Speed is a huge factor here. It is very hard to get to 11 mana with Lantern, and that will take tons of time to dig to your lands (or recur them with Shredder if you have milled too many!). Then you have to explain what you are doing to your opponent, and against a savvy opponent will probably have to take all the actions because they will not allow you to shortcut.
For what it's worth, you can just declare a loop (or maybe it's not technically a loop idk) but your opponent is bound to accept that you are doing the same action every turn - I usually just shortcut to updating the life totals on my lifepad and saying go
Your opponent must agree to your declaration of a loop. They have the option of saying "No, play it out please, I want to see you take the actions".
Hey guys! Quick question, how many of you are running Ghirapur as a win condition? I have been playing it as a one of in the mainboard for a few months now and I have to say that it is consistently underperforming for me.. I mean there have been several matches where things worked out and it was quicker to kill them with that then by mill, but I don't like that it can't be tutored for and that in your opening hand it is almost a dead card..
I also don't know what would be a considerable replacement.. I was thinking of just adding a third collective company in it's place since it has so much utility in it's modes and it's discard outlet to get Ensnaring Bridge to 0. Ultimately, what I'm asking is: Is everyone here going entirely mill or how do you like to win with the deck? Is Pyrite Spellbomb still a thing? lol
Collective brutality + Codex shredder + Academy ruins already provide you with an alternative way to win. It's a bit mana ontensive, but you can drain them to death. The only upside of Grid is that it can ping creatures, but brutality can also deal with small creatures and big ones are handled by the bridge. I don't see any reason to play grid in lantern right now.
Speed is a huge factor here. It is very hard to get to 11 mana with Lantern, and that will take tons of time to dig to your lands (or recur them with Shredder if you have milled too many!). Then you have to explain what you are doing to your opponent, and against a savvy opponent will probably have to take all the actions because they will not allow you to shortcut. Then for all your work, you can only take chunks out of opponents' life two at a time.
The goal of an alt-wincon is to close out games that you need to close out quickly. For example, if you are starting G3 with 10-15 minutes left, or you've lost G1 against a grindy deck and need to win two games in the alloted time now. Brutality loop is way too slow to accomplish this goal, even for Lantern, which is saying a lot.
Grid is a lot faster; all it needs is for you to find it (easier with Tutor) and have some artifacts to fuel it. Late game, it regularly deals 4-7 damage a turn, which is certainly enough to close a game in a few turns once it is found and cast.
Grid can also deal with a large number of corner case scenarios that may come up in post-SB games, like a wild Kataki or a resolved Gideon Jura with the Gideon of the Trials emblem. It deals with threats like Hierarch more efficiently than Brutality, too.
Grid's functionality may mostly be covered by existing cards in Lantern's mainboard, but nothing comes close to Grid's sheer speed and efficiency. I don't think it is a particularly strong mainboard card, but if you need to deal with a horde of weenies and/or close games quickly to avoid timing out, Grid does an awesome job.
That may be true. However, I have already come across a situation where having it made all the difference: Chalice on 1. I played it against an E-Tron opponent when the only board presence I had was Padeem and Bridge. I was able to see they were just about ready to drop Karn, so I nabbed their Karn. I then enchanted it with Mechanized Production, so every turn I got a fresh look at their hand and simply nabbed the most important card with the copy. I won G2 and the match vs E-Tron like this.
It has also come in handy against the mirror due to being a hedge against both Leyline of Sanctity and Surgical Extraction. Its peek effect says "look at an opponent's hand", so you can get around LoS amd still see what they have going on, nab their most important card, and work around the rest. That really contributed to my win against the mirror earlier yesterday.
This is all anecdotal evidence, but it is more than enough for me to continue testing it. The 2cmc has been more than worth it (and in the case of Chalice, simply better than 1cmc).
Might seem like an overstretch but what are the chances we could run a build with a paradox engine and temple bells? Don't know what to cut in order to make room but hear me out..
When we lock the game with ensnaring bridge and are able to control their draw step with mill rocks it becomes a matter of turns and wasted time. What if we could cast paradox engine, manipulate both ours and their top card of the library and then pretty much: draw card off of temple bell that is either 0 or 1 mana, mill cards with the remaining mill rocks - cast the spell in your hand - untap off of paradox engine all of your artifacts including mox opal and whatnot...
It just seems like such an awesome way to speed up matches and essentially just win that turn given the amount of low costing spells we play
Just an idea I've been having to spice the deck up a little since it sounds fun!
EDIT: To add to this, I feel like you would obviously only run one of paradox engine given it's high mana cost but as I was saying, as the game progresses and they are unable to respond to your board, getting to the 6 mana wouldn't be too difficult. Plus the deck is so good at tutoring for artifacts through ancient stirrings/inventor's fair/etc...
Honestly I think just one Ghirapur Aether Grid would serve this role a lot better.
My point is all pilots will play this deck differently. None of us can say anything is correct to do.
