4-Color Tron in Pauper Constructed

Posted on November 5, 2013 by Avignon

You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “4-Color Tron in Pauper Constructed”.

 

  1. Awesome article. I thought Tron decks were just a fad, but you made me believe it is a real strategy. Your arguments seem sound and I’ll be testing your list. Thanks for writing.

  3. Love the deck. I have been playing it for a month when it still had Swirling Sandstorm…I like Deep Analysis over Compulsive Research though.

  5. @ray I personally prefer Compulsive Research to Deep Analysis primarily because it’s much better before you assemble Tron. The front end is obviously much more powerful, and it costs one less mana. Even after Tron is assembled, assuming the land you discard doesn’t have much value, Compulsive is still 3 mana for 3 cards while Deep Analysis is 6 mana and 3 life for 4. Deep Analysis is obviously way better against decks with counterspells and is something you can play to metagame if the field moves in that direction, but I think playing the more efficient card is good for now.

    Swirling Sandstorm is a card that I played some in old UR Cloudpost decks, but I found that it just didn’t do anything (literally) in the time frame that removal is most valuable. I never played it in this deck for that reason, though I’d be interested to see the early lists that other people came up with.

    Thanks for commenting, everyone.

  7. Thanks for writing the article, it was a pretty good read. I have been on hiatus from Pauper since the bans happened and I’ve been pretty eager to get back once I find a deck that’s both good and fun to play. This just might be the ticket, so I’ll have to try it out!

    I enjoyed the section about CoP:X however I suspect just running some amount of Moment’s Peace might do the job too. At least in the scenarios where you say you want them!

  8. I don’t think 20 lands is nearly enough. I find myself mulliganing way too often with this setup. I’d run at least two basic forest in addition to the current base and probably one more cycle land.

  9. @AJ the list is tight as it is. The mana base is fine. There really is no room for more land and it doesn’t need it to be honest.

  10. @hiveking Moment’s Peace is definitely more flexible, but even with flashback, this deck often can’t actually close the game before it runs out of Fogs. A Circle will usually hold down the game for 6 or 7 turns, if not more. I could be wrong, and I hope you’ll let me know if I am. Anyway, I hope you like the deck!

    @aj You have to realize that Expedition Map and Ancient Stirrings are for the most part just lands, and that running 12 cyclers mean you’re playing an effectively 48-card deck. So ultimately, 28/48 cards are basically mana. This is obviously an oversimplification of what’s actually going on, but the basic message is this: adding more lands is going to make your average opening hand look better, but it means you’re often going to be flooded in the lategame. I usually like to play more lands than necessary myself so I can sympathize, but I think that 20 lands is already brushing the upper limit. One-landers and mulliganning are unfortunately just part of the territory.

  12. Great article. I hate playing against versions of this deck, mainly because it always takes a long time and I’m impatient. That said, I hate it MUCH less than playing against Fissure. :)

    Who knows, maybe one day I’ll even sleeve it up and give it a run.

  13. I do realize that. But I was speaking from play-testing, not theorycrafting. I have had much better games with more lands, especially forests since they actually cast your ancient stirrings without a fuss. It’s just my input after playing the deck that you suggested. Isn’t that the whole point of public columns like this?

  14. @aj Sure. It’s fine if you disagree with me on the land count, I just thought I’d give a more detailed explanation for it than I did in the article. I wasn’t trying to declare anything definitively, though I am pretty set on 20 lands. I’ve personally had more games where I struggled because of flood than manascrew, but of course it’s fine for you to disagree. If you feel that more land is better, then you should definitely play more land. And discussion definitely the point; thanks for commenting.

  15. Hi, im trying to get into pauper on mtgo and since I like tron in modern I thought this would be right up my ally. Build it up and took it to the practice room. Right away I faced 4 decks in a row that I simply could not beat. One was Mono U control of some kind and the other UB. Either one had more than enough counters and doomblades to answer every wincon in the deck (which unless im missing something is only the ulamogs and the rolling thunders or am I missing some other way to win)

  16. Good read. I’d say IMHO that this is literally the FIRST good pauper article on MTGO Academy!

    Keep up the nice work!

  17. I should add I even got a turn 4 ulamog against one guy just to have it doombladed. Every creature and rolling temblor after that was met with mystic teaching->counterspell

  18. Very good article, love the solid explanations of theory behind the choices, and the obvious practical experience as well.

  21. Has anyone considered Halimar Wavewatch for this deck? It actually seems like it might be a pretty good sideboard plan vs. blue. It blocks early on to dampen aggro assaults, and becomes a 6/6 unblockable beater later in the game depending on the deck you are facing. I could actually see running it main board… although I’ve never played the deck so I have no idea what I would take out for it.