MTG Salvation

I'm dawdling about making another commander deck after a bit of a hiatus. One thing I've really wanted to make work, and have so far been unsuccessful with, is a lantern control-style deck in commander. For the uninitiated, lantern control uses cards like lantern of insight along with repeated mill effects like codex shredder to ensure their opponent never draws a relevant card, along with lockdown cards like ensnaring bridge to avoid dying to stuff on board.

For commander, there are 3 reasonable choices.
1) Oona, queen of the fae
+ most powerful
+ most reliable mill engine
+ doesn't fuel graveyards
+ provides defense while milling
- most expensive mana-wise
- requires significant resources to control multiple people
- highest profile card

2) Circu, dimir lobotomist
+ lowest profile
+ doesn't require any special cards, just the control stuff you wanted to play anyway
+ cheapest mana cost
+ doesn't fuel graveyards
+ can mill yourself to avoid drawing crap
- requires spells, which cost mana, so he's not totally free, may force you to play spells at inopportune times
- pathetic board presence
- I've already tried him once before, and it was really really hard to win. but funny as hell.

3) Phenax, God of Deception
+ doesn't require any mana to mill once he's going
+ most durable
+ can fuel your own graveyard for shenanigans, or just to avoid drawing crap
- requires a bunch of creatures in my control deck, ick
- vulnerable to wraths
- slow, creatures have to lose summoning sickness
- fuels enemy graveyards without other tools

Has anyone else tried lantern control in commander? Did you use one of these three? Right now I'm leaning Oona.

Oona just seems like she'd be removed every time she hits the board, which is very bad for casual builds.

Circu seems like the best option, but having to actively cast spells to get rid of people's top card is very bad when you're trying to play control. The joy of control is making that choice of whether something needs to be answered or not, and saving up answers for an inevitable attempt to win, but having to repeatedly cast spells just to mill someone hurts a lot.

Phenax is probably the best option. First, he's an indestructible enchantment and in many instances you'll want him to stay that way. Second, the way you're trying to build the deck isn't going to need lots of high toughness creatures to work, so cards like Bitterblossom are better than Wall of Frost.

All in all, this honestly seems like a very bad form of control outside of 60-card magic. Certainly something I want to play, eventually, but there's just not enough cards to reveal the top of people's libraries to make an effective strategy without having to tutor for Lantern of Insight every game. Lantern control in modern works because most of its control aspect is 1 cmc cards, making it easy to start controlling from turn 1, so having to spend a bunch of mana to tutor those one drops delays your plans considerably. Only cards I know of that reveals everyone's top card are Lantern of Insight(1cmc), Field of Dreams(1cmc, but $30+), and Wizened Snitches(4cmc).

I second Phenax as a great option for what you are trying to do. He really fits your theme of library top manipulation, and is very difficult to remove. People will fear combo with Oona, and target her/you quickly, and while Circu is sorta in the same vein as Phenax, his inability to manipulate their library without costing you mana is kinda a turn off for me.

Removing Oona for fear of combo seems incorrect. Oona's combos are all with infinite mana, aren't they? So then why bother removing her, obviously she'd be trivial to recast if that combo came together. Risk of being targeted for attacks is definitely real, though.

I agree that bitterblossom > wall of frost for this build...unfortunately outside of exactly bitterblossom, there's not a lot of cards in UB that produce tokens in an efficient manner. And even bitterblossom has significant downside for a build trying to win as slowly as this one. Other reasonable-ish cards are metallurgic summonings, skywise teachings, zombie infestation (ish), myr turbine, acorn catapult, orochi hatchery, thopter assembly, throne of empires, whirlermaker...I guess once you're willing to spend 4 mana per token there's other choices too, like sarpadian volumes or whatever...Anyway, my point is, there's not of a lot of very efficient options, and a board wipe resets your control back to zero.

As far as top-card-revealing-cards, I do have all three pieces. With all the tutor options you get from black and blue, it's not a huge issue to find one of them. Of course the deck will run a lot of tutors. I think the ideal number is somewhere around 10.

Quote from darkeshrine »

Oona just seems like she'd be removed every time she hits the board, which is very bad for casual builds.

