MTG Salvation

Quote from crexalbo »

Here's a nightmare for y'all: Gx Tron is currently playtesting with Planar Bridge. There's a threat that represents every threat in their deck.

I'd rather they have it honestly. I can Pithing Needle it, it will almost always take at least a turn to set up which means Ancient Grudge/Nature's Claim will kill it. And cards like Ulamog and Worldbreaker are on cast triggers which means putting them in play doesn't do anything with an Ensnaring Bridge on the battlefield. It's not great if they get it out, but we usually lose to Tron if they get to a spot where it would be good anyway.

I'm not too worried about that. Needles shut it down and mana disruption makes it difficult to use. If they have 8 mana and it, then it might as well be 8 mana and any other threat, in which case we're still in the same boat. Also note that if they try to put World Breaker or Newlamog into play with it, they don't get the cast trigger, which is our biggest problem with those cards anyways. With that card, a Needle on Karn or it stops it for the most part. They could go fetch up an Oblivion Stone, but that means they'd have to blow up their own Portal as well unless they spend a turn putting a counter on the Portal, which buys us even more time.

I would be very happy if they started running 1-ofs of their threats and four copies of that. It would be much easier to just Needle it and then mill their threats.

Hm, that's an excellent point! Their consistency engine can be rendered useless.

Thanks for the reply, I appreciate the information!

Quote from thnkr »

1 + 2. Spellskite is strictly better than Consulate Skygate. Heck, Wall of Tanglecord is strictly better than Consulate Skygate. Both of those have been mentioned in this thread, so the search would have revealed that.

3. I'd probably go with Spellskite over this, too, as Spellskite at least has the ability to shut off an Abrupt Decay/Maelstrom Pulse/etc, despite enabling creature removal. We don't really need much, if any, more mana fixing for the most part. A very big question here would be what to take out to make room for this card.

4. So this acts to either keep creatures at bay until we get our Bridge, or is worthless if we've already got the Bridge. Collective Brutality and Glint-Nest Crane both do this much better. Red removal doesn't get rid of our Brutality (and Brutality is loads better than this card versus Burn). Brutality also answers the 0-power creatures that would get under Bridge (except for the occasional Spellskite, but that's going to be a super corner case).

But, you are thinking outside the box, I can't fault you for that

Thanks thinkr.

Sheltering Ancient relying on creatures is the biggest hit against it, aside from your thoughts.

Just to clarify though, Skygate does have reach - so it's serving a very different function. (Not necessarily a function we need, though.)

Last thing, I never thought of the Caryatid fighting Skite for space. It's a two-mana Mox Opal that blocks, whereas Skite is a superior Welding Jar that dies to creature removal.

Finally got around to getting the last of those Tron videos (where I was testing post-board options) recorded, uploading now. Also uploading a few Dredge games, a Storm game, a Turns game, Soul Sisters match, budget Burn match, and a random video with a D&T brew using Sky Hussar as a draw engine

Cockatrice replays were broken, which also delayed the videos, but got that figured out. If anyone needs help getting it working so replays work again, just PM me or find me in the irc channel and I'll help ya out

I have been following this thread for some time and have just sat back and soaked all of the info in. I started playing lantern control about 6 months ago and hated the deck. With the release of inventors fair and collective brutality I pick the deck up as my primary deck. I have been running the stock b/g list with 1 spellbomb and 1 pyroclasm mb and a second pyroclasm sb.

I have went undefeated with the deck in the last 6 fnm I have played in. I have beat everything from infect, tron, burn, zoo, affinity, and just about every tier 1 deck in the current meta.

Now I have 2 questions for all of you about sideboards and this new land Spire of industry. I have dropped one of my grove of the burnwellows to make room for 1 to try it out "I can never seem to find anyone willing to actually test vs the deck" so I have 0 data to see if its good or not.

as far as sideboarding goes I want to try 2 battle at the bridge, other then the infect matchup I can see this card being a all star vs just about any deck trying to reduce our life total to 0.

The board I will be trying out tomorrow is,

2 battle at the bridge
1 pyroclasm
1 natures claim
1 abrupt decay
1 night of souls' betrayal
2 welding jar
1 sun droplet
2 spellskite
1 graftdigger's cage
3 layline of Sanctity

Has anyone tested either or both of these cards yet? have they proved there worth?

Any advice would be awesome, I will upload a complete decklist later when I have a chance. Thanks everyone for your hard work on a great deck.

