Just because the lantern control deck did well once (and once before, until it got destroyed day 2.) doesnt mean its a good deck by any stretch. Day one is only really good to showcase many decks impact on a meta, not a single one. Day 2 is where that happens.
Even if it does alright, I'll still be colored unimpressed. Its been a deck for a long long time, and it hasnt ever done "really" well. Its hard to use, goes to time very very often, and yes, dies to stuff like stony silence. Plus it loses to burn incredibly easily, among a few others. Even LSV used it for a while said he liked the feel of it, then abandoned it because of "Time reasons and lopsided matchups."
LSV wouldnt do that to a blue deck, especially blue control, especially blue artifact control, if it wasnt for a good reason.
I'll listen to the "Its the best deck ever!" talk when it top 8s. If it doesnt, I'll let it pass through the night.
Just because the lantern control deck did well once (and once before, until it got destroyed day 2.) doesnt mean its a good deck by any stretch. Day one is only really good to showcase many decks impact on a meta, not a single one. Day 2 is where that happens.
Even if it does alright, I'll still be colored unimpressed. Its been a deck for a long long time, and it hasnt ever done "really" well. Its hard to use, goes to time very very often, and yes, dies to stuff like stony silence. Plus it loses to burn incredibly easily, among a few others. Even LSV used it for a while said he liked the feel of it, then abandoned it because of "Time reasons and lopsided matchups."
LSV wouldnt do that to a blue deck, especially blue control, especially blue artifact control, if it wasnt for a good reason.
I'll listen to the "Its the best deck ever!" talk when it top 8s. If it doesnt, I'll let it pass through the night.
The same style of argument could be said about Zoo, though. It doesn't go to time, sure, but it has its weak matchups and hasn't put up any really amazing results in what, 3 years?
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Well, I can saw a woman in two, but you won't wanna look in the box when I'm through.
I hear the argument that it goes to time quite often, but empirical evidence seems to show otherwise. We have the games played by Zac and Ali in the tournaments, plus out of 200+ videos on MTGO (where I can't shortcut the mill actions), I have maybe two games where I lose due to time, and Zac and Ali have drawn due to time how many times out of how many rounds? The majority of times this deck would go to time would be in the cases of a newer pilot and/or a very slow opponent. In both of those cases, a large number of decks could go to time.
I'll admit that it is difficult to pilot, but I'm inclined to think that that is an argument for the deck rather than against. I am of the opinion that it is more enjoyable to play a game that requires greater skill, but I admit that's a personal preference and opinion.
And, as far as the deck losing to hate, I have quite a few videos where I've played against opponents who maindeck cards that could be considered "hate" (Suppression Field, Leyline of Sanctity, Kolaghan's Command....) and still won. I've even won the majority of the games in which I face many of those cards. The decks that I lose most to aren't to those with a few copies of powerful hate cards, but lots of copies of "live" cards. This is why the Burn and Jund matchups are among the hardest. A Stony Silence does nothing when an Ensnaring Bridge and Academy Ruins are enough to win the game alone against it. And that's assuming that removal for Stony Silence is never drawn.
Just because the lantern control deck did well once (and once before, until it got destroyed day 2.) doesnt mean its a good deck by any stretch. Day one is only really good to showcase many decks impact on a meta, not a single one. Day 2 is where that happens.
Even if it does alright, I'll still be colored unimpressed. Its been a deck for a long long time, and it hasnt ever done "really" well. Its hard to use, goes to time very very often, and yes, dies to stuff like stony silence. Plus it loses to burn incredibly easily, among a few others. Even LSV used it for a while said he liked the feel of it, then abandoned it because of "Time reasons and lopsided matchups."
LSV wouldnt do that to a blue deck, especially blue control, especially blue artifact control, if it wasnt for a good reason.
I'll listen to the "Its the best deck ever!" talk when it top 8s. If it doesnt, I'll let it pass through the night.
The same style of argument could be said about Zoo, though. It doesn't go to time, sure, but it has its weak matchups and hasn't put up any really amazing results in what, 3 years?
Shots fired!
Zoo hasn't done well in big events, but it has seen the higher tables in the SCGs circuit a few times, while Lantern Control is only just now seeing any amount of play and success. Zoo has much more of a historical backing, while Lantern Control is still pretty untested at the higher levels. We all know that Zoo hasn't been the all star it used to be, but that isn't the point of the post. It's point is the deck is still new, and one or two decent finishes doesn't make a good deck. Wafo-Tapa can do well with an Esper deck that nobody else can seem to get to work, same with Fabiano's Sultia control.
Lantern Control is an interesting deck, but for right now it still deserves it's home in Developing Competitive and not Tier one or two.
Edit:
According to KT's spread sheet, Zoo appears to have had a top 8 this cycle, as well as having an average of 2.8 meta share, while making up 4.2% of the day two meta, which seems to point towards the deck out preforming it's day one meta share. It's out scoring Elves, Amulet Bloom, Ad Nauseam, Boggles, UWR Control, Scapeshift, RUG Twin, and is tied with Grixis Delver according the the Modern Nexus sites rankings.
Making a long story short, I wouldn't compare the upstart, and largely unproved Lantern Control deck to Zoo.
Nathan Holiday is 8-1 while playing some sort of Ojutai control... hope to actually watch him on camera, I'd much rather see this style of deck winning than the grixis grindy (jace, abbot) lists.
I think Twin is being hated out pretty strongly... A ton of pros were playing it, but I can't recall any of them doing better than 7-2; the meta is favoring either super-grindy or super linear decks, there doesn't seem to be a place for a middle of the road deck like twin.