She also costs six mana. That means you can bring her out one time fewer than Circu.

I third Phenax. If graveyard shenanigans are common in your meta (a.k.a. if you're playing EDH), Leyline of the Void, Nihil Spellbomb, Tormod's Crypt, Bojuka Bog...seriously, black has plenty of ways to say "not today". Plus, you could do worse than "t: Target player mills 7."

Quote from DirkGently »

Removing Oona for fear of combo seems incorrect. Oona's combos are all with infinite mana, aren't they? So then why bother removing her, obviously she'd be trivial to recast if that combo came together. Risk of being targeted for attacks is definitely real, though.

I mean, thats a fair point; i mean to say that if i see Oona, I will target you in general, not JUST your commander (no pun intended). I see oona, i expect an infinite combo to just remove me from the game at any point, so she becomes a HUGE target on my radar, as opposed to someone like Phenax, who i would underestimate. Once you establish a lantern lock with phenax, i would be in deep trouble if i didnt have an immediate answer in hand.

Is there any particular reason why the Commander must be UB?

Quote from arrogantAxolotl »

Is there any particular reason why the Commander must be UB?

blue and black have the best tutors for the crucial top deck revealers. Also blue has 2/3 of them. I think without both you don't have enough reliability for that effect.

Adding another color is probably fine, I don't think there's any commander options better than what ub offer alone though.

I'm biased towards Oona because I have an Oona deck, but I think Phenax is probably the best option for what you want. There are probably at least 14-15 creatures that even a super-controlling deck wouldn't mind running:

• Mulldrifter
  
• Venser, Shaper Savant
  
• Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
  
• Glen Elendra Archmage
  
• Vendilion Clique
  
• Beguiler of Wills
  
• Æther Adept
  
• Archaeomancer
  
• Snapcaster Mage
  
• Phyrexian Metamorph
  
• Sower of Temptation
  
• Sea Gate Oracle
  
• Augur of Bolas
  
• Talrand, Sky Summoner
  
• Deadeye Navigator
  
• Consecrated Sphinx
  

And those are just the one off the top of my head. Of course, this plan probably only really works if you have three or less opponents; more than that, and you are going to be hard-pressed to control everyone's draws with enough creatures without overextending.

Overextending isn't as big of a concern because you can deny board wipes with mill. Any from starting hands you can probably counter.

I don't know that I would want to include all of those, but fair point, there are a decent number of etb effect creatures that make good incidental millers. Having tried this deck with circu, I will say that one major concern is commanders. Even if your opponents only draw lands, they can replay their commanders unless you neutralize them with something like trapped in the moon. One thing I like about oona is that she provides a way to neutralize a lot of commanders by chumming. I guess phenax does a similar job vs ground creatures if he's active.

My biggest concern with phenax is all the moving parts. Circu is simplest: control spells, tutors/revealers, lands. Oona requires ramp in addition to be effective. Phenax requires those parts plus creatures and grave hate. A lot depends on how many creatures can be control pieces.

So, I was interested in seeing just how many different cards were out there that allow you to repeatedly look at the top card of at least one opponent's library. Here's what I managed to dig up:

Quote from DirkGently »

Having tried this deck with circu, I will say that one major concern is commanders.

Since you are not in white where you would have access to cards like Meddling Mage, Council of the Absolute, Nevermore, etc., then perhaps Declaration of Naught might help out in that department. If you stick with Phenax, I would also take a hard look at including Thousand-Year Elixir and Paradox Engine as potential combo cards.

Circu to me just seems like is would take forever to mill people out, but if you are willing to use Lantern of Insight effects then perhaps the speed of the victory isn't all that important.

With circu you can run Dizzy Spell and it's more relevant than with other generals. (it tutors lantern, triggers circu).

Circu and Phenax are likely to get less hate, Oona is more of a combo and win general.

I'd personally go with Phenax, hes hard to remove and what your wanting is a very unique take on mill in EDH,and a Salvaging Station package would reduce his drawbacks.

