MTG Salvation

As long as you're taking questions I'd also be interested to hear why you go 3/4 on inquisition and thoughtseize.

That is better overall deck list? With laylines or without? They looks good, but in some mutchups, just useless

Quote from 4554551n »

Well now with a lot of new people here that weren't here a year ago I'll refloat an old idea.
Tezzeret agent of bolas.
He digs, he makes blockers, and more often than not he kills the turn after he lands.
I hear the argument that he's unnecessary and we can win via regular mill, but in the real world draws are a thing.
Yes there's all these things we can do, like call judges etc, this is just another thing we can do

This is just me, but I'd much rather have a win condition that doesn't get hit by Leyline of Sanctity or Pithing Needle. Mechanized Production is my "go big or go home" finisher of choice, even though it is slower by several turns.

I do agree with you in that, with most pilots, Lantern needs an alt-wincon simply to mitigate the effects of variance among opponents themselves -- the people, not the decks. I've tried lil Tezz and didn't like him, but if he works for you or others, more power to ya

I've enjoyed builds where I had Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas in my list. Worst case scenario he acted a a more restricted Ancient Stirrings for me every turn, which definitely helps a lot.

I agree that it's a win condition that gets stopped by Leyline or Needle, but so is the one most people go to: Ghirapur Æther Grid

Quote from kanister »

Quote from zozobaltazar »

hi everyone
Kanister, nice job bro you are doing great on MTGO. I have a question for you, you might have said it already but I can't find where in the topic.
So 4 Mishra's Bauble hmmmm. I plaid the card in 2 but did not quite like it. But I might reconsider my thoughts. I would like you to give me some good arguments for me to play it.

Search my posts in this thread and you can find a longer one about Mishra's Baubles and why I play them. Use them on yourself to scry with mill rocks.

Quote from Commissar_Kharn »

As long as you're taking questions I'd also be interested to hear why you go 3/4 on inquisition and thoughtseize.

I recently changed the numbers around because I got tilted when I lsot against something that costs more than 3 lol. But to be honest, nearly every 4+cmc card played in modern has to be dealt with in some way. I felt like I wanted to be able to discard Scapeshift, Primeval Titans, Collected Companies, Karns, Ad nauseams and Gifts Ungiven of the world often enough that I would like to draw a Thoughtseize by default, not Inquisition. This change sucks against Burn and Affinity and is pretty good against everything else, so you have to decide what you want to do.

I came to the same conclusion. However, with collective brutality, you have another way to tag expensive non-creatures (ad nauseam, storm pieces, scapeshift et al.) And a way to offset the lifeloss and some hedging vs burn. I'm a big advocate of 3/3/2 iok, ts, brutality. You still have some holes vs primeval titan and the occasional walker, but I've found it to be a good mix.

Hi thread!

I've been playing two decks in modern - Naya Burn and Esper Control. Burn is struggling against some of the format's powerful decks (virtual instant loss against Eldrazi!), and Esper is definitely a tier 2/3 deck at best. I'm in the position where I think I can pick up a Lantern deck for a pretty reasonable price, so I think I'm going to pull the trigger on it. I love control decks, and I think this is maybe the most pure control deck modern has to offer. I'm pretty excited to get playing, but I did have a couple of questions I was hoping people could answer

1 - Not that I suppose it matters too much, but does Zac post in here? Has he even been on the deck at all recently?
2 - How are people dealing with Eldrazi Tron? Do people consider it a good matchup? I've watched my friend (who is very good with that deck) run over Lantern players with ease, and it's a little concerning given how the meta looks here for PPTQs etc.
3 - I don't think it would stop me buying into the deck, but if Mox Opal were ever to get hit with a ban, does this deck even still exist?

I've seen him post recently. He still follows the deck to a degree at least.
2. I find E tron to be a pretty reasonable matchup. When I drop games it's usually to getting locked out by chalice, or an early thought knot taking a bridge. I don't much care for having surgical in the matchup, but do agree that pithing needle is quite important.
3. You're not really supposed to do ban list talk in this thread, but if, hypothetically speaking, you wanted a build without opal, simian spirit guide I think would do a passable impression (the ability to play lantern and a rock on turn 1 unconditionally is actually kind of appealing and would help offset not having a repeatable source.)