"Haters gonna hate." lol, seriously though, sorry for this lenghty breakdown but I feel there are some misconceptions in your reasoning Lantern:
Just because the lantern control deck did well once (and once before, until it got destroyed day 2.) doesnt mean its a good deck by any stretch. Day one is only really good to showcase many decks impact on a meta, not a single one. Day 2 is where that happens.
I'll quote Zac himself on how he got "destroyed" in that GP.
"I lost two matches at the GP [Charlotte]. One to GR Tron because I was in severe pain from a headache and shoulder tension. I couldn't concentrate and let him draw Ulamog instead of milling it, letting the reshuffle happen, then later killing him with Pyrite Spellbomb. I had needle on both Karn and Ostone so it actually wasn't possible for him to break out of the lock except for drawing Ulamog. Second loss was to Abzan CoCo combo, it was game 3 and he destroyed my bridge. My intention was to tap Opal and kill the lethal attacker with decay but for some reason I did not. I went to kill it during combat but could not because I did not have 3 artifacts in play. I suppose mistakes are bound to come up within 15rounds, it was the longest tournament I've played it and with probably the hardest deck to pilot. I could have won that game by getting bridge back then landing a Grafdigger's cage to prevent his options and deck from functioning."
I think he went 12-2-1, with the 2 losses being mistakes on his part as he claims. That hardly counts as "destroyed" to me but I guess we have different standards of measurement.
A week or two ago, Ali Aintrazi also got #10 at SCG Open Charlotte, and if you wander through the Lantern thread you'll notice lots of reports on almost a daily basis from FNM, LSG, Dailies and other small events and tournaments by many of our members. The deck is, in the opinion of many of its players, the most skill intensive deck they've played. Its not like anyone can just pick it up and win tournaments because its a good deck, the smallest of mistakes will cost you the game. Zac is definitely the most skilled pilot that has played at a big tournament so far, going into top 16 in June at GP Charlotte (which many here called a fluke) and 9-0 today at GP Oklahoma. Another fluke?
IMO, a good deck is a good deck whether it puts up results or not. Results are merely what happens when a good pilot plays a good deck skillfully. But thats a debate for another thread.
Even if it does alright, I'll still be colored unimpressed. Its been a deck for a long long time, and it hasnt ever done "really" well.
Really, go by the thread and notice how many reports we get constantly. Like I said, its not an easy to pilot deck, to go 9-0 day 1 at a GP with a " bad deck that does nothing and is easy to hate" takes a lot of skill. The deck did took 3 years to refine, so did Bloom I've heard and now people want it banned.
Its hard to use, goes to time very very often, and yes, dies to stuff like stony silence.
It is indeed absurdly hard to use, that is why it took so long to refine and start putting results. That does not mean its a bad deck, the pilot needs to train a lot to show results, any bad pilot can play the "best deck" and lose hard.
It does not go to time often, Zac has gone to time once at tournaments that I'm aware of, how is that considered "often"? The deck is really fast, it sets up the lock in the first 2-5 turns while shredding the opponents hand and nullifying threats on the field. After a game is locked the Lantern player's turns take 5-10 seconds. It is mostly the inexperienced opponents who drag out the game because they cannot fully comprehend what is going on or how to deal with it efficiently. As the deck keeps establishing itself on the format, this "going to time often" myth will disappear as pilots and opponents gain experience with and against it. I personally find a lot of my opponents conceding to the locks quite often now that the deck has been exposed, something they didn't do before because they failed to recognized the game has been locked out.
Stony: Lantern plays 5-7 discard spells and 2 Decays mainboard, then when Stony comes in there is more artifact/enchantment hate in the form of Nature's Claim or Seal of Primordium. You need to have Stony in your oepening 7 or mull to it, not get it discarded and if it resolves not get it destroyed. Even if it survives all that it does nothing against Ensnaring Bridge, so you need Stony and also hate for Bridge so you can deal enough damage before we naturally draw hate for Stony or even more Bridges. I can upload a game from Thursday if you wish, game 2 vs UW Control. Opponent opens with 2 Stony in hand, I discarded 1 of his 2 Stony Silence, I played Bridge and then we went into topdeck mode with me drawing lots of lands and some lock pieces but no Lantern while he was blazing through his library with Wall of Omen, Resto on Omen, Clique on himself and so on, looking for Detention Sphere for my Bridge but I eventually got to Decay, blew up Stony and as soon as Lantern hit the field he conceded. Not a single lifepoint was lost on my part by him. Stony only delayed my game considerably, but it did not shut me down.
Chalice: More or less the same as Stony, we hate it, it delays us hard, but it alone does nothing because it doesn't stop Bridge either.
Grudge: used to be #1, but we've learned to play against it with lists running main Surgical Extraction or Nihil Spellbomb. And Grafdiggers Cage coming in from the board means we can safely mill it off. Even without Cage we can mill it and let it resolve while having Spellskite or Welding Jar on the field. Worst case scenario, we get a key card blown and we'll simply try to draw it again or recur it from the graveyard.
Plus it loses to burn incredibly easily, among a few others.
Its the worst matchup, yes, but nothing that the sideboard can't deal with. Case in point, Zac beat burn 2-1 today and the pilot at SCG Cincinnati last weekend beat 3 Burn lists day 1. Incredibly easy? right.
What are these few others?
Even LSV used it for a while said he liked the feel of it, then abandoned it because of "Time reasons and lopsided matchups."
LSV wouldnt do that to a blue deck, especially blue control, especially blue artifact control, if it wasnt for a good reason.
Let me just quote LSV himself playing the deck on video: "Is this the best deck in modern?" -LSV (Channel fireball test videos, match 2 @ 22:35)
Could you quote him when he said the reasons he abandoned it? I know he tested the deck and went 2-1 without any practice, losing 1 match to bad sidebaording and various mistakes in-game, but he never really picked it up and dedicated endless hours training with it that I know of. Enlighten me.
