One strategy that has stayed consistent for many years in Modern has been Tron. Despite constant fluctuations in the metagame over the years and a plethora of elite cards getting introduced each set, this potent strategy revolving around the power of Urza’s Tower, Urza’s Mine, and Urza’s Power Plant has remained steady.
What’s interesting, though, is just how many different variants of Tron have put up results in Modern. Mono-green Tron is certainly the most popular and has stood the test of time. Sylvan Scrying adds some extra consistency towards assembling all three Tron Lands as quickly as possible.
However, multiple other variants have had success. Mono-blue Tron has popped up every now and again as a more interactive strategy. Eldrazi Tron maximizes the power of
Eldrazi Temple
Eldrazi Temple
{T}: Add {C}.
{T}: Add {C}{C}. Spend this mana only to cast colorless Eldrazi spells or activate abilities of colorless Eldrazi.
and can steal games with Chalice of the Void. We’ve even seen combo-style Tron decks featuring Mystic Forge get their time in the spotlight.
Today, we are going to focus on a version of Tron that is relatively new and has flown under the radar. This deck recently made top 32 of the Magic Online Modern Showcase Challenge, with an attendance of over 200 players. Is this deck the real deal? Let’s find out.
Tron Core
The main goal when utilizing the Tron Lands is, unsurprisingly, to generate a massive mana advantage. While this deck doesn’t have access to Sylvan Scrying, it does still get to make use of
Expedition Map
Expedition Map
{2}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Search your library for a land card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
as a way to find a missing Tron piece. This mono-white Tron deck, in a similar sense as mono-blue Tron, isn’t quite as reliant on assembling Tron by turn three. Instead, the objective is to use a slew of interactive elements to delay the game and at some point, assemble Tron and use the excess mana to your advantage.
There are a few payoffs that, while castable in the mid-game, get significantly better with Tron Lands in the mix. First, this deck utilizes a playset of
The One Ring
The One Ring
Indestructible
When The One Ring enters, if you cast it, you gain protection from everything until your next turn.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life for each burden counter on The One Ring.
{T}: Put a burden counter on The One Ring, then draw a card for each burden counter on The One Ring.
. Not only does The One Ring provide a huge boost of card advantage, but it helps dig for any missing Tron Lands. Once you have all three in play, the extra mana can help you convert those extra cards into board presence.
This leads to our second major payoff:
Karn, the Great Creator
Karn, the Great Creator
Activated abilities of artifacts your opponents control can't be activated.
+1: Until your next turn, up to one target noncreature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to its mana value.
−2: You may reveal an artifact card you own from outside the game or choose a face-up artifact card you own in exile. Put that card into your hand.
. Karn is fine to cast without access to all three Tron Lands but gets significantly better when you have tons of mana to work with. Then, you can use Karn to tutor up a huge haymaker like Sundering Titan or Cityscape Leveler to win the game with. Of course, you can always grab utility Artifacts like Ensnaring Bridge or
Cursed Totem
Cursed Totem
Activated abilities of creatures can't be activated.
when necessary.
Beyond The One Ring and Karn, there are a couple one-ofs that can singlehandedly swing a game in your favor when you have lots of mana at your disposal.
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
When you cast this spell, exile two target permanents.
Indestructible
Whenever Ulamog attacks, defending player exiles the top twenty cards of their library.
is the ultimate win condition, helping you shut the door in grindy games. Meanwhile, Ugin, the Spirit Dragon can reset even the scariest of board states, leaving behind a must-answer Planeswalker that threatens to win the game by itself. Most of these cards are rather typical inclusions in Tron decks, so this begs the question: what does white have to offer?
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Top-Notch Interaction
As mentioned, mono-white Tron and mono-blue Tron have some similarities. Rather than focusing on getting a mana advantage as quickly as possible, both of these Tron variants want to interact on the early turns. As such, they are less reliant on a quick mana boost and less vulnerable to hate pieces like
Blood Moon
Blood Moon
Nonbasic lands are Mountains.
as a result.