I keep in my Surgicals versus E-Tron. I do not run leylines in my build (by choice), so I will resort to Surgical to take any outs my opponent has. Hitting a land is awesome too, but usually I use it on Endbringer or Ballista.
Last time I heard someone telling someone else they were "misplaying" the deck, it was a Lantern opponent telling me I was wrong for not running Glint-Nest Crane. We all know how that turned out.
Well now with a lot of new people here that weren't here a year ago I'll refloat an old idea.
Tezzeret agent of bolas.
He digs, he makes blockers, and more often than not he kills the turn after he lands.
I hear the argument that he's unnecessary and we can win via regular mill, but in the real world draws are a thing.
Yes there's all these things we can do, like call judges etc, this is just another thing we can do
This is just me, but I'd much rather have a win condition that doesn't get hit by Leyline of Sanctity or Pithing Needle. Mechanized Production is my "go big or go home" finisher of choice, even though it is slower by several turns.
I do agree with you in that, with most pilots, Lantern needs an alt-wincon simply to mitigate the effects of variance among opponents themselves -- the people, not the decks. I've tried lil Tezz and didn't like him, but if he works for you or others, more power to ya
It can be correct at times to run 3 leylines due to the concept of diminishing returns, which thnkr can explain a lot better than I ever would. Also keep in mind that Burn is completely winnable without any Leylines at all.
Instead of Sun Droplet, I highly recommend Quiet Disrepair. This card can gain you more life than Droplet, and do it more consistently than Droplet. In addition, it pulls double duty as enchantifact removal. I recommend switching out at least one Droplet for one Disrepair, and maybe even going to two Disrepair or using Nature's Claim like another user suggested if Burn is a big problem for you.
Death's Shadow is one reason why I've been testing several alternative cards, chief among which are Set Adrift mainboard and Dispatch sideboard. Set Adrift in particular has come in extremely handy in a multitude of scenarios. I'm really liking thnkr's plan of becoming extremely aggressive post-board by trying to kill all their creatures and keeping them off threats instead of worrying about landing Bridge. I do agree that Reckoning may go a long way towards that goal, and may be worth testing out. We might even consider the likes of Big Game Hunter to have something that's immune to their countermagic.
The goal of an alt-wincon is to close out games that you need to close out quickly. For example, if you are starting G3 with 10-15 minutes left, or you've lost G1 against a grindy deck and need to win two games in the alloted time now. Brutality loop is way too slow to accomplish this goal, even for Lantern, which is saying a lot.
Grid is a lot faster; all it needs is for you to find it (easier with Tutor) and have some artifacts to fuel it. Late game, it regularly deals 4-7 damage a turn, which is certainly enough to close a game in a few turns once it is found and cast.
Grid can also deal with a large number of corner case scenarios that may come up in post-SB games, like a wild Kataki or a resolved Gideon Jura with the Gideon of the Trials emblem. It deals with threats like Hierarch more efficiently than Brutality, too.
Grid's functionality may mostly be covered by existing cards in Lantern's mainboard, but nothing comes close to Grid's sheer speed and efficiency. I don't think it is a particularly strong mainboard card, but if you need to deal with a horde of weenies and/or close games quickly to avoid timing out, Grid does an awesome job.
It has also come in handy against the mirror due to being a hedge against both Leyline of Sanctity and Surgical Extraction. Its peek effect says "look at an opponent's hand", so you can get around LoS amd still see what they have going on, nab their most important card, and work around the rest. That really contributed to my win against the mirror earlier yesterday.
This is all anecdotal evidence, but it is more than enough for me to continue testing it. The 2cmc has been more than worth it (and in the case of Chalice, simply better than 1cmc).
I keep in my Surgicals versus E-Tron. I do not run leylines in my build (by choice), so I will resort to Surgical to take any outs my opponent has. Hitting a land is awesome too, but usually I use it on Endbringer or Ballista.
I do agree with you in that, with most pilots, Lantern needs an alt-wincon simply to mitigate the effects of variance among opponents themselves -- the people, not the decks. I've tried lil Tezz and didn't like him, but if he works for you or others, more power to ya
Instead of Sun Droplet, I highly recommend Quiet Disrepair. This card can gain you more life than Droplet, and do it more consistently than Droplet. In addition, it pulls double duty as enchantifact removal. I recommend switching out at least one Droplet for one Disrepair, and maybe even going to two Disrepair or using Nature's Claim like another user suggested if Burn is a big problem for you.
Death's Shadow is one reason why I've been testing several alternative cards, chief among which are Set Adrift mainboard and Dispatch sideboard. Set Adrift in particular has come in extremely handy in a multitude of scenarios. I'm really liking thnkr's plan of becoming extremely aggressive post-board by trying to kill all their creatures and keeping them off threats instead of worrying about landing Bridge. I do agree that Reckoning may go a long way towards that goal, and may be worth testing out. We might even consider the likes of Big Game Hunter to have something that's immune to their countermagic.