I'll listen to the "Its the best deck ever!" talk when it top 8s. If it doesnt, I'll let it pass through the night.
I don't know if its "the best deck ever", though it feels like it, but I do know it is tier 1 material and it has everything it needs to duke it out with tier 1 decks whether players acknowledged it or not. Guess we'll pick up the conversation after a top 8 then.
Nathan Holiday is 8-1 while playing some sort of Ojutai control... hope to actually watch him on camera, I'd much rather see this style of deck winning than the grixis grindy (jace, abbot) lists.
I think Twin is being hated out pretty strongly... A ton of pros were playing it, but I can't recall any of them doing better than 7-2; the meta is favoring either super-grindy or super linear decks, there doesn't seem to be a place for a middle of the road deck like twin.
Nathan was actually streaming this deck not too long ago (just as UW control but no ojutai) and was considering putting in ojutai, so no surprise he's playing it here now with them, I feel like it must have been a good choice for him if he's got a record that strong, or maybe he's incredibly well suited for the meta
Nathan Holiday is 8-1 while playing some sort of Ojutai control... hope to actually watch him on camera, I'd much rather see this style of deck winning than the grixis grindy (jace, abbot) lists.
I think Twin is being hated out pretty strongly... A ton of pros were playing it, but I can't recall any of them doing better than 7-2; the meta is favoring either super-grindy or super linear decks, there doesn't seem to be a place for a middle of the road deck like twin.
This grinds my gears, as a Burn player, the last thing I want is for the meta to be 50% byes, 50% mirrors, and get paired with all the mirrors.
This actually happened at my local WCQ, almost everyone was either on GRTron, Grixis, UW control, Burn, Zoo or Affinity.
Jund, Junk and Twins either were being played by very few people of did so bad they went home after round 2, because I barely saw any.
Pretty sure when LSV said the best deck in modern comment it was sarcastic/joking. The deck cant be Tier 1 if it has sub 25% winrate vs Burn
If a deck can't be tier 1 because it has ONE bad matchup then why is there a tier 1 list at all?
Besides, burn is the hardest matchup, but not -25%. Read my post to Lantern again, Zac beat burn today, 2-1, the pilot at SCG cincinatti beat 3 Burn lists day 1. I can understand Zac winning 1 -25% match on "luck", but is winning 3 matches against a -25% matchup luck? Being the hardest matchup does not mean its an impossible matchup, we do run 2-3 Spellskite mainboard, and sideboards mostly include 3-4 Sun Droplet, Leyline of Sanctity or a combination of both. Nature's Claim is sided in for Eidolon, which in extreme cases could be used on ourself to gain 4 life if there is no Eidolon to deal with, 4 life sets the burn player back by 2 bolts against a deck that controls the draws.
Nathan Holiday is 8-1 while playing some sort of Ojutai control... hope to actually watch him on camera, I'd much rather see this style of deck winning than the grixis grindy (jace, abbot) lists.
I think Twin is being hated out pretty strongly... A ton of pros were playing it, but I can't recall any of them doing better than 7-2; the meta is favoring either super-grindy or super linear decks, there doesn't seem to be a place for a middle of the road deck like twin.
Twin has shown it's ability to adapt and adjust just like Jund has. It can go full on control in the main board, slot back into the all in twin builds of the pasts, or stick with the tempo build they have going now and make small adjustments. With three different builds, and up to four different color pairings (UR, RUG, UWR, and Grixis) I'm sure one build will find it's was to the top.
Nathan Holiday is 8-1 while playing some sort of Ojutai control... hope to actually watch him on camera, I'd much rather see this style of deck winning than the grixis grindy (jace, abbot) lists.
I think Twin is being hated out pretty strongly... A ton of pros were playing it, but I can't recall any of them doing better than 7-2; the meta is favoring either super-grindy or super linear decks, there doesn't seem to be a place for a middle of the road deck like twin.
This grinds my gears, as a Burn player, the last thing I want is for the meta to be 50% byes, 50% mirrors, and get paired with all the mirrors.
This actually happened at my local WCQ, almost everyone was either on GRTron, Grixis, UW control, Burn, Zoo or Affinity.
Jund, Junk and Twins either were being played by very few people of did so bad they went home after round 2, because I barely saw any.
Don't worry, if there are more decks like Burn and Affinity, the decks like Tron and UW Control will get pushed out and the middle decks will be able to come back to drive out the linear aggressive decks, which will open up the meta for grindier decks and the cycle will start again.
Pretty sure when LSV said the best deck in modern comment it was sarcastic/joking. The deck cant be Tier 1 if it has sub 25% winrate vs Burn
Jund has nearly the same win rate vs. GR Tron. Point is, that every deck has some matchup that is fairly unbeatable and you need some luck and good matchups to do well in a large tournament.
@zerodown - You are the hero that Lantern Control needs.
I personally play tested the deck for a few weeks and then FNMed it. I started 3-0, but tilted after a tough bout of variance vs. GR Tron when he was about to be milled out. The next 2 rounds went poorly for me, but I'm pretty sure that if I played tightly, I could have won the final round. The deck is pretty strong and has nut hands just like other decks. However, the nut hand occasionally depends on what their opponent is on. I have essentially locked out Griselbrand by turn 2 in Lantern Control before, which is essentially a turn 2 kill to me. Ensnaring Bridge is just so strong in this meta and most decks have to hope to put enough pressure on Lantern Control before they drop a Bridge. Then they have to hope to kill the Bridge and swing for lethal before it or another Bridge comes out. Many games are this simple and there are 4 Sun Droplet in the sideboard for the Burn matchup.
