CRUGGCCCCCCCGBGBGBCCCCCCCBBUWC MODERN – LANTERN(aka Fateseal or Barbershop) Primer–Subreddit–Facebook–Decklist–Gameplay Thnkr's Content:Gameplay–Datasheet Each eye sees a different possibility for tomorrow. CWUBBCCCCCCCBGBGBGCCCCCCCGGURC
It seems like it would be awesome as you can tutor up lantern, needle, spellbomb or any of the mill artifacts.
Infernal tutor just seems better. Doesn't have the requirement of needing blue mana and needing to either delay popping it for a turn and needing to draw and discard a useless artifact. By the time your drawing infernal tutor your already hellbent and it will grab any answer you need. Intuition doesn't have that luxury.
Have tutor in hand and I need a surgical as an answer? Pick that up. Need a bridge and have 5 mana? Tutor it up and play it the same turn. Infernal tutor all around seems alot better and can basically fetch anything. There is also alot more black mana in the deck and doesn't requiring a 3rd mana to use.
So after going 3-2 for five leagues in a row, I managed to break that curse and get a 4-1. Pretty happy with the 63% winrate for picking the deck back up (haven't played it since well before the Eldrazi winter).
Got a spreadsheet going to track winrates by deck and overall archetype (and it includes a metagame breakdown for what I've played).
Also had a first yesterday - one of my opponents was excited to play against me since he had never played against Lantern before and thought the deck was cool. Sadly he was on burn and beat me before I got to do much, but hey, still nice to not get salt.
I tested out the Thopter Combo version of the deck at a GPT and did horrid with it, where I think the Jund version of the deck would have easily shined and had done well.
I'm switching back to the original version again, it feels so much more comfortable and less clunky with the amount of 2 drops.
If anyone has questions about what I went up against/etc. feel free to reply to this post so I get a notification and can do a bit of an update.
CRUGGCCCCCCCGBGBGBCCCCCCCBBUWC MODERN – LANTERN(aka Fateseal or Barbershop) Primer–Subreddit–Facebook–Decklist–Gameplay Thnkr's Content:Gameplay–Datasheet Each eye sees a different possibility for tomorrow. CWUBBCCCCCCCBGBGBGCCCCCCCGGURC
My GPT 0-5 with Lantern ft. Thopter Combo (BUG Lantern)
Round 1 - RG Tron 0-2
This was practically one of my only really good games of the whole day. Game 1 I had a very hard lock on him, but he manged to remove my needle using a World Breaker and ended up beating me down in game 1.
Game 2 was heavily in my side up until the end in which I had to near constant loop lantern in order to prevent my opponent from drawing any bombs. Eventually, he did, and the game was over. Good to note though that in this match, I got out the thopter combo, but wasn't able to use it for very long as it got removed (I think this was by Ugin?)
Round 2 - RG Tron 0-2
I know. Same deck right after I just lost to it. Figured this would be a rough day for me at this point but tried my best game 1, and assembled a pretty hard lock on the board, up until he found his 1 of ugin and slammed it to get rid of all of my thopter tokens (which is what I nearly won with, I believe he was nearly dead at this point) and then he managed to stabilize off of Ugin while I was frantically digging for a pithing needle to stop him.
Game 2 was heavily in his favor as his sideboard was tailored to beat me (this is a guy I test against often)
Round 3 - Grixis Control 1-2
Game 1 I managed to get a lock and ended up beating him down insanely fast with thopter combo. Was very proud to see the combo work for once throughout the day and felt good to get one win with it at this point.
Game 2 I think I sided a bit awkwardly expecting blood moons and didn't see any. It really made Nature's Claim out of the side very awkward, and he ended up killing my quickly by recurring bolts and such to my face while I couldn't seem to find bridge.
Game 3 I sided back in normal and left I believe 1 claim in just in case, and still ended up with garbage hands to start, so I felt a loss coming on quick, and the kolaghan's command + goblin dark dwellers solidified it.
Round 4 - Affinity 1-2
Game 1 I got stomped insanely hard because I found bridge, but wasn't able to empty my hand fast enough.
Game 2 I won this game off of Thopter Combo. I made more dudes than he had dudes so I could keep up blockers, and then make additional guys to swing back at him. It was pretty rude and it put me at a life total he couldn't possibly even kill me at.
Game 3 I had full lock in place outside of an Ornithopter that he had still as a 0/2. Only thing at this point that would have killed me was Arcbound Ravager, as I had the lock in place pretty heavily and was swinging agressively with my own creatures, but wasn't able to see his top card (no lantern in play). Before I solidify the win he ends up destroying my thopter foundry, and i ended up swinging out with my guys knowing that the only way he could beat me was with a top deck ravager. You can probably guess what happened.
