Re: Lantern Control. This endless debate is even more boring than watching the deck play, if possible. I honestly have to say that I admired Zac's skill during the finals: it was crystal-clear that he knew what he was doing, and that is beautiful to see regardless of the deck played. Still, I'd prefer to watch paint dry rather than watch another Lantern match (let alone play one). If the thing it does can be called interaction, it's not the kind of interaction that I enjoy. It is a unique deck, and uniquely boring. Its saving grace is that, of the many people who will try out the deck after the GP, 99% will probably find it so boring and/or so skill intensive that they will dismiss it soon enough. But the upcoming weeks are going to be dreadful. Cockatrice already is.
There's already one guy that plays it locally here. I wonder how many more will jump on the train by tomorrow night for Wednesday Modern. With white in my deck, I already have Kataki, War's Wage, Stony Silence, Suppression Field, and Wear//Tear, in addition to Engineered Explosives, but I think I just might add lulz with Leyline of Sanctity. Basically, if they don't Abrupt Decay it, they just can't win. Shuts down discard, direct damage, and targeted mil/shuffle, and the only mill card that works mills both players. Going by the logic of scooping to a lock, Lantern should just scoop to turn 0 Leyline, right? Not sure what any other non-white deck does other than cross their fingers with Ancient Grudge.
Leyline doesn't cause Lantern to insta-scoop, because they can still control your draws with Ghoulcaller's Bell and they can't get milled out themselves because of Academy Ruins. It does give them a really rough time, but they can win, especially since most of them sideboard a Nature's Claim (although maybe they only side it in G3 after they see leyline in G2)
Nature's Claim can be countered. Abrupt Decay is really the only thing to worry about. But I guess when you put your opponent on a 50-turn mill-clock with only 2 outs, you really should play it out. You can just force a draw instead of the loss by playing to time. Or win if you're in G2 by going 1-0-1.
Leyline doesn't cause Lantern to insta-scoop, because they can still control your draws with Ghoulcaller's Bell and they can't get milled out themselves because of Academy Ruins. It does give them a really rough time, but they can win, especially since most of them sideboard a Nature's Claim (although maybe they only side it in G3 after they see leyline in G2)
It is way, way, WAY easier to win when you shut down both Codex Shredder, the Lantern of Insight shuffle ability, and all the discard. There are lots of decks which can handle an active Bridge and an active Bell. But there's really nothing you can do against a Ruins/Lantern lock if you don't have Leyline up. Can the Lantern player answer it? Yes. Is it a big benefit to the Lantern opponent? Also yes.
Nature's Claim can be countered. Abrupt Decay is really the only thing to worry about. But I guess when you put your opponent on a 50-turn mill-clock with only 2 outs, you really should play it out. You can just force a draw instead of the loss by playing to time. Or win if you're in G2 by going 1-0-1.
The good news is that they will never Decay your Leyline. Cuz, you know, CMC4
Leyline doesn't cause Lantern to insta-scoop, because they can still control your draws with Ghoulcaller's Bell and they can't get milled out themselves because of Academy Ruins. It does give them a really rough time, but they can win, especially since most of them sideboard a Nature's Claim (although maybe they only side it in G3 after they see leyline in G2)
There's also Ray of Revelation. Even if Nature's Claim gets countered, they can reclaim it with Codex Shredder if necessary. The deck can mold and deal with any hate...I'm just waiting for them to incorporate the twin combo like every other third modern deck tries too.
Leyline doesn't cause Lantern to insta-scoop, because they can still control your draws with Ghoulcaller's Bell and they can't get milled out themselves because of Academy Ruins. It does give them a really rough time, but they can win, especially since most of them sideboard a Nature's Claim (although maybe they only side it in G3 after they see leyline in G2)
There's also Ray of Revelation. Even if Nature's Claim gets countered, they can reclaim it with Codex Shredder if necessary. The deck can mold and deal with any hate...I'm just waiting for them to incorporate the twin combo like every other third modern deck tries too.
I guess the bigger point I was trying to make was paralleling a point made by those who play the deck. Saying that opponents should just scoop against the "hard" lock because the odds of winning are incredibly low, even with outs left in the deck. It saves time vs grinding out a game you will probably lose anyway. With that in mind, it seems entirely reasonable to expect Lantern to scoop to a turn 0 Leyline, unless they have the Disenchant in opening hand or something.
