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.
1U
Sorcery
Choose one
Put a flood counter on target land. That land is an Island for as long as it has a flood counter on it.
Return target nonland permanent to it's owner's hand.
Draw a card.
Venser, Shaper Savant can repeatedly bounce a permanent or spell for 3UU. Target venser with his ability and then the token to bounce whatever you want.
Apprentice Necromancer can reanimate a bunch of creatures for the turn if you have enough mana.
Magus of the Will seems pretty bonkers since you don't mind exiling the tokens.
Stubborn Denial is the best performing right know I think.
Cryptic Command is good but so slow in the current environment. I still ranked high because it's often the draw that you want later.
Warping wail is great because you don't have to play blue to use it. It hits a number of important spells and can be removal on creatures already on the board.
Logic Knot is the closest thing to a UU counter there is but it's hard to play in multiples and sometimes isn't a hard enough counter.
Negate is relevant almost always but can't hit most threats which keeps it from being great.
Spell queller is a counter on a creature which now has a relevant creature type and it can abrupt decay which is hard to do.
Condescend gives you scries with that counter and scales slowly into the late game.
Dispel is usually a SB card but it does the job better than other counters do in the main board so I put it on the list.
Remand has felt a little weak recently when your opponent can just recast everything but it counters and digs and can be part of a storm combo.
Pact is the best free counter right now.
Any deck that can win vs 3 other decks has to be one that is at a much higher power level than the other decks or played by a much better player. What constitutes a much higher power level depends on what your opponents are playing. If their decks aren't too crazy something like Edric counters and flying men or TeferiPool could take on the table but it might take something even more broken to beat three decks depending on what they are.
The nature of a FFA is that not ending up in a fight vs a greater number of players is a skill, if you choose to forgo that you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.
Aetherworks marvel can hit any card not just creatures. The big eldrazi are certainly the most game ending but boom/bust can also be hit and has a side that can be cast without aetherworks marvel and if you hit it it will probably let you fire the marvel next turn too.
Abrade could be a sideboard option if you want to be able to bring in more removal in some matchups and artifact destruction in another. I have no idea what decks might need to fix their matchups that way. It's relevant for the liquimetal coating decks since it can be removal before the deck can find coating.
What's the reason behind playing Funeral Charm, specially in multiples?
The only decks (tier 1 and 2) that care about its +2/-1 mode are Robots and Abzan/Counters/Elves CoCo.
Funeral charm is almost never dead and that is its main draw.
The +2/-1 mode can be used to to boost a mutavault to 4/1 which is 2 extra damage. It also hits any deck that plays a turn 1 mana dork. Removing small creatures can be very important to give time to destroy the opponents hand.
The swampwalk mode can make a mutavault or any creature you sideboard unblockable when combined with Urborg.
It does all this without decreasing the density of discard spells you run which is important for getting a person down start triggering the rack. Funeral Charm is also an instant so if someone has an empty hand you can funeral charm them in their draw step and force them to discard the card before they have a chance to play it.
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.
Anyone else messing around with new Gideon in 8Rack? Initial testing seems fun but win more. Supports plan B well, and can stabilize decently. Requires full white land base commitment, no colorless lands. Top heavy at 3cc, doesn't play well with Pox builds. Overall meh. IF you can get it online it feels pretty great, getting it online is an issue though. Meh.
I had the same feelings as you. Mostly he's too color intensive. If he was 1BB he would be great but giving up colorless lands and making pox more painful isn't really worth it.
Dark ritual would see play. The "philosophy" of modern hasn't changed. You still want the best chance to win and if you are playing to cheat out threats you play the best threats available. Cheating out a small creature is okay but why bother when you can lock a player out with turn 1 blood moon or chalice of the void. These are much harder to remove. The idea of using fast mana to cheat out risky threats is alive but nobody plays a riskier threat than they need to. Creatures that are smaller than griselbrand aren't usually worth the effort since you could griselbrand for the same effort.
Bone Picker doesn't much play because it doesn't stack up well. Turn 1 you're facing Goblin Guides and Nacatls that can trade without requiring an extra card. Turn 2 people are already dropping DS, TKS, and Delve creatures. Turn 3 you could be facing karn. For 2 cards AND 1 mana you would be getting a 3/2 that's almost immediately out classed.
Your hypothetical 3 mana for creatures only would probably see play. If you're cheating out a creature isn't X/4 at least the body will be smaller than your opponents a lot of the time so you care more about it having a really disruptive or game-winning ability. Hypnotic Specter could create card advantage eventually. Bone Picker cannot easily. I don't know what the threat of choice would be but it would depend on the color of the mana being created. Red mana might make a turn 1 Goblin Rabblemaster popular. Making a really big turn 2 would also be a good play.
"Is it worth spending two cards to get a substantial creature threat t1?" Yes griselbrand is a great turn 1 threat. The problem with this question is insisting it must be a creature threat. If you are cheating out a threat you want it to be resilient and right now the non-creature turn 1 threats that can be cheated out are more resilient and threatening. If a card was created that made it easier to ritual to cast a creature it would probably push it the other way.
Inverter of Truth has always worked out well for me as a big evasive creature with the upside of emptying your library of dead cards. It does require some way of selectively clearing your GY but it can be a big improvement in card quality. Cryptic Command can even bounce it multiple times to stop you from decking yourself if you aren't winning fast enough.
Eternal Scourge + Ongoing Investigation is slow but it gains you life, draws cards and makes blockers. Scourge is okay on it's own but Investigation needs you to be casting other creatures to work.