@Kanister I have to disagree with your analysis of Surgical Extraction. The website you linked is talking about the card itself and does not reflect the importance of it in the deck. (I should say first that I don't think the deck should be running anymore than 2 total)
But the card is not only a way of completely removing threats but it gives you complete information to your opponent's deck. When you are playing based on hand information and through lantern of insight revealing the top card, you are not entirely aware of every answer they may have to your deck. With surgical extraction you can look through their entire deck and then write down similar to a thoughseize or IoQ all of their deck's threats to your bridge and other artifacts. it's funny because a lot of time in matches my opponents have said they would remove the selected card from their deck to save time but they miss the entire point. It's useful to know if they are running 2 or 3 Kolaghan's command or even their sideboarded in responses.
The other reason I think it is important is because in certain matchups you can Turn one IoQ or though seize -> see their hand, and then crack a surgical to completely ruin their opening several turns (This sort of play style does come with risks as you mentioned but has won me games because it bought me enough turns to comfortably get the lock in place).

Just food for thought, I personally only run one, but have never used it without success

@zcowan you are missing the point by miles. Kanister is saying that we need surgical and it is great in certain situations. But bringing it in when it is bad based on anecdotes of it being great in other MUs is horrible. If we want to beat valakut then yes, surgical is a tool for this. If we want to beat eldrazi tron then we want leylines (checks ballista and wnd bringer), bridge for their dudes, needles for karn and ratchet bomb and then ofc our lock. Drawing a surgical here is probably not what we want.

Ahh Snauri, I completely misread.. My bad! I was thinking that he was saying that the card was bad in the deck itself haha
I consider it a key piece so I was so confused! Totally agree that pithing needles and whatnot are a better response to Karn and whatnot!

I LOL'd irl. We all know how to use surgical to its fullest. Kanister is saying that as a prison deck we need to have surgicals main so we have an out to some decks where it is relevant G1. You can have main deck cards in a deck even when you cut them 90% of the time just so you do not auto lose certain MUs. That is basically the deal with surgical. A lot of games it is simply incorrect to keep them in as we make informed decisions when boarding on what cards we need to bring.

Quote from 4554551n »

Quote from kanister »

I know what that card does and how to use it, I do all the things you mentioned. But do you actually keep Surgicals postboard against E-tron, Jund, UW Control, Death and Taxes? It's my first cut against all those decks when I sideboard.

I keep it against e-tron and every kind of control. If you don't run them vs control I feel you're misplaying against control. Most use snaps and have little more than cryptic to win with. Taking cryptic with a surgical is reason enough to keep em.

Here is my current list. Usual flex slots are baubles, tez, crucible, tutor. Sometimes obviously you take out all the discard, or all needles, or all surgicals, or jar vs decks that don't destroy, like uw or merfolk. But Jund, d&t, and aggro are the games I cut surgical. Affinity, burn, naya zoo etc.

Counts : 60 main / 15 sideboard

Spells:43
2 Mishra's Bauble
4 Mox Opal
1 Welding Jar
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Codex Shredder
2 Ghoulcaller's Bell
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lantern of Insight
3 Pithing Needle
2 Pyxis of Pandemonium
3 Surgical Extraction
3 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
1 Infernal Tutor
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

Lands:17
2 Academy Ruins
3 Blooming Marsh
2 Ghost Quarter
3 Glimmervoid
2 Inventors' Fair
1 Llanowar Wastes
2 Spire of Industry
1 Swamp
1 Tendo Ice Bridge

Sideboard:15
1 Spellskite
1 Magus of the Moat
2 Welding Jar
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Seal of Primordium
1 Ghirapur AEther Grid
1 Lost Legacy
4 Leyline of Sanctity

No Abrupt Decay main board.

Last time I heard someone telling someone else they were "misplaying" the deck, it was a Lantern opponent telling me I was wrong for not running Glint-Nest Crane. We all know how that turned out.