I have tried this idea with Phenax, God of Deception, with Lazav, Dimir Mastermind, and again with Silas Renn, Seeker Adept. Some important things I gleaned:

You can't count on the Lantern combo being a lock like it is in 60-card Magic. You have multiple opponents instead of just one, and even if you manage to make it so that players draw nothing relevant, they can still usually cast and recast their commanders, and at least one of them will be a problem more often than not. If you go for this, you can guarantee that all of the hate they DO draw will be pointed your way.

Ensnaring Bridge is still fine, but it is not the universal lock piece that it is in Modern. The card pool is just too large. Plus, having no cards in hand really limits your options here.

IMO, Phenax is 100% the way to go. You can build a more typical Phenax deck, but adding some Lantern of Insight effects give you an another powerful, disruptive angle of attack. In other words, don't try to build a full-on Lantern Control deck, but make a proactive deck with prevalent Lantern Control elements. You can do what you want, this is just my 2 cents.

I still have an Italian BB Field of Dreams if you need one. Also, Zur's Weirding may be a useful tool, depending on the direction you choose to go.

Having tried this briefly with Phenax, I learned some interesting things.

Phenax ended up making the game unpleasant pretty quickly when it went off. I got dark confidant into sol ring into phenax and field of dreams within the first couple turns, and quickly managed to lock all relevant cards out of the game. There were a few difficulties running people out of the relevant cards in hand and on board, but once those were taken care of, the game quickly ground to a crawl with nothing interesting happening except from my side of the table.

Funny enough, I think having a commander that's too good, or at least too reliable, at keeping the lantern lock in place makes the game a bit of a drag, if not for me then at least for everyone else. Even if someone eventually breaks the lock, you're all basically waiting around for one of a very few number of relevant things to happen (hitting a large percentage of relevant cards in a row, flashback cards with relevant effects, etc), or for none of those things to happen and you win.

And even if you fail, which is super possible, the table is basically forced to kill or at least heavily disrupt you, like any other stax deck. Decks that force the table to kill you, basically, I think are just not fun to play. If you win, it feels like you're just OP, especially when you're grinding the game out for a dozen turns before you win. And when you're losing, you're getting barraged from the whole table and it feels unfair and unwinnable.

Funny enough, I think Circu is the best choice, simply because he's not reliable. First, that makes it fun and difficult to play - you can't just deny literally every relevant spell, you have to pick and choose which cards to deny, and who to deny them from. And on the flip side, that means the table isn't obligated to disrupt you at all costs, because even if you manage to get out circu and lantern and pull off your brilliant plan, you still can't deny all spells. And your opponents know that you can't, so they can treat you like a normal threat (will diminish their resources) rather than total annihilation (will deny all their resources). It's the equivalent of playing a synergy deck vs a infinite combo deck, and have a similar relationship in enjoyment.

For Circu, I would run as many multicolor instants as are feasible, since they'll get you two exile triggers each and let you exile things at instant speed.

• Agony Warp
  
• Ancient Excavation
  
• Clutch of the Undercity
  
• Countersquall
  
• Dimir Charm
  
• Dream Salvage (needs instant-speed discard support to get the card draw at instant speed, but you can still cast it to exile 2 cards and draw 0)
  
• Essence Vortex (probably not worth it in most cases)
  
• Fate Transfer (probably not worth it unless you're running stuff with counters, or see a lot of it in your meta; although moving all the loyalty from an animated Gideon onto a creature would be funny)
  
• Lim-Dûl's Vault
  
• Malicious Advice
  
• Memory Plunder
  
• Perplex (could be an impressive swing with Dream Salvage)
  
• Psychic Strike (mills even without Circu)
  
• Recoil (works with Dream Salvage)
  
• Shadow of Doubt
  
• Silumgar's Command
  
• Soul Manipulation
  
• Spinal Embrace (expensive, but strong)
  
• Undermine
  
• Warped Physique

Quote from Lithl »

For Circu, I would run as many multicolor instants as are feasible, since they'll get you two exile triggers each and let you exile things at instant speed.

I'm not hugely in favor of multicolor spells, since you need two targets to accomplish much of anything. They're better than mono-colored, but not nearly twice as good. I doubt I'd want to pay an extra mana for undermine, for example, just to get another circu trigger.

