Eldrazi Tron — Modern Strategy Guide

Archetype Overview

Eldrazi Tron is a colorless ramp deck that skips the midgame. It assembles the Urza lands or leans on its Eldrazi-specific mana, lands Karn, the Great Creator early to lock the board, then casts seven-mana threats that exile your opponent's best permanents the moment they hit the stack. This list, piloted by Martín Pazos to 2nd place at IQ Arzúa - Piknitas Modern, is built around one idea. Almost every expensive card is also a removal spell, and almost every cheap card either makes mana or helps lock the opponent out.

The Three Mana Engines

The deck runs 22 lands plus seven mana rocks and four Expedition Map, and it has three separate ways to reach seven mana ahead of schedule.

• Tron. With Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant, and Urza's Tower all in play, those three lands produce seven mana. Four copies of each, plus Expedition Map and Sowing Mycospawn to find the missing piece, make assembly a realistic goal rather than a dream draw.
• Eldrazi Temple. Temple's {C}{C} only pays for colorless Eldrazi spells. Here that means Devourer of Destiny, Kozilek's Command, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and Sowing Mycospawn, which counts because devoid makes it colorless. It does not pay for Karn, the Great Creator or Ugin, Eye of the Storms, so plan your sequencing around that.
• Ugin's Labyrinth. Exile Devourer of Destiny, Ugin, Eye of the Storms, or Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger as it enters, and it taps for {C}{C}. Later you can tap it to return that card to your hand. A seven-drop stuck in your opener becomes ramp now and a threat later. Remember that the land doesn't produce mana on the turn you tap it to get the card back.

A turn-one imprinted Ugin's Labyrinth into Talisman of Resilience puts four mana on the table on turn two, which is enough for Karn, the Great Creator. That is the deck's best opening, and you should mulligan with lines like it in mind.

Sowing Mycospawn deserves its own note. Its land search is a cast trigger, so it ramps you even if the creature gets countered. Kicked, it also exiles a target land, which means a single card can fetch your missing Tron piece and remove your opponent's best land. The {G} comes from Forest, Talisman of Resilience, Giant's Boulder, or Abstergo Entertainment, and Map can find the Forest or Abstergo when you need it.

Karn and the Toolbox

Karn, the Great Creator is the reason this deck plays a sideboard full of one-ofs. Its static ability shuts off every activated ability of your opponents' artifacts, mana abilities included. Its −2 pulls an artifact from your sideboard, or retrieves a face-up artifact card you own from exile. That second clause matters. The Stone Brain and The Echoverse Fulcrum both exile themselves as part of their cost, so Karn can fetch them, you can use them, and Karn can fetch them again.

Torpor Orb costs you nothing here. Every trigger on your own creatures, including Devourer of Destiny, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Sowing Mycospawn, and Cityscape Leveler, is a cast trigger, not an enters trigger. Liquimetal Coating gets nasty alongside Karn. Tap it on your opponent's turn to make one of their lands an artifact, and Karn's static stops them from tapping it for mana that turn.

One rules trap to know: Vexing Bauble counters any spell cast without spending mana, and that includes yours. Before you cast cards for free off Ugin, Eye of the Storms's −11 or Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong, pay {1} and sacrifice your own Bauble.

Threats That Are Also Removal

This is the core of why the deck works. Devourer of Destiny exiles a colored permanent when cast. Ugin, Eye of the Storms does the same when cast, then exiles another colored permanent every time you cast a colorless spell. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger exiles two permanents of any kind when cast.

All of these are cast triggers. Countering the spell doesn't save the permanent it targeted.

Ugin, Eye of the Storms is the engine that ends games. Every spell in the main deck except Dismember is colorless, so once Ugin resolves, your Expedition Map, Giant's Boulder, and Kozilek's Command each come with an exile trigger attached. Ugin's 0 adds {C}{C}{C}, which helps you reach Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Casting Ulamog with Ugin in play exiles three permanents in one action. Its +2 refills your hand and pads your life total while you set that up.

The cheap interaction holds the line until you get there:

• Kozilek's Command is an instant that picks two modes: exile a creature, make Spawn tokens for ramp, scry and draw, or exile graveyard cards. Temple mana pays for it.
• Dismember costs {1} and 4 life when you have no black mana.
• Disruptor Flute has flash, taxes a named spell by {3}, and stops that card's non-mana activated abilities.

Giant's Boulder is a rock that scries on entry, fixes for Mycospawn, and later becomes a seven-mana answer to any permanent.

Devourer of Destiny also smooths your draws. Reveal it from your opening hand, and on your first upkeep you look at the top four cards, keep one on top, and exile the rest. That digs toward the land or Karn you need, at the cost of the other three cards.

Where It's Soft

Your first two turns are almost always spent on mana. Against fast creature decks, you are relying on Dismember, Kozilek's Command, and Karn fetching Ensnaring Bridge or The Echoverse Fulcrum before the damage gets out of hand.

The color restriction on Devourer of Destiny and Ugin, Eye of the Storms cuts both ways. Against colorless or artifact-heavy opponents, those triggers have nothing to hit. In those games you lean on Karn's static ability, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and Giant's Boulder instead.

Trinisphere is symmetrical. Your own Map, Talisman, Boulder, and Bauble all cost three while it's untapped, so deploy your cheap artifacts first and land the Sphere afterward.

Who Should Play It

Pick up Eldrazi Tron if you want a proactive deck that punishes opponents for durdling. Its seven-drops are threats and answers at the same time, and Karn gives you a fresh answer every turn he's in play.

The skill ceiling lives in two places:

• Mana sequencing: which engine you're building toward, and when to imprint the Labyrinth versus hold a seven-drop.
• Toolbox fluency: knowing your 15 well enough to name the right Karn target without hesitating.

If you'd rather react to your opponent's plays than force your own, or you don't want to memorize a sideboard of one-ofs, this isn't your deck.

At around $528, it is a meaningful buy-in. Most of that cost sits in the lands and planeswalkers, which form the deck's core regardless of how you tune the flex slots.

Core Strategy & Game Plan

How the Deck Wins

Eldrazi Tron wins by producing far more mana than the opponent, much earlier than they are ready for it, and turning that mana into threats that also remove the opponent's board. Your top end is Karn, the Great Creator, Ugin, Eye of the Storms, Devourer of Destiny, and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Every one except Karn exiles something the moment you cast it, so your threats are also your removal.

The closing sequence is rarely flashy. Ugin exiles a colored permanent every time you cast a colorless spell and draws you a card each turn. Devourer and Ulamog attack for six and ten, and every Ulamog attack exiles twenty cards off the top of the defending player's library. Once Ugin resolves on a stable board, the game is usually over. The fight is getting there.

Posture: Proactive First, Reactive Only to Buy Time

This is a proactive deck. Your cheap interaction exists to keep you alive until the mana comes online, not to grind the opponent out:

• Dismember can be cast for 1 mana and 4 life. That makes it your best answer to an early creature that would otherwise race you.
• Kozilek's Command exiles small creatures at instant speed, digs you toward lands, or makes Spawn tokens that sacrifice for mana to ramp you.
• Disruptor Flute has flash. It taxes spells with the chosen name by {3} and shuts off their non-mana activated abilities. Name the one card the opponent's game plan relies on most.
• Trinisphere and Vexing Bauble punish decks built on cheap or free spells.

Use these tools selectively. Spending turn two on a Dismember when you could have cast Talisman of Resilience is correct only if the creature would actually kill you before your turn-four threat lands. If it wouldn't, ramp.

The Mana Engine

You have three ways to make big mana, and opening hands combine them:

• Tron. Urza's Mine and Urza's Power Plant each tap for two, and Urza's Tower taps for three, once you control all three. Seven mana from three lands is what lets you cast a seven-drop on turn three.
• Eldrazi Temple. It taps for {C}{C}, but only for colorless Eldrazi spells and abilities. That covers Devourer of Destiny, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Kozilek's Command, and Sowing Mycospawn, which is colorless because of devoid. The restricted mana does not cast Karn, the Great Creator or Ugin, Eye of the Storms.
• Ugin's Labyrinth. If you exile a colorless card with mana value 7 or more from your hand as it enters, it taps for {C}{C} with no restriction. You can tap it later to return that card to hand. Imprint Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger early and retrieve it when you can actually cast it. Retrieving costs you the Labyrinth's mana that turn, so time it for when you have spare mana.

The assembly pieces tie these together. Expedition Map finds whichever land completes your mana: the missing Tron piece, a Temple, a Labyrinth, or Abstergo Entertainment. Sowing Mycospawn is your best ramp spell. Its cast trigger puts any land from your library onto the battlefield, and because it triggers on cast, you get the land even if Mycospawn is countered. Mycospawn needs {G}. Your green sources are Forest, Talisman of Resilience, Giant's Boulder, and Abstergo Entertainment, and you should sequence your lands so one of them is available on the turn you want to cast it. Kicking it for {1}{C} more exiles a land, which can cut off a land-light opponent's key color or a utility land that matters.

