In the example you gave, had you employed the suggested strategy and drawn out your game 1, you would have GUARANTEED a draw. As it was, you were racing to finish game 3 in time. Your example backs my point. Forget the aspect of cheating and emotions. It is just an incorrect line to take in game 1 because the only way it pays off is if your opponent is bad. Your opponent even said he was playing for the draw. That's a desperate last measure when you can't win, but want to salvage 1 point from the match. This strategy is playing for the draw from the start. Have you had success doing this in a full day tournament, or can you find any top pilot of the deck that would recommend this?
Jace and BBE are incredibly strong mid-range cards. It makes it so that decks want to tip a bit heavier around them. This means the best ways to fight them is go big or go small. Big is Tron, and small is burn and affinity. Sideways is blood moon. Sideboards therefore are usually dedicated to fighting Tron and fast aggro, including affinity. No one is gunning for lantern, but we are collateral damage.
Re: crexalbo, that is an awful article. Aside from the fact that it is actual cheating (which I'm sure you will pretend it isn't), it is just terrible strategy. Reading it, I am 99% sure you've never played lantern in a GP or PTQ or any real large tournament. We are favored G1 in many matches, but post board it gets very hard. You might do well at FNM with that strategy against poor players. But you will lose many game 2s and have a bunch of draws, so you won't ever get far in real competitive play. What makes the whole thing a joke is that you act as if this is advice for a tournament when it is obvious you've never competed at any high level.
Have you tested at all post board against Jund? I agree that game 1 gets easier, but games 2 and 3 are now much harder. They usually run 3 grudges and 3-4 fulminators, as well as some of the missing mainboard discard. Tron is more prevalent, which is bad for us. And therefore a lot of blood moon decks are running around. Blue moon jace control, as well as creature ramp moon decks. I've had a lot of turn 2 moons cast against me, and it hurts a lot. I'd suggest going back to 3 pithing in the main and pyrite gone or in the side.
It seems like most of the posters here don't remember playing against Jund in ye olden days as Lantern. It's pretty miserable. The entire list changes, it isn't just the fact that BBE is jammed into the current death's shadow lists. They still run the 6-8 turn 1 discard, but they play a full 4 of Dark Confidant, 4 Liliana, Scavenging Ooze main (it isn't some back breaker, but it is another piece of relevant interaction). The presence of BBE does mean they come down on the number of Abrupt Decay mainboard, but it also means they go up on K Command because it is so versatile. Against DS Jund, you just need a bridge and to protect it from decay. Against BBE Jund, you need the needle for Lili, extra rocks to control against dark confidant, loss of ruins and codex shredders because of ooze, increased K Command count, as well as BBE casts that can be very hard to control, especially if the opponent is smart.
The bigger problem is the metagame as a whole. More Jund (which is hard, but not insane) means more Tron, which is insane. The UW control matches with Jace should be good for us though.
EDIT: If the Jund lists look more like this https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/welcome-back-bloodbraid-elf/
Then we might not be in a terrible place. 4 hard answers to Bridge, a little less turn 1 discard, and we know our needle target from the beginning. Still leaves us with some potentially scary cascades and confidants to fight through. Tron preying on Jund makes us collateral though still.
Against grixis, yes tezzeret is used to find artifacts and end because his next turn ultimate actually ends the game against them with their life total being self-drained so quickly. You are still relying on a bridge, but you are not locking them out. In this matchup, if you don't have a bridge, you've 90% lost. But with a bridge in play, you are NOT going to seal them out of the game. Way too many fetches and cycles and cantrips and flashback. You haven't tested this match enough if you think you can reliably get the lock in games 2 and 3. Normal games go (1)get info through discard or early lantern and rock, (2) get bridge, (3) seal the lock. In the grixis match, you actually side out lanterns because you are not going to do that. It becomes (1) get bridge, (2) get tezz and kill. Obviously with back and forth discard and such. But that is your goal. Tezz ends the game the very next turn. Jace does not. Trying to interact with them and bounce and card advantage is a losing battle.
Against tron, tezz absolutely will make a 5/5 and try to start swinging. It is another match where it is incredibly hard to establish a true lock, and it gets even harder postboard.
1) A 4 drop mill rock at sorcery speed is not what you want. Ever. Play another mill rock. If you don't have their library locked already, Jace won't really help you.
2) Your hand is empty by this point. You don't want to leave ANY cards in hand once you have bridge out. Lantern is on such a tight race to close the window for the opponent, that every turn has to get you significantly closer. A 4 drop brainstorm is not where we want to be.
3) If you have lantern and mill rocks, what are you doing drawing discard late instead of milling it? If you don't have lantern and mill rocks by the time you play jace, you probably already lost.