Honestly someone who wants to dedicate their time to learning this deck and practicing and practicing, can do well in my opinion. It's just like any other deck in that respect. Most of the time comes from mill decisions, which can be game breaking, and from the opponent learning how to win on another axis.
I'm glad to see it at 9-0. I think this can put to rest the myth that the games always go to time. This is not 2005 Turbo Fog.
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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)
I hope Lantern Control gets destroyed tomorrow. Played against another one this past week, and the deck just durdles as hard as any deck could durdle. Time is its resource, because lord knows it's not killing anyone in less than 30 minutes per game. Why anyone would subject themselves to 15 rounds of going to time and turns is beyond me. Maybe their opponents just scoop because the deck is so painful to play against.
I hope Lantern Control gets destroyed tomorrow. Played against another one this past week, and the deck just durdles as hard as any deck could durdle. Time is its resource, because lord knows it's not killing anyone in less than 30 minutes per game. Why anyone would subject themselves to 15 rounds of going to time and turns is beyond me. Maybe their opponents just scoop because the deck is so painful to play against.
$4000 is the most likely reason for Zac Elsik to play the deck.
I hope Lantern Control gets destroyed tomorrow. Played against another one this past week, and the deck just durdles as hard as any deck could durdle. Time is its resource, because lord knows it's not killing anyone in less than 30 minutes per game. Why anyone would subject themselves to 15 rounds of going to time and turns is beyond me. Maybe their opponents just scoop because the deck is so painful to play against.
Wasn't this pretty much why Eggs got nuked and Top got banned?
I hope Lantern Control gets destroyed tomorrow. Played against another one this past week, and the deck just durdles as hard as any deck could durdle. Time is its resource, because lord knows it's not killing anyone in less than 30 minutes per game. Why anyone would subject themselves to 15 rounds of going to time and turns is beyond me. Maybe their opponents just scoop because the deck is so painful to play against.
Wasn't this pretty much why Eggs got nuked and Top got banned?
No.
Eggs was banned for its absurdly long turns. Not long games; long turns. It's noted in the announcement that when matches go to time, normally it doesn't take that long to finish those turns, but if a player is taking a turn that's 10 minutes or more, that delays everything, and it all being in one turn means that the 5 turn clock is useless. In contrast, consider the Time Walk combo deck, which may be as much of a "solitaire" game, but because the amount of time it spends winning the game is spread across many turns, if it goes to time it just takes those five turns and then it's done.
Sensei's Divining Top, in addition to possibly just being too powerful, is again a card that makes turns take longer. A player activates it and fusses over what order to put the cards in, something that will be happening every turn. And of course you have the "activate top, fetch, shuffle, activate Top again" situations being all too common. And it being colorless means tons of decks would be interested in it, even the ones not running Counterbalance, complicating things even further. So Sensei's Divining Top is a case of both turns taking longer and being played everywhere.
The key point is that both of these cards let to long turns. In my (admittedly limited) experience playing against Lantern Control, it doesn't have long turns, just potentially long games. This is not something that causes games to go on inordinately long after rounds go to time. And that's the concern at a big event, which is of course when this timing thing is an issue. Fact is, at a large event, you'll always have matches go to time so banning a deck for going to time doesn't do much, the important thing is that they don't continue inordinately long afterwards, and Lantern Control is not a deck that does that.
Maybe WOTC will ban it for being slow (seems unlikely, but who knows with them), but that isn't for the reasons that Second Sunrise and Top got banned for.
Just because the lantern control deck did well once (and once before, until it got destroyed day 2.) doesnt mean its a good deck by any stretch. Day one is only really good to showcase many decks impact on a meta, not a single one. Day 2 is where that happens.
Even if it does alright, I'll still be colored unimpressed. Its been a deck for a long long time, and it hasnt ever done "really" well. Its hard to use, goes to time very very often, and yes, dies to stuff like stony silence. Plus it loses to burn incredibly easily, among a few others. Even LSV used it for a while said he liked the feel of it, then abandoned it because of "Time reasons and lopsided matchups."
LSV wouldnt do that to a blue deck, especially blue control, especially blue artifact control, if it wasnt for a good reason.
I'll listen to the "Its the best deck ever!" talk when it top 8s. If it doesnt, I'll let it pass through the night.
Several people already explained, why you are wrong at this one.
However, I want to make some comparisons between Lantern Control and Amulet Bloom / Griselshoal / Eggs. All of the last 3 decks took a rather long time to develop, and when they got "tournament" ready, people still said, that those decks are garbage (Amulet Bloom till last year, Griselbanned till GP Charlotte and Eggs till PT RTR). Meanwhile, those decks had good results in more local tournaments and not on the big stage, since most of the decks grinders won't/can't travel around the globe to play at a GP. However, when there is a big tournament nearby, they will go there and they will do well, since they have a good deck and they have a profound knowledge of it. Combined with the Rouge factor, those decks can take a tournament by surprise, see PT Fate Reforged with Bloom or PT RTR with Eggs.
It will be only a matter of time, till Lantern Control will reach the same status as Griselbanned/Bloom/Eggs as an "unfair" and "uninteractive" deck. However, I think, that Lantern Control has the same power level as Griselbanned and Bloom, but is more consistent. This will lead, that the deck will be a Tier 2 deck at least, maybe it will even get to a Tier 1 deck like Eggs did.
@zerodown and thnkr, thanks guys, exactly my thoughts (I played the deck like 2 years ago, I should give it a spin again).
@All, if nothing changes, the deck will become the Prison deck to go of Modern, which isn't a bad thing, since it allows you to play another Archetype in Modern (Prison).