Talisman of Resilience and Giant's Boulder round out the curve. Talisman jumps you from two mana to four. Boulder scries 2 to smooth your draws, fixes your colors, and later becomes a {7} answer to any permanent.

The Payoff Engine: Colorless Spells Feed Ugin

Almost every nonland card in the main deck is colorless. That matters because Ugin, Eye of the Storms exiles a colored permanent whenever you cast a colorless spell. Once Ugin is on board, every Expedition Map, Giant's Boulder, and Vexing Bauble doubles as removal.

Kozilek's Command is the standout here. For just {C}{C} with X at 0, you can choose "scry 0, then draw a card" plus "exile up to 0 target cards from graveyards." That is an instant-speed cantrip that triggers Ugin on the opponent's turn. Ugin's 0 ability adds {C}{C}{C}, so the turn after Ugin lands you can often cast it, use the 0, and immediately spend that mana on more colorless spells. Each one is another exile trigger.

Karn's Toolbox

Karn, the Great Creator does three jobs at once:

• Its static ability stops the activated abilities of your opponents' artifacts.
• Its +1 can turn one of your noncreature artifacts into a creature with power and toughness equal to its mana value. That makes Trinisphere a 3/3 and Disruptor Flute a 2/2.
• Its −2 pulls an artifact from outside the game, which in tournament play is your sideboard. It can also return a face-up artifact card you own from exile.

The exile clause creates loops. The Stone Brain and The Echoverse Fulcrum both exile themselves when activated, and Karn can return either one to your hand to use again. Every artifact Karn fetches is also a colorless spell, so with Ugin out, each one exiles a colored permanent.

Two cautions with the +1. First, don't attack with an animated Trinisphere: attacking taps it, and it stays tapped through the opponent's turn, which turns off its tax. Second, Giant's Boulder and other mana artifacts are usually better left untouched so they keep producing mana.

Abstergo Entertainment backs up your threats late. Paying {3} and exiling it returns a historic card from your graveyard to your hand, then exiles all graveyards. Karn, Ugin, Ulamog, and every artifact in the deck count as historic.

The Ideal Game, Turn by Turn

1. Turn 1: Play a Tron piece or Eldrazi Temple and cast Expedition Map, or play Giant's Boulder to scry toward your missing pieces. If you have Devourer of Destiny and a hand that doesn't need help, reveal it from your opening hand. At your first upkeep you look at the top four, keep one on top, and exile the rest.
2. Turn 2: Cast Talisman of Resilience, or activate Map for your missing land. If you play Ugin's Labyrinth here, imprint a seven-drop you can't cast soon.
3. Turn 3: This is the payoff turn. With Tron assembled, cast a seven-drop. Without Tron, cast Karn, the Great Creator off Talisman or an imprinted Labyrinth, or cast Sowing Mycospawn to fetch the land that completes Tron for next turn.
4. Turn 4: Cast Ugin, Eye of the Storms or Devourer of Destiny, exiling the opponent's best colored permanent as you cast it.
5. Turn 5 and beyond: Chain colorless spells into Ugin triggers. Use Karn's −2 to fetch answers from your sideboard. Cast Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger to exile two more permanents and close the game.

A realistic hand hits two of these benchmarks, not all five. Mulligan and keep decisions come down to whether the hand reaches four-plus mana by turn three. Count Talisman, Map, and Mycospawn toward that total, and treat a hand with no path to it as a mulligan.

Anti-Synergies to Respect

• Vexing Bauble counters your own free spells. If you are about to use Ugin's −11 to cast colorless cards without paying their costs, pay {1}, tap, and sacrifice Bauble to draw a card first. Otherwise it counters everything. Ugin starts at 7 loyalty, so the ultimate takes two +2 activations. Plan the Bauble sacrifice before that turn arrives. The same applies to free casts from Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong after sideboarding.
• Trinisphere taxes you too. Your Map, Talisman, Boulder, Bauble, and Dismember all cost three while it is untapped. Deploy it after your cheap acceleration, not before.
• Imprinting means giving up a threat for a while. Exiling your only seven-drop to Ugin's Labyrinth is correct only if you have the spare land drop later to tap the Labyrinth and return it.

Card Choices & Breakdown

Twenty-two lands, eight dedicated land tutors, eight mana rocks, and a top end that pays you back the moment it's cast. Every nonland card except Dismember is colorless. That fact drives several numbers choices below, especially around Ugin, Eye of the Storms.

The Mana Base

• 4 Urza's Mine, 4 Urza's Power Plant, 4 Urza's Tower: The full Tron set. Assembled, they produce seven mana from three lands. There is no reason to trim here when the whole deck is built to find them.
• 4 Eldrazi Temple: Temple's {C}{C} only pays for colorless Eldrazi spells. In this list that means Devourer of Destiny, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Kozilek's Command, and Sowing Mycospawn, which is colorless through devoid. It does not accelerate Karn, the Great Creator or Ugin. Temple is your speed when Tron isn't coming together, not a substitute for it.
• 4 Ugin's Labyrinth: Imprint a colorless 7+ mana value card from your hand and it taps for {C}{C}. The main deck has nine legal imprint targets: four Devourer, three Ugin, and two Ulamog. When you need the card back, tap Labyrinth to return it to your hand. Imprinting a second copy of a legendary threat costs you nothing, so duplicate Ugins become mana instead of dead cards.
• 1 Forest, 1 Abstergo Entertainment: Both are green access for Mycospawn's {G}, and both are fetchable by Expedition Map and Mycospawn. Abstergo is the more interesting slot. Late in the game, pay {3}, tap it, and exile it to return any historic card from your graveyard and then exile all graveyards. Historic covers your artifacts plus legendary Karn, Ugin, and Ulamog. That gives you recursion and graveyard hate on a land slot.

Tutors and Acceleration

• 4 Expedition Map: Finds the missing Tron piece, a Labyrinth, Abstergo, or the Forest. It is slow, but it is the most reliable way to complete Tron, and the deck plays the full set.
• 4 Sowing Mycospawn: The land search is a cast trigger. You get the land onto the battlefield even if the creature is countered. Late in the game, kick it for {1}{C} more to exile a target land, which turns a ramp spell into an answer to an opposing utility land.
• 4 Talisman of Resilience: True two-mana acceleration. The {B} side can pay Dismember's Phyrexian costs instead of life. The {G} side casts Mycospawn. Expect to take some pings over a game.
• 3 Giant's Boulder: Its mana ability costs {1}, so it filters colors rather than ramping. What earns it the slot is the scry 2 on entry to smooth early draws, plus a {7} sacrifice ability that destroys any permanent. That makes it a late-game mana sink and catch-all answer. It runs three copies rather than four because it doesn't accelerate. Talisman occupies the true ramp role.

The Top End

• 4 Devourer of Destiny: Seven mana, and the moment you cast it, it exiles a colored permanent. That trigger happens even if the 6/6 never resolves. The opening-hand reveal lets you look at your top four cards at your first upkeep and keep one on top, but it exiles the rest. Reveal it when your hand is missing exactly one piece, such as a Tron land or a Map. Don't reveal it when the hand already functions. Devourer is also the most common Labyrinth imprint, since four copies of a non-legendary threat is the cheapest card to "spend."
• 3 Ugin, Eye of the Storms: Casting Ugin exiles a colored permanent. While it's on the battlefield, every colorless spell you cast exiles another. Because everything except Dismember qualifies, Ugin turns your Talisman of Resilience and Expedition Map into removal. The 0 ability adds {C}{C}{C}, which makes Ugin into Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger a realistic sequence. Ulamog then triggers both its own cast trigger and Ugin's. The deck runs three copies, not four, because Ugin is legendary and seven mana. Between Labyrinth returns and Abstergo recursion, the fourth copy would rarely do more than sit in hand.
• 2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger: Ten mana, exile two target permanents on cast, indestructible. Two copies is the right number for a card you only cast with Tron plus help. It doubles as a premium Labyrinth imprint you can retrieve when you're ready to slam it.

Karn, the Great Creator

Karn is the reason the deck plays four copies of a legendary card. The static ability shuts off every activated ability on opposing artifacts, including mana abilities. The −2 fetches any artifact you own from outside the game, which means the entire sideboard is Karn-accessible. In game one, every sideboard artifact effectively becomes another main-deck option.

The −2 can also choose a face-up artifact you own in exile. That matters more than it looks:

• The Stone Brain and The Echoverse Fulcrum both exile themselves as part of their cost. Karn can fetch them again.
• Artifacts exiled by Devourer's opening-hand reveal are retrievable.

The +1 is mostly a way to tick up. It animates a noncreature artifact, and since the only big ones you're likely to animate are your own wishboard pieces, treat it as loyalty, not damage.