As for incorporating Twin, I'm all for that. Gives them something to do and requires a lack of bridges on the field in order to go off.
Leyline doesn't cause Lantern to insta-scoop, because they can still control your draws with Ghoulcaller's Bell and they can't get milled out themselves because of Academy Ruins. It does give them a really rough time, but they can win, especially since most of them sideboard a Nature's Claim (although maybe they only side it in G3 after they see leyline in G2)
There's also Ray of Revelation. Even if Nature's Claim gets countered, they can reclaim it with Codex Shredder if necessary. The deck can mold and deal with any hate...I'm just waiting for them to incorporate the twin combo like every other third modern deck tries too.
I guess the bigger point I was trying to make was paralleling a point made by those who play the deck. Saying that opponents should just scoop against the "hard" lock because the odds of winning are incredibly low, even with outs left in the deck. It saves time vs grinding out a game you will probably lose anyway. With that in mind, it seems entirely reasonable to expect Lantern to scoop to a turn 0 Leyline, unless they have the Disenchant in opening hand or something.
Except the Lantern player isn't worried about saving time, unlike the person playing against the Lantern player. Different situations, so no, not entirely reasonable at all. Lantern players are there TO grind out games after all.
Leyline doesn't cause Lantern to insta-scoop, because they can still control your draws with Ghoulcaller's Bell and they can't get milled out themselves because of Academy Ruins. It does give them a really rough time, but they can win, especially since most of them sideboard a Nature's Claim (although maybe they only side it in G3 after they see leyline in G2)
There's also Ray of Revelation. Even if Nature's Claim gets countered, they can reclaim it with Codex Shredder if necessary. The deck can mold and deal with any hate...I'm just waiting for them to incorporate the twin combo like every other third modern deck tries too.
I guess the bigger point I was trying to make was paralleling a point made by those who play the deck. Saying that opponents should just scoop against the "hard" lock because the odds of winning are incredibly low, even with outs left in the deck. It saves time vs grinding out a game you will probably lose anyway. With that in mind, it seems entirely reasonable to expect Lantern to scoop to a turn 0 Leyline, unless they have the Disenchant in opening hand or something.
As for incorporating Twin, I'm all for that. Gives them something to do and requires a lack of bridges on the field in order to go off.
There is a big difference to scooping to Lantern with outs left in the deck and Lantern scooping to a resolved Leyline.
Lets say your hate suit is 4 Leylines, Leyline cannot do anything against Ensnaring Bridge, so lets add 3 Oblivion Rings to your board. Thats 7 cards just to hate out 1 deck...
Lets say you do open the game with Leyline, luckily, without having to mulligan to it. Why would Lantern scoop? Ensnaring Bridge is still good to go, so is Lantern+Bell/Pyxis and we have outs to break Leyline plsu Academy Ruins to not lose to self-mill.
Lets make it hard on Lantern and say we didn't open with Nature's Claim in hand, but by turn 5 we have Bridge, Lantern and just 1 Bell on field and you still have not topdecked one of your O.rings. Why would YOU not scoop here even with Leyline in play? You have only 3 outs to Bridge and we have 1 Bell, which means your 3 O.Rings MUST be alligend in a row for a chance to draw at least 1.
What are the odds of having your 3 outs in a row, at turn 5 (48 cards left)? The odds of drawing 1 of those 3 is .06% and we will mill it at your EOT. Bell untaps at our upkeep, what are the chances of the next card on your top being a second O.Ring? .0026% and we will mill it. Now do the math and tell me what are the odds of the next card on your top to be that 3rd O.Ring? Do you really want to play out those odds (less than 1%) instead of scooping?
Even if you do get extremely lucky and hit that 3rd O.Ring, will you have enough power on board to finish the game before we get another Bridge?
And do note, Leyline does not shut down Lantern or Codex, it just prevents us from targeting you. We can still use all Codex Shredders to rip through our library for that Nature's Claim, more copies Bridge, Bell or whatever else we're trying to find. You are only really shutting down discard spells, which we only play about 6of. Sure Leyline is hard on us, but Stony Silence is harder and we do not scoop to that either because you need to deal both the lock AND Bridge and neither Leyline or Stony can deal with Bridge.
But really this is all just theory-crafting, no two games play out the same way.
