Updated Infamous Archaic MTG Deck Dominates Pro Tour!

Day two of Pro Tour Lord of the Rings has concluded and there are some interesting points of data to take away from it. Rakdos Scam came in as the most played deck by a wide margin. In fact, the deck saw nearly 20% of the room playing the deck in day one. For reference, the Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis You can't spend mana to cast this spell.
Convoke, delve (Each creature you tap while casting this spell pays for {1} or one mana of that creature's color. Each card you exile from your graveyard pays for {1}.)
You may cast this card from your graveyard.
Trample deck that resulted in Hogaak getting banned from Modern was played only slightly more at 21.4% at the Modern Horizons Pro Tour. Rakdos Scam is clearly a very powerful deck, and the Evoke Elementals from Modern Horizons Two, especially Grief Grief Menace
When this creature enters, target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card.
Evoke—Exile a black card from your hand. and Fury Fury Double strike
When this creature enters, it deals 4 damage divided as you choose among any number of target creatures and/or planeswalkers.
Evoke—Exile a red card from your hand. , continue to rule the Modern landscape.

That being said, coincidentally, the Hogaak-dominant Pro Tour was also in Barcelona and was actually won by none other than mono-green Tron! While Pro Tour Lord of the Rings certainly has some differences, it’s interesting to see the sheer dominance of mono-green Tron at the top tables of the event. Rakdos Scam did put one player into the top eight, but mono-green Tron put three players into the top eight. Not only that, but they were among the four players with the best records through day two, all ending with 12 wins, 3 losses and 1 draw or better. What made Tron have such a dominant weekend? The deck definitely has an interesting spot in the metagame, and to understand how Tron players adjusted and succeeded, it’s important to take a look at the core of the deck and what has changed.

The Core

Tron is a relatively simple deck in how it functions. By assembling all three “Urza” Lands, you get access to tons of colorless mana. If you have all three Lands by turn three, you will have access to seven colorless mana. The main goal of the deck is to assemble these Tron Lands as quickly as possible, and from there cast big, colorless haymakers ahead of schedule.

In order to help the deck assemble these Lands, Tron plays a number of ways to go and find them. First, the deck plays a playset 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. . It’s quite common to keep a hand with two of the three Tron Lands alongside an Expedition Map, and simply spend the first two turns playing and cracking the Map to set up Tron for turn three.

Beyond Map, the deck also plays Sylvan Scrying Sylvan Scrying Search your library for a land card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. and Ancient Stirrings Ancient Stirrings Look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal a colorless card from among them and put it into your hand. Then put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. to help dig for the necessary Tron Lands. Despite Tron being largely a colorless deck, it makes use of cards like Chromatic Sphere Chromatic Sphere {1}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color. Draw a card. (Activate only as an instant.) to filter colorless mana into green mana to cast these two cards on time. The deck also plays a few basic Lands to help cast its green cards, along with some utility Lands, such as Boseiju, Who Endured. Tron has been around for many years, and this core of the deck has largely stayed consistent. However, some key adjustments were made by the top performing mono-green Tron players that are absolutely worth noting.

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Necessary Adjustments and Additions

When preparing for an event against the top echelon of players, it’s important to try to adjust to the expected metagame. It came as no surprise that Rakdos Scam was the most played deck in the room, followed by four-color control centered around Omnath, Locus of Creation Omnath, Locus of Creation When Omnath enters, draw a card.
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, you gain 4 life if this is the first time this ability has resolved this turn. If it's the second time, add {R}{G}{W}{U}. If it's the third time, Omnath deals 4 damage to each opponent and each planeswalker you don't control. . 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. and Orcish Bowmasters Orcish Bowmasters Flash
When this creature enters and whenever an opponent draws a card except the first one they draw in each of their draw steps, this creature deals 1 damage to any target. Then amass Orcs 1. , along with the Evoke Elementals from Modern Horizons Two, were absolutely everywhere. Well, the best performing Tron players hit the nail on the head not just with their deck choices but also with the changes they made to the deck. For a colorless deck focused on consistency and big haymakers, there isn’t a ton of flexibility to be had.

Still, the flex slots that the deck has available were made full use of by these players. First up, one unique feature from the decklists of two of the three top performing Tron players is the presence of three copies of Dismember Dismember ({B/P} can be paid with either {B} or 2 life.)
Target creature gets -5/-5 until end of turn. in the maindeck. With tons of sideboard slots taken up by a 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. toolbox, many players have simply forgone cards like Dismember and Spatial Controtion.