Interaction

• 4 Kozilek's Command: An instant you can cast off Eldrazi Temple. Every mode scales with X:
  • Make Eldrazi Spawn tokens for mana next turn.
  • Scry X and draw.
  • Exile a creature with mana value X or less.
  • Exile up to X cards from graveyards.
  At low X, "remove a cheap creature plus draw" keeps you alive against aggro. At high X, it's a cantrip that cleans up a graveyard. Four copies because it's your only main-deck interaction that is good in every matchup.
• 2 Dismember: −5/−5 for as little as {1} and 4 life. This is the one colored spell, so it will not trigger Ugin. It sits at two copies because Command covers the same ground at instant speed, and Dismember's life cost hurts most in exactly the aggro matchups where you'd want more.

Main-Deck Prison Pieces

• 2 Disruptor Flute: Flash, name a card. That spell costs {3} more, and its non-mana activated abilities are switched off. That covers planeswalker loyalty abilities and sacrifice-based utility. Flash lets you hold it until you've seen their deck. Two copies go in the main and one in the side, because Karn can fetch the third.
• 1 Trinisphere: Strong against decks built on cheap spells, but it taxes your own Map, Boulder, Talisman, Bauble, Dismember, and low-X Command too. One copy in the main, with two more in the wishboard for when it's clearly right. Cast it once you're past your own cheap-artifact phase.
• 1 Vexing Bauble: Counters any spell cast without spending mana. When it's dead, it cycles for {1}. It is a cheap hedge against free-spell strategies.

The Wishboard

Anti-Synergies to Respect

• Vexing Bauble counters your free spells too. If you're setting up Ugin's −11 or a Planetarium cast, crack Bauble first.
• Grafdigger's Cage stops Planetarium from casting off the top of your library. Don't fetch both.
• Ensnaring Bridge also locks down your own Devourer and Ulamog. Fetch it only when Karn or Ugin is your win condition.

The Decklist

This is the 60 and 15 that finished 2nd Place at IQ Arzúa - Piknitas Modern (2026-10-03), piloted by Martín Pazos. The list runs about $528 at TCGplayer market prices. Expect that number to move, mostly with the Tron lands, Karn, the Great Creator, and the top-end Eldrazi.

Each card below is tagged Core (don't touch it) or Flex (the count or the slot itself is negotiable).

Main Deck: Spells (38)

Main Deck: Lands (22)

Green check: Sowing Mycospawn is your only colored-cost spell. Your {G} sources are Forest, Abstergo Entertainment, four Talisman of Resilience, and three Giant's Boulder. If you cut Boulders or Talismans, replace that green somewhere, or Mycospawn becomes a dead card in hand.

Sideboard (15)

Every card here is an artifact. Karn, the Great Creator's −2 can reveal any of them from outside the game, so this 15 works as both a sideboard and a Karn wishboard. Single copies are intentional. You only need two of a card when you want to draw it naturally after sideboarding.

Flexible Slots: Where to Adjust

• Don't touch: the twelve Tron lands, four Eldrazi Temple, four Ugin's Labyrinth, four Expedition Map, four Karn, the Great Creator, four Devourer of Destiny, four Sowing Mycospawn, and four Kozilek's Command. These are the deck's skeleton. Cutting any of them weakens the mana or the payoff density.
• Top-end split: the 3/2 split of Ugin, Eye of the Storms and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger is the main tuning knob. Lean toward Ugin against colored-permanent-heavy decks. Its passive does nothing against artifacts or colorless threats, so lean toward Ulamog when your expected field plays those.
• Cheap interaction (Dismember, Flute, Trinisphere, Bauble): this is a six-card suite tuned to an expected field. Against more creature aggro, add Dismember. Against more combo, add Disruptor Flute or move a Trinisphere main.
• Giant's Boulder count: the third copy can become another interaction piece, but count your green sources before you cut it.
• Sideboard singletons: each one-of is a Karn target first and a sideboard card second. Before you swap one out, ask whether you'd ever want to wish for it. If you would, it stays.

Mulligan Guide

What a Keepable Hand Looks Like

Every seven you keep has to answer one question: how do I get to seven mana, and what do I do along the way? This deck has two separate engines for big mana. You need at least one of them assembled or one draw away.

• The Tron engine: two of the three Urza lands plus a way to find the third, either Expedition Map or Sowing Mycospawn. Mycospawn's cast trigger puts the missing piece directly onto the battlefield.
• The Eldrazi engine: Eldrazi Temple and/or Ugin's Labyrinth with a seven-drop to imprint. Each of these lands effectively taps for two mana, so two of them plus a Talisman of Resilience put you on four or five mana by turn two.

Beyond mana, a keep needs a payoff (Karn, the Great Creator, Ugin, Eye of the Storms, Devourer of Destiny, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger) and, ideally, something to do before that payoff lands. Your early plays are Kozilek's Command, Dismember, Trinisphere, Disruptor Flute, and Talisman.

Hard rules:

• One-landers are always a mulligan. Your cheap artifacts all cost two to cast or activate, so a single land strands every one of them.
• Two lands is a keep only with Talisman, Map, or a Labyrinth that has something to imprint. Two lands plus a hand of seven-drops is a mulligan.
• Five or more lands is usually a keep as long as one payoff is in hand. Flooding is far less dangerous here than stalling, because every big spell you cast takes over the game.

Example Hands

Hand 1: Urza's Mine, Urza's Tower, Expedition Map, Talisman of Resilience, Karn, the Great Creator, Kozilek's Command, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Verdict: Snap keep. Play Map on turn one. On turn two, crack it for Urza's Power Plant. On turn three, play the Plant to assemble Tron with seven mana available, and Karn comes down with Talisman still castable. Command covers you if they come out fast. This is the deck working exactly as designed.

Hand 2: Ugin's Labyrinth, Eldrazi Temple, Forest, Talisman of Resilience, Devourer of Destiny, Sowing Mycospawn, Dismember

Verdict: Keep. Turn one, play Labyrinth imprinting Devourer and cast Talisman off its two mana. Turn two, play Temple: Labyrinth's two, Temple's two (Mycospawn is a colorless Eldrazi), and green from Talisman cast a turn-two Mycospawn. That fetches a land onto the battlefield, so you are now a full turn ahead. Dismember gives you early interaction. If you would rather hard-cast Devourer than imprint it, reveal it from your opening hand anyway. The first-upkeep look at four cards helps you sculpt the next draw.

Hand 3: Urza's Tower, Urza's Mine, Forest, Ugin, Eye of the Storms, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Devourer of Destiny, Dismember

Verdict: Mulligan on the play. Borderline on the draw against slow decks. You have three lands but no Map, Talisman, Mycospawn, or Labyrinth. Your only outs are naturally drawing a Power Plant or a mana piece. Even when you hit one, you have no turn-two or turn-three play outside Dismember. Revealing Devourer digs four cards deep, but it exiles whatever you don't keep, so it is not a fix for a hand this top-heavy. Against a slow control deck on the draw, the extra card and the extra time make this a defensible keep. Against anything proactive, ship it.

Hand 4: Eldrazi Temple, Expedition Map, Talisman of Resilience, Giant's Boulder, Karn, the Great Creator, Kozilek's Command, Trinisphere

Verdict: Mulligan. It looks like a hand full of action, but it is a one-lander. Map needs two mana to crack, Talisman needs two to cast, and Trinisphere needs three. Boulder casts on turn one, but its mana ability costs one, so it filters color rather than adding mana. The hand does nothing without two consecutive land draws.

Hand 5 (six cards): Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant, Ugin's Labyrinth, Giant's Boulder, Karn, the Great Creator, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Verdict: Keep. Labyrinth imprinting Ulamog acts as a two-mana land, so Karn on turn three is realistic. Any Urza's Tower draw completes Tron, and Boulder's scry 2 on turn one helps you dig for it. When you do reach Tron, you can activate Labyrinth's second ability to get Ulamog back. A six-card hand with lands, a payoff, and selection is exactly what you want after a mulligan.

On the Play vs. On the Draw

On the play, your speed is your biggest asset. Favor hands that threaten Tron or Karn on turn three, or a turn-two Mycospawn. Be stricter with slow hands like Hand 3, because they waste the tempo advantage you started with.

On the draw, the extra card makes two-landers with Talisman or Map noticeably safer. The cost is that aggressive decks get a turn ahead of you. That raises the value of early interaction like Dismember and Kozilek's Command. It also lowers the value of Trinisphere, which is weaker once the opponent has already deployed cheap threats.

The timing of Devourer's reveal also shifts. On the play, your first upkeep comes before a turn with no draw, so the card you keep sets up your turn-two draw. On the draw, it sets up your very first draw step. Either way, reveal it when you need one specific card: a Tron piece, a mana rock, or a Labyrinth enabler.

