MTG Salvation

I honestly think there is a way to make it so the deck can have 1 Sword of the Meek, 1 Thopter Foundry and 1 Ghirapur Æther Grid.

I think in a way many of you guys seem to be undervaluing how good the Foundry + Sword combo can be for the deck as it can help speed up us winning the game. This will result in less draws overall throughout tournaments, and a better average record for people who play the deck.

Quote from Jjbinks_jarlath »

TBF you only need to mill the sword to get the combo going with Foundry

I do see that, but how many slots does Sword/Thopter have to take up? 1 of each? How often will you be drawing both of them? Maybe a 1/4 or a 2/4 of Sword and Thopter respectively. It would take an overhaul of the deck to fit in 3-6 flex spots. The worst case scenario, you'd draw a whole bunch of Thopters in your opening hand... well now you have a bunch of multicolored spells that you have to ditch.

I really want it to work out, but I feel like the only decks that will want this are Tezz decks, Affinity decks, and the really rare Neo-Affinity decks.

RIP my hopes of ever finishing building Lantern. Was hoping artifacts would go back down a bit, not spike insanely for a third time.

Quote from valleysdai »

I like the option of the combo for us (mainly see it as a sb combo against aggro decks) but I worry that we are being given a lot of power to bring the hammer down on us.

It could be me being cynical but I remember reading a WotC article a few months ago that said the sword combo would make lantern too powerful.

What do you guys think?

I think the comments above your comment lay it out pretty clearly. It takes up too many spaces in an already tight list. I don't see it being good here at all.

With ancestral visions I anticipate more blue based control decks, so I up'd the Grafdigger's Cage count up to 2. It's a bonus that it hits Abzan Company too.

Pyxis of Pandemonium happened to combat Ancient Grudge and Eldrazi decks playing problematic graveyard working spells such as World Breaker. However with Eldrazi receiving a ban and with the inclusion of a second out to Ancient Grudge in the form of Grafdigger's Cage, I don't see reason to favor Pyxis over Ghoulcaller's Bell anymore. Boasting the consistency of finding a lock piece via self mill is relevant.

With the fall of Eldrazi, I also anticipate affinity to have a greater target on it's back. Furthermore, I anticipate Jund to be back on the rise as well. As such I'm dropping the Main deck Pyroclasm and reverting back in favor of Spellskite. A 3rd Welding Jar is added to the sideboard as well for the aforementioned reasons.

Other changes include opting for Buried Ruin over Sea Gate Wreckage. I made this change for two reasons. Number one, it provides quick recursion against hand disruption/artifact destruction making it good against Jund. Number two, Buried Ruin allows to more quickly find a key artifact piece via self mill than does the ability of Sea Gate Wreckage.
One draw with Sea Gate Wreckage requires 4 mana sources and is constrained to one extra draw per turn. Digging one draw step deep with Buried Ruin requires one Mill rock and costs nothing until we find the artifact piece needed to cement the lock. (At which point we tap 3 mana sources, one time). The synergy between our Mill rocks and Buried Ruin allows us to dig two, three, four draw steps deep a turn, without Mana investment. The same is not true for Sea Gate Wreckage. Buried Ruin is however constrained by it's ability to only allow us to dig for artifacts, however, it is in the far majority of cases that our most powerful draw comes from finding a key lock piece, such as Ensnaring Bridge/Lantern of Insight and or even Pithing Needle. You may say Buried Ruin is less powerful because it rely's on having access to at least one mill Rock, to that I say this: By the time Sea Gate Wreckage becomes active (let's say turn 5, and this is a very liberal estimate), the chances of having one or more Mill rocks is very high (close to 90%), and having two or mill rocks is over 50%.

All this being said, here is my current 75. It's very similar to Zac's Gran Prix winning list.

I think you may have forgotten that you need to sacrifice Buried Ruin as a cost to retrieving the artifact. Also, it can only retrieve artifacts. So... let's say you have two shredders in play, and a buried ruin, and you wanna draw an additional card. So you shred yourself, then sac the other shredder to return that card to your hand. Then you sac Buried Ruin to put that shredder in your hand. So... now you are at an eight land investment... and your Buried Ruin is in the 'yard where it can't be reused. If you had just used Sea Gate Wreckage, you could have just used five lands, and have it repeat next turn. The wreckage is also unimpeded by any Rest in Peace effects.

I am totally on board with this whole Sword of the Meek / Thopter Foundry combo. We really only need to worry about drawing the Foundry, as we can "go off" with the Sword in our 'yard. Gaining one life and getting a flying blocker per mana we dump in it... Seems like it could be an additional Bridge that doubles as yet another wincon. Keep in mind that we can hold the card we drew during combat and play it on our second main, raising the bridge for our flyers to attack under.