Hi guys, i'm in the process of finishing putting up the deck and i wanted to know what you guys think about Spire of industry.
Could i replace the glimmervoid completly for it or you would go for a split (since glimmervoid are expensive and hard to find).
I've also seen some ppl running pyrite spellbomb, is it that good in the deck?

@DapperDane

I haven't had really had a testing with many opponents, but whenever I play bauble I consider it, like you said, an enabler for metal craft.
But I think Bauble is strong not from scrying, but it is a proxy enabler/temporary substitute for lantern when you don't have the lantern on the field. Plus, it lets you draw an additional card.
I use bauble to not scry my own deck but the opponent's (since target player) and to choose an appropriate response (Especially when you have a mill rock, you would mill the card that opponent might draw)

But that's the way that I would use it. I don't know about someone else.

Mishra's Bauble:

I don't watch pros play with Lantern, because they haven't dedicated all their Magic resources to it. Lantern is an extremely demanding mistress, and that's one of the things that i love about the deck. It's difficult to learn and extremely difficult to master, and someone who has a lot of experience with Modern but little experience with Lantern will not do as well with their deckbuilding choices and managing in-game decision trees as well as someone who's been playing Lantern exclusively for a long time. If you want quality Lantern content, check out thnkr's channel on Youtube (Randall Thompson).

I use Bauble for both purposes depending on the circumstance. Verus aggro and midrange, i will typically target myself with the peek to make sure i can weather whatever storm they're currently throwing at me. Versus control and combo, i will typically target my opponent to gain information and attempt to break my opponent's combo / interaction. In either case, it replaces itself, so i'll draw into more gas no matter what option is chosen.

Spire of Industry:

I don't recommend just swapping out Glimmervoids for Spires. The pain is a real cost and can add up quickly. I'm currently playtesting with 3x Void and 2x Spire, but i will probably swap out the second Spire for a fourth Glimmervoid. Painless mana of any color is really nice to have.

so after testing in the new meta for the past week, i'm switching back to the glint-nest crane version. with dredge out of the meta and infect on the downswing i thought tron would take over, but it seems to be more mid-range decks all over the place. the crane gives a better selection than the bauble and emptying the hand is not as crucial as it was before, plus the crane version is better in the mirror.

Poking in to mention I've switched back to blue, too, but managed to squeeze in two Baubles using the Turbo-Xerox rule and going down to 17 lands. Why not mix 'em up, heh?

Fun facts about yesterday's LGS Tourney session (went 3-1 losing to Necrotic Sliver and Harmonic Sliver -- What does one even do against these?): A pair of Baubles on top of Glint-Nest Crane really give the engine a fluid feel. I always found Bridge. And there are indeed many neat interactions that Bauble provide. Yet I like leaning back on my birds. Speaking of which: M1, G2 I managed to kill the Slivers player with Crane beats, mwehehehe. Also, beat Burn uncontested; the power of Leylines is real. So there's really just Tron that's left problematic.

Here's the list I'll be playing tonight again at FNM, playtesting tomorrow and hopefully rocking at sunday's Open:

I'm trying to figure out the 2nd SB Ghost Quarter slot right now, thinking it could be something else, more impactful for against Tron. Thinking of bringing back Ole Jester's Cap!

@DapperDane, sideboarding vs. Jund requires a slightly different method than vs. Abzan. The reason why is that Abzan has access to Stony Silence, and will often forego Bob for Flayer.

Jund:
-4 Inquisition of Kozilek
-3 Surgical Extraction
+4 Leyline of Sanctity
+3 Welding Jar

Notes: Leylines shut down a large number of threats that Jund presents, including IoK/Thoughtseize/Bolt/Kommand/LotV/Huntmaster. Their only answer to it is usually Maelstrom Pulse. There was a while there where they didn't run many, if any, Pulse, but it looks like that might change back as the meta changes. Surgicals are nice, but the diversity of artifact destruction means that a single Surgical doesn't do as much as we'd like, and it's only good when a copy is in the graveyard anyways. I'd rather have the ability to save the vs. first one than to cut out the one they just used. The opp could try to use Pulse (if they have it) as artifact destruction, but that means that Leyline wouldn't be going away any time soon.

