EPTModern: Tronboxing to Selling Out
My beginnings in modern started from me not liking Standard's constant rotations and wanting something other than Draft/Sealed all the time. Limited format was fun, but very expensive long term to keep up.
First deck: UW Gifts Tron
A friend of mine recommended I try UW Gifts Tron first based on me being more of a Timmy player liking to drop the big threats that quickly turn the tide of the game, while still being flexible enough to deal with various decks. After some playtesting of it on Cockatrice and reading primers on it and starting to learn how all the popular decks in modern work (I didn't even know how the Twin combo worked at the time!), I bought all the pieces in one large purchase from TCG Player. I played UW Gifts Tron for a few months and got better with constructing Gifts piles and figuring out my gameplans vs various modern decks, and I really liked the lockout potential with cheating Elesh Norn or Iona into play early. However, my interests changed as I started messing around with Pauper and played RUG Tron there. That's where I started realizing I more enjoyed the quick ramping and explosive plays that would be more similar to RG Tron than my UW Gifts.
Second deck: RG Tron
At least with UW Gifts I already had most of the pieces. I kept playing UW Gifts Tron until Modern Masters 2 was released with reprints of Karn, Eye of Ugin, Emrakul, and Spellskite. As the prices continued to drop on all these pieces, I bought into RG Tron as they started to flatten out and slightly rise again (though budgetted Karplusan Forests instead of Grove of Burnwillows). I got my Spellskites for only $15 back then! Karn and Emrakul were only $20-25! Hell, all the pieces of RG Tron were significantly cheaper back then. I still kept my UW Gifts pieces and could easily swap between the two decks when play-testing with friends or if I just felt like running one or the other out for an event at my local game store.
RG Tron was very easy to learn. Fishbowling how to maximize my mana on each turn and mulligan decisions were the main things I needed to do. As many are aware, RG Tron just goes over the top of Midrange and Control decks but struggles vs the aggro decks like Burn, Affinity and Infect - as well as combo decks like Ad Nauseum and Bloom (before the ban). Most games I could win just by sticking with my gameplan. A wrath from Oblivion Stone or Ugin would secure wins against a lot of decks as I bought more time to then tutor for Emrakul if they hadn't conceded already to Karn, Ugin and Wurmcoils.
Third deck: Mono U Tron
Though I already had 2 Tron Decks built, I had the itch to get a taste of Mindslaver locking people, so also built my 3rd tron deck, Mono U Tron. There were very few pieces I needed at this time since it shares so many with UW and RG. I had a lot of fun times with Mindslavering my opponents - sometimes not even with a lock yet, just to buy me time and screw up their gameplan. I remember Mindslavering an opponent on Abzan Company, and he had a hand of 2 Paths, Fetch, and Scavenging Ooze. I fetched and "failed to find", as well as pathed the Ooze from hand and a Voice of Resurgence in play, and again "fail to find" the basics from it. His remaining board was just a Birds of Paradise. Another time I assembled Tron early, but didn't have any blue sources and was about to be under a lot of pressure. I had enough mana for an early Mindslaver and he had a Ghost Quarter and Path in hand. I had him Ghost Quarter one of my colorless lands to give me a basic Island, then Pathed his biggest threat. Next turn I was able to Cyclonic Rift overload his board.
To say the least, I had a lot of fun with the deck, but it was so so so bad versus aggro. I didn't like playing it at many tournaments for that reason - I even was main-decking 2-3 Chalices! The deck also requires a lot of patience and eats up a lot of clock, so games took forever. I ended up shelving Mono U Tron as a result of these.
Decision Point and expanding out of the Tron Box
I really wanted to just learn the ins and outs of 1 or 2 decks and perhaps slowly trade into a deck not related to Tron. I decided on RG Tron as my most competitive deck that I was still enjoying playing. I traded away or sold most of my UW Gifts and Mono U Tron pieces and traded for multiple modern staples. I also learned about PucaTrade around this time.
I was thinking back to Theros block which was when I first started playing magic competitively, and I missed the cattle-bruising from heroic-enabling bestow auras on creatures. This led me to decide to try out GW Hexproof (Bogles). It was very cheap to build (though budgetted Brushlands instead of Horizon Canopies) and easy to play. I still enjoy playing Bogles every now and then to this day. It's one of my side decks I can always bust out when I haven't been playing in a while and not sure of the meta, or when I just feel like relaxing my mind a bit with far fewer decision trees (though Bogles does require more thinking than most give it credit for, it still is very simple in comparison to most other decks).
I for one welcome our new Eldrazi overlords...
So there I was, mainly playing RG Tron, and sometimes bringing out the Bogles. I was enjoying playing both in their own respects and had many 3-1 or 4-0 finishes at my local game stores with them too. I was avidly following various modern forums and the results of MTGO leagues and the major tournaments around the world and a new beast was starting to emerge - Bx Eldrazi. After seeing how the deck worked and testing it out myself on Cockatrice, I decided to buy into it soon as I expected the prices would spike very shortly on a lot of the core cards like Eye of Ugin, Urborg, Eldrazi Temple, Inquisitions, Relics, etc. Thankfully I got all the pieces just a few days before Eye of Ugin went from a $4 card to a $30 card, and similarly all the other pieces shot up as well as people realized there was something powerful going on with the Eldrazi engine.