Quote from Kerotan1989 »

I love the thopter/sword combo. It's so easy to either get sword in your hand or the graveyard with all our mill rocks (I've added Taigam's scheming to help with this too). I started out with just 3 foundry's, but found the combo so great that I'm now trying 4. I think Lantern has got a massive boost from this. The combo gives us life, flying blockers, and a pretty fast wincon in fact, even with bridge on the board.

As much love as I have for the combo, I'm still pretty skeptical. Of course, I gave that mono red burn Top Control deck a whirl too, because you have to test a hypothesis. It's what led to the deck in the first place.

It does look promising if you are seeing an ease in testing though. Looking at your list as compared to the standard core, it looks like the major changes you have are taking out Spellskite, Surgical Extraction, and Pyrite Spellbomb.

I really like Spellskite as a protection for both our lock and the ThopterSword Combo. Also makes me happy I can defend Thopter Foundry, then sac Spellskite.

Surgical Extraction is a flex spot to me. It is really useful at times, and it isn't. It has won me the game more times than Pyrite Spellbomb has to be honest, but there are a lot of times when it is useless.

Pyrite Spellbomb is small creature defense/planeswalker defense/wincon. The ThopterSword combo, when online, is better at all 3 with more mana as an investment. It makes sense that we might be able to drop this card.

I'll try it out myself as well once I get a chance, though I haven't had that time just yet.

Here's my tentative decklist that I'll be trying online later tonight.

Quote from crexalbo »

I think you may have forgotten that you need to sacrifice Buried Ruin as a cost to retrieving the artifact. Also, it can only retrieve artifacts.

I did not forget about the cost of retrieving an artifact, hence this portion of my post: "One draw with Sea Gate Wreckage requires 4 mana sources and is constrained to one extra draw per turn. Digging one draw step deep with Buried Ruin requires one Mill rock and costs nothing until we find the artifact piece needed to cement the lock. (At which point we tap 3 mana sources, one time)"

Quote from crexalbo »

So... let's say you have two shredders in play, and a buried ruin, and you wanna draw an additional card. So you shred yourself, then sac the other shredder to return that card to your hand. Then you sac Buried Ruin to put that shredder in your hand. So... now you are at an eight land investment... and your Buried Ruin is in the 'yard where it can't be reused. If you had just used Sea Gate Wreckage, you could have just used five lands, and have it repeat next turn.

If I have two Codex Shredders in play and a Buried Ruin, and I am looking for an artifact, then I will mill myself and simply use the Buried Ruin's ability to reoccur a key lock piece once I have milled said piece. That will require a one-time mana investment of 3, not 5, nor 8. Furthermore, if I have 2 Codex Shredders and a Buried Ruin, I will be able to obtain the missing artifact twice as fast as Sea Gate Wreckage would allow me. If I am looking for a non artifact card in the situation you presented, then I will mill myself until I mill the non artifact card I need and then I will use Codex Shredders Ability to recur the needed card, which will cost me 5 mana.

As I mentioned in my initial post, when it comes to obtaining non-artifact cards, Sea Gate Wreckage is preferred, however the nature of this deck makes it so that in the far majority of cases, our most powerful draws come from finding a key lock piece in the form of an artifact (i.e. Ensnaring Bridge/Lantern of Insight/Pithing Needle). This is because Lantern Control is a deck that rewards its ability to establish a lock quickly and consistently, and as such, there should be a focus on cards that help accelerate our ability to find lock pieces (which happen to be artifacts). Buried Ruin, like Academy Ruins, helps us do this to a greater degree than does Sea Gate Wreckage.

Lantern Control is a deck that has very few cards that actually matter in any given game, having more cards doesn't typically benefit us like it does in other decks. We aren't a "good stuff" deck, we're a prison deck that wants to quickly ensemble a lock.

So I just finished playing a couple games with my deck above. A few things:

• Overall, I'm changing my position. Thopter/Sword should be in this deck. It's defense + Wincon.
• I still want Spellskites main deck. This fights against infect/boggles/targeted removal/Exalted.
• Stony Silence still hurts, though now more than ever. White decks will have it. I'm gonna be running Ray of Revelation again in my SB
• I'd still run a main deck Surgical. It's still quite useful.

Now what amount of Thopters and Swords should be in the deck? That I'm not sure about. Drawing Sword of the Meek feels bad. Drawing Thopter Foundry isn't too bad. Having both is awesome. Having neither is no real issue, cause then its game plan A.

