Nowadays Mono-Green Tron lists are pretty stock. The few variations that occur are in threats and the land base. We are going to talk about the land base of Tron.

Let’s start with the easy part. 4x Urza’s Tower, 4x Urza’s Power Plant, 4x Urza’s Mine. These are the absolute essentials.

Next are the usual suspects, 4x Forest, 1x Sanctum of Ugin, and 1x Ghost Quarter. The Forests are to cast engine spells and to be able to get a land when we get Field of Ruin’ed or Ghost Quarter‘ed. Sanctum of Ugin is the poor man’s Eye of Ugin, and Ghost Quarter is essential for opposing Urza’s Towers, Inkmoth Nexus, Azacanta, the Sunken Ruin to name a few. That brings us to 18x lands. Most Tron lists play 19x lands however, and this is where the deviation occurs. We are going to walk through every option you have for the 19th Tron land, and why Buried Ruin is the best.

5th Forest: Those who expect a lot of control in the local meta will play a 5th Forest, so they never run out of basics when getting Field of Ruin’ed. This is almost always overkill as four is enough to outpace their Field of Ruin’s and you’re wasting a slot by not having another utility land.

2nd Ghost Quarter: The first Ghost Quarter gets boarded out enough that the second would not really be necessary unless you’re heading into a tournament expecting a lot of man lands or situations where you need more than one.

Field of Ruin: Strictly worse than Ghost Quarter in Tron because you’re almost always using most — if not all — of your mana in the early turns and you want your basics in the deck to be able to find from Path to Exile or Field of Ruin.

Sea-Gate Wreckage: This card seems play in Eldrazi Tron, but is not playable in Mono-Green Tron because a lot of the cards in the deck replace themselves, so the situations you find yourself empty handed are few and far between.

Geier Reach Sanitarium: This is the best utility land if you want access to a repeatable draw effect. The problem is the fact that your opponent gets to loot as well, but usually the cards you’re drawing are hay makers, game finishers and are far more powerful. Modern right now lacks the grindy match ups that this land slot excels in

Scavenger Grounds: While this land can have a large impact against graveyard decks, it’s too slow against the decks you want it against like Storm and Dredge. You also have to hold this up turn three rather than completing Tron and playing something powerful. This combined with the fact that KCI is banned means registering this land nowadays is incorrect.

Horizon Canopy: This is a solid choice, it can give you an extra draw step while also being a color fixer. The problem is it can be a liability if you need to depend on it for green mana in the aggro match ups, and a lot of times the one extra draw step does not help exactly do much with so much air in the deck.

Urza’s Factory: This card excels in a meta with lots of control, being able to pump out 2/2’s every turn. The downsides to it are that the card is just a blank against any aggro deck. (Tip: if you do play this, you have to make tokens or get them made as 2/2 Assembly-Worker tokens have never been printed by WOTC)

Buried Ruin: This is the best choice for the 19th land slot in Mono-Green Tron. At the absolute worst, Buried Ruin gets back a Chromatic Star or Chromatic Sphere and operates as an expensive Horizon Canopy, which is not all that bad considering how much mana Tron usually has access to in the late stages of the game.

Everything else Buried Ruin can do is much better than that. It can grab an Expedition Map to help assemble Tron, or grab Sanctum of Ugin to chain threats. One problem you can have with Tron is once you start to stabilize — like after a board wipe against Aggro — they can rebuild while you draw air. The ability to re-buy an Oblivion Stone for another board wipe is huge. And then the best scenario is re-buying a Wurmcoil Engine or Walking Ballista, which are both back breaking in many match ups, and redeploying them to bury your opponent. As an example, Wurmcoil Engine is a house against Dredge. They usually have to spend a turn using a Conflagrate on it, and you still get two Wurm tokens leftover. Then using Buried Ruin to get that threat back is often game ending. Buried Ruin’s biggest strength is the versatility that it provides.

The options for the last land for Mono-Green Tron are all sort of vanilla, especially compared to their predecessor the fallen Eye of Ugin. The best option we have for the time being is Buried Ruin. Until next time, may the Karnfather bless you.

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