One of the archetypes that exerts an enormous amount of pressure on the Modern metagame is the various flavors of Urzatron strategies. This primarily refers to Green-based variants, which are capable of consistently assembling all three Urza lands by turn three to cast giant threats like Karn Liberated and Wurmcoil Engine. If you’re looking to play a fair game of Magic, you’ll frequently get run over by Urzatron decks which can just spend more mana than you can. However, these decks have fallen out of favor in recent months due to poor matchups against decks like Dredge and Infect. Can these matchups be solved?

Green-White Tron - Modern | Tom Ross

• Creatures (7)
• 2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
• 2 World Breaker
• 2 Wurmcoil Engine
• 1 Spellskite

• Planeswalkers (6)
• 4 Karn Liberated
• 2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon

• spells (28)
• 4 Ancient Stirrings
• 4 Chromatic Sphere
• 4 Chromatic Star
• 4 Expedition Map
• 4 Sylvan Scrying
• 3 Oblivion Stone
• 3 Path to Exile
• 2 Relic of Progenitus

• Lands (19)
• 1 Forest
• 4 Urza's Mine
• 4 Urza's Power Plant
• 4 Urza's Tower
• 3 Razorverge Thicket
• 1 Brushland
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Sanctum of Ugin

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Thragtusk
• 2 Rest in Peace
• 3 Blessed Alliance
• 3 Nature's Claim
• 1 Ravenous Trap
• 3 Warping Wail
• 1 Ghost Quarter

Buy This Deck

Since the deck first came into existence, it has been Green-Red, using Grove of the Burnwillows to splash Pyroclasm, Firespout, Ancient Grudge, and Rending Volley. These cards gave you a better chance against the likes of Affinity and various Noble Hierarch decks. However, as the format becomes more diverse, and midrange decks pick up more tools to fight back against Urzatron decks, that hasn’t really been good enough.

Consequently, Tom Ross has abandoned the Red splash in favor of White. So what does White give you? Path to Exile is an incredible removal spell that can fight back against Tarmogoyf, Master of Etherium, and Death's Shadow more effectively than Pyroclasm. Having access to a one-mana, generic removal spell is a big deal for this deck, since you can reasonably cast a large threat and hold up Path to Exile to protect yourself from getting killed on the attack back.

In addition to Path to Exile, you also gain access to a number of great sideboard cards. Rest in Peace is a big deal against the rising popularity of dredge in the format. Relic of Progenitus in the maindeck definitely helps, but Rest in Peace out of the sideboard substantially improves that matchup. Blessed Alliance helps against infect and affinity decks that have to go all-in on a single threat, and is also an option against burn variants.

At its core, this is still the same Tron deck that you’re used to battling against in Modern. However, these small changes in sideboard options help to gain critical percentage points against the biggest players in the format, and particularly against ones that traditional Red-Green variants will struggle against. All told, this seems like a fantastic choice in the metagame until the format shifts back towards decks that are more vulnerable to Lightning Bolt and Pyroclasm.