Pull from tomorrow seems nice for a deck with an emrakul, the aeons torn that it wants to recycle. Unfortunately, the main deck that I can think of wanting to do that is Nahiri and that's already in the colors for Sphinx's Revelation if you add blue.
Condescend just seems better than Censor. The fact that it's dead mode is cycling is better than the dead mode of condescend for 0 to scry doesn't seem like it outweighs the increased number of times that card is dead and not getting a scry 2 when you do counter a spell. It does seem nice for some kind of tempo deck where digging for a threat this turn instead of next turn might be important. Having played mana tithe not being able to interact with the first one drop on turn 2 is pretty feel bad.
I think people will actually explore playing MORE manlands since Fatal Push helps slow down the format.
Does my thinking make any sense? Or am I looking into it too deeply?
I was thinking the same thing, that decks would be more likely to play a manland in a slower format. CIPT isn't as crippling if the pressure on your mana is lessened in the first turns.
I could also see manlands going up in play since other threats are more likely to be removed and a back up threat might be necessary. Ideally it would be one more resilient to removal but the cost of adding another threat that isn't a mana source might be too much.
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.
Sorcery
Choose one
Put a flood counter on target land. That land is an Island for as long as it has a flood counter on it.
Return target nonland permanent to it's owner's hand.
Draw a card.
Apprentice Necromancer can reanimate a bunch of creatures for the turn if you have enough mana.
Magus of the Will seems pretty bonkers since you don't mind exiling the tokens.
2. Cryptic Command
3. Warping Wail
4. Logic Knot
5. Negate
6. Spell Queller
7. Condescend
8. Dispel
9. Remand
10. Pact of Negation
Stubborn Denial is the best performing right know I think.
Cryptic Command is good but so slow in the current environment. I still ranked high because it's often the draw that you want later.
Warping wail is great because you don't have to play blue to use it. It hits a number of important spells and can be removal on creatures already on the board.
Logic Knot is the closest thing to a UU counter there is but it's hard to play in multiples and sometimes isn't a hard enough counter.
Negate is relevant almost always but can't hit most threats which keeps it from being great.
Spell queller is a counter on a creature which now has a relevant creature type and it can abrupt decay which is hard to do.
Condescend gives you scries with that counter and scales slowly into the late game.
Dispel is usually a SB card but it does the job better than other counters do in the main board so I put it on the list.
Remand has felt a little weak recently when your opponent can just recast everything but it counters and digs and can be part of a storm combo.
Pact is the best free counter right now.
The nature of a FFA is that not ending up in a fight vs a greater number of players is a skill, if you choose to forgo that you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.
Funeral charm is almost never dead and that is its main draw.
The +2/-1 mode can be used to to boost a mutavault to 4/1 which is 2 extra damage. It also hits any deck that plays a turn 1 mana dork. Removing small creatures can be very important to give time to destroy the opponents hand.
The swampwalk mode can make a mutavault or any creature you sideboard unblockable when combined with Urborg.
It does all this without decreasing the density of discard spells you run which is important for getting a person down start triggering the rack. Funeral Charm is also an instant so if someone has an empty hand you can funeral charm them in their draw step and force them to discard the card before they have a chance to play it.
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.
I had the same feelings as you. Mostly he's too color intensive. If he was 1BB he would be great but giving up colorless lands and making pox more painful isn't really worth it.
Definitely a fun card though.
Bone Picker doesn't much play because it doesn't stack up well. Turn 1 you're facing Goblin Guides and Nacatls that can trade without requiring an extra card. Turn 2 people are already dropping DS, TKS, and Delve creatures. Turn 3 you could be facing karn. For 2 cards AND 1 mana you would be getting a 3/2 that's almost immediately out classed.
Your hypothetical 3 mana for creatures only would probably see play. If you're cheating out a creature isn't X/4 at least the body will be smaller than your opponents a lot of the time so you care more about it having a really disruptive or game-winning ability. Hypnotic Specter could create card advantage eventually. Bone Picker cannot easily. I don't know what the threat of choice would be but it would depend on the color of the mana being created. Red mana might make a turn 1 Goblin Rabblemaster popular. Making a really big turn 2 would also be a good play.
"Is it worth spending two cards to get a substantial creature threat t1?" Yes griselbrand is a great turn 1 threat. The problem with this question is insisting it must be a creature threat. If you are cheating out a threat you want it to be resilient and right now the non-creature turn 1 threats that can be cheated out are more resilient and threatening. If a card was created that made it easier to ritual to cast a creature it would probably push it the other way.
Eternal Scourge + Ongoing Investigation is slow but it gains you life, draws cards and makes blockers. Scourge is okay on it's own but Investigation needs you to be casting other creatures to work.
Condescend just seems better than Censor. The fact that it's dead mode is cycling is better than the dead mode of condescend for 0 to scry doesn't seem like it outweighs the increased number of times that card is dead and not getting a scry 2 when you do counter a spell. It does seem nice for some kind of tempo deck where digging for a threat this turn instead of next turn might be important. Having played mana tithe not being able to interact with the first one drop on turn 2 is pretty feel bad.
I was thinking the same thing, that decks would be more likely to play a manland in a slower format. CIPT isn't as crippling if the pressure on your mana is lessened in the first turns.
I could also see manlands going up in play since other threats are more likely to be removed and a back up threat might be necessary. Ideally it would be one more resilient to removal but the cost of adding another threat that isn't a mana source might be too much.