BTW, incorporating Twin ain't that hard, I used to do it when I was more interested in trolling with the deck than being competitive. We can add 1 Twin, 1 Exarch and thats it. After we assemble the Lantern lock we have enough time to assemble Twin+Exarch. Even if the cards have been milled we can get them back with Codex after a locked game to finish. And no, it does not require a lack of Bridge to go off, we can simply draw our card for the turn and we now have 1 card in hand, we can go off under Bridge. Heres two examples I posted in another thread, one playing Twin+Exarch main and another playing Twin+Exarch in the board with 1 Research // Development main to put the combo into the deck after a locked game.
I guess the nice thing is that cards which hate out this deck are also effective against others as well; at least if you're in white. Hopefully the deck stays a "flash in the pan" because nothing is worse than playing against it in the FNM style environment with mediocre pilots.
At least one person already plays this locally. If that turns to 3 or 4 or 5 people, I might just try going to a different location. I don't even care as much about winning or losing, I just want to actually play a game. They're either dead immediately or durdle while neither of us really do anything. In the local environment, I would rather just scoop and play a casual game with a friend in the meantime than waste my efforts not playing for an hour.
People felt that same way when I played Griselbanned.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
People felt that same way when I played Griselbanned.
At least, they lose to Griselbanned much faster than Lantern does.
This saves them a lot of time for doing something else, such as trading
It can actually be somewhat a problem. When I finish a match in 8 minutes during FNM, I am often bored in between rounds. We have a Standard FNM, a Modern FNM, and a Tiny Leaders FNM and all of the other players are in their matches. I've often been so bored in between the rounds that I've considered leaving. But there is also that polar opposite in Lantern where the round went to time, you didn't have any time to go to the bathroom, and everyone basically saw what you are playing and watched you get tortured in the match.
I don't know what my point is here. I believe that too few people scoop in games, but I guess if they want to hope to draw their one or whatever outs, it's up to them.
*I noticed that you have an extensive list of Modern decks. Do you play all of these or have you? Which are your favorites? It seems as though you've played for the same time as myself because we share many of those decks. No Bromo.
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Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Alright, the topics drifted far off from the gp at this point. If anyone wants to talk about lantern decks, theres a thread to do so. If you wanna talk about it being "unhealthy" theres the banlist and metagame threads for that. Locked.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
It is way, way, WAY easier to win when you shut down both Codex Shredder, the Lantern of Insight shuffle ability, and all the discard. There are lots of decks which can handle an active Bridge and an active Bell. But there's really nothing you can do against a Ruins/Lantern lock if you don't have Leyline up. Can the Lantern player answer it? Yes. Is it a big benefit to the Lantern opponent? Also yes.
So 1 out then, and a counterable one at that.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Twitch: gamerchamp
Modern: UGrand Architect, UBTezzeret Control, UBWRG Bridge From Below (Dredge)
Legacy: UWGTrue-Name Bant
I guess the bigger point I was trying to make was paralleling a point made by those who play the deck. Saying that opponents should just scoop against the "hard" lock because the odds of winning are incredibly low, even with outs left in the deck. It saves time vs grinding out a game you will probably lose anyway. With that in mind, it seems entirely reasonable to expect Lantern to scoop to a turn 0 Leyline, unless they have the Disenchant in opening hand or something.
As for incorporating Twin, I'm all for that. Gives them something to do and requires a lack of bridges on the field in order to go off.
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Commander
U Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
RG Zilortha, Strength Incarnate
WB Amalia Benavides Aguirre
There is a big difference to scooping to Lantern with outs left in the deck and Lantern scooping to a resolved Leyline.
Lets say your hate suit is 4 Leylines, Leyline cannot do anything against Ensnaring Bridge, so lets add 3 Oblivion Rings to your board. Thats 7 cards just to hate out 1 deck...
Lets say you do open the game with Leyline, luckily, without having to mulligan to it. Why would Lantern scoop? Ensnaring Bridge is still good to go, so is Lantern+Bell/Pyxis and we have outs to break Leyline plsu Academy Ruins to not lose to self-mill.
Lets make it hard on Lantern and say we didn't open with Nature's Claim in hand, but by turn 5 we have Bridge, Lantern and just 1 Bell on field and you still have not topdecked one of your O.rings. Why would YOU not scoop here even with Leyline in play? You have only 3 outs to Bridge and we have 1 Bell, which means your 3 O.Rings MUST be alligend in a row for a chance to draw at least 1.