While this may seem like a minor inclusion, Dismember is super important in fighting Scam’s best draws, especially in game one. Even assembling Tron on turn three may be too slow against a turn one combination of Fury and Feign Death Feign Death Until end of turn, target creature gains "When this creature dies, return it to the battlefield tapped under its owner's control with a +1/+1 counter on it." from the opponent. Dismember completely punishes this all-in style of play from Scam players. Beyond preparing highly for the Scam matchups, players went even further to maximize their chances of victory.

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Making Plays Without Full Tron

In addition to adding removal, both of these decklists also have gotten rid of a couple mainstay utility Lands in favor of Urza’s Saga Urza’s Saga (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — This Saga gains "{T}: Add {C}."
II — This Saga gains "{2}, {T}: Create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with 'This token gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control.'"
III — Search your library for an artifact card with mana cost {0} or {1}, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle. . Cards like Sanctum of Ugin Sanctum of Ugin {T}: Add {C}.
Whenever you cast a colorless spell with mana value 7 or greater, you may sacrifice this land. If you do, search your library for a colorless creature card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. and Blast Zone Blast Zone This land enters with a charge counter on it.
{T}: Add {C}.
{X}{X}, {T}: Put X charge counters on this land.
{3}, {T}, Sacrifice this land: Destroy each nonland permanent with mana value equal to the number of charge counters on this land. have been removed for the powerful Modern Horizons Two Land. The idea is that Saga is consistently powerful on its own, whereas Sanctum and even Blast Zone to an extent work much better when you have already assembled your Tron Lands. While assembling Tron in game one can likely go unhindered a lot of the time, many opponents have cards that can disrupt the Tron manabase and force the deck to play more fairly in the earlier turns.

Obviously Urza’s Saga is still weak to Blood Moon Blood Moon Nonbasic lands are Mountains. , but even Blood Moon is beatable thanks to the choice of payoffs these players registered. Rather than relying entirely on cards that cost seven or more mana, like Karn Liberated Karn Liberated +4: Target player exiles a card from their hand.
−3: Exile target permanent.
−14: Restart the game, leaving in exile all non-Aura permanent cards exiled with Karn. Then put those cards onto the battlefield under your control. , many players trimmed on this card to make room for a full 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. .

The One Ring can be played without access to every Tron Land because it only costs four mana. It then buys you time and digs for your missing Tron Lands, which will then help you cast all of your massive payoffs and close the game before the One Ring’s life loss becomes a problem. For a deck that mulligans frequently to find its mana, having a card to recoup these lost cards is a big deal.

Beyond the One Ring, Karn, the Great Creator is another card that scales with access to every Tron Land but can still function just fine without Tron at only four mana. It can even tutor cards like Haywire Mite Haywire Mite When this creature dies, you gain 2 life.
{G}, Sacrifice this creature: Exile target noncreature artifact or noncreature enchantment. to get rid of opposing copies of Blood Moon. With a full four copies of the One Ring, Karn, the Great Creator, and even Oblivion Stone Oblivion Stone {4}, {T}: Put a fate counter on target permanent.
{5}, {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Destroy each nonland permanent without a fate counter on it, then remove all fate counters from all permanents. , the top performing Tron players truly came prepared to fight through hate.

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A Good Metacall

In addition to deckbuilding decisions, registering Tron in this field period ended up being a strong move in general. The reality is that the Rakdos Scam matchup can be tough. A quick clock backed up by Discard spells like Thoughtseize Thoughtseize Target player reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card. You lose 2 life. and Blood Moon out of the sideboard can be scary. However, even as the most played deck, Rakdos was less than a fifth of the room. Tron players had tons of slow, value-based decks like four-color control and Dimir control to feast on as well.

Tron’s biggest weaknesses are that it doesn’t interact much in the early turns and it can be weak to specific hate cards. By slightly lowering the curve and adding extra disruption, players like Javier Dominguez who ended with 14 wins and Simon Nielsen who started the event with 12 wins and zero losses truly came as prepared as possible. Players clearly did respect the deck enough this weekend and didn’t register enough hate cards like Blood Moon. Of course, definitely be prepared for additional Tron hate in the coming weeks if you are looking to play Modern. This deck’s sheer dominance is certainly not going unnoticed.

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