MTG Salvation

I had a few thoughts about some of the trends in that sheet.
1) Pyxis of pandemonium and Ghoulcaller's Bell are better than codex shredder? There may be more opportunities to mill both players profitably than there are to mill one. I've always felt better milling one library at a time but I often want to mill both. However, I haven't been keeping track of the times I've had one mill rock and wanted to mill one library vs both. Does anyone have data on this? Additionally Pyxis and Bell are resilient to the popular SB card Leyline of Sanctity which means an opening hand of pyxis/bell can mill an otherwise weak opponent. Pyxis and Bell are better for their ability to play through more hate. Codex is great for recursion but not in the opening hand.

2) Mox opal is bad? Mox opal is great for enabling fast starts and emptying your hand. It's also an artifact which means post-board it increases your vulnerability to hate. Are there numbers for mox opal in game 1 vs game 2/3? Whir may have also it worse comparatively. Any artifact can add mana to whir even if only mox can tap for the colored part of the cost. Mox may be underperforming due to increasing the decks vulnerability to SB hate and not offering the versatility of other artifacts that can also tap for whir.

3) CB > IoK > TS and Duress. As lantern's premier early game interaction the more early game focused the discard is the better it performs. CB is 2 mana but can do three modes for 2 mana. IoK is painless and hits most of the big targets. TS's enhanced target range doesn't seem to be worth the extra pain. Duress's inability to creature seems to be less of a downside than the 2 life loss surprisingly.

@Skitzafreak, The data shows that hand would still be overall good. If we use all of the data points, it has the following characteristics and the associated win correlations:

Lantern in opener: +1.62%
Bauble scry hand (hand in which we have a Bauble and a mill rock to get a "scry" effect and get to dig deeper): + 0.66%
1 Lantern/1 rock hand: -0.03%
Explosive hand (hand in which Opal gives us mana on turn one): -0.24%
Mishra's Bauble: +0.33%
Codex Shredder: -1.21%
Glimmervoid: +1.62%
Spire of Industry: +0.86%
Botanical Sanctum: +0.44%
Mox Opal: -0.55%
3 lands not counting Opal: +0.32%
EDIT: 4 lands counting Opal: -0.01%

Now, this isn't perfect or complete, but that gives us a +3.82 +3.81 overall, weighted for sample size. Assuming the matchup is a 50% (which they rarely are), we are favored to win with this hand. Which kind of makes sense if we think about it. We have a single-rock lock starting on turn one. We have immediate control over the opponent's topdecks, and our own. We have the three blue mana we need, so drawing either a Bridge or a Whir will give us Bridge by turn three.

@Vocquat, I have a hypothesis about that, and it has a lot to do with statistics. If we can establish a Lantern and a single rock in play:

- If the opponent has a dead card on top and we have a dead card on top, we want to mill ourselves to dig deeper to more mill rocks to solidify the lock, get Bridge, get Needle, etc.

- If the opponent has a dead card on top and we have a live card on top, we want to do nothing.

- If the opponent has a live card on top and we have a dead card on top, we want to mill us both.

- If the opponent has a live card on top and we have a live card on top, we want to just mill them.

So it comes down to what is most likely? If we don't have a Bridge/Needle/etc. to answer current threats, then we absolutely want to mill ourselves to get there. If we do, we still want to mill ourselves to get to more mill rocks to keep the lock solid or make it more solid and finish the game faster. If we don't, and the opponent has a good card on top, we want to mill us both to get to that Bridge, etc., but then what are the chances of them having a threat we have to mill and we have that card we absolutely need on top? Not very likely. What are the chances they have a card we need to mill and we have a card we don't necessarily need on top? Much more likely. Thus, in most cases, we want to mill both in the cases we do want to mill them. EDIT: Added "them".

Another reason could be due to cards like Leyline of Sanctity. Bell gets around these cards, as does Pyxis (which also scores much better than Shredder).