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: I like the hype around Abbot, and I can confirm, that he is great in decks, which can abuse his draw and prowess.
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What I play or have:
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
I hope Lantern Control gets destroyed tomorrow. Played against another one this past week, and the deck just durdles as hard as any deck could durdle. Time is its resource, because lord knows it's not killing anyone in less than 30 minutes per game. Why anyone would subject themselves to 15 rounds of going to time and turns is beyond me. Maybe their opponents just scoop because the deck is so painful to play against.
That reminds me the commentators of SCG Cincinatti last weekend. They had an Infect vs Abzan match on feature and a Lantern Control vs Merfolk match on backup and almost went to watch the Lantern match during the main feature match sideboarding but joked that the backup was Lantern so they had enough time to watch after the feature match.
Trivia Question: Which deck won its match faster?
a) Infect, the notoriously "fastest" deck in modern
b) Lantern Control, the notoriously "slowest" deck in modern
Hint: The Merfolk player stood up and walked away from his table on que right after the commentators made the joke.
@zerodown - You are the hero that Lantern Control needs.
I can accept when people make valid points on it, and I can have a decent conversation about the deck and its matchups and weaknesses. But when I see biased unfounded arguments against it I get pretty deffensive as a mother protecting her child. I made the original Lantern Control thread back in 2012, when people didn't even know Lantern of Insight was a card. My only gripe is that after Zac's GP top 16, the internet took over the deck and changed its name from "Top Control" to "Lantern Control", but fighting the internet is useless, so the deck is called Lantern Control. lol
Examples:
Quote from idSurge »
Is it weak to artifact hate?
That is a valid question I gladly replied to and played devil's advocate by explaining the deck's weakness level to artifact hate.
Quote from Lantern »
Just because the lantern control deck did well once (and once before, until it got destroyed day 2.) doesnt mean its a good deck by any stretch. Day one is only really good to showcase many decks impact on a meta, not a single one. Day 2 is where that happens.
Even if it does alright, I'll still be colored unimpressed. Its been a deck for a long long time, and it hasnt ever done "really" well. Its hard to use, goes to time very very often, and yes, dies to stuff like stony silence. Plus it loses to burn incredibly easily, among a few others. Even LSV used it for a while said he liked the feel of it, then abandoned it because of "Time reasons and lopsided matchups."
LSV wouldnt do that to a blue deck, especially blue control, especially blue artifact control, if it wasnt for a good reason.
I'll listen to the "Its the best deck ever!" talk when it top 8s. If it doesnt, I'll let it pass through the night.
That is just a bunch of biased unfounded arguments by a guy who has openly expressed in the Ban thread that he hates the deck so much he will not play against it online, he would rather leave the match. How can he make valid knowledgable points against a deck he refuses to even play against? He thinks the deck is a "blue artifact control deck". Come on, really?
Quote from Ayiluss »
It's just deck that wants to people get frustrated for playing against by wasting their time. It's incredibly boring deck to play against and as I've already said once the best thing you can do against it is to concede as soon as you relize you're playing against it and save you time, energy and mood by that.
Its a deck that wants to win, just like every other deck. Opponents getting frustrated and wasting their own time by refusing to concede when they have slim to no chances of winning a locked out game is only a side effect to the deck's game plan which is to mill the opponent in a controlled manner rather than shooting blue mill spells and hoping to be fast enough.
The games are actually pretty interactive, intense and fun until either Lantern loses or establishes its locks and wins. Watch THIS video I posted yesterday vs UW Control, if that is not an intense interactive game then I don't know what is. Its a normal game of magic, 2 pilots with 2 piles of 75 legal cards interacting and trying to develop their game plan faster and more efficiently than the opponent. The problem is that if Lantern wins the race, the game becomes boring to the opponent due to the prison nature of the Lantern deck. Its at this point that opponents should concede to skip their boring demise. If you watch the video the opponent concedes just when he exhausted every possible out, because there is no point in getting bored and wasting time if you know you got locked out. People just need to learn how the deck works so they can easily figure out if they have lost already or if they still realistically have an out. If you play against it and suddenly find yourself bored with no valid plays in the foreseeable future, chances are you are locked out and should concede into the next game.
Wasn't this pretty much why Eggs got nuked and Top got banned?
No, Eggs got banned because the individual turns took too long. Here, the individual turns are short, but the deck locks you down through all of them. It's hardly an uninteractive combo deck- you need to interact with players a lot to lock them down.
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Even if it does alright, I'll still be colored unimpressed. Its been a deck for a long long time, and it hasnt ever done "really" well. Its hard to use, goes to time very very often, and yes, dies to stuff like stony silence. Plus it loses to burn incredibly easily, among a few others. Even LSV used it for a while said he liked the feel of it, then abandoned it because of "Time reasons and lopsided matchups."
LSV wouldnt do that to a blue deck, especially blue control, especially blue artifact control, if it wasnt for a good reason.
I'll listen to the "Its the best deck ever!" talk when it top 8s. If it doesnt, I'll let it pass through the night.
The same style of argument could be said about Zoo, though. It doesn't go to time, sure, but it has its weak matchups and hasn't put up any really amazing results in what, 3 years?
I'll admit that it is difficult to pilot, but I'm inclined to think that that is an argument for the deck rather than against. I am of the opinion that it is more enjoyable to play a game that requires greater skill, but I admit that's a personal preference and opinion.