You are misunderstanding the role of Tezzeret. He is played almost always when you have given up being able to lantern lock an opponent. Tron and Grixis shadow being the 2 most important examples. He creates a 5/5 that attacks that very turn, and presents a new angle in the match. Jace does not provide any new angles in those matches.
I think there's just a miscommunication about what Tier 1 means. I am using it in terms of popularity, not a measure of how good the deck is. There have been Tier 1 decks at times that had barely 50% win rates, but it was Tier 1 because it made up so much of the metagame. My point is that Lantern works best when its representation is low. It is similar to Affinity in that way.
You make good points about brutality and leyline. Is the spreadsheet for just paper, or online? I had a long run on MODO with Lantern, and burn is massively over-represented there. I didn't feel safe queuing up without the leylines.
I think I'll add the 18th land for the 2nd Inventor's Fair. It's probably the mechanized production that would be cut, but I'm curious to see if it and Revival are worth it. Revival seems to regain some utility when you are running Whir.
Hey guys, been playing lantern for about 2 years. Everyone has their pet deck, and we all wear rose colored glasses when testing. The truth is, lantern can never be tier 1. If it attracts attention, it is too easy to hate out. The more diverse the field is, the better lantern does because everyone's sideboards are stretched thin. Right now is a pretty good time because Death's Shadow is up, which pushes down burn. Affinity is always solid, so there is never a time when people won't have artifact hate in the boards. But like I said, at a big tournament there is enough diversity for you to pilot through. It doesn't change that every game against burn will be by the skin of your teeth.
If you are just playing a local FNM and know your meta, ignore the following advice. But if you are looking at a bigger field, here is where I am at:
1) Run Leyline main. The advantages outweigh the cost. Discard is at an all-time high. The matchups where leyline is useless are generally matchups you will be favored anyways (not always true, but true enough).
2) Collective brutality is over-rated. I wouldn't run more than 2 in my 75. Inquisition is better. There are too many things you need to grab with it, and being able to use it turn 1 is a huge deal. In that game 2, grabbing stony silence or chalice before they drop it is crucial. Yes, you can use it to get bridge online faster, but few decks are threatening you that quickly. Burn is again better served by leyline, and affinity can get through bridge reliably. I still like the card, but enough testing tells me inquisition is still a better pick in the majority of my games.
3) On an entirely different note, I like skitzafreak's direction and have also been testing with whir to see if I can get the mana to work. Here are the considerations: Have enough blue sources to reliably cast whir. Have enough turn 1 black to reliably cast inquisition or sieze on turn 1. Have enough green to cast stirrings, decay, and seal of primordium by turn 2-3.
See my first attached graph. In order to have a 60% chance to cast whir by turn 3 (which is 9 or 10 cards deep), you need 18 blue sources in the deck. This math does not take into account the ability for Stirrings to get another mana source (improves our odds), or an early lantern and rock to filter draws (improves odds, but if you have the natural lock, you are in a great spot anyways), nor does it distinguish mox opals as incompatible (lowers our odds, but I guess you can string them out 1 at a time in the same turn, which I've done before). I certainly would never run whir with less than 17 blue sources.
Black is the color we can least afford to sacrifice. See my second attachment. This is the probability you have the black source to cast that (often critical) turn 1 discard. So for a 60% chance to do this, you need 7 black sources that can be activated turn 1. It is a sketchy thing to know 40% of the time you won't be able to use your discard before they cast that Stony Silence or Eidolon. This brings up the question of what is considered "reliable" turn 1 black. I don't count Glimmervoid or Mox Opal or Spire of Industry, because it is very rare you can cast discard off them turn 1. Yes, you can have glimmer and an opal (14% chance) and if you run main welding jars or baubles, this goes up. If you have 4 glimmer and 2 spire, with 4 opal and 2 jars, the chances of being able to activate glimmer or spire for black on turn 1 is 29%. Not insignificant, but incorporating that combination of events makes math harder and I don't want to do that right now. For most lists, assume about a 22% chance.
So if I want to use Whir, I want 17-19 blue sources, and 7-8 turn 1 black sources. You can sacrifice some green, which hurts your ability to turn 1 or 2 ancient stirrings all the time, but if I had an inquisition and a stirrings in opening hand, I'd rather be waiting to cast stirrings than the discard. I could be wrong on this, and should drop a black source for another green. But I do feel absolutely convinced that if you run whir, you must give up the ghost quarter package. You just hurt your odds far too much.
I don't believe I have an optimal whir list yet, and am trying to see if its benefits can outweigh what you are giving up for it. Hopefully my math proves useful to some of you.