EDIT: Someone asked me on the spreadsheet (they were anonymous) if I thought that the new norm would be 3 Opals vice 4, due to the numbers. I don't know. Hell, Brutality far outperforms Thoughtseize but the more known Lantern pilots are still sticking with Thoughtseize. Personally, I will be at least testing 3 Opals. What everyone else wants to test/play will be up to them

EDIT 2: To expound on the opening hand of Lantern of Insight, Codex Shredder, Mishra's Bauble, Mox Opal, Glimmervoid, Botanical Sanctum, Spire of Industry, we have what I think is most important about analyzing this hand. That is that, for the opponent to win, they have to meet certain criteria. They must have sufficient threats to put us on a clock. They must also have answers for once we assemble the lock, or answers that prevent us from assembling the lock. They must also have sufficient mana to cast those necessary cards. With this hand, we immediately have a relatively good draw-lock. Thus, they must hope to have at least two of the three criteria in their opening hand, and that the third somehow slips through our lock. And the clock that they do have, assuming they have one, must be sufficient in that we don't live long enough to draw/dig to the cards we need to solidify the lock or re-establish it if they somehow disrupt it. That's quite a lot of hoops to jump through.

So I recorded a Competitive League on MTGO with me testing out Mastermind's Acquisition. I'm debating whether or not to upload the videos since I did completely horribly, but I might if people are interested in seeing me gain an increasingly higher salt level.

Heck ya I love watching Lantern videos

Quote from thnkr »

Heck ya I love watching Lantern videos

Even when the person playing the deck goes 0-5 in a League with the deck?

Yep. There's always something new to learn from others.

Alrighty, I will upload them when I get home from my classes.

I threw together a sort of deck tech as well going over the changes to my list before I started the League. I don't seem to get many viewers on those videos, so I'd appreciate any criticism of them. Am I not doing them well? Should I just not do them at all? Do I ramble way too much? Thank kind *****.

Alright, the videos are uploaded, here is a link to the playlist. I think the audio may have been a little too low, let me know. I'll try and figure out what the issue was for my next set of videos.

Dude I would love to take a look! I'll do so when I get a chance.

Also a bit of an update: https://redd.it/7suslv

Quote from crexalbo »

Dude I would love to take a look! I'll do so when I get a chance.

Also a bit of an update: https://redd.it/7suslv

I really, and I mean REALLY like the look of your BG List crexalbo. I've been wanting to go back and test out BG again for a while, since at the very least it may give me a new found appreciation for Whir Also I want an excuse to run those sexy as hell MTGO Promo Spellskites. Damn do they look beautiful. My biggest issue is that what I'd need on MTGO to throw that list together would cost me about $100 or so, which is not fun T__T

Unfortunately because of my school schedule, in order to make money this semester I have to work on the only days during the week stores in my area run Modern tournament...so...I guess I'll have to fork over the money onto MTGO to do some testing. I'd be happy to do some more recording and present the results to everyone.

Now then, onto the random questions I have concerning the decklist:

1) Why split the multi lands into 3 Glimmervoid and 2 Spire of Industry? Is this a "These are all I have" situation? Because I feel 4/1 would probably work out better.

2) Only 7 discard spells feels a little light, specifically for a version of the deck that doesn't have Whir to help tutor for the cards you need. Do you think your flex slot could be better served as an 8th discard spell?

3) I understand your point on running the Island since it helps you with Academy Ruins, but couldn't the land slot be better served as a Botanical Sanctum since that also helps you cast more spells in the deck? If an opponent plays a Blood Moon you can't use Academy Ruins anyway.

4) Glad you're enjoying Mindshrieker, it's been something I definitely want to jump on myself. Which match-ups do you find it most useful against? You mentioned using it against Tron, and I can definitely see it being great against them, but is there anything else it seems great against?

Finally, I hope you enjoy the videos, feel free to give me any comments/criticisms either here or in the video comments (I don't get enough viewers that I am swamped with comment notifications :P)

1) I have the fourth Glimmervoid, but I get super nervous with GV when I only have one or two artifacts in post-board games because I don't want to be blown out. It's highly likely this fear is irrational though... I will go to a 4/1 split and see how that performs.

2) I didn't even think of that. I looooove having a playset of IoK in the deck and I will switch that over right away.

3) It seems like my choice here is between Island, a fastland, the second Spire, and Ghost Quarter. If I were to use a fastland, it would probably be Darkslick Shores just because Black on T1 is important (especially since I can board into 8 T1 discard spells!). I will be aware of the times where a basic Island screws me versus when it is helpful (GQ mostly) and report back on that one.

4) Mindshrieker is great against any deck that might run Stony, any deck that can overwhelm us with threat quality or quantity, as well as any deck with a large number of cantrips. It's not so good against Bolt decks because it just dies. For example, I would bring it in against GDS, Gx Tron, Hatebears, UW Control, Rock, and maybe Eldrazi Tron. I really love Mindshrieker because it serves as both a multi-Shredder and as a Tarmogoyf when needed.