Round 5 - Infect 0-2
Game 1 See game 1 of Affinity
Game 2 I solidified a lock in Thopter Combo as I was digging to try and find myself a bridge, but couldn't find it. I ended up recurring mox opal for like 10 turns knowing that if he didn't draw removal (I had codex shredders in play but no way to see the top card of his deck) I could always block the one creature he would end up swinging with. He top decks Creeping Corrosion eventually and I scoop.
I stayed in all rounds because I wanted to see what would have happened had I stayed even though I knew I was doing poorly. I ended up winning like, 2 of my games out of the many I played, and didn't feel like the combo was consistent enough or good enough in most situations. I also got stuck with the combo in hand and awkwardly couldn't play it in time before I got beat down, so that was a thing as well.
I honestly am just going to switch back to the Jund version of Lantern and stick with it. I think it's developed well and I feel most comfortable with it, by far. Sorry if this tiny write up isn't in great detail, as the GPT was last weekend and it's been a little while since I played the games to remember perfect details.
So wish me luck. Competing in states tomorrow. Got a chance to test with warping wail. Really like it. Fetchable with stirrings and it either answers something important or it helps empty the hand. All in all I'm very pleased.
I went 3-1 at my LGS with thopther/sword combo. Played against 2 Jund, jeskai aggro, some kind of bant through the breach. Lost to the 2nd Jund, I kept a medicore hand g1 and g2, his opening hand was like 2 ancient grudges, abrupt decay, thoughtseize, and 2 lands. He resolved a lotv and drew into 2 more abrupt decays.
Anyhow,at times the increased ccmc caused some issues with activing my mox opal when I kept a one lander. And other issues where the drawing the pieces didn't help the board state.
After testing Thopter/Sword online I believe the combo has some promise. Even without Sword, Thopter by itself can turn our plentiful mill rocks into blockers in the absence of bridge, and I have won several first games I would not have otherwise with thopters buying time or outright winning without bridge.
The key problems are that the large number of 2-costs clutters our hands when we're trying to set a bridge, and that the combo is very vulnerable to artifact hate that will inevitably be sideboarded against us. In many games I've found that the combo is much less effective game 2 as a result.
I'm firmly of the opinion now that the combo has no place in game 2, but rather helps us lock down game 1, only to be replaced afterwards by whatever sideboard cards we need, from spellskites to welding jars to cages and leylines, that will help us survive the following games while pushing to victory with the original lantern bridge plan.
Moreover, to make the combo effective you need to also include cards that let you draw/discard to get rid of any instances where you have spare pieces in your hand. Faithless looting does this well, letting you replace combo pieces with potentially more useful cards. Despite the possible problems of having a fourth color in the deck, I found replacing one forest and one darkslick shores with a mountain and blackcleave cliffs solves this;with the glimmervoids and opals I always have a red mana source by the time I need to use it. This also lets us put pyroclasm in the sideboard.
Isn't it funny that red gets better card filtering than blue does?
I wouldn't call it better, it really depends on the deck.
Red gets decent filtering, but only at the cost of discarding for the most part.
Additionally Red cantrips at best.
E.g. Faithless Looting digs you 2 cards deep, at the cost of 3 cards (the Looting and the 2 you discard).
In comparison, Sleight of Hand digs just as deep, but comes away with card parity as you replace it with another card.
(And yes, you can flash back Looting, but at that point you're looking at more than 1 mana invested and for 3 mana you can just play Counsel of the Soratami or so)
Now, as soon as you make use of the discarded cards in a way, Red cantrips and filtering become actually quite potent, but as with any card, that differs from deck to deck.
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Attempting to learn the ins and outs of this deck and eventually build it.. One question, when is it correct to mill yourself? Do you want to mill yourself blindly in search of a missing piece, or do you wait until you have Lantern out so that you can see your top card? Thanks in advance.
Just got second in a trial. Lost to junk in the finals. After the loss I added a quiet disrepair in the board. Overall the deck performed well though. Played chord and scapeshift, then had a bye into the finals.
Edit: double stony into creeping corrosion is what got me g3. I will say that I survived a lily ultimate g1 though.
Personally, I don't blind mill myself unless I have a way to get whatever I'm looking for. Usually, this is with Academy Ruins either in my hand or on the field.
I like Faithless Looting based solely on the flashback ability. I don't see it having a place in this deck anymore, but in the past I did love the ability to ditch high costed cards or lands while also digging for the cards I needed.
I take your point that Blue doesn't get card disadvantage (and I know this isn't the forum for flavor) but the fact that blue's best 1 cmc card filter spell is not much better than red's (never mind green's *ahem*ancient stirrings) is for me a huge distortion of the color pie
Red's cards aren't better, it's just that all of the REALLY good blue stuff has been banned. Ponder, Treasure Cruise, and Preordain are all blue options that were so much better that no one gets to play with them anymore. Personally, I'm hoping the next set gives us a 1 mana Taigam's Scheming that only checks two cards down, but investigates. Honestly, any one mana spell with investigate would probably be worth considering. It'd get the card out of hand, improve draws, work with Aether Grid, pretty much everything you'd want a non-lock piece to do in this deck. But I digress...