So my list has 18 total blue sources, and 8 reliable turn 1 black. The green count is all conditional, but is at 10. This means that your chance of having green mana on turn 2 is 79%. That is good enough for me. I suppose I could drop 1 River for 1 more Spire, or 1 Spire for a Botanical. Yes, you are weaker to blood moon and ghost quarter, but those are never the problem for me. Mox Opal lets you still kill moon. The ghost quarter weakness is real, but the question is if an instant speed tutor for anything in your deck is worth that vulnerability. For the record, I can't find games I lost because I got ghost quartered so far.
Lol. Yea your dream hand of exactly the right cards against zero disruption does work. In a field where most black decks are running 7-9 discard spells maindeck, you just really don't get that happening.
I completely agree. The Pentad Prisms are cute, and are only win-more. We really don't need to assemble the combo on turn 3. I find Dimir Signet or Talisman better if I need ramp. I've gone to running more discard and Ancestral Visions to play the long game, then close with the combo.
I disagree with your thoughts on GR Eldrazi. I've won quite a few games against them. ( I think I'm currently 3 - 1 in series)
Needle or surgical Worldbreaker, and who cares about a single instant speed draw? If you don't have multiple mill rocks something's going wrong anyways.
There's no way to disagree without it sounding bad, but I highly doubt the skill of your opponents. I think you have faced poor pilots who do not understand Lantern or their own deck. If you want to schedule a time to test on Cockatrice, I can show you how the matchup goes. They still apply fast pressure so you need a bridge. And you need lantern, and you are agreeing you need multiple mill rocks to play around mind stone. And they have ancient stirrings and eye of ugin to fetch worldbreaker. And ulamog. And if you aren't running spellskite, you have zero ways to save against those effects. And you only have 2-3 thoughtseizes to take them out of hand. Post board is a joke man. 3 grudges and 3 natural state, relics for more instant speed draw. And while they don't puke like other eldrazi, they still have turn 2 seer ability.
Re: crexalbo, that is an awful article. Aside from the fact that it is actual cheating (which I'm sure you will pretend it isn't), it is just terrible strategy. Reading it, I am 99% sure you've never played lantern in a GP or PTQ or any real large tournament. We are favored G1 in many matches, but post board it gets very hard. You might do well at FNM with that strategy against poor players. But you will lose many game 2s and have a bunch of draws, so you won't ever get far in real competitive play. What makes the whole thing a joke is that you act as if this is advice for a tournament when it is obvious you've never competed at any high level.
EDIT: LSV agrees with me too https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/jace-and-bloodbraid-unbanned-the-biggest-winners-losers-in-modern/
The bigger problem is the metagame as a whole. More Jund (which is hard, but not insane) means more Tron, which is insane. The UW control matches with Jace should be good for us though.
EDIT: If the Jund lists look more like this
https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/welcome-back-bloodbraid-elf/
Then we might not be in a terrible place. 4 hard answers to Bridge, a little less turn 1 discard, and we know our needle target from the beginning. Still leaves us with some potentially scary cascades and confidants to fight through. Tron preying on Jund makes us collateral though still.
EDIT: I'd like to see an argument for the 1st maindeck jace before the 4th bridge.
Against tron, tezz absolutely will make a 5/5 and try to start swinging. It is another match where it is incredibly hard to establish a true lock, and it gets even harder postboard.
2) Your hand is empty by this point. You don't want to leave ANY cards in hand once you have bridge out. Lantern is on such a tight race to close the window for the opponent, that every turn has to get you significantly closer. A 4 drop brainstorm is not where we want to be.
3) If you have lantern and mill rocks, what are you doing drawing discard late instead of milling it? If you don't have lantern and mill rocks by the time you play jace, you probably already lost.
You are misunderstanding the role of Tezzeret. He is played almost always when you have given up being able to lantern lock an opponent. Tron and Grixis shadow being the 2 most important examples. He creates a 5/5 that attacks that very turn, and presents a new angle in the match. Jace does not provide any new angles in those matches.
You make good points about brutality and leyline. Is the spreadsheet for just paper, or online? I had a long run on MODO with Lantern, and burn is massively over-represented there. I didn't feel safe queuing up without the leylines.
I think I'll add the 18th land for the 2nd Inventor's Fair. It's probably the mechanized production that would be cut, but I'm curious to see if it and Revival are worth it. Revival seems to regain some utility when you are running Whir.
If you are just playing a local FNM and know your meta, ignore the following advice. But if you are looking at a bigger field, here is where I am at:
1) Run Leyline main. The advantages outweigh the cost. Discard is at an all-time high. The matchups where leyline is useless are generally matchups you will be favored anyways (not always true, but true enough).