And, as far as the deck losing to hate, I have quite a few videos where I've played against opponents who maindeck cards that could be considered "hate" (Suppression Field, Leyline of Sanctity, Kolaghan's Command....) and still won. I've even won the majority of the games in which I face many of those cards. The decks that I lose most to aren't to those with a few copies of powerful hate cards, but lots of copies of "live" cards. This is why the Burn and Jund matchups are among the hardest. A Stony Silence does nothing when an Ensnaring Bridge and Academy Ruins are enough to win the game alone against it. And that's assuming that removal for Stony Silence is never drawn.
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan
Shots fired!
Zoo hasn't done well in big events, but it has seen the higher tables in the SCGs circuit a few times, while Lantern Control is only just now seeing any amount of play and success. Zoo has much more of a historical backing, while Lantern Control is still pretty untested at the higher levels. We all know that Zoo hasn't been the all star it used to be, but that isn't the point of the post. It's point is the deck is still new, and one or two decent finishes doesn't make a good deck. Wafo-Tapa can do well with an Esper deck that nobody else can seem to get to work, same with Fabiano's Sultia control.
Lantern Control is an interesting deck, but for right now it still deserves it's home in Developing Competitive and not Tier one or two.
Edit:
According to KT's spread sheet, Zoo appears to have had a top 8 this cycle, as well as having an average of 2.8 meta share, while making up 4.2% of the day two meta, which seems to point towards the deck out preforming it's day one meta share. It's out scoring Elves, Amulet Bloom, Ad Nauseam, Boggles, UWR Control, Scapeshift, RUG Twin, and is tied with Grixis Delver according the the Modern Nexus sites rankings.
Making a long story short, I wouldn't compare the upstart, and largely unproved Lantern Control deck to Zoo.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
Spirits
We typically don't get it until Day 2 actually starts.
I think Twin is being hated out pretty strongly... A ton of pros were playing it, but I can't recall any of them doing better than 7-2; the meta is favoring either super-grindy or super linear decks, there doesn't seem to be a place for a middle of the road deck like twin.
I'll quote Zac himself on how he got "destroyed" in that GP.
"I lost two matches at the GP [Charlotte]. One to GR Tron because I was in severe pain from a headache and shoulder tension. I couldn't concentrate and let him draw Ulamog instead of milling it, letting the reshuffle happen, then later killing him with Pyrite Spellbomb. I had needle on both Karn and Ostone so it actually wasn't possible for him to break out of the lock except for drawing Ulamog. Second loss was to Abzan CoCo combo, it was game 3 and he destroyed my bridge. My intention was to tap Opal and kill the lethal attacker with decay but for some reason I did not. I went to kill it during combat but could not because I did not have 3 artifacts in play. I suppose mistakes are bound to come up within 15rounds, it was the longest tournament I've played it and with probably the hardest deck to pilot. I could have won that game by getting bridge back then landing a Grafdigger's cage to prevent his options and deck from functioning."
I think he went 12-2-1, with the 2 losses being mistakes on his part as he claims. That hardly counts as "destroyed" to me but I guess we have different standards of measurement.
A week or two ago, Ali Aintrazi also got #10 at SCG Open Charlotte, and if you wander through the Lantern thread you'll notice lots of reports on almost a daily basis from FNM, LSG, Dailies and other small events and tournaments by many of our members. The deck is, in the opinion of many of its players, the most skill intensive deck they've played. Its not like anyone can just pick it up and win tournaments because its a good deck, the smallest of mistakes will cost you the game. Zac is definitely the most skilled pilot that has played at a big tournament so far, going into top 16 in June at GP Charlotte (which many here called a fluke) and 9-0 today at GP Oklahoma. Another fluke?
IMO, a good deck is a good deck whether it puts up results or not. Results are merely what happens when a good pilot plays a good deck skillfully. But thats a debate for another thread.
Really, go by the thread and notice how many reports we get constantly. Like I said, its not an easy to pilot deck, to go 9-0 day 1 at a GP with a " bad deck that does nothing and is easy to hate" takes a lot of skill. The deck did took 3 years to refine, so did Bloom I've heard and now people want it banned.
It is indeed absurdly hard to use, that is why it took so long to refine and start putting results. That does not mean its a bad deck, the pilot needs to train a lot to show results, any bad pilot can play the "best deck" and lose hard.
It does not go to time often, Zac has gone to time once at tournaments that I'm aware of, how is that considered "often"? The deck is really fast, it sets up the lock in the first 2-5 turns while shredding the opponents hand and nullifying threats on the field. After a game is locked the Lantern player's turns take 5-10 seconds. It is mostly the inexperienced opponents who drag out the game because they cannot fully comprehend what is going on or how to deal with it efficiently. As the deck keeps establishing itself on the format, this "going to time often" myth will disappear as pilots and opponents gain experience with and against it. I personally find a lot of my opponents conceding to the locks quite often now that the deck has been exposed, something they didn't do before because they failed to recognized the game has been locked out.
Stony Silence is indeed probably the best card right now against it, followed by Chalice of the Void and then Ancient Grudge.
Stony: Lantern plays 5-7 discard spells and 2 Decays mainboard, then when Stony comes in there is more artifact/enchantment hate in the form of Nature's Claim or Seal of Primordium. You need to have Stony in your oepening 7 or mull to it, not get it discarded and if it resolves not get it destroyed. Even if it survives all that it does nothing against Ensnaring Bridge, so you need Stony and also hate for Bridge so you can deal enough damage before we naturally draw hate for Stony or even more Bridges. I can upload a game from Thursday if you wish, game 2 vs UW Control. Opponent opens with 2 Stony in hand, I discarded 1 of his 2 Stony Silence, I played Bridge and then we went into topdeck mode with me drawing lots of lands and some lock pieces but no Lantern while he was blazing through his library with Wall of Omen, Resto on Omen, Clique on himself and so on, looking for Detention Sphere for my Bridge but I eventually got to Decay, blew up Stony and as soon as Lantern hit the field he conceded. Not a single lifepoint was lost on my part by him. Stony only delayed my game considerably, but it did not shut me down.