My friend has a proxied version of eldrazi tron that I like to playtest against and it is usually a pretty strong card.. If you can turn one inquisition and grab either a chalice or their expedition map it can really throw their plan off. I don't recommend shocking yourself for two to cast the surgical though because life totals are important in that matchup. I usually will turn two play it off one black mana.
I would say that if you HAD to cut a card from the deck to sideboard something in, it would be okay to take it out in that matchup though. I find one of my best plays against them is using repetitive Ghost Quarters to keep them off Tron using Crucible of Worlds.

My point is all pilots will play this deck differently. None of us can say anything is correct to do.

I keep in my Surgicals versus E-Tron. I do not run leylines in my build (by choice), so I will resort to Surgical to take any outs my opponent has. Hitting a land is awesome too, but usually I use it on Endbringer or Ballista.

I had a huge response typed out, then the page's memory maxed out and I lost it all. I hate this website. No wonder I am mostly on Reddit these days.

Quote from crexalbo »

I had a huge response typed out, then the page's memory maxed out and I lost it all. I hate this website. No wonder I am mostly on Reddit these days.

The thing that has annoyed me has been when I go to respond via the quote button (kind of like this actually) and I decide, "Oh I may as well throw another quote in here too and respond to this other person" so I click on another quote and WHOOPS! everything I typed before is gone.

Quote from kanister »

Quote from Al_Z_Heimer »

Quote from josimitxu »

Question, i have been playing the deck lately and i cant win grixis shadow. Discard, counters and kolhgans are just insane against us. Any idea?

Mainboard Leyline of Sanctity has been great for me so far.

people keep repeating this advice but I think it is sadly not really helpful - from my mtgo replay data I learned that even when I play my 4-bauble version with no maindeck Leylines, I win whooping 60% game ones against Grixis Death's Shadow.
Post-board is when things start to become nightmarish - I win only a third of post-board games, and since you play more post-board games than pre-board ones, that combines to a 37% match win rate. It's not Thoughtseize that beats you, it's Ceremonious Rejections. (of course in reality it's the crossfire of discard, counters, Snapcasters, a quick clock, Kolaghan's Commands, high velocity and quick clock).

I have no idea how to beat GDS with Lantern or if it even is possible, but if you want to do it you have to focus on winning post-board games. Focus on finding trump cards that actually beat them and dodge some amount of their interaction - Magus of the Moat is something, stuff like Welding Jar, Leyline and Surgical Extractions are cards that sometimes "get them" but most of the time they will strand your hand when the only actual single relevant card you have - Bridge - is countered/destroyed/discarded.

Will echo this. Main is not that bad. Them going up to 4 stubborn denial + 3 rejection is really bad. I bring in leylines + magus and keep all my discard. This is normally blanking their discard and then most of the time it is a matter of forcing a bridge through. Sometimes you can get lucky and discard a beater as to play around stubborn for 1 but i think we need to get lucky to win post board.

I feel like my strategy against Death Shadow is always to go for redundant hands containing multiple copies of key pieces or ancient stirrings. After side boarding I usually bring in additional collective brutality as a way to keep them off of counters. It definitely is a tough matchup though.

I've always found myself dropping brutalities against Death's Shadow almost immediately. I tried going up to 4 for a while in the post board to hit counters and surprise drain them to death, but I realized pretty quickly it's actually just bad against the deck. Disfigure is practically irrelevant, the duress mode will sometimes be able to hit stubborn denial, but if they have one and you duress they're likely to just counter it anyway, and the drain 2 mode is often useless or actively counter-productive. The only relevant thing it does is take cards out of your hand to turn on bridge which is rarely an issue when they're dropping 4-5+ power threats for 1 mana.

My current post board plan is leylines, maelstrom pulse, and a pair of reckonings dropping needles, surgicals and brutalities. The extra decay is sometimes good, but I can't really settle on whether or not it's worth it over the baubles and other non-essentials I could actually drop for it. Sometimes it will buy me enough time by nailing a lonely shadow and other times it will be dead in hand.

I'd encourage anyone who's actively testing the matchup to experiment with Noxious Revival and Bontu's Last Reckoning, they've given me some good plays against gross boards and hands full of discard and counters. Never really disappointed with either in the matchup.