Has Gut Shot been considered for the sideboard? It does work against mana dorks and infect (not to mention Delver, Young Pyromancer, Pestermite, and Phyrexian Revoker) , and the phyrexian mana cost means it's presence is unlikely to be an issue with bridge. It COULD also be used to jump-start a set of Sun Droplets, if you're into that kind of thing.
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MODERN – LANTERN (aka Fateseal or Barbershop)
Primer – Subreddit – Facebook – Decklist – Gameplay
Thnkr's Content: Gameplay – Datasheet
Each eye sees a different possibility for tomorrow.
CWUBBCCCCCCCBGBGBGCCCCCCCGGURC
Infernal tutor just seems better. Doesn't have the requirement of needing blue mana and needing to either delay popping it for a turn and needing to draw and discard a useless artifact. By the time your drawing infernal tutor your already hellbent and it will grab any answer you need. Intuition doesn't have that luxury.
Have tutor in hand and I need a surgical as an answer? Pick that up. Need a bridge and have 5 mana? Tutor it up and play it the same turn. Infernal tutor all around seems alot better and can basically fetch anything. There is also alot more black mana in the deck and doesn't requiring a 3rd mana to use.
Got a spreadsheet going to track winrates by deck and overall archetype (and it includes a metagame breakdown for what I've played).
Also had a first yesterday - one of my opponents was excited to play against me since he had never played against Lantern before and thought the deck was cool. Sadly he was on burn and beat me before I got to do much, but hey, still nice to not get salt.
I will also give queit disrepair a try!
I'm switching back to the original version again, it feels so much more comfortable and less clunky with the amount of 2 drops.
If anyone has questions about what I went up against/etc. feel free to reply to this post so I get a notification and can do a bit of an update.
FULL TIME FAERIES
Selvala
MODERN – LANTERN (aka Fateseal or Barbershop)
Primer – Subreddit – Facebook – Decklist – Gameplay
Thnkr's Content: Gameplay – Datasheet
Each eye sees a different possibility for tomorrow.
CWUBBCCCCCCCBGBGBGCCCCCCCGGURC
Round 1 - RG Tron 0-2
This was practically one of my only really good games of the whole day. Game 1 I had a very hard lock on him, but he manged to remove my needle using a World Breaker and ended up beating me down in game 1.
Game 2 was heavily in my side up until the end in which I had to near constant loop lantern in order to prevent my opponent from drawing any bombs. Eventually, he did, and the game was over. Good to note though that in this match, I got out the thopter combo, but wasn't able to use it for very long as it got removed (I think this was by Ugin?)
Round 2 - RG Tron 0-2
I know. Same deck right after I just lost to it. Figured this would be a rough day for me at this point but tried my best game 1, and assembled a pretty hard lock on the board, up until he found his 1 of ugin and slammed it to get rid of all of my thopter tokens (which is what I nearly won with, I believe he was nearly dead at this point) and then he managed to stabilize off of Ugin while I was frantically digging for a pithing needle to stop him.
Game 2 was heavily in his favor as his sideboard was tailored to beat me (this is a guy I test against often)
Round 3 - Grixis Control 1-2
Game 1 I managed to get a lock and ended up beating him down insanely fast with thopter combo. Was very proud to see the combo work for once throughout the day and felt good to get one win with it at this point.
Game 2 I think I sided a bit awkwardly expecting blood moons and didn't see any. It really made Nature's Claim out of the side very awkward, and he ended up killing my quickly by recurring bolts and such to my face while I couldn't seem to find bridge.
Game 3 I sided back in normal and left I believe 1 claim in just in case, and still ended up with garbage hands to start, so I felt a loss coming on quick, and the kolaghan's command + goblin dark dwellers solidified it.
Round 4 - Affinity 1-2
Game 1 I got stomped insanely hard because I found bridge, but wasn't able to empty my hand fast enough.
Game 2 I won this game off of Thopter Combo. I made more dudes than he had dudes so I could keep up blockers, and then make additional guys to swing back at him. It was pretty rude and it put me at a life total he couldn't possibly even kill me at.
Game 3 I had full lock in place outside of an Ornithopter that he had still as a 0/2. Only thing at this point that would have killed me was Arcbound Ravager, as I had the lock in place pretty heavily and was swinging agressively with my own creatures, but wasn't able to see his top card (no lantern in play). Before I solidify the win he ends up destroying my thopter foundry, and i ended up swinging out with my guys knowing that the only way he could beat me was with a top deck ravager. You can probably guess what happened.