Adjusting by Matchup

Fast aggro: Speed and interaction beat raw power. Keep hands with Dismember, Kozilek's Command (Spawn tokens can chump block, and exile mode removes cheap creatures), or a turn-two Trinisphere off Labyrinth or Talisman. Hands whose first meaningful play is turn four are mulligans, even if that play is Ulamog. When choosing cards to bottom, dump extra seven-drops before interaction.

Graveyard and combo decks: Karn rises in value in sideboarded games. Its −2 brings a sideboard artifact like Grafdigger's Cage or Tormod's Crypt into your hand, so it works as both a threat and a hate card. Early disruption like Trinisphere, Disruptor Flute, or Vexing Bauble (if their plan involves spells cast with no mana spent) makes a mediocre mana hand keepable. A powerful hand with no disruption is riskier here than anywhere else.

Control and counterspell decks: Lands and threat density matter most, and a slow hand is fine. Keep five-landers with two payoffs. Labyrinth is especially valuable, because a seven-drop imprinted early is protected from discard and can be returned later. You can cast Ugin, Eye of the Storms off Tron to exile a colored permanent on cast, even if the spell itself gets countered.

Big mana and land-based decks: Prioritize hands that can cast a kicked Sowing Mycospawn. It ramps you and exiles one of their lands in the same spell. Speed matters as much as it does against aggro, so apply your on-the-play standards.

Bottoming After a Mulligan

• Keep land count at three or more whenever possible.
• Never bottom your only Map, Talisman, or Mycospawn if the hand still needs a Tron piece.
• Seven-drops are the first cards to go when you hold duplicates. If you keep a Labyrinth, hold one seven-drop to imprint.
• In sideboarded games, a Karn is often worth more than a second payoff, because it doubles as access to your sideboard.

Sequencing & Key Lines

Turn One: Build Toward Four, Then Seven

Every opener is trying to reach four mana on turn two and seven on turn three. Choose your turn-one land with that in mind.

• Ugin's Labyrinth with a 7-drop in hand is your best turn-one land. Imprinting makes it tap for {C}{C} right away, so you can cast Talisman of Resilience on turn one. That gives you four mana on turn two for Karn, the Great Creator or Sowing Mycospawn.
• Imprint the threat you plan to cast last. Getting the card back costs a full Labyrinth tap, so exile Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or a duplicate Devourer of Destiny, not the Ugin you want on turn three. Against hand disruption, the imprinted card is also safe from discard.
• Without an imprint, pick by what's missing. If you need a specific land, lead with Expedition Map. It can find a Tron piece, Labyrinth, Eldrazi Temple, or your lone Forest for Mycospawn. If your lands are fine and you need gas, lead with Giant's Boulder for the scry 2.
• Eldrazi Temple is the wrong lead with a Karn-heavy hand. Its {C}{C} only pays for colorless Eldrazi spells. That means Mycospawn, Devourer, Ulamog, and Kozilek's Command, but never Karn or Ugin.

Turn Two: Karn or Mycospawn

With four mana, your choice depends on your green source and how close you are to Tron.

• Mycospawn when you have green and are missing lands. The land search happens when you cast it, so it resolves even if the creature is countered. The fetched land enters untapped and is usable that turn.
• Karn when your mana is already on curve, or when the opponent relies on activated abilities of artifacts. His static ability shuts those off the moment he lands.

Kicked Mycospawn costs six and exiles a land. Against a deck leaning on one key land, a turn-three kicker can do more than a 7-drop.

Turn Three: Choosing the 7-Drop

Your seven mana comes from assembled Tron or Labyrinth plus Temple plus extras.

• Cast Ugin, Eye of the Storms when you hold cheap colorless spells. Every spell in this main deck except Dismember is colorless, including devoid Mycospawn. Each one you cast with Ugin out exiles a colored permanent.
• Cast Devourer of Destiny when you need a clock or a body on board. It also works with Temple mana, which Ugin can't use.

The Ugin Turn

This is the deck's biggest swing, and the sequence matters.

1. Cast Ugin. The cast trigger exiles their best colored permanent.
2. Choose between 0 and +2. Use 0 when you have follow-ups: it adds {C}{C}{C} for Talisman of Resilience, Giant's Boulder, Expedition Map, or Disruptor Flute, and each cast exiles another colored permanent. Use +2 when Ugin needs loyalty to survive a wide board or burn.
3. Cast Trinisphere last. It is a colorless spell, so it triggers Ugin too. Cast it before your one- and two-drops and it taxes them as well.

Plan the turn before. If you know Ugin is coming, hold cheap artifacts you don't need for mana that turn. A Vexing Bauble or Flute cast after Ugin removes a permanent. Cast the turn before, it doesn't.

The Ulamog follow-up. With Ugin on board, Tron's seven mana plus Ugin's 0 equals ten. That casts Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Ulamog's cast trigger exiles two permanents, and casting a colorless spell triggers Ugin for a third. Ulamog's triggers also resolve through a counterspell.

Ugin's −11. He starts at 7, so two +2 activations get you there. Before you activate, sacrifice your own Vexing Bauble. It counters any spell cast without spending mana, including the free spells you cast off the −11. The same conflict applies to Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong.

Karn Wish Lines

Karn's −2 takes a sideboard artifact or a face-up artifact you own in exile. Pick by matchup:

• Graveyard decks: Grafdigger's Cage or Tormod's Crypt.
• Creature aggro: Ensnaring Bridge or The Echoverse Fulcrum.
• Enter-the-battlefield value decks: Torpor Orb.
• Cheap-spell decks: Trinisphere or Chalice of the Void.
• A single key card: The Stone Brain to exile up to four copies, or Disruptor Flute.

The Liquimetal Coating lock. Coating turns any permanent into an artifact until end of turn, and Karn stops activated abilities of opposing artifacts, mana abilities included. Activate Coating on their upkeep targeting a land, and that land can't tap that turn. Wish for Coating with one −2, then repeat the lock every turn.

Rebuys from exile. The Stone Brain and The Echoverse Fulcrum exile themselves when activated, so a later −2 brings them back. If you exile your own spent Bauble or Boulder from the graveyard with Kozilek's Command, Karn can fetch those too. Abstergo Entertainment exiles all graveyards, including yours, and also feeds this pool.

Karn +1 traps. Animating Trinisphere and attacking taps it, which turns the tax off. +1 on Boulder or Flute is fine when you just need loyalty.

Kozilek's Command: Instant-Speed Value

• Ramp on their end step. Choose Spawn tokens plus scry-and-draw. You untap with extra {C} toward a 7-drop and have already filtered toward it. Temple mana pays for Command, so this is the best use of a Temple-heavy draw.
• Remove a cheap creature. X=1 or 2 exiles an early creature and still scries and draws.
• Answer the graveyard on demand. The graveyard mode with a big X answers recursion at instant speed.
• Cast it under Ugin. It is a colorless spell, so it triggers Ugin's exile at instant speed. That lets you remove a blocker or a fresh threat on their turn.

Playing Around the Format's Interaction

• Counterspells: Lead with cast-trigger threats. Mycospawn, Devourer, Ugin, and Ulamog all get their value even if countered. Karn has no cast trigger, so cast him when they're tapped low or after they've spent a counter on something else. Command on their end step makes them choose between countering it and holding mana for your turn.
• Hand disruption: Imprint on Labyrinth early to protect your threat. Deploy cheap artifacts quickly so your hand isn't full of easy targets.
• Nonbasic land hate: Mycospawn and Map find your Forest and alternate mana. Labyrinth plus Temple is a non-Tron route to seven.
• Removal on your walkers or titans: Karn, Ugin, and Ulamog are all legendary, so they count as historic. Abstergo returns one from the graveyard to hand. Map for Abstergo once the game goes long.
• Free spells: Keep Vexing Bauble untapped and on board. Its counter is a trigger, so it still works in response.

Small Edges

• Flute timing: Disruptor Flute has flash, so cast it on their end step after they've shown what matters. Name planeswalkers to shut off loyalty abilities. With Karn out, don't name an artifact for its abilities, since Karn already stops those.
• Talisman life cost: Talisman's colored mana costs 1 life each time. Against aggro, tap it for {C} whenever you don't need the color.
• Late-game Boulder: Giant's Boulder's 7-mana destroy hits any permanent, so it covers what Ugin can't exile, like colorless threats and lands.
• Devourer reveal: Revealing Devourer from your opening hand lets you keep one of your top four cards and exile the rest. Keep the card that completes your mana, not the flashiest one.

Matchup Matrix

Fast Creature Aggro — Unfavored

This is your worst pairing. Your exile effects are mostly cast triggers on expensive spells, and an aggro deck can have you dead before you assemble Tron. What decides it: whether your cheap interaction buys enough turns for a 7-drop to reset the board.