What are the odds of having your 3 outs in a row, at turn 5 (48 cards left)? The odds of drawing 1 of those 3 is .06% and we will mill it at your EOT. Bell untaps at our upkeep, what are the chances of the next card on your top being a second O.Ring? .0026% and we will mill it. Now do the math and tell me what are the odds of the next card on your top to be that 3rd O.Ring? Do you really want to play out those odds (less than 1%) instead of scooping?
Even if you do get extremely lucky and hit that 3rd O.Ring, will you have enough power on board to finish the game before we get another Bridge?
And do note, Leyline does not shut down Lantern or Codex, it just prevents us from targeting you. We can still use all Codex Shredders to rip through our library for that Nature's Claim, more copies Bridge, Bell or whatever else we're trying to find. You are only really shutting down discard spells, which we only play about 6of. Sure Leyline is hard on us, but Stony Silence is harder and we do not scoop to that either because you need to deal both the lock AND Bridge and neither Leyline or Stony can deal with Bridge.
But really this is all just theory-crafting, no two games play out the same way.
BTW, incorporating Twin ain't that hard, I used to do it when I was more interested in trolling with the deck than being competitive. We can add 1 Twin, 1 Exarch and thats it. After we assemble the Lantern lock we have enough time to assemble Twin+Exarch. Even if the cards have been milled we can get them back with Codex after a locked game to finish. And no, it does not require a lack of Bridge to go off, we can simply draw our card for the turn and we now have 1 card in hand, we can go off under Bridge. Heres two examples I posted in another thread, one playing Twin+Exarch main and another playing Twin+Exarch in the board with 1 Research // Development main to put the combo into the deck after a locked game.
4 Codex Shredder
4 Lantern of Insight
4 Ghoulcaller’s Bell
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Opal
3 Pithing Needle
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
3 Spellskite
1 Deceiver Excarch
Enchantments (1)
1 Splinter Twin
Instants (3)
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Surgical Extraction
Sorceries (10)
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Glimmervoid
4 Llanowar Wastes
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Academy Ruins
4 Codex Shredder
4 Lantern of Insight
4 Ghoulcaller’s Bell
4 Ensnaring Bridge
4 Mox Opal
3 Pithing Needle
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
Creatures (3)
3 Spellskite
Enchantments (1)
1 Ghirapur Aether Grid
Instants (4)
1 Surgical Extraction
2 Abrupt Decay
Sorceries (10)
4 Ancient Stirrings
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
Lands (17)
4 Glimmervoid
4 Llanowar Wastes
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Tendo Ice Bridge
1 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Academy Ruins
1 Pithing Needle
2 Pyroclasm
2 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Nature’s Claim
2 Sun Droplet
2 Welding Jar
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Splinter Twin
2 Deceiver Exarch
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Spirits
UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)At least, they lose to Griselbanned much faster than Lantern does.
This saves them a lot of time for doing something else, such as trading
Anything, but nothing at the moment...
Modern:
WUBRGAmulet Titan, WUBRGHuman
WUBRAd Nauseam, WBRGDeath Shadow, UBRGScapeshift, UBRGDredge
WURJeskai Nahiri, WURCheeri0s, WBGCounter Company, WRGBurn, UBRMadcap Moon, BRGJund Midrange
UBTurn,BRGriselbrand Reanimator, WGKnight Company, RGRG Tron, RGRG Ponza, XAffinity, XEldrazi Tron
It can actually be somewhat a problem. When I finish a match in 8 minutes during FNM, I am often bored in between rounds. We have a Standard FNM, a Modern FNM, and a Tiny Leaders FNM and all of the other players are in their matches. I've often been so bored in between the rounds that I've considered leaving. But there is also that polar opposite in Lantern where the round went to time, you didn't have any time to go to the bathroom, and everyone basically saw what you are playing and watched you get tortured in the match.
I don't know what my point is here. I believe that too few people scoop in games, but I guess if they want to hope to draw their one or whatever outs, it's up to them.
*I noticed that you have an extensive list of Modern decks. Do you play all of these or have you? Which are your favorites? It seems as though you've played for the same time as myself because we share many of those decks. No Bromo.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)