Chalice: More or less the same as Stony, we hate it, it delays us hard, but it alone does nothing because it doesn't stop Bridge either.
Grudge: used to be #1, but we've learned to play against it with lists running main Surgical Extraction or Nihil Spellbomb. And Grafdiggers Cage coming in from the board means we can safely mill it off. Even without Cage we can mill it and let it resolve while having Spellskite or Welding Jar on the field. Worst case scenario, we get a key card blown and we'll simply try to draw it again or recur it from the graveyard.
Its the worst matchup, yes, but nothing that the sideboard can't deal with. Case in point, Zac beat burn 2-1 today and the pilot at SCG Cincinnati last weekend beat 3 Burn lists day 1. Incredibly easy? right.
What are these few others?
Let me just quote LSV himself playing the deck on video: "Is this the best deck in modern?" -LSV (Channel fireball test videos, match 2 @ 22:35)
Could you quote him when he said the reasons he abandoned it? I know he tested the deck and went 2-1 without any practice, losing 1 match to bad sidebaording and various mistakes in-game, but he never really picked it up and dedicated endless hours training with it that I know of. Enlighten me.
I don't know if its "the best deck ever", though it feels like it, but I do know it is tier 1 material and it has everything it needs to duke it out with tier 1 decks whether players acknowledged it or not. Guess we'll pick up the conversation after a top 8 then.
Other than that, I like your name a lot.
"When you get your opponent down to 0 sanity, you win the game!"
Nathan was actually streaming this deck not too long ago (just as UW control but no ojutai) and was considering putting in ojutai, so no surprise he's playing it here now with them, I feel like it must have been a good choice for him if he's got a record that strong, or maybe he's incredibly well suited for the meta
FULL TIME FAERIES
Selvala
This grinds my gears, as a Burn player, the last thing I want is for the meta to be 50% byes, 50% mirrors, and get paired with all the mirrors.
This actually happened at my local WCQ, almost everyone was either on GRTron, Grixis, UW control, Burn, Zoo or Affinity.
Jund, Junk and Twins either were being played by very few people of did so bad they went home after round 2, because I barely saw any.
If a deck can't be tier 1 because it has ONE bad matchup then why is there a tier 1 list at all?
Besides, burn is the hardest matchup, but not -25%. Read my post to Lantern again, Zac beat burn today, 2-1, the pilot at SCG cincinatti beat 3 Burn lists day 1. I can understand Zac winning 1 -25% match on "luck", but is winning 3 matches against a -25% matchup luck? Being the hardest matchup does not mean its an impossible matchup, we do run 2-3 Spellskite mainboard, and sideboards mostly include 3-4 Sun Droplet, Leyline of Sanctity or a combination of both. Nature's Claim is sided in for Eidolon, which in extreme cases could be used on ourself to gain 4 life if there is no Eidolon to deal with, 4 life sets the burn player back by 2 bolts against a deck that controls the draws.
"When you get your opponent down to 0 sanity, you win the game!"
Twin has shown it's ability to adapt and adjust just like Jund has. It can go full on control in the main board, slot back into the all in twin builds of the pasts, or stick with the tempo build they have going now and make small adjustments. With three different builds, and up to four different color pairings (UR, RUG, UWR, and Grixis) I'm sure one build will find it's was to the top.
Cheeri0sXWU
Reid Duke's Level One
Who's the Beatdown
Alt+0198=Æ
Don't worry, if there are more decks like Burn and Affinity, the decks like Tron and UW Control will get pushed out and the middle decks will be able to come back to drive out the linear aggressive decks, which will open up the meta for grindier decks and the cycle will start again.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Jund has nearly the same win rate vs. GR Tron. Point is, that every deck has some matchup that is fairly unbeatable and you need some luck and good matchups to do well in a large tournament.
@zerodown - You are the hero that Lantern Control needs.
I personally play tested the deck for a few weeks and then FNMed it. I started 3-0, but tilted after a tough bout of variance vs. GR Tron when he was about to be milled out. The next 2 rounds went poorly for me, but I'm pretty sure that if I played tightly, I could have won the final round. The deck is pretty strong and has nut hands just like other decks. However, the nut hand occasionally depends on what their opponent is on. I have essentially locked out Griselbrand by turn 2 in Lantern Control before, which is essentially a turn 2 kill to me. Ensnaring Bridge is just so strong in this meta and most decks have to hope to put enough pressure on Lantern Control before they drop a Bridge. Then they have to hope to kill the Bridge and swing for lethal before it or another Bridge comes out. Many games are this simple and there are 4 Sun Droplet in the sideboard for the Burn matchup.
Honestly someone who wants to dedicate their time to learning this deck and practicing and practicing, can do well in my opinion. It's just like any other deck in that respect. Most of the time comes from mill decisions, which can be game breaking, and from the opponent learning how to win on another axis.
I'm glad to see it at 9-0. I think this can put to rest the myth that the games always go to time. This is not 2005 Turbo Fog.
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)UR ....... WUBR ........... WB ............. RGW ........ UBR ....... WUB .... BGU
Spells / Blink & Combo / Token Grind / Dino Tribal / Draw Cards / Zombies / Reanimate
$4000 is the most likely reason for Zac Elsik to play the deck.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
Wasn't this pretty much why Eggs got nuked and Top got banned?