All fair points. I'll try out the deck tonight if I have time after I get my work done. Will record it to so you can criticize the crap out of my play ability

Hey just popping in to say great job guys! I really like the feel of the current decklist.

Hey all, just finished assembling a stock list for the whir build, I've been having a blast! Though as a new pilot, I really need some advice on a few things. Here's my 60 so far



So a few questions on the build I experienced after testing and play:
1. I noticed that blue midrange and control decks started running Search for Azcanta in their main, and I want to add some Ghost Quarters into my land mix, but I don't know what to cut since the UUU for Whir is intensive. How many should I add and what should I cut?
2. Is 4 each of Mishra's Bauble and Mox Opal necessary or should I shave one each for additional flex slots? If so what's the next best addition to the build?

For Sideboarding advice:
1. What matchups do I side in Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas? Is 3 enough from the sideboard or should 2 be enough? Been debating adding another Leyline of Sanctity instead of the third Tezzeret
2. Is Surgical Extraction in the sideboard a good addition or should it be Collective Brutality? I mostly added that in for Combo matchups
3. What matchups do I side in Search for Azcanta? Midrange and Control? If so which specific decks?

In terms of piloting:
1. I understand that blind-milling is better on BGx builds, as a Noxious Revival helps bring back a needed piece. Should I also blind-mill with this build? If so then what scenarios? I have this fear that blind-milling would discard my lock pieces and screw me over.

As for results, well I don't have much to show for yet. Went 2-4 in a tourney, made misplays that seasoned lantern players wouldn't do, and some matchups weren't favorable either.

Round 1: Burn 0-2
G1 - Kept a normal hand, 2 lands, an ancient stirrings, and thoughtseize I think. He powers out goblin guide into swiftspear, then i take a burn spell from his hand since i drew a bridge. He slams down an Eidolon of the Great Revel and that was downhill from there

-3 Thoughtseize, -1 Grafdigger's Cage, -1 Mishra's Bauble
+2 Leyline of Sanctity, +2 Welding Jar, +1 Abrupt Decay

G2 - Slow start for him, I Inquisition his Eidolon, then next turn play a codex shredder and lantern. I see his topdeck an eidolon, so i mill it on his upkeep. there was an Eidolon under that, so i had to force shuffle with Lantern. He draws and slams down an Eidolon. What are the chances haha

Round 2: Burn 0-2
G1 - Different pilot, same deck. Mulled to 5, no Leyline. Slammed a bridge too late and he burned me out.

-3 Thoughtseize, -1 Grafdigger's Cage, -1 Mishra's Bauble
+2 Leyline of Sanctity, +2 Welding Jar, +1 Abrupt Decay

G2 - Slower matchup, was slowly establishing the lock. I play a Codex shredder and a glimmervoid, he endsteps- Shattering Sprees it, and i am now a turn down. In the end he landed a Grim Lavamancer, and I didn't have outs for it.

At this point I was just playing to understand how to pilot better, and have fun

Round 3: Jeskai Control 0-2
G1 - Decent hand for me, he played draw-go for a few turns. Used discard on him, took his logic knot and saw he had Torrential Gearhulk and a Cryptic. He plays Torrential to counter the first bridge I play, and I manage to sneak in a Whir for another Bridge. He burns me with bolt and electorlyze, and I couldn't find a Whir or a Grafdigger's cage. He manages to draw a cryptic command and bounce my bridge for lethal with the Gearhulk and a Snapcaster

-1 Pithing Needle, 1 Ghoulcaller's Bell, -1 Mishra's Bauble,
+2 Leyline of Sanctity, + 1 Grafdigger's Cage

G2 - Established a soft-lock with Lantern and Codex. Milled a Wear//Tear of the top, saw an Engineered Explosives. Went derp and let him draw it, he wrecked my board. Miscounted his mana and thought he couldnt crack it when he put it down. True misplay, my bad.