Round 5 - Infect 0-2
Game 1 See game 1 of Affinity
Game 2 I solidified a lock in Thopter Combo as I was digging to try and find myself a bridge, but couldn't find it. I ended up recurring mox opal for like 10 turns knowing that if he didn't draw removal (I had codex shredders in play but no way to see the top card of his deck) I could always block the one creature he would end up swinging with. He top decks Creeping Corrosion eventually and I scoop.
I stayed in all rounds because I wanted to see what would have happened had I stayed even though I knew I was doing poorly. I ended up winning like, 2 of my games out of the many I played, and didn't feel like the combo was consistent enough or good enough in most situations. I also got stuck with the combo in hand and awkwardly couldn't play it in time before I got beat down, so that was a thing as well.
I honestly am just going to switch back to the Jund version of Lantern and stick with it. I think it's developed well and I feel most comfortable with it, by far. Sorry if this tiny write up isn't in great detail, as the GPT was last weekend and it's been a little while since I played the games to remember perfect details.
FULL TIME FAERIES
Selvala
Safe to say, I'll be sticking with the original build of Lantern. Wasn't a fan of the combo at all.
Anyhow,at times the increased ccmc caused some issues with activing my mox opal when I kept a one lander. And other issues where the drawing the pieces didn't help the board state.
The key problems are that the large number of 2-costs clutters our hands when we're trying to set a bridge, and that the combo is very vulnerable to artifact hate that will inevitably be sideboarded against us. In many games I've found that the combo is much less effective game 2 as a result.
I'm firmly of the opinion now that the combo has no place in game 2, but rather helps us lock down game 1, only to be replaced afterwards by whatever sideboard cards we need, from spellskites to welding jars to cages and leylines, that will help us survive the following games while pushing to victory with the original lantern bridge plan.
Moreover, to make the combo effective you need to also include cards that let you draw/discard to get rid of any instances where you have spare pieces in your hand. Faithless looting does this well, letting you replace combo pieces with potentially more useful cards. Despite the possible problems of having a fourth color in the deck, I found replacing one forest and one darkslick shores with a mountain and blackcleave cliffs solves this;with the glimmervoids and opals I always have a red mana source by the time I need to use it. This also lets us put pyroclasm in the sideboard.
This was all done with 2 thopter and 2 swords.
I wouldn't call it better, it really depends on the deck.
Red gets decent filtering, but only at the cost of discarding for the most part.
Additionally Red cantrips at best.
E.g. Faithless Looting digs you 2 cards deep, at the cost of 3 cards (the Looting and the 2 you discard).
In comparison, Sleight of Hand digs just as deep, but comes away with card parity as you replace it with another card.
(And yes, you can flash back Looting, but at that point you're looking at more than 1 mana invested and for 3 mana you can just play Counsel of the Soratami or so)
Now, as soon as you make use of the discarded cards in a way, Red cantrips and filtering become actually quite potent, but as with any card, that differs from deck to deck.
Standard infinite combos giving you a headache and the opponent always has Force of Will?
No matter the issue, there is one simple trick to solve all of your Magic problems!!
~~~To get in on the secret to eternal luck, skill and victory, just follow this link!!~~~
BGX Midrange
URX Control
Edit: double stony into creeping corrosion is what got me g3. I will say that I survived a lily ultimate g1 though.
I like Faithless Looting based solely on the flashback ability. I don't see it having a place in this deck anymore, but in the past I did love the ability to ditch high costed cards or lands while also digging for the cards I needed.
Now though? Now I'm going to run Serum Visions or Gitaxian Probe over anything else if I want more digging power. This is after maximizing Ancient Stirrings.
u/Anon_Amarth - Fun as a zero sum game: If my opponent is having none of it, then by extension I must be having all of it.
Current Top Control Decklist
Cockatrice: Spage
Red's cards aren't better, it's just that all of the REALLY good blue stuff has been banned. Ponder, Treasure Cruise, and Preordain are all blue options that were so much better that no one gets to play with them anymore. Personally, I'm hoping the next set gives us a 1 mana Taigam's Scheming that only checks two cards down, but investigates. Honestly, any one mana spell with investigate would probably be worth considering. It'd get the card out of hand, improve draws, work with Aether Grid, pretty much everything you'd want a non-lock piece to do in this deck. But I digress...
Has Gut Shot been considered for the sideboard? It does work against mana dorks and infect (not to mention Delver, Young Pyromancer, Pestermite, and Phyrexian Revoker) , and the phyrexian mana cost means it's presence is unlikely to be an issue with bridge. It COULD also be used to jump-start a set of Sun Droplets, if you're into that kind of thing.
My Friend Code is: 0146-9645-8893