Abzan:
-4 Inquisition of Kozilek
-3 Surgical Extraction
-2 Pithing Needle
+4 Leyline of Sanctity
+3 Welding Jar
+2 Seal of Primordium

I sideboard pretty close to how I would sideboard vs. Jund, but the Stony Silence shut off Welding Jars. Thus, it's extremely important to remove it. To prepare for Silence, I side out two Needles to make room for Seal of Primordium. Needles aren't quite as useful vs. Abzan as they are against Jund, and Leylines already answer Liliana anyways. The last Needle is often for Engineered Explosives or Scavenging Ooze. They do often have some number of Surgical Extraction, so it's extremely important to get that Leyline to ensure that they can't discard Bridge and Extract it.

On Baubles, I liked them, but I'm much more in favor of making sure I have 4 IoK/4 Brutality. They do turn on early metalcraft, or allow for some good scry effects, but I typically use my 8 discard spells to try to secure the early game and then let the combo work from there, setting the pace if I can, rather than race to stabilize. I'm not saying it's wrong to use Baubles by any means, I don't know that for sure. I only have a single game where I had one in my opening hand, and I won it, but it's such a small sample size that I'm hesitant to make a judgment on it yet. If anyone does play Baubles and is willing to record replays so that I can put that data on the spreadsheet, I'd greatly appreciate it! The more data we have on various cards, the better

@Crexalbo, thanks for the kind words about the Youtube channel I know that the audio/video quality isn't the greatest in the world, but I live pretty low budget (preparing for retirement and fiscal responsibility) and am on an old laptop. These latest batch of videos are probably a bit lower quality in terms of commentating, as I'm super sick

Quote from radouf »

Poking in to mention I've switched back to blue, too, but managed to squeeze in two Baubles using the Turbo-Xerox rule and going down to 17 lands. Why not mix 'em up, heh?

Fun facts about yesterday's LGS Tourney session (went 3-1 losing to Necrotic Sliver and Harmonic Sliver -- What does one even do against these?): A pair of Baubles on top of Glint-Nest Crane really give the engine a fluid feel. I always found Bridge. And there are indeed many neat interactions that Bauble provide. Yet I like leaning back on my birds. Speaking of which: M1, G2 I managed to kill the Slivers player with Crane beats, mwehehehe. Also, beat Burn uncontested; the power of Leylines is real. So there's really just Tron that's left problematic.

Here's the list I'll be playing tonight again at FNM, playtesting tomorrow and hopefully rocking at sunday's Open:

Radouf's Mix it up! Lantern ControlMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Mana Sources (21): 1 Forest 4 Blooming Marsh 1 Botanical Sanctum 4 Glimmervoid 1 Spire of Industry 2 Ghost Quarter 2 Academy Ruins 2 Inventors' Fair 4 Mox Opal Core: 4 Lantern of Insight 4 Codex Shredder 2 Ghoulcaller's Bell 2 Pyxis of Pandemonium 4 Ensnaring Bridge	Support: 2 Mishra's Bauble 4 Ancient Stirrings 2 Glint-Nest Crane 2 Surgical Extraction 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 1 Thoughtseize 3 Collective Brutality 1 Abrupt Decay 3 Pithing Needle 1 Spellskite	Sideboard: 3 Leyline of Sanctity 1 Witchbane Orb 2 Welding Jar 1 Duress 1 Pithing Needle 1 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Abrupt Decay 2 Quiet Disrepair 1 Surgical Extraction 2 Ghost Quarter

I'm trying to figure out the 2nd SB Ghost Quarter slot right now, thinking it could be something else, more impactful for against Tron. Thinking of bringing back Ole Jester's Cap!

i like the idea of jester's cap but it might be too expensive. really wish it cost 3 then i would auto include. love the art. what about the scepter though? seems like it might be good against tron.

Quote from artfranc007 »

Quote from radouf »

Poking in to mention I've switched back to blue, too, but managed to squeeze in two Baubles using the Turbo-Xerox rule and going down to 17 lands. Why not mix 'em up, heh?

Fun facts about yesterday's LGS Tourney session (went 3-1 losing to Necrotic Sliver and Harmonic Sliver -- What does one even do against these?): A pair of Baubles on top of Glint-Nest Crane really give the engine a fluid feel. I always found Bridge. And there are indeed many neat interactions that Bauble provide. Yet I like leaning back on my birds. Speaking of which: M1, G2 I managed to kill the Slivers player with Crane beats, mwehehehe. Also, beat Burn uncontested; the power of Leylines is real. So there's really just Tron that's left problematic.