BW Eldrazi became my new favorite deck to play! I stopped playing RG Tron entirely at this time as I was enjoying this one too much. Exiling their cards and then processing them with Strangler to kill a creature, or Blight Herder to make a ridiculous board was too much fun! Then Oath of Gatewatch was released and Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher eventually earned some slots in the deck. Everything was going great! It was the most fun I was having in modern since I started!
Around this time, Splinter Twin and Summer Bloom got banned. Summer Bloom I expected, Splinter Twin, not so much. I figured this was going to make for an upcoming very aggressive meta, which made it even less likely I wanted to play my RG Tron deck. I figured my BW Eldrazi can be tuned to handle aggro better - didn't need that much help once I got Lingering Souls on the field. However, the fun had to come to an end eventually...
Eldrazi warping modern majorly
Last weekend some new variations on Eldrazi decks emerged no one had seen before. Colorless Eldrazi maindecking 4 Chalices and 4 Simian Spirit Guides to T1 put out a Chalice on 1 was locking out a ton of decks. This coupled with the extreme explosive starts of Mimics into Thought-Knot Seers, Reality Smashers, and Endless Ones (which all grew the Mimics) made for some busted games. I know from experience I haven't liked playing full out aggro decks, so I wasn't interested in trying them myself. I found Chalice of the Voids still only $15 at my local game store, and bought out a full playset. Just that afternoon Chalices had spiked to $40+! I instantly sold them on TCGPlayer for a significant profit (playset purchased for $60 total, sold 4 of them at about $40 each - nearly $100 profit!).
With these new Eldrazi decks taking up 6 of the top 8 spots, the meta had become even more aggressive. People still are trying to figure out how to stomp out these Eldrazi nuisances and whether or not Eye of Ugin really needs to be banned to stop this busted deck. Ever since that weekend of the new Eldrazi decks performing so well, and then MTGO being flooded with them, I've started to stress about what was going to happen to my favorite deck. I'm convinced the Eldrazi decks have warped the format too much that something will be changed this coming April to weaken the deck, such as a likely ban of Eye of Ugin. RG Tron already has been in a bad spot since the Twin ban and the aggressive meta that followed. It is even worse with more aggro decks thanks to these Eldrazi aggro ones. And it will be even worse yet again if Eye of Ugin is banned.
Selling Out of Modern
I no longer was enjoying modern. I'm not interested in playing fields full of these matchups of turn 4 uninteractive kills. I don't want to play against fields full of a deck that easily shuts off nearly every deck game 1 with a Chalice on 1 and a quick clock to go with it, and Eldrazi decks are taking up over 20% of the meta these days. People have started to fight back with prison based decks like Lantern Control which is equally as awful to play against for different reasons. Modern is just in a terrible ugly spot right now.
I realized I hadn't played my RG Tron ever since the Twin ban due to the meta, and now I was realizing things are never going to get better for Tron. I sold all my Tron pieces and made a lot more money than I did buying them originally! I also sold off my Eye of Ugins and Urborgs (for a significant profit since they spiked so much) out of fear of them being banned and me missing out on value there. Now my only remaining modern deck is Bogles! I still have the non-eye of ugin non-urborg pieces of BW eldrazi deck just in case I decide I want to use some otherwise great modern staples like Inquisitions, Thoughtseizes, Lingering Souls, and the likes. For the moment, in addition to Bogles tuning for the meta, I've been testing altering BW Eldrazi to work without the Eye of Ugins and Urborgs. The deck is definitely much worse, and I feel like you generally might as well just be playing Junk or BW Tokens at this point with the pieces you already have.
Where I'm at now
I've also branched back into playing Standard lately, with Gx Eldrazi Ramp decks. Not much of it rotates out this April, I had all the expensive pieces already, and I enjoyed how the deck plays out for the Timmy in me. It's odd that I now enjoy Standard more than Modern, but that's just how bad Modern has gotten for me lately. I'm still interested in following what happens with modern these next few months, but am taking a break from playing the format competitively. I feel a little sad about everything that happened with MTG modern lately. The Twin ban was very unexpected, and now I no longer feel safe playing any deck that starts doing exceptionally well. I don't want that stress in my life - putting hundreds of dollars into something only to get the crucial pieces banned and losing out on tons of value with cards no one wants anymore.
So it's back to Standard and casual EDH for me at this time. Maybe once a month I'll bring Bogles to a tournament tuned to deal with the meta at the time, but that's about it for me and modern for now. Maybe I'll actually get back to trying to improve at Starcraft again some time. I bought the expansion and completed the campaign and all the achievements, but haven't even touched multi-player. I also haven't followed any tournaments in months now! I should catch up on that...
Just felt like getting all that off my chest.
