Crusher
1x Platinum Angel


I haven't made a board for it yet, but after I built the deck, I was rather surprised with its consistancy. I tested it against the infamous Rw Vial Goblins, and went 5-2. A fast Ghostly Prison is just awful for them to plow through.

Basically, this deck tries to resolve Prison/Null Rod/Mycosynth Lattice. This locks your opponent out of the game completely, more or less. And then, you wait until you have a lot of lands in play, which are all artifacts, then you drop Mycosynth Golem, followed by Platinum Angel or Arcbound Crusher, and then you beat them down until you win.

I love lock decks, and aside from Stasis, this has to be the dirtiest one I've seen in a long time. Random thoughts can occasionally point you in a good direction, which is essentially all this was. I haven't made a side board up yet, but theoretically, it should be able to deal with most things. It can side board Swords for kitaki, disenchant for Serenity, or, perhaps you'll just get Null Rod and Lattice in play on turn 3, and if they have no creatures, you win. Also, if they have creatures, Prison buys you a lot of time, and you generally have lots of mana to play your spells. Chalice 1-4 is pretty simple to put on the board, and, yea... I've been pretty impressed with the overall goodness so far.