Round 4: Abzan Midrange 0-2
G1 - He Inquisitioned away my Ensnaring Bridge, and whacked me with Scavenging Ooze over a few turns. Had Lantern and a Shredder online, was milling myself into good draws, but no bridge or Whir. Managed to hit his Ooze with a Decay, but he slammed down a Rhino and he killed me with that and a Treetop Village

-4 Inquisition of Kozilek, -3 Thoughtseize, -1 Mishra's Bauble
+2 Welding Jar, +1 Pithing Needle, + 2 Abrupt Decay, +3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas

G2 - Managed to bring a soft lock online with 1 bridge, shredder and lantern, but without discard in hand i didn't know what was in his starting draw. He uses Spyglass on my Welding Jar, and then decays + surgical's my bridge. I had a Tezzeret in hand, and I was going to draw into a land to cast him, but again, Thoughtseize + Surgical. It was GG from there. Turns out he had a lantern pilot friend so he really knew what he was doing haha

Round 5: ??? Opponent probably dropped. I count this as a spiritual win haha. Anyway I got my friend who pilots Abzan to help me learn how to fight his matchups. Very informative.

Round 6: Mono-Grean Stompy
G1 - I was originally confused as to what I was fighting, but two experiment ones and a rancor sealed it. Got beat down due to a slow hand and lethal 10 damage with their treetop village

- 3 Thoughtseize, -1 Mishra's bauble, -1 Pithing Needle, -1 Grafdigger's Cage
+3 Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas, +2 Welding Jar, +1 Abrupt Decay

G2 - Quick lock in play finally, got down to 8 health before i started milling them out. They conceded after I milled a Creeping Corrosion.
G3 - They were land locked at one, and i established a soft lock with Lantern and Shredder, and kept them off of lands until i Had 2 Bridges and a Welding Jar. Milled them out until they got frustrated and conceded. I thought you guys were joking about that actually happening.

Any critique on my sideboarding and play would be appreciated. I really love this deck. It's a breath of fresh air from Affinity.

@soysaucedude, Hi, and welcome to the community!

For my take on your answers:

I noticed that blue midrange and control decks started running Search for Azcanta in their main, and I want to add some Ghost Quarters into my land mix, but I don't know what to cut since the UUU for Whir is intensive. How many should I add and what should I cut?

I don't know that running one Ghost Quarter is going to be sufficient to really matter against Azcanta. I actually played a few games yesterday against UW Control at my LGS, and found that Pithing Needle worked just fine in shutting off Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin. The mill rocks worked fine in neutralizing the "scry" ability that Search for Azcanta provided. I normally just make them discard the card if at all possible before it comes to that, though. If you do decide to try to use Ghost Quarter as an answer, the problem becomes drawing it in sufficient time to answer it, and the possibility of them just flipping another.

Is 4 each of Mishra's Bauble and Mox Opal necessary or should I shave one each for additional flex slots? If so what's the next best addition to the build?

I prefer 4 Bauble and 3 Opal. My reasoning is based on data from the spreadsheet. Opals don't seem to be very good correlatives with positive win percentages (particularly in multiples), while Bauble seems to be decent according to the numbers. I simply added another land in place of the Opal I took out, a River of Tears (I already run 4 Darkslick Shores). My reasoning for that land is to increase the number of hands that I have access to black for discard and blue for Whir. I have seen some lists that eschew some number of Baubles, and those lists seem to perform better in the mirrors. I personally like what the numbers show for Bauble, and I figure the mirrors aren't something I want to tweak my entire list to face otherwise.

What matchups do I side in Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas? Is 3 enough from the sideboard or should 2 be enough? Been debating adding another Leyline of Sanctity instead of the third Tezzeret

I personally run zero Tezzeret, so I'm not a good source of information for this.

Is Surgical Extraction in the sideboard a good addition or should it be Collective Brutality? I mostly added that in for Combo matchups

I prefer Collective Brutality, as it's versatility allows it to work amazingly well in multiple matchups, whereas Surgical is very good in specific matchups alone. I feel like I get more mileage out of Brutality.

What matchups do I side in Search for Azcanta? Midrange and Control? If so which specific decks?

I run zero Search for Azcanta, so I can't help you with this one, either.

I understand that blind-milling is better on BGx builds, as a Noxious Revival helps bring back a needed piece. Should I also blind-mill with this build? If so then what scenarios? I have this fear that blind-milling would discard my lock pieces and screw me over.

Even in the BGx build I wasn't a fan of just blind-milling. It's extremely matchup and situationally dependent. Do you really want to just blind-mill without considering whether you're feeding a Goyf to attack you for more, or going to just have it all undone by a Scavenging Ooze? Or, against Burn, do we really want to risk blind-milling our only maindeck Witchbane Orb? If we run Whir, we can still get it out by any copy of Whir (or just drawing it), but if we mill it, our only chance of getting it back is by sacrificing a lock piece or hoping to draw our non-tutorable Academy Ruins (if we don't accidentally mill that, too). Same goes with our maindeck Grafdigger's Cage against decks like Vizier Combo, Storm, etc.