• Spend Dismember and Kozilek's Command on their best early threat, not their first one. Command's spawn mode doubles as chump blockers and extra colorless mana, so the "exile + make spawns" split is often correct.
• Karn, the Great Creator's −2 fetches Ensnaring Bridge or The Echoverse Fulcrum from the sideboard in game 1. Against a wide board, Fulcrum's sorcery-speed wipe is the out. Bridge also locks out your own Eldrazi, so plan to win with planeswalkers once it's down.
• Ugin, Eye of the Storms's +2 lifegain matters here. Once Ugin resolves, every colorless spell you cast after it removes another colored attacker.

Post-board, bring in Bridge and Fulcrum. Cut Trinisphere and Disruptor Flute, since taxing two-drops doesn't stop creatures already on board.

Spell-Chaining Combo — Unfavored G1, Even Post-Board

Decks that win by casting many cheap spells in one turn ignore your board. What decides it: landing a tax piece before they go off.

• Trinisphere makes every cheap spell cost three, which kills chaining. Lead with it off Talisman of Resilience on turn three.
• Chalice of the Void on one also hits your own Expedition Map, Giant's Boulder and Vexing Bauble. Cast those first, then Chalice.
• The Stone Brain can strip their key combo piece out of hand, library and graveyard at once. Activate it once you've seen which piece they rely on.

Board in both extra Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void and The Stone Brain. Trim Dismember and a Giant's Boulder.

Graveyard Combo / Recursion — Even G1, Favored Post-Board

Your main deck already has maindeck yard hate. Abstergo Entertainment exiles all graveyards, and Kozilek's Command can exile up to X cards from graveyards at instant speed. What decides it: timing. Hold Command's graveyard mode until they commit, ideally pairing it with the draw mode in response to their payoff.

Post-board, Tormod's Crypt and Grafdigger's Cage come in. Note that Cage stops players from casting spells from libraries, which shuts off your own Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong. Don't run both in the same game plan. Abstergo's activation also returns a historic card from your yard before exiling everything, so it can rebuy a destroyed Karn, the Great Creator or Ugin, Eye of the Storms.

Free-Spell / Alternate-Cost Decks — Even

Any deck that casts spells without spending mana runs straight into Vexing Bauble. What decides it: having Bauble on board before their key turn. On the draw, a turn-one Bauble outranks almost any other play.

• Bauble counters your free casts too. That includes everything from Ugin, Eye of the Storms's −11 and Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong's trigger. Sacrifice it to draw before you go for either.
• Trinisphere makes spells that would cost less than three cost three, including spells cast for free. It is a second answer that also blanks their cheap interaction.

Board in the second Vexing Bauble and Trinisphere. Leave Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong in the sideboard.

Midrange — Even

Discard and efficient colored threats test whether you can keep a payoff. What decides it: protecting your top end from hand disruption.

• Imprinting a 7-drop on Ugin's Labyrinth pulls it out of your hand, where discard can't reach it. You can return it with the Labyrinth's second ability once you can cast it.
• Sowing Mycospawn finds a land on cast, so the ramp happens even if it gets countered or killed immediately.
• Karn, the Great Creator is the grind engine. Every −2 is a card they can't strip with discard, and Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong is the best long-game fetch.

Their colored permanents all line up for Devourer of Destiny, Ugin, Eye of the Storms and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Resolving any of them usually swings the game.

Blue Control — Favored

Your threats punish counterspells. Devourer of Destiny, Sowing Mycospawn, Ugin, Eye of the Storms and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger all trigger when cast, so you get value even if the spell is countered. A countered Ulamog still exiles two permanents. What decides it: not running out of threats before they run out of answers.

• Bait with Devourer and Mycospawn, then deploy Karn or Ugin when they're tapped low.
• Disruptor Flute has flash. Name their premier counterspell or planeswalker at end of turn.
• Kozilek's Command with scry and draw at instant speed lets you develop without ever tapping out on your own turn.

Post-board, bring in Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong, the extra Disruptor Flute and Cityscape Leveler. Cut Dismember.

Artifact-Based Decks — Favored

Karn, the Great Creator's static stops activated abilities of artifacts they control. Against an artifact-reliant deck, a resolved Karn is close to a lock. What decides it: resolving Karn before their engine takes over.

Be aware that Ugin, Eye of the Storms and Devourer of Destiny only exile colored permanents. Against colorless boards they hit far less, so lean on Kozilek's Command, Giant's Boulder and Cityscape Leveler instead. Torpor Orb shuts off their creature enter triggers. It costs you nothing, because your Eldrazi trigger on cast, not on entering.

Big Mana / Prison Mirrors — Even

These games are decided by who breaks the other's mana or engine first.

• Kicked Sowing Mycospawn ramps you and exiles their best land in one cast.
• Liquimetal Coating with Karn's +1 kills a land. Coating makes it an artifact, then Karn turns it into a creature with power and toughness equal to its mana value. That's zero, so it dies. Repeat this every turn to dismantle their mana.
• Name their biggest threat or key activated ability with Disruptor Flute.
• Your colored-only exile effects whiff against colorless opponents. Prioritize Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, which exiles any two permanents, and Giant's Boulder.

Board in Liquimetal Coating, the extra Disruptor Flute and Cityscape Leveler. Cut Dismember and Vexing Bauble unless they cast spells for free.

Sideboard / Tech Guide

Your Sideboard Is Also a Wishboard

Karn, the Great Creator's −2 puts an artifact card you own from outside the game into your hand. Every artifact in these 15 is reachable in game one, and every artifact you physically board in leaves the wish pool. That gives you one rule for every matchup: board in the cards you need to draw naturally, and leave in the sideboard the cards you only need to find with Karn.

• Board in: cards that must land before Karn comes down, like Tormod's Crypt, Grafdigger's Cage, Trinisphere, and Chalice of the Void. They do the most work early, and a four-mana tutor for them is often too late.
• Usually leave out: Ensnaring Bridge, Cityscape Leveler, Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong, and Liquimetal Coating. They are payoffs you assemble once Karn is already on the table.
• Reuse what exiles itself: The Stone Brain and The Echoverse Fulcrum exile themselves as part of their costs. Karn's −2 can also choose a face-up artifact card you own in exile, so you can use each of them again.
• Get back what you sacrifice: Tormod's Crypt goes to the graveyard when you use it. Abstergo Entertainment can return it, since artifacts are historic.

Anti-Synergies to Respect

Several of these cards fight your own deck. Know the conflicts before you sleeve them up.

• Taxing your own cheap artifacts: Trinisphere makes your Expedition Map, Giant's Boulder, Talisman of Resilience, and Disruptor Flute cost three. Deploy it after your setup pieces resolve, or when the lock matters more than your development. The same applies to Chalice of the Void. On one counter it hits your Maps and Boulders, and on two it hits your Talismans.
• Countering your own free spells: Vexing Bauble counters any spell cast with no mana spent, including yours. That means it stops cards cast through Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong and anything cast off the −11 of Ugin, Eye of the Storms. Never pair Bauble with Planetarium. Crack Bauble for a card before you ultimate Ugin.
• Shutting off Planetarium: Grafdigger's Cage stops spells cast from libraries, which is exactly what Planetarium does.
• Locking out your own attackers: Ensnaring Bridge stops your 6/6s and 10/10s too. Win through planeswalker card advantage, or clear the Bridge with Giant's Boulder when you're ready to swing.
• Killing your own creatures: The Echoverse Fulcrum destroys your Devourer of Destiny and Sowing Mycospawn. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger survives because it's indestructible.
• A free hate card: Torpor Orb does not hurt you. Devourer of Destiny, Sowing Mycospawn, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, and Ugin, Eye of the Storms all trigger on cast, not on entering, so the Orb only blanks the opponent.

Fast Aggro and Go-Wide Creatures

In: 2 Trinisphere, The Echoverse Fulcrum
Out: Vexing Bauble, 2 Disruptor Flute

Your risk here is falling behind before the big mana comes online. Naming one card with Flute doesn't slow a deck full of interchangeable threats, so it comes out.

• Trinisphere: on turn three, it turns their curve of one- and two-drops into one spell per turn.
• Fulcrum: it smooths your draw when it enters, then resets the board at sorcery speed for five. Spend your own creatures freely before you fire it.
• Dismember: keep it in, but be careful with the life payment when your Talismans are also pinging you.
• Bridge: it stays a Karn tutor target for games where you're stable behind planeswalkers.

Graveyard Strategies

In: Tormod's Crypt, Grafdigger's Cage
Out: 1 Giant's Boulder, 1 Disruptor Flute

Both hate pieces cost one or less, and they need to be in play before the opponent's engine starts, so board them in physically. Your graveyard hate is deeper than these two cards:

• Kozilek's Command can exile up to X cards from graveyards at instant speed.
• Abstergo Entertainment exiles all graveyards on activation.

If their recursion puts creatures onto the battlefield and leans on enter triggers, swap the Flute out for a Torpor Orb as well. Keep Vexing Bauble in if their payoffs are cast for free.