2) Collective brutality is over-rated. I wouldn't run more than 2 in my 75. Inquisition is better. There are too many things you need to grab with it, and being able to use it turn 1 is a huge deal. In that game 2, grabbing stony silence or chalice before they drop it is crucial. Yes, you can use it to get bridge online faster, but few decks are threatening you that quickly. Burn is again better served by leyline, and affinity can get through bridge reliably. I still like the card, but enough testing tells me inquisition is still a better pick in the majority of my games.
3) On an entirely different note, I like skitzafreak's direction and have also been testing with whir to see if I can get the mana to work. Here are the considerations: Have enough blue sources to reliably cast whir. Have enough turn 1 black to reliably cast inquisition or sieze on turn 1. Have enough green to cast stirrings, decay, and seal of primordium by turn 2-3.
See my first attached graph. In order to have a 60% chance to cast whir by turn 3 (which is 9 or 10 cards deep), you need 18 blue sources in the deck. This math does not take into account the ability for Stirrings to get another mana source (improves our odds), or an early lantern and rock to filter draws (improves odds, but if you have the natural lock, you are in a great spot anyways), nor does it distinguish mox opals as incompatible (lowers our odds, but I guess you can string them out 1 at a time in the same turn, which I've done before). I certainly would never run whir with less than 17 blue sources.
Black is the color we can least afford to sacrifice. See my second attachment. This is the probability you have the black source to cast that (often critical) turn 1 discard. So for a 60% chance to do this, you need 7 black sources that can be activated turn 1. It is a sketchy thing to know 40% of the time you won't be able to use your discard before they cast that Stony Silence or Eidolon. This brings up the question of what is considered "reliable" turn 1 black. I don't count Glimmervoid or Mox Opal or Spire of Industry, because it is very rare you can cast discard off them turn 1. Yes, you can have glimmer and an opal (14% chance) and if you run main welding jars or baubles, this goes up. If you have 4 glimmer and 2 spire, with 4 opal and 2 jars, the chances of being able to activate glimmer or spire for black on turn 1 is 29%. Not insignificant, but incorporating that combination of events makes math harder and I don't want to do that right now. For most lists, assume about a 22% chance.
So if I want to use Whir, I want 17-19 blue sources, and 7-8 turn 1 black sources. You can sacrifice some green, which hurts your ability to turn 1 or 2 ancient stirrings all the time, but if I had an inquisition and a stirrings in opening hand, I'd rather be waiting to cast stirrings than the discard. I could be wrong on this, and should drop a black source for another green. But I do feel absolutely convinced that if you run whir, you must give up the ghost quarter package. You just hurt your odds far too much.
I don't believe I have an optimal whir list yet, and am trying to see if its benefits can outweigh what you are giving up for it. Hopefully my math proves useful to some of you.
4x Darkslick Shores
4x River of Tears
4x Glimmervoid
4x Mox Opal
2x Academy Ruins
2x Spire of Industry
1x Inventors' Fair
Artifacts (19)
4x Codex Shredder
4x Lantern of Insight
4x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Pithing Needle
3x Ghoulcaller's Bell
1x Pyxis of Pandemonium
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
4x Whir of Invention
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Mechanized Production
1x Noxious Revival
1x Grafidgger's Cage
1x Thoughtsieze
1x Collective Brutality
3x Welding Jar
2x Padeem, Consul of Innovation
3x Seal of Primordium
1x Lost Legacy
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Pithing Needle
So my list has 18 total blue sources, and 8 reliable turn 1 black. The green count is all conditional, but is at 10. This means that your chance of having green mana on turn 2 is 79%. That is good enough for me. I suppose I could drop 1 River for 1 more Spire, or 1 Spire for a Botanical. Yes, you are weaker to blood moon and ghost quarter, but those are never the problem for me. Mox Opal lets you still kill moon. The ghost quarter weakness is real, but the question is if an instant speed tutor for anything in your deck is worth that vulnerability. For the record, I can't find games I lost because I got ghost quartered so far.
There's no way to disagree without it sounding bad, but I highly doubt the skill of your opponents. I think you have faced poor pilots who do not understand Lantern or their own deck. If you want to schedule a time to test on Cockatrice, I can show you how the matchup goes. They still apply fast pressure so you need a bridge. And you need lantern, and you are agreeing you need multiple mill rocks to play around mind stone. And they have ancient stirrings and eye of ugin to fetch worldbreaker. And ulamog. And if you aren't running spellskite, you have zero ways to save against those effects. And you only have 2-3 thoughtseizes to take them out of hand. Post board is a joke man. 3 grudges and 3 natural state, relics for more instant speed draw. And while they don't puke like other eldrazi, they still have turn 2 seer ability.