What is nice is it gives us the Alternate Win con, and it allows us not to rely on only Ensnaring Bridge.

Quote from Spage »

So I just finished playing a couple games with my deck above. A few things:

• Overall, I'm changing my position. Thopter/Sword should be in this deck. It's defense + Wincon.
• I still want Spellskites main deck. This fights against infect/boggles/targeted removal/Exalted.
• Stony Silence still hurts, though now more than ever. White decks will have it. I'm gonna be running Ray of Revelation again in my SB
• I'd still run a main deck Surgical. It's still quite useful.

Now what amount of Thopters and Swords should be in the deck? That I'm not sure about. Drawing Sword of the Meek feels bad. Drawing Thopter Foundry isn't too bad. Having both is awesome. Having neither is no real issue, cause then its game plan A.

What is nice is it gives us the Alternate Win con, and it allows us not to rely on only Ensnaring Bridge.

Old extended ran 3 swords, 4 thopters. It ran 3-4 muddle the mixture to find them both, and 3-4 Tezzeret the Seeker and Thirst for Knowledge as combo finds. It dropped tez and 1 sword and 1 thopter when it became a hybrid deck. Just some random knowlage I know that might help ya'll out.

I don't play lantern in modern but I love the deck and have kept an eye on it for a while. I have a cheap casual version I put together a while ago using thopter sword (before it was legal) & young pyro instead of bridge in a burn lantern shell from around 50 pages ago (don't remember). I don't think you need to be concerned about sword making lantern too good.

If sword does make this deck really good odds are it makes other decks better. If somehow this makes lantern the best deck in the format there is still burn (the deck I play) and the extra sideboard hate that will cause you trouble (thopter foundry helps but does not solve the burn issue).

Finally, if this makes lantern warrant a ban it will not be a ban that kills the deck as this has been demonstrated with almost every ban so far. Twin still exists with kiki (well in the two weeks before eldrazi happened), Pod became coco/chord, Delver and Jund are still around (more now twin's gone). The only exceptions are storm which they nerf anytime it threatens to be tier one due to un-interactive gameplay, and eggs for being way too slow + being really un-interactive.

Quote from Lantern »

Old extended ran 3 swords, 4 thopters. It ran 3-4 muddle the mixture to find them both, and 3-4 Tezzeret the Seeker and Thirst for Knowledge as combo finds. It dropped tez and 1 sword and 1 thopter when it became a hybrid deck. Just some random knowlage I know that might help ya'll out.

Thanks Lantern, it was a pleasure testing against your Zoo deck yesterday. My only loss too, and that Blood Moon + Stony Silence was oppressive.

So if we use that thought process, then because we are a hybrid deck a 3 Thopter Foundry and 2 Sword of the Meek split might be the best.
I was taught for deck building that a quick idea on how many of each card you should run:

1. If you want to see the card once every other game
2. If you want to see the card generally
3. If you want to see the card once every game
4. If you always want to see the card

Obviously the nature of Top Control plays with the 1 ofs and 2 ofs, but the core of that idea might be useful for others.

-------

I don't think worrying about a ban before we have become overly oppressive is that important, and which is why I feel like it'd be more constructive to just work on deck testings and reports. Bare minimum, a deck made of Draft Chafe was banned, and people will look at the Banlist years later and say "Really?" I personally find that thought hilarious.

I suppose I'll start giving combo some thought. I think you're probably right on the 3/2 split. One of the best things is the fact we can mill sword and it's basically a free card. The question is... what would we take out?

I'd probably start by removing spellbomb. Aether grid would likely go to the sideboard, and I'd likely have to sideboard the pyroclasms as well. Maybe spellskite as well? Or one of the Mox if the metagame slows down enough.

I just posted this on the ban thread:

I think we may have laughed a bit too soon at Forsythe's Lantern+SotM=KingObnoxious tweet.

Lantern Control is officially testing the crap out of SotM... and they seem to like it. Not sure it will ultimately stick, I'll be testing it too no doubt. I have many doubts in regards to both consistency and resilience as we are diluting the deck with something that might end up not being good enough. Foundry has been tested at various points of the deck's evolution but always fell short of good enough, SotM does absolutely nothing on its own in the deck. Guess we'll get a final verdict in about a week or two of testing.

PS: This unban was strange. Feels like they unbanned it just to prove Forsythe was right on that tweet. Like he got laughed and bullied so hard over that tweet he unbanned it just to prove a point. He even hints at people to try it in Lantern on the unban announcement.