Free-Spell and Cascade Strategies

In: Vexing Bauble, 2 Trinisphere
Out: 2 Dismember, 1 Giant's Boulder

A second Bauble gives you a better chance of a one-mana answer on turn one. Anything cast without spending mana gets countered, including spells cast through cascade-style effects. Trinisphere taxes the cheap spells that fill the rest of their deck.

Cut Dismember only if their real threats aren't creatures. If they win with a creature, trim a Kozilek's Command instead and keep the removal.

Spell-Based Combo

In: 2 Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void, The Stone Brain, Disruptor Flute
Out: 2 Dismember, 1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, 2 Giant's Boulder

This matchup is about disruption density, not finishers. Use the full set of three Flutes and name their key piece.

• Chalice: set X to the cost where their spells cluster.
• The Stone Brain: name their combo piece and pull up to four copies from hand, library, and graveyard. If you exiled any from their hand, they draw that many replacement cards, so firing it when the copies are still in their library hurts them most. Karn can recover the Brain from exile to do it again.
• Cuts: Ulamog at ten mana is the slowest card in your deck, and it's the right one to trim.

Control and Counterspell Decks

In: Cityscape Leveler, Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong, Disruptor Flute
Out: 2 Dismember, Vexing Bauble

This is the one matchup where you physically board your top-end artifacts. You want extra threats that win the long game, not just Karn targets.

• Cityscape Leveler: it destroys a nonland permanent when cast and every time it attacks. Unearth gives you a second shot after a removal spell.
• Planetarium: it turns every scry into a free spell once per turn. That includes the scry from Giant's Boulder entering and the scry mode of Kozilek's Command.
• Bauble out: it has to go because it counters your own Planetarium casts.
• Trinisphere stays: it taxes their cheap interaction.
• Flute: name their most important answer or card-draw engine.

Creature Midrange Built on Enter Triggers

In: 2 Torpor Orb
Out: Vexing Bauble, 1 Disruptor Flute

The Orb strips value from every creature they cast and costs you nothing. Both copies come in because you want it in play on turn two, before their engine gets going. Kozilek's Command and Dismember stay in to handle the bodies that are left.

Big Mana and Colorless Ramp Mirrors

In: The Stone Brain, Disruptor Flute, Liquimetal Coating
Out: 2 Dismember, Vexing Bauble

Your cast triggers on Devourer of Destiny and Ugin, Eye of the Storms only exile permanents that are one or more colors. Against colorless opponents, those triggers whiff, and you need other angles.

• Coating with Karn: this is the key board-in. Tap Coating to turn an opposing land into an artifact. With Karn, the Great Creator in play, that land's abilities can't be activated, mana abilities included. Do it during their upkeep to cut their mana for the turn.
• Coating with Karn's +1: on your own turn, Coat a land and target it with Karn's +1. It becomes a creature with power and toughness equal to its mana value of zero, and it dies.
• Stone Brain and Flute: use them to deny the one payoff their deck can't win without.

Adjusting for an Expected Field

The 15 cards work as a deep toolbox of singletons plus a few doubled hosers. If your local field leans hard in one direction, double up there.

• Graveyard-heavy rooms: cut the second Torpor Orb for another cheap graveyard hate card.
• Creature-light rooms: move a main-deck Dismember to the board and run a third main-deck Disruptor Flute.
• Combo-heavy rooms: run the extra Vexing Bauble main and trim a Giant's Boulder.

Before you cut a singleton artifact, ask whether you're also losing a game-one Karn target you'd want against an unknown opponent. That wish access is a large part of what the sideboard is for.

Tech Choices & Variations

This list has fewer true flex slots than it looks. Every artifact in the 75 is reachable by Karn, the Great Creator, so card choices ripple across both the main deck and the wishboard. Tune with that in mind and you'll stop making swaps that look fine on paper and fall apart in practice.

What's Locked and What Moves

Treat these as non-negotiable: the full Tron set (Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant, Urza's Tower), 4 Eldrazi Temple, 4 Ugin's Labyrinth, 4 Expedition Map, 4 Talisman of Resilience, 4 Karn, the Great Creator, 4 Sowing Mycospawn, 4 Kozilek's Command and 4 Devourer of Destiny. That's your mana engine, your ramp, your flexible interaction and your main threat suite. Cutting any of it changes the deck instead of tuning it.

The real flex slots:

• 2 Dismember
• 2 Disruptor Flute
• 3 Giant's Boulder
• 1 Trinisphere and 1 Vexing Bauble
• The Abstergo Entertainment / Forest land split
• The top-end ratio: 3 Ugin, Eye of the Storms and 2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Flex Slot by Slot

Dismember. This is your cheapest answer to an early creature. You can pay it entirely with life on turn one or two, which is exactly when Kozilek's Command is weakest because its exile mode scales with X. The cost is life, and Talisman of Resilience already chips you every time you tap it for color. Against fast creature decks, keep both. Against decks with few relevant creatures, these are the first slots to concede. A third Giant's Boulder or a mainboard Torpor Orb usually does more work there.

Disruptor Flute. Flash plus a named card makes this your catch-all answer to anything Kozilek's Command can't touch: planeswalker activations, equipment, combo pieces and key spells. The flexibility is the point. Here's the tuning lever: Karn's −2 can fetch the sideboard copy. If you want a slot back, you can go down to one main-deck Flute and still access a second through Karn. The trade-off is speed. A Flute that needs Karn first comes down a turn or more later, and you lose the ability to flash it in on your opponent's turn in response to a play you didn't see coming.

Giant's Boulder. Three roles in one card: scry 2 to smooth draws, any-color mana for Sowing Mycospawn, and a late-game {7} removal spell that hits any permanent, colorless included. Moving to four makes you more consistent and better at answering colorless threats that Ugin, Eye of the Storms and Devourer of Destiny ignore. Going to two frees a slot for interaction but makes your green source count lean harder on Talismans and the lone basic.

Trinisphere and Vexing Bauble. Both are meta calls. Know their costs before you add copies:

• Trinisphere taxes you too. Expedition Map, Giant's Boulder, Talisman of Resilience, Disruptor Flute, Vexing Bauble and low-X Kozilek's Command all get more expensive. Land it after your setup turns, never before. More copies main only makes sense if the field is full of cheap-spell decks.
• Vexing Bauble counters any spell cast with no mana spent, including yours. Ugin's −11 casts your colorless cards without paying their mana costs, and Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong casts for free. A resolved Bauble shuts both off. You can sacrifice it for a card with {1} first, but plan the sequence. A second main-deck copy only earns its slot if your field leans on free spells.

Abstergo Entertainment vs. a second Forest. Abstergo taps for colorless untapped. It makes green only for an extra {1}. Late game it rebuys any artifact or legendary card from your graveyard (Karn, Ugin, Ulamog, Boulder) and exiles all graveyards. A second Forest instead makes Mycospawn easier to cast on curve and gives Map and Mycospawn another green target. If graveyard strategies are rare locally and your green mana feels shaky, swap. If graveyards matter, Abstergo is free hate in a land slot.

The top end. Every one of these is a legal Ugin's Labyrinth imprint: 4 Devourer, 3 Ugin and 2 Ulamog. Shifting the ratio changes your game:

• A fourth Ugin makes you better against colored permanent-heavy decks. It triggers off every colorless spell you cast and stabilizes with +2.
• A third Ulamog is better against decks that out-grind you. It exiles two permanents of any color on cast and is indestructible.

Either change costs a flex slot from above. Don't trim Devourer to make room.

Karn's Wishboard Is Part of Your Main Deck

Every sideboard card is an artifact, so each one is a Karn target in game one. That changes how you evaluate one-ofs. A card you'd never board in can still earn its slot as a silver bullet, and a card that clashes with your own engine can cost you main-deck games.

Watch these interactions:

• Torpor Orb doesn't hurt you. Devourer, Mycospawn, Ulamog and Cityscape Leveler all use cast triggers, not enter triggers. That makes Orb close to a free roll against enter-the-battlefield creature decks, and it's a reasonable main-deck candidate if those dominate your room.
• Grafdigger's Cage stops spells cast from libraries. That includes your Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong triggers. Pick one as your primary plan, or sequence around the overlap.
• Liquimetal Coating plus Karn is a land-kill lock piece. Karn's static stops activated abilities of your opponent's artifacts. Coating turns their permanent into an artifact until end of turn, so you can shut off a land or utility permanent on their turn. On your own turn, Coat an opposing land and target it with Karn's +1. It becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness equal to its mana value. Most lands have mana value 0, so it dies.
• Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong wants scry. Giant's Boulder and Kozilek's Command both feed it. If you go up to four Boulders, Planetarium gets better.
• Chalice of the Void cuts both ways. On one it hits your Map, Boulder and Bauble. On two it hits Talisman, Flute, Coating, Orb and both legendary two-drops. Choose X based on what the opponent is casting, and expect to pay the tax yourself.
• Ensnaring Bridge fits your win routes. Your planeswalkers don't need to attack, so locking the board against wide or large creature decks costs you little. Keep this one-of if creature aggro is common.
• The Echoverse Fulcrum and The Stone Brain are slow but unique. Fulcrum is a sorcery-speed sweeper that also kills your own Eldrazi. Stone Brain strips up to four copies of a named card from hand, graveyard and library, and the opponent redraws for any taken from hand. They're narrow, but nothing else in the deck does either job.