For your matchups:

Those Burn matchups are a big reason, along with cold hard data, that I'm a big advocate of running at least two Collective Brutality in the main. I notice that you say in game one of match two you mulligan to five and see no Leyline. It's game one, and I don't see a Leyline in your main?

For that Jeskai Control match, I would have taken the Cryptic. They can try to flash it back with Gearhulk, but we have an answer to that. The only card that you have that answers Cryptic is Thoughtseize, whereas Inquisition of Kozilek could have answered Logic Knot and Cage answers Gearhulk's flashback and Bridge answers Gearhulk's power. You run three Thoughtseize, so that means that you had to hope to draw one of your remaining two Thoughtseize to get that Cryptic, or die. You're already aware of your mistake with Engineered Explosives. I normally don't side in Leylines in this matchup, as Cage usually shuts them off of being able to burn us out. The maindeck Witchbane Orb is often enough, in my experience.

In the Abzan match, I always side in Leylines here. Those discard spells and Lilianas are rough otherwise. I've personally found that cards like Magus of the Moat and Padeem, Consul of Innovation are very good here.

I hope some of this helps, and hope you continue to enjoy playing it! It does get rough sometimes, especially at the beginning when it's most difficult to get the hang of everything.

@soysaucedude

I've only ever run one Tezz in the side. It's a card I do not want to see in my opener. Similar to any other 4cmc card sans Leyline. But, I've always liked Surgical as SB tech. It's wonderful if you have it at the right time. I'm still not sold on Searches but.. I haven't had a lot of time to test it.

I run a very similar list to Thinkr (mad props sir!). I've been trying out a mainboard Lost Legacy instead of a 7th discard spell and have liked my results. (3 IoKs, 2 Thoughts, 1 CB)

I haven't played modern much lately, which translates into the fact that I haven't gotten a chance to try out the new Tezz AoB SB tech in Lantern.

However I've been the most avid Tezzerator player since basically, well forever so I can give a bit of input based upon my knowledge of the specific card utility vs popular matchups. So I think Tezzeret shines in three situations :

A. Against decks that are trying to 1-for-1 you into submission. Stabilize with a Tezz on board against Jund, Grixis Shadow or UWR Control and ride the card advantage train to victory. 8-Rack too, huh. In these match-ups, I want all the Tezzes I can afford. It can certainly win you a couple of games against Abzan midrange too, but Lingering Souls make defending him pretty awkward at times to I wouldn't bank everything on him in this specific match-up.

B. In match-ups where you need to close the game quick, because it could be over for you fast. This is G-Tron for sure, Storm perhaps -- if Lantern can afford the slots, unsure if this is correct. But the point stands. Ad Nauseam and other combos. 5/5 army beatdown kills people unexpectedly. So does giant drain life after just a turn. All the Tezzes, here too.

C. To win around Stony Silence and/or board stalls where they could break the Bridge. This is against the white decks, Taxes, CoCo decks. They think they kill your gameplan with a Stony? Well, blow them away into new knowledge zone within just a turn time. Some number of Tezz here can be correct IMO.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I am extremely excited for the Modern Pro Tour. I know Piotr Glogowski (kanister) will be piloting Lantern Control, so I'll be updating this post with his results as the tournament goes on. As opposed to spamming the thread with a post every hour

Current Result: 6-2 We're in Day 2!!

Round 1: (Draft) 2-0 VS Sean Inoue [US]
Round 2: (Draft) 2-0 VS Zhijian Yang [SG]
Round 3: (Draft) 0-2 VS Javier Dominguez [ES]
Round 4: (Modern) 2-1 VS James Stevenson [CA]
Round 5: (Modern) 2-0 VS Kazuaki Fujimura [JP]
Round 6: (Modern) 2-0 VS Philipp Kriegger [DE]
Round 7: (Modern) 1-2 VS Paul Rietzl [US]
Round 8: (Modern) 2-0 VS Nathaniel Smith [US]

I'm excited to hear a bunch of people cry that Lantern's going to take over and needs something banned and then <crickets>.

Sam Black alluded to some spice in his lantern deck. Does anyone know what it is? I'm assuming it's a SB 1 of. (Probably mindshrieker)