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I know what you're thinking.
"Jim, MORE Tron!?"
However, there's something very different about this week's Tron deck compared to the last few weeks, where I've played the deck in multiple events (Top 16 at SCG Philly, Top 8 at SCG Cincinnati), written about it, and produced a video about it. The decklist is exactly the same, the format is exactly the same, but the rules have the potential to be changing:
So, for example, let's say you're taking your second mulligan of a game, what we often call a mulligan to five. You would draw seven cards, select two, and place those two on the bottom of your library in any order. Then you would decide whether to keep or mulligan again."
It's not an official rule yet, but the London Mulligan has gone live on Magic Online, both as a stress test as well as to allow players to prepare for Mythic Championship London. Getting to see it in action is far more useful than just discussing it theoretically, as so far responses to it have ranged from indifference to "this is the end of Magic!!!!!!!"
As one of the best mulliganing decks in Modern, Tron is perhaps the biggest beneficiary of the new rule.
As any experienced Tron player knows, you mulligan a lot with the deck. Because you are only interested in assembling a small set of unique pieces, each redundant piece is essentially irrelevant. An opening hand like this...
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... really only needs four of its cards to function anyway; Urza's Mine, Urza's Tower, Expedition Map, and Karn Liberated. Being able to craft out hands like this when you mulligan to five or four is extremely powerful for the Tron deck, which is already does reasonably well on four or five cards without the London Mulligan rule.
Time Stamps:
Match 1 - 00:05:02
Match 2 - 00:17:17
Match 3 - 00:26:46
Match 4 - 00:44:05
Match 5 - 01:01:25
Tron | Modern | Jim Davis, 8th Place SCG Cincinnati
- Creatures (9)
- 1 World Breaker
- 2 Walking Ballista
- 4 Wurmcoil Engine
- 2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
- Planeswalkers (6)
- 2 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
- 4 Karn Liberated
- Spells (26)
- 4 Ancient Stirrings
- 4 Sylvan Scrying
- 3 Oblivion Stone
- 3 Relic of Progenitus
- 4 Chromatic Sphere
- 4 Chromatic Star
- 4 Expedition Map
- Lands (19)
- 1 Ghost Quarter
- 1 Sanctum of Ugin
- 4 Urza's Mine
- 4 Urza's Power Plant
- 4 Urza's Tower
- 5 Snow-Covered Forest
- Sideboard (15)
- 2 Spatial Contortion
- 3 Thought-Knot Seer
- 4 Thragtusk
- 1 Grafdigger's Cage
- 1 Dismember
- 4 Nature's Claim
The counterpoint, of course, is that unfair decks get to mulligan harder for their combos as we saw in round three. Tron isn't a deck that handles getting killed on turn three well, especially when it's on the draw.
Still Tron was already one of the best decks in Modern, and the London Mulligan rule works wonders for a deck that starts each game on an average of 5.5 cards anyway. You don't need many cards, just the right ones, and that's exactly the kind of strategy the London Mulligan favors.
We will see how Mythic Championship London goes, but if the London Mulligan rule is here to stay, watch out for Karn and friends!