Instants, likewise, are not crucial in my experience. As long as no one has any additional draw (from spells or from abilities like phyrexian arena), exiling as a sorcery works just fine. And while extra draw is fairly common, it's also really hard to play around with circu anyway (and impossible if they draw multiple cards), so you're probably better off just trying to remove/counter them than to try to keep control of topdecks despite them. Given how many good instants there are in UB, I'm guessing most reasonable circu decks will have plenty of them to handle the occasional cycling or whatever that necessitates instant-speed exile but can't be stopped via removal.

I could definitely see a Phenax control build viable. You say Bitterblossom is the one of the few cards you might want to run that benefits control styles while providing a steady stream of creatures, but I think you could run cards like Bridge from Below, Corpseweft, Endless Ranks of the Dead, Dark Salvation, Day of the Dragons, Opposition, Drake Haven, Dread Summons, Drudge Spell (this one is a little weak), Efficient Construction (great with all the trinkets), Empty the Pits, Endless Ranks of the Dead, Fated Infatuation + Mnemonic Wall (for ultimate durdling), Acorn Catapult, Infernal Genesis, Liliana, Death's Majesty, Metallurgic Summonings, Nuisance Engine, Rise from the Tides, Shrine of Loyal Legions, Skywise Teachings, Talrand, Sky Summoner, Thopter Spy Network, Tombstone Stairwell, and Waste Not in some sort of controlish capacity.

I built a lantern control edh deck and my personal favorite is circu since he's always seemed the most flavorful. It's also the only deck that circu can really shine in because you can choose to use his triggers to hit cards that multiple players are running. He also has two features that make him much more effective than he's given credit for.
1. He targets libraries and not players. Therefore you always have a way around hexproof players.
2. If someone is running someone else's commander in their deck he can exile and block the commander from being cast.
Those are corner cases but when I played the deck both did come up every few games at least.

Oona is probably my choice for a more competitive deck because she exiles which stops graveyard decks and once the lock is established you can find one of her infinite combos to end the game quickly instead of milling out slowly. She requires more non commander mill cards to set up the lock because she's less likely to stick around.

Phenax is the easiest to build since you can use a normal phenax list and toss in the lanterns and tutors. Winning even with phenax active is still going to be slow.

UB may be the easiest to do with all the tutors but I've also done a mono U lantern control with Thada Adel triggering psychic surgery every turn. Other colors can add some fun options.

Quote from DirkGently »

Quote from Lithl »

For Circu, I would run as many multicolor instants as are feasible, since they'll get you two exile triggers each and let you exile things at instant speed.

I'm not hugely in favor of multicolor spells, since you need two targets to accomplish much of anything. They're better than mono-colored, but not nearly twice as good.

I don't understand. You're playing multiplayer, aren't you?

Also, you can target the same player twice, to exile two things. You may not know what the second one is, but you don't know what the ones further down are with Phenax, either.

Quote from Lithl »

Quote from DirkGently »

Quote from Lithl »

For Circu, I would run as many multicolor instants as are feasible, since they'll get you two exile triggers each and let you exile things at instant speed.

I'm not hugely in favor of multicolor spells, since you need two targets to accomplish much of anything. They're better than mono-colored, but not nearly twice as good.

I don't understand. You're playing multiplayer, aren't you?

Also, you can target the same player twice, to exile two things. You may not know what the second one is, but you don't know what the ones further down are with Phenax, either.

Yes, playing multiplayer, but sometimes only one person has a card up you care about. Especially with Circu, you don't want to just exile EVERY spell, since it's tougher to keep exiling and you might reveal something worse - so a mediocre spell is usually fine. Or, another player has a good card, but he's way behind and you're not the target, so you don't mind them drawing it. I'd play countersquall over negate for the extra color, but I wouldn't play undermine over counterspell, is all I'm saying.

With Phenax I don't consider extra toughness to be a bonus, since you do only want to mill 1 card generally (moreso with Phenax since he doesn't exile, so milling something unexpectedly can actually be a big problem). Circu milling more isn't a downside, but it's not really an upside, since it's so difficult and tedious to win by milling with Circu. If you're denying all their answers, you're probably better off winning via normal means.