Here's the list I'll be playing tonight again at FNM, playtesting tomorrow and hopefully rocking at sunday's Open:

Radouf's Mix it up! Lantern ControlMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Mana Sources (21): 1 Forest 4 Blooming Marsh 1 Botanical Sanctum 4 Glimmervoid 1 Spire of Industry 2 Ghost Quarter 2 Academy Ruins 2 Inventors' Fair 4 Mox Opal Core: 4 Lantern of Insight 4 Codex Shredder 2 Ghoulcaller's Bell 2 Pyxis of Pandemonium 4 Ensnaring Bridge	Support: 2 Mishra's Bauble 4 Ancient Stirrings 2 Glint-Nest Crane 2 Surgical Extraction 4 Inquisition of Kozilek 1 Thoughtseize 3 Collective Brutality 1 Abrupt Decay 3 Pithing Needle 1 Spellskite	Sideboard: 3 Leyline of Sanctity 1 Witchbane Orb 2 Welding Jar 1 Duress 1 Pithing Needle 1 Grafdigger's Cage 1 Abrupt Decay 2 Quiet Disrepair 1 Surgical Extraction 2 Ghost Quarter

I'm trying to figure out the 2nd SB Ghost Quarter slot right now, thinking it could be something else, more impactful for against Tron. Thinking of bringing back Ole Jester's Cap!

i like the idea of jester's cap but it might be too expensive. really wish it cost 3 then i would auto include. love the art. what about the scepter though? seems like it might be good against tron.

My gameplan against Tron is shaping up this way:
Step 1, extract a Tron piece either after milling or GQing it -- I think 3 GQ and all the mill rocks is sufficient to achieve this as I've never failed at preventing them T3 blowing me out so far. Targeted discard and Needles make sure we don't die to whatever they may sneak through.

Step 2, turtle up and Snipe what you can with more Extraction and more Needles while keeping 'em off a) Threats OR b) Mana. Now this step is really hard to pull off as they have so many eggs and cantrips that we can't usually hold them off 7 mana forever. And Sanctum of Ugin and Chromatic Sphere also make it so a fatty is likely to make its way through our lock at some point.

This is when Jester's Cap comes in; by the time they hit that 7th land and/or fatty, you should theoretically have had the time to Cap them once. Or ideally twice (is that GG?). At least it's what I'm thinking. But in response to your comment, Cap being CMC 3 or 4 doesn't make a huge difference I think, as this step 2 thing usually spreads over seeeeeveral turns.

Also, can we respond to a World Breaker activation by Extracting it?

@thnkr: No prob! You put a lot of work into it and i definitely consider you to be the best source of Lantern content on Youtube.

@artfranc: What scepter do you refer to?

@radouf: Yes, we can. And if they have the mana, they can respond to Surgical with a second activation. That second activation would counter Surgical, sadly. Extirpate does not have this problem.

@Thnkr: regarding your latest YouTube Tron video:

«Hey thanks for the videos! (Radouf here) It's starting to look pret-ty good

Have you noticed how said Thoughtseize, a vast majority of times (all times?) would've worked just as well if it were Duress instead? And Duress gives you an extra card to side-in for against Burn. Just sayin', trying to optimize the SB slots -- And fix these match-ups!»

@radouf, that's actually a very good observation that I hadn't noticed. I would be worried that I wouldn't be able to grab a World Breaker or Newlamog, though. It's not very often that we need to worry about Wurmcoil Engine and need to discard that, but the other two could be very important misses.

Oddly enough i faced slivers at my fnm as well.
Went 2-2 beat burn and slivers lost to burn and puresteel paladin combo.

Slivers is easy game 1 game 2 is rough.
But i let him land a harmonic, abrupt decayed with its trigger on stack then surgical extracted it.
Felt so good.

Burn is well burn.
Had a heads up play game 1. He lead with turn 1 wild nekatal i dropped a bell and passed. He played a fetchland poped it. I responded with bell hit a foundry surgical extracted the foundry.
His hand had eidolon so i still lost that game but the look on his face was amazing.
Game 2 i could not keep him off enough burn for my fair to keep up.


Puresteel combo is scary stuff.
Like really scary, i seen him win turn 1 vs a deck while on the play, literally killed his opponent before he could play his first land.
This guy went 3-1 and didnt even have a sideboard.
I lost to him by the virtue of never landing s leyline and honestly the deck is almost impossible to keep off equipment.

Interesting. What's your list like? I've found that Burn isn't so bad any more, but my list might be different than yours and that might account for it.