Tuning for Your Local Field

Change the main deck no more than two slots at a time, and always check the new card against your own engine first. The most common tuning mistake with this list is adding hate that also shuts off Ugin, Eye of the Storms, Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong or your own one-drops.

Budget Options

At roughly $528, this list isn't the most expensive way to play Modern, but the cost is concentrated in a handful of slots that also do the most work. The Tron lands, Expedition Map, and the artifact mana form a cheap foundation. Most of the bill comes from the planeswalkers and the big colorless threats. Check current market prices before you buy. The breakdown below is about what each slot does for the deck and how much you lose by cutting corners there.

Where the Money Likely Sits

Expect the bulk of the total to come from these cards:

• Karn, the Great Creator: a four-of planeswalker that is also the engine for the whole sideboard.
• Ugin, Eye of the Storms: a three-of mythic-level threat.
• Devourer of Destiny: a four-of threat and a prime Ugin's Labyrinth imprint target.
• Ugin's Labyrinth and Eldrazi Temple: utility lands played as full playsets.
• Sowing Mycospawn and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger.
• Sideboard pieces like Chalice of the Void and Ensnaring Bridge may also cost more than their single slot suggests.

The Urza lands, Expedition Map, Giant's Boulder, Talisman of Resilience, Vexing Bauble, Disruptor Flute, and Forest are the floor. They are probably the cheapest part of the deck to assemble.

The Non-Negotiables

Some cards can't be swapped without turning the deck into something else. Buy these first, or don't start the deck.

• Karn, the Great Creator: Its −2 fetches an artifact you own from outside the game. The whole sideboard of singletons (Ensnaring Bridge, Grafdigger's Cage, Tormod's Crypt, The Stone Brain, and the rest) exists because Karn can reach it in game one. Its static ability also shuts off activated abilities of your opponent's artifacts. Without Karn, a sideboard of one-ofs is the wrong build, and you'd need to rebuild it with multiple copies of fewer cards.
• Urza's Mine, Power Plant, and Tower: These are the deck. Never cut them.
• Sowing Mycospawn: The cast trigger puts any land onto the battlefield, so it fetches your missing Tron piece. Nothing else in the 75 assembles Tron that quickly. The kicker, which exiles a land, is a bonus.
• Eldrazi Temple: Your colorless Eldrazi spells, including Kozilek's Command and Devourer of Destiny, can use its double mana. It's your best accelerant when Tron isn't online.

Acceptable Swaps and What They Cost You

Every swap below makes you slower, less interactive, or both. Start at the top of the table, where the losses are smallest.

Don't trim Devourer of Destiny or Ugin's Labyrinth to save money. Labyrinth only makes double mana when you imprint a colorless card with mana value 7 or more. Each 7+ drop you cut makes your Labyrinths worse, and each Labyrinth you cut makes your 7-drops slower. These two cards pull together, so buy them together.

Building the Sideboard on a Budget

Because Karn, the Great Creator can grab any of these, each singleton is effectively an answer in your main deck. If a piece is out of reach, here is what covers for it:

• Without Chalice of the Void: Lean on Trinisphere. Chalice counters spells at one exact mana value. Trinisphere taxes every spell that would cost under three mana. It's less surgical, but it attacks the same cheap-spell strategies.
• Without Grafdigger's Cage: Tormod's Crypt plus the graveyard mode of Kozilek's Command still handles graveyard strategies. You lose Cage's protection against cards being cast from graveyards or put onto the battlefield from libraries, and you lose its staying power. Crypt is a one-shot.
• Without Ensnaring Bridge: The Echoverse Fulcrum destroys all creatures and filters on entry. It reacts to a board of creatures after the fact instead of locking out attacks. That's worse against go-wide aggro, but still functional.

Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong, The Stone Brain, and Liquimetal Coating are narrow tools. Add them last.

The Upgrade Path

1. Build the floor. Get all twelve Urza lands, Expedition Map, Eldrazi Temple, Kozilek's Command, the artifact mana, Disruptor Flute, and Vexing Bauble. This shell plays the Tron game, but it doesn't win yet.
2. Add Karn, the Great Creator. This is the biggest single power jump. It gives you a turn-three threat, an artifact lock, and access to whatever sideboard you own.
3. Add Sowing Mycospawn. Tron assembles on schedule far more often, and your green sources gain a purpose.
4. Add Devourer of Destiny and Ugin's Labyrinth together. This is the deck's speed package. Buying one without the other wastes much of the investment.
5. Add Ugin, Eye of the Storms. It replaces your Cityscape Leveler or extra Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger stand-ins. The deck now ends games against colored permanents almost automatically.
6. Finish with polish. Restore full Talisman of Resilience and Dismember counts, add Abstergo Entertainment, and fill in the premium sideboard singletons.

By step four, the deck is playing the real game plan, and you're losing small edges rather than whole matchups. Every step before that is about consistency, so make sure your mana base is complete before you spend on threats.

Common Mistakes

1. Miscounting Your Colorless Mana

Your lands produce mana with restrictions, and those restrictions catch you on exactly the turns that matter.

• Eldrazi Temple only makes two for colorless Eldrazi. It gives {C}{C} toward Devourer of Destiny, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Sowing Mycospawn (devoid makes it colorless), and Kozilek's Command (a Kindred Eldrazi). For Karn, the Great Creator, Ugin, Eye of the Storms, and every artifact, it taps for one. A Temple plus two lands is not a turn-three Karn.
• "Any color" is not colorless. Giant's Boulder, Forest, and the filtered mode of Abstergo Entertainment cannot pay the {C} symbols on Devourer, Command, or Mycospawn's kicker. Before you crack Expedition Map or fetch with Mycospawn, count your actual {C} sources for next turn's play.
• Ugin's Labyrinth makes two only if it's imprinted. If no seven-drop was exiled, it's a one-mana land.

The fix: When you plan a turn, name the spell and tap the lands in your head, symbol by symbol. Don't just add up the total.

2. Spending Colorless Spells Before Ugin Lands

With Ugin, Eye of the Storms on the battlefield, every colorless spell you cast exiles a colored permanent. That includes Map, Boulder, Vexing Bauble, Talisman of Resilience, Mycospawn, Karn, and Command. A cheap artifact you casted the turn before Ugin is a removal spell you threw away.

The fix: If Ugin is coming next turn, keep your cheap colorless spells in hand. Whether you can afford to wait comes down to one question: do you need that card's mana or land search to reach seven? A Talisman that puts Ugin on the table comes down now. A Boulder you're casting only for the scry waits.

Once Ugin resolves, cast in order of what you want exiled. You choose a target for each trigger, so cast the cheapest spells first to clear their best colored threat before you commit Command or a creature. A Devourer of Destiny cast with Ugin out exiles two permanents: one from its own trigger and one from Ugin's.

3. Playing Your Instants at Sorcery Speed

Kozilek's Command is an instant, and Disruptor Flute has flash. Players on Tron autopilot tap out on their own turn for a scry-and-draw Command or a main-phase Flute. That gives the opponent a full turn of information and a clean window to resolve whatever you were afraid of.

The fix:

• Command: Cast it at the end of the opponent's turn, unless your own main phase needs the Spawn mana. Holding it also leaves the exile-creature and graveyard modes open in response to what they do.
• Flute: Wait until the opponent shows you their hand or their key card, then name it at instant speed. A Flute that names the wrong card is a dead two-drop. Remember that it also turns off non-mana activated abilities, so naming a planeswalker shuts down its loyalty abilities.

4. Turning Off Your Own Trinisphere

Trinisphere does not care whose spells it taxes. Map, Boulder, and Bauble go from one mana to three. Talisman and Flute go from two to three. Dismember paid with life costs three instead of one. Landing it on turn three, then spending the next two turns paying triple for your own setup cards, is how this deck stalls out.

The subtler error is pointing Karn, the Great Creator's +1 at Trinisphere to make a 3/3 attacker. Trinisphere only works while untapped. If you attack with it, it stays tapped through the opponent's entire turn, which is exactly when you need the tax. Even if you don't attack, it's a creature until your next turn and dies to creature removal.

The fix: Deploy your cheap artifacts first, then Trinisphere. Point Karn's +1 at a different artifact, or at nothing.