I'll certainly test it. What comes to mind immediately is Faithless Looting becoming relevant again. If we are to drop answers like spellbomb, skite and such with the idea being to disrupt them on turn 1 with discard and then assemble either of the two combos ASAP then Looting's filtering becomes relevant imo. I'll test that route first.

Interesting times ahead.

Now if only I could play the list in leagues on MTGO... Can't play it in freeform as everyone will just insta rage-quit.

Quote from Kerotan1989 »

So I've been testing this on cockatrice

boomerangkevin's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4 Lantern of Insight 4 Ensnaring Bridge 4 Ancient Stirrings 4 Thopter Foundry 3 Sword of the Meek 4 Codex Shredder 4 Ghoulcaller's Bell 3 Pithing Needle	2 Abrupt Decay 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 2 Thoughtseize 1 Taigam's Scheming 4 Llanowar Wastes 1 Yavimaya Coast 2 Darkslick Shores 4 Glimmervoid 1 Underground River 1 Tendo Ice Bridge 1 Forest 1 Sea Gate Wreckage 2 Academy Ruins 1 Swamp	4 Mox Opal

with a standard sort of lantern sideboard. I love the thopter/sword combo. It's so easy to either get sword in your hand or the graveyard with all our mill rocks (I've added Taigam's scheming to help with this too). I started out with just 3 foundry's, but found the combo so great that I'm now trying 4. I think Lantern has got a massive boost from this. The combo gives us life, flying blockers, and a pretty fast wincon in fact, even with bridge on the board.

This list looks sweet. I will be trying something similar this Friday FNM.
I think spellskite is still useful... I will try minor changes from your list, something like this:
-1 Thopter Foundry
-2 Ghoulcaller's Bell
+1 Taigam's Scheming (total of 2)
+2 Spellskite

Is it reasonable to cut down on the artifact millers if we have extra search and are relying more on thopter/sword?
It may even evolve into a primary thopter/sword/bridge build with the lantern lock secondary.

i am excited about the combo but i just don't see how it adds anything to our deck and i'm afraid we might be taking valuable cards out to fit it in. honestly i think that the best news from these bans is not that we can jam a combo that we dont need into our deck. it is that burn will be virtually unplayable, and a whole bunch of blue control decks are gonna crop up which should be good for us. ancestral visions isnt good for us but it's not the end of the world.

I think a reasonable course of action is cutting aether grid for a single copy of sword, since we dont need aether grid as a one of to finish games when we can thopter combo. We could then also cut back 1 or 2 other non-core cards like abruptdecay, pyroclasm, quiet disrepair, spellskites or whatever other flexcards we are playing to accomodate 1 or 2 foundries. Thopter Foundry without Sword is still very useful in providing blockers and life in a pinch, and with an infernal tutor, ancient stirrings and millrocks we can find the combo pieces reasonably fast if the situation is appropiate.

Suppose we find room in the maindeck for 2 foundries and 1 sword we could modify the sideboard to accomodate another 2 foundries and 2 swords to side in against decks like burn where they really shine.

One of the reasons that Lantern Control doesn't run fetchlands is Ancient Stirrings. If you're digging for a bridge or other necessary lock piece, each time you cast Ancient Stirrings and don't shuffle your deck you're increasing your chances of getting the card you need because you just put four cards that are not what you want on the bottom of your deck. Each time you cast Stirrings without shuffling you're improving your odds; as soon as you shuffle then all those unwanted cards you've tucked to the bottom are suddenly live draws again.

While this isn't a huge statistical advantage, for a deck that has such limited need for colored mana it's definitely relevant. The life loss plus reduced consistency you get from fetching just isn't worth it when you have other mana options available.

ok so i have played a few games with these configurations of the combo 4th/3som 3/2 2/1 1/1 i took out the only cards i thought that i could like pyrite duress cut a needle and a surgical. here is my analysis. the combo is weak to stony silence. when we are inevitably taking out interactive cards for the combo this is an issue. also another 2 card combo makes the deck less consistent. i lost a game to burn of all decks that i could have easily won. i spent the whole game trying to establish the combo, when a timely pyroclasm would have won me the game. i am excited to see what you guys brew up, i will say that it could be possible to build an esper version of this deck ditching the bridge for trinket mages, tezzeret and the thopter combo, but i doubt it would be as consistent. all in all the metagame implications are much more exciting for us, we don't necessarily have to play the thopter combo to benefit from it. already many of websites are saying that jund, burn, and obviously tron were affected the most by the bans. if this is true then we're going to have a less likely chance to see 3 of our worst match ups.

edit: look at it this way. if you take out pyroclasm or grid for the combo, your taking out cards that are good on their own for cards that are only good in combinations.