Eggs was banned for its absurdly long turns. Not long games; long turns. It's noted in the announcement that when matches go to time, normally it doesn't take that long to finish those turns, but if a player is taking a turn that's 10 minutes or more, that delays everything, and it all being in one turn means that the 5 turn clock is useless. In contrast, consider the Time Walk combo deck, which may be as much of a "solitaire" game, but because the amount of time it spends winning the game is spread across many turns, if it goes to time it just takes those five turns and then it's done.
Sensei's Divining Top, in addition to possibly just being too powerful, is again a card that makes turns take longer. A player activates it and fusses over what order to put the cards in, something that will be happening every turn. And of course you have the "activate top, fetch, shuffle, activate Top again" situations being all too common. And it being colorless means tons of decks would be interested in it, even the ones not running Counterbalance, complicating things even further. So Sensei's Divining Top is a case of both turns taking longer and being played everywhere.
The key point is that both of these cards let to long turns. In my (admittedly limited) experience playing against Lantern Control, it doesn't have long turns, just potentially long games. This is not something that causes games to go on inordinately long after rounds go to time. And that's the concern at a big event, which is of course when this timing thing is an issue. Fact is, at a large event, you'll always have matches go to time so banning a deck for going to time doesn't do much, the important thing is that they don't continue inordinately long afterwards, and Lantern Control is not a deck that does that.
Maybe WOTC will ban it for being slow (seems unlikely, but who knows with them), but that isn't for the reasons that Second Sunrise and Top got banned for.
Several people already explained, why you are wrong at this one.
However, I want to make some comparisons between Lantern Control and Amulet Bloom / Griselshoal / Eggs. All of the last 3 decks took a rather long time to develop, and when they got "tournament" ready, people still said, that those decks are garbage (Amulet Bloom till last year, Griselbanned till GP Charlotte and Eggs till PT RTR). Meanwhile, those decks had good results in more local tournaments and not on the big stage, since most of the decks grinders won't/can't travel around the globe to play at a GP. However, when there is a big tournament nearby, they will go there and they will do well, since they have a good deck and they have a profound knowledge of it. Combined with the Rouge factor, those decks can take a tournament by surprise, see PT Fate Reforged with Bloom or PT RTR with Eggs.
It will be only a matter of time, till Lantern Control will reach the same status as Griselbanned/Bloom/Eggs as an "unfair" and "uninteractive" deck. However, I think, that Lantern Control has the same power level as Griselbanned and Bloom, but is more consistent. This will lead, that the deck will be a Tier 2 deck at least, maybe it will even get to a Tier 1 deck like Eggs did.
@zerodown and thnkr, thanks guys, exactly my thoughts (I played the deck like 2 years ago, I should give it a spin again).
@All, if nothing changes, the deck will become the Prison deck to go of Modern, which isn't a bad thing, since it allows you to play another Archetype in Modern (Prison).
Greetings,
Kathal
PS: I like the hype around Abbot, and I can confirm, that he is great in decks, which can abuse his draw and prowess.
Modern/Legacy
either funpolice (Delver, Deathcloud, UW Control) or the fun decks (especially those ft. Griselbrand)
That reminds me the commentators of SCG Cincinatti last weekend. They had an Infect vs Abzan match on feature and a Lantern Control vs Merfolk match on backup and almost went to watch the Lantern match during the main feature match sideboarding but joked that the backup was Lantern so they had enough time to watch after the feature match.
Trivia Question: Which deck won its match faster?
a) Infect, the notoriously "fastest" deck in modern
b) Lantern Control, the notoriously "slowest" deck in modern
Hint: The Merfolk player stood up and walked away from his table on que right after the commentators made the joke.
I can accept when people make valid points on it, and I can have a decent conversation about the deck and its matchups and weaknesses. But when I see biased unfounded arguments against it I get pretty deffensive as a mother protecting her child. I made the original Lantern Control thread back in 2012, when people didn't even know Lantern of Insight was a card. My only gripe is that after Zac's GP top 16, the internet took over the deck and changed its name from "Top Control" to "Lantern Control", but fighting the internet is useless, so the deck is called Lantern Control. lol
Examples:
That is a valid question I gladly replied to and played devil's advocate by explaining the deck's weakness level to artifact hate.
That is just a bunch of biased unfounded arguments by a guy who has openly expressed in the Ban thread that he hates the deck so much he will not play against it online, he would rather leave the match. How can he make valid knowledgable points against a deck he refuses to even play against? He thinks the deck is a "blue artifact control deck". Come on, really?
Its a deck that wants to win, just like every other deck. Opponents getting frustrated and wasting their own time by refusing to concede when they have slim to no chances of winning a locked out game is only a side effect to the deck's game plan which is to mill the opponent in a controlled manner rather than shooting blue mill spells and hoping to be fast enough.
The games are actually pretty interactive, intense and fun until either Lantern loses or establishes its locks and wins. Watch THIS video I posted yesterday vs UW Control, if that is not an intense interactive game then I don't know what is. Its a normal game of magic, 2 pilots with 2 piles of 75 legal cards interacting and trying to develop their game plan faster and more efficiently than the opponent. The problem is that if Lantern wins the race, the game becomes boring to the opponent due to the prison nature of the Lantern deck. Its at this point that opponents should concede to skip their boring demise. If you watch the video the opponent concedes just when he exhausted every possible out, because there is no point in getting bored and wasting time if you know you got locked out. People just need to learn how the deck works so they can easily figure out if they have lost already or if they still realistically have an out. If you play against it and suddenly find yourself bored with no valid plays in the foreseeable future, chances are you are locked out and should concede into the next game.
"When you get your opponent down to 0 sanity, you win the game!"
No, Eggs got banned because the individual turns took too long. Here, the individual turns are short, but the deck locks you down through all of them. It's hardly an uninteractive combo deck- you need to interact with players a lot to lock them down.
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