5. Letting Vexing Bauble Counter Your Own Spells

Vexing Bauble counters any spell cast without spending mana, including yours. Know the collisions before game one ends:

• Ugin's −11: Everything you cast from it is free, so Bauble counters all of it.
• Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong: Its free casts get countered too.
• Tormod's Crypt and Chalice of the Void for X=0: Both are cast with no mana spent.

The fix: Pay {1} and sacrifice Bauble to draw before you fire the free spell. Plan this a turn ahead so the mana is available.

The same discipline applies to your other symmetrical sideboard cards. Grafdigger's Cage stops Planetarium, because Planetarium casts from your library. Ensnaring Bridge stops your own Devourer and Ulamog from attacking unless your hand is large.

6. Using Karn on Autopilot

Karn's −2 is the most flexible card in the deck, and players waste it two ways.

• Grabbing the comfortable card instead of the one that wins. Before you wish, ask what the opponent needs to beat you in the next two turns. Fetch the piece that stops that. Don't fetch the piece that's merely good.
• Forgetting the second half of the ability. The −2 can also take a face-up artifact card you own from exile. Artifacts exiled by Devourer's reveal are still available to you.

Don't ignore the +1 against opposing artifacts, either. It can animate an opponent's noncreature artifact, which lets Dismember or Command's exile mode remove it. Command's X needs to equal the artifact's mana value or more.

Finally, the static ability matters. Karn shuts off activated abilities of opposing artifacts, mana abilities included. If you have Liquimetal Coating on the board, using it on an opponent's land during their turn means that land can't tap for mana.

7. Careless Imprints and Reveals

Ugin's Labyrinth: Imprinting is optional, but it's the only way to get two mana from the land, and it only happens as the land enters. Two errors come up.

• Playing Labyrinth with no seven-drop in hand when you could have held it for a turn.
• Imprinting your only threat and forgetting the cost of getting it back. Retrieving the card uses Labyrinth's tap for the turn, and the land drops to one mana permanently afterward.

Imprint when you hold a second payoff, or when the extra mana gets you to Karn or Ugin a turn early.

Devourer of Destiny's reveal: The opening-hand reveal is optional. It shows you four cards, lets you keep at most one on top, and exiles the rest. Lands and creatures exiled this way are gone for good. If your hand is one Tron piece short, revealing can exile the land you needed.

Reveal when your hand is already functional and you want a specific card on top. Skip it when you're relying on natural draws to assemble the mana.

Tournament Prep & Final Notes

What to Practice Before the Event

Eldrazi Tron gets punished for slow, sloppy decisions more than for bad draws. The list has many ways to reach its top end: Tron assembly, Ugin's Labyrinth imprints, Eldrazi Temple acceleration, and Sowing Mycospawn ramp. Your prep should focus on choosing the right path quickly.

1. Goldfish your opening seven, then plan turns two through four out loud. For every hand, name which land you fetch with Expedition Map or Mycospawn and why. A missing Tron piece, a second Labyrinth to imprint, a Temple for the Eldrazi curve, and Abstergo Entertainment are all live answers depending on the hand. If you can't name the fetch target in a few seconds, you need more reps.
2. Drill the Karn toolbox. Karn, the Great Creator turns your sideboard into a second hand. Before the event, build a mental decision tree for each opposing strategy: what you grab against graveyard decks, what you grab against go-wide creature decks, and what you grab against planeswalker or artifact-heavy builds. Facing an unfamiliar deck is the wrong time to read your sideboard for the first time.
3. Practice Disruptor Flute naming. It has flash and a name is chosen as it enters, so the skill is choosing the name under pressure. Practice against decks you expect and settle your default names in advance.
4. Rehearse post-board configurations. Swapping in Trinisphere, Torpor Orb, or Chalice of the Void changes your own curve. Goldfish a few post-board hands so you know which of your cheap artifacts you're giving up.

Rules Interactions to Know Cold

• Tron math. Urza's Mine and Urza's Power Plant each make {C}{C}, and Urza's Tower makes {C}{C}{C}, but only when you control all three types. With one piece missing, each land taps for a single {C}. Full Tron is seven mana from three lands.
• Eldrazi Temple restrictions. The bonus {C}{C} is only for colorless Eldrazi spells and abilities. Sowing Mycospawn has devoid, so it counts. Kozilek's Command is a colorless Kindred Eldrazi instant, so it counts. Devourer of Destiny and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger count. Karn, the Great Creator and Ugin, Eye of the Storms do not, and neither does anything else in the list.
• Ugin's Labyrinth imprint is entry-only. You choose whether to exile a 7+ mana value colorless card when the land enters. That can be Devourer, Ugin, Ulamog, or Cityscape Leveler post-board. If you use the second ability to return the card to hand, the Labyrinth taps for a single {C} afterward.
• Cast triggers beat counterspells. Devourer, Ugin, Ulamog, Mycospawn, and Cityscape Leveler all trigger "when you cast." Mycospawn still fetches its land and Ulamog still exiles two permanents even if the spell itself is countered.
• Torpor Orb doesn't hurt you. It stops abilities from creatures entering. Your creature triggers are cast triggers, so you can bring Orb in without disabling your own threats.
• Ugin's passive trigger needs colorless spells. Nearly everything you cast triggers it, including Mycospawn, which is colorless through devoid. Dismember does not trigger it, because its Phyrexian black mana symbols make it a black card. Kozilek's Command does trigger it, which gives you an instant-speed exile on the opponent's turn.
• Your own Vexing Bauble counters your free spells. Ugin's −11 and Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong both cast spells without paying mana, and Bauble counters any spell cast with no mana spent, including yours. Before you go for either, pay {1} and sacrifice your Bauble to draw a card.
• Grafdigger's Cage turns off Planetarium. Planetarium casts from the top of your library, and Cage stops spells cast from libraries. Don't run both out together without a plan. Ugin's −11 casts from exile, so Cage doesn't affect it.
• Karn can rebuy exiled artifacts. The −2 can take a face-up artifact card you own from exile. The Echoverse Fulcrum and The Stone Brain both exile themselves when activated, so Karn can return them for another use.
• Liquimetal Coating plus Karn's +1 destroys a land. Activate Coating on an opponent's land to make it an artifact. Then use Karn's +1 to make it an artifact creature with power and toughness equal to its mana value. A land's mana value is zero, so it dies as a 0/0.
• Karn's static only shuts off opponents' artifacts. Your Talisman of Resilience, Giant's Boulder, and Expedition Map keep working.
• Trinisphere taxes you too. While it is untapped, your Maps, Boulders, Talismans, Bauble, and a zero-X Kozilek's Command all cost three. Deploy your cheap artifacts first, or accept that Trinisphere is your last cheap play.
• Devourer's opening-hand reveal exiles three cards. You keep one of the top four on top and exile the rest, so you can lose Tron pieces. Reveal it when your hand needs a specific card. Hold it back when your hand already functions.
• Dismember and Talisman cost life. Each {B/P} costs 2 life if you don't pay black, and Talisman pings you for colored mana. Against aggressive decks, count these payments as damage you're dealing to yourself.

Clock & Time Management

This deck shuffles a lot and wins late, which means draws are a real risk. You can lose a match you're favored in just by running out of time.

• Shuffle efficiently and present promptly. Map, Mycospawn, and Ugin's −11 all shuffle your library. Practice a fast, legitimate shuffle routine so each search costs seconds, not a minute.
• Keep your sideboard sorted for Karn. Lay it out in a consistent order so a −2 never turns into a search through loose cards.
• Announce your scry decisions cleanly. Boulder, Kozilek's Command, and Planetarium all scry. Decide, place the cards, and move on.
• Close games once you're winning. When you're ahead on board, choose the line that ends the game. An Ulamog attack exiles the top twenty cards of the opponent's library, which quickly shortens a long game. Don't keep plussing Ugin for value when you could attack.
• Watch the round clock in game three. If time is short, mulligan and keep with closing speed in mind. A slow, durable hand can be wrong when you can't finish the game anyway.

Final Assessment

This list took 2nd Place at IQ Arzúa - Piknitas Modern, piloted by Martín Pazos. Its biggest strength is redundancy. Tron, Labyrinth, Temple, and Mycospawn are four separate ways to reach your threats. Karn turns a 15-card sideboard into a game-one toolbox. Nearly every big threat exiles something the moment you cast it, whether or not the spell resolves.

The costs are real. The deck has little early interaction beyond Dismember, Kozilek's Command, and its taxing artifacts. Its main-deck Trinisphere and Vexing Bauble can catch your own cards. It also asks you to make many branching decisions quickly. At about $528 it's a reasonable buy-in for a Tron shell, though the Karn and Ugin package is where most of that cost goes.

If you've drilled the fetch decisions, know the Karn targets cold, and play at a steady pace, this is a deck that wins long games on inevitability. Arrive knowing your lines, and you'll be ready to play it at a high level.

Source: tournament results. Decklist and placements as reported by the event organizer.