By far the most important piece of interaction that would draw a player to play white in their Tron deck is Solitude. Solitude is excellent and preventing you from falling behind. As a free disruptive element, it pairs nicely with Karn by making it significantly more likely you get to untap with the powerful Planeswalker. Likewise, Solitude is strong in conjunction with Then One Ring, keeping your life total high while you continue to draw cards.
The printing of Reprieve also played a big role in the development of the mono-white Tron deck. Between Solitude, Oust, and various board wipes like
Wrath of God
Wrath of God
Destroy all creatures. They can't be regenerated.
, this archetype has plenty of Creature interaction. Reprieve is an excellent insurance policy against unfair strategies. For instance, getting to Reprieve
Living End
Living End
Suspend 3—{2}{B}{B}
Each player exiles all creature cards from their graveyard, then sacrifices all creatures they control, then puts all cards they exiled this way onto the battlefield.
or
Crashing Footfalls
Crashing Footfalls
Suspend 4—{G} (Rather than cast this card from your hand, pay {G} and exile it with four time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.)
Create two 4/4 green Rhino creature tokens with trample.
can be devastating for the opponent.
To help answer a wider array of problematic permanents,
Get Lost
Get Lost
Destroy target creature, enchantment, or planeswalker. Its controller creates two Map tokens. (They're artifacts with "{1}, {T}, Sacrifice this token: Target creature you control explores. Activate only as a sorcery.")
and
March of Otherworldly Light
March of Otherworldly Light
As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may exile any number of white cards from your hand. This spell costs {2} less to cast for each card exiled this way.
Exile target artifact, creature, or enchantment with mana value X or less.
show up here, too. This deck is well-equipped to deal with Creature heavy-decks as well as Urza’s Saga shells.
Finally, a cool inclusion in this deck is Search for Glory. Search for Glory is a nice resource to have when you have all your requisite Tron Lands in play. It can grab Ulamog, any of your Planeswalkers, select one-ofs like Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, and The One Ring. You can even search for Snow-Covered Plains in a pinch if you’re light on Lands, which is a nice option to have.
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Strengths and Weaknesses
While mono-white Tron does have some similarities to the more popular mono-green Tron, there are some major differences when it comes to the strengths and weaknesses of the strategies. Mono-white Tron is much stronger against hate pieces like Blood Moon or
Magus of the Moon
Magus of the Moon
Nonbasic lands are Mountains.
out of Izzet Murktide. Simultaneously, mono-white Tron has the necessary disruption to avoid falling too far behind against
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Whenever Ragavan deals combat damage to a player, create a Treasure token and exile the top card of that player's library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card.
Dash {1}{R} (You may cast this spell for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste, and it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.)
and counter magic.
Mono-white Tron also does a much better job at keeping fast Creature decks like Hammer Time in check. This shouldn’t be too shocking, given the wide range of removal present in the mono-white Tron deck. These removal spells can help in a variety of matchups, including Golgari Yawgmoth and Rakdos Scam.
Where the big weakness of mono-white Tron lies in comparison to mono-green Tron is in matchups where the removal isn’t super impactful. Decks like
Scapeshift
Scapeshift
Sacrifice any number of lands. Search your library for up to that many land cards, put them onto the battlefield tapped, then shuffle.
combo that can win the game without committing much to the board are hugely problematic. In these types of matchups, you really need to get a mana boost early and slam a quick haymaker, which mono-green Tron does a significantly better job of.
Speaking of which, mono-green Tron has a huge edge over mono-white Tron in the pseudo-mirror for similar reasons. There are also decks like Dimir Mill that, between the presence of Field of Ruin, Surgical Extraction, and a win condition in milling that is hard to mess with, completely wreck mono-white Tron on all levels.
With this in mind, if you want to play mono-white Tron, be prepared for some polarizing matchups. When your white removal spells are strong, you’re probably in decent shape. Otherwise, you may be in for a rough time. Still, if you like Tron but are tired of losing to quick starts from aggressive decks or an abundance of hate pieces from the opponent, consider giving this unique variant a whirl.
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