The man who got me into magic (and is the reason I’m a blue based control player) told me very early on: “there is a finite amount of fun to be had in any game of magic. The goal of the control player is to have 100% of that fun”. Lantern control is the perfect example of that
I would argue that this is only true in competitive matches. Outside of competitive matches, it's funny to do the thing maybe once... And not so funny to not be invited back to play with other people again. When you're playing casually, friendship and fun for everyone is more important. When you're playing competitively, be as soul crushing as you'd like. ^^
My personal (hot?) take is that lantern control is the most unique deck/strategy to ever see any significant competitive success. It plays largely as a prison/control archetype, but it focuses on controlling resources/options in such a unique way compared to just about everything else. I think that true high-quality piloting of this deck requires a top-tier understanding of the format and it's relevant threats to a degree that most other decks don't reach. I've always found it's play patterns interesting and I like the fundamental approach to the game it takes, essentially saying "I can't lose if I choose what you have access to". I've always thought it was a cool/interesting deck for these reasons That being said, it's miserable to be on the other side of a lantern lock, lol
I've played a good amount of lantern and it is hard to play. Knowing the entire format and all reasonable sideboard cards is a big ask to start playing a deck. I did enjoy it though. I stopped playing because rakdos pyromancer became a deck, and shortly after hogaak. Both were really bad matchups 😂 Amulet titan is harder to play though 😂
I completely agree! The way I've always thought about quantifying how unique Lantern is is thinking about degrees of reactivity for decks. The most proactive form of interaction is killing your opponent. This is basically every aggro deck. The next form of interaction is "on the board". This is where Magic tries to focus most of its interaction nowadays. Blocking is this, removal is this, sweepers are this, even Ensnaring Bridge is this, if you think about it. Next is "on the stack", which is where your opponent never gets to resolve a spell at all, dominated by counterspells and blue. Next is "with mana", where opponents never get to cast spells at all! This is mostly older, like with Ponza and Wasteland and Port, but newer taxes effects like Thalia effectively do this too. The last, and "final" level, is discard and the hand. You take your opponent's cards before they ever get to cast them at all! This plays lower on the scale than it is, because it's less flexible and always tempo-negative. But there's one final level, that only Lantern (and some niche Surgical brews) ever gets to really access: controlling the deck itself, before cards ever even get to a player's hand. That's what makes Lantern so special: you are literally interacting with the game in a way literally no other deck does. And it uses most/all those other layers, in various different iterations, to build up to being the *ultimate* interactive deck. You'll note that a player's opinion on interaction largely governs if they increasingly like or dislike deck archetypes in roughly this order, which I also find interesting!
Game 1 opponent here, Brian was a gentleman in chat the entire game, since i was super exited to play against him since im a huge fan. Glad i had the opurtunity to play against this legend, and i managed to comete sudoku before Bosh killed me xD
Just the other day I was talking with my EDH pals about how nice it was that Lantern Control was a thing, and how much better it was that it isn't good enough to be a common sigh. It's certainly much funnier to watch than play against.
I love lantern control so much, it’s a great example of how innovative players can be in card games. Taking all these random different pieces to create a deck that operates in a manner that’s totally foreign to how each piece of the deck operates separately. No other card game is willing to give players that level of control over their play experience, arguably even WotC doesn’t give this kind of freedom in this day and age. It’s also my go to example of what true suffering in a game of magic looks like. It wins in such a slow and bizarre way that it takes experience to know when you’ve lost to the deck. It’s so easy to just sit there and let the game go on for far too long, suffering the entire time.
@14:51, you had a clear win from here. You should know that to win from here you need to resolve Bridge. The cards to worry about here are Tideshaper (destroying your Saga), Hexcatcher (countering your Bridge), and a possible Force of Negation. You have an answer for Force already in hand (Collective Brutality). You're about to draw an answer to Hexcatcher next turn. You have lands you need to cast Bridge, and you have Bridge in hand. It appears you got a little overconfident and negligent of these facts when you decided to play Urza's Saga on turn 2. You don't need the construct. The correct play is to play Glimmervoid, cast Brutality for the discard mode to clear the path against a possible Force of Negation. You then draw and cast Pithing Needle on the following turn, naming Hexcatcher (with the mana up to pay for possible Hexcatcher attempts to counter it). You do *not* play the Saga on turn 3 (it could be argued that getting the saga from Stirrings at all was a mistake). Last, you cast Bridge the following turn, with more than enough life to survive to dump your hand. If you are at all worried, you could also use the Brutality to dump extra cards out of your hand while gaining life. Just as you mention in game 2 against Burn, you don't just mill because you can: you have to consider the situation and what each player needs. The same goes for your game 1 against Merfolk. Yes, naming Aether Vial was *nice*, in getting a 2-for-1, but it's not what you *needed*. In game 2 in round 2, that is not a good keep against Merfolk. You should know that they're going to bring in some form of counters, and you want a Bridge as fast as possible. A better hand against Merfolk is some number of discard spells and a Bridge. A Merfolk player would *love* to know that you kept a hand like this if they saw it, because almost none of the cards really matter against them. @42:35, you should probably have sided out Haywire Mite instead of Thoughtseize or Brutality.
This is a deck I have a lot of experience with and I'm so looking forward to it. only one Karn makes little sense to me, I play 2 personally. But I like this list a lot more than some of the black white lists I have seen. Stirings is so good and loam is a great inclusion if you don't wanna splash for wren.
15:40 Was it possible to assassin's trophy the tide shaper in response to the trigger to keep the Saga? Since the abillity wouldn't have turned it into an island in the first place. Or just not worth using the trophy in the first place?
Lantern insights is an absolutely based amazing player who has a channel dedicated to this deck who is like in tune with the meta and explains all the math behind his decisions.
This brings me back. This was my best friends deck for a while. Between that, the time he played 8rack, and the time he played burn, I've lost a lot of matches to Bridge 🤣
I've recently thought about this deck so this is quite a treat ❤ I met your channel from your first lantern control video (I just checked and it was 2 years ago, phew) so this is very nostalgic. Fun fact: If I recall correctly, there you said something like "time to watch this slog on 1'25x speed" and I've been doing that with every single one of your videos ever since!
my birthday was a few weeks ago...but seems like you gave me a late birthday gift. thanks very much ;-) May the Lantern shine the way...but it always showed you how good the opponents can top deck ;-)
Maybe this is obvious, but why didn't the R3 opponent cast their Summoner's Pact in response to the Collective Brutality at 25:18 ? It seems like that way they could have gotten Titan, paid for the pact on their upkeep, then deployed Titan on the following turn.
in '94 or so my deck was field of dreams/ millstone. i tried it in every possible color combination, but at least in those days it wasn't possible to get a hard dependable lock and the games were always very tactical. ppl hate losing that slowly, but other than that i never received a complaint about "zero sum fun"
34:35 seems like a safer line is to cast spellskite and Thoughtseize to take potential Titan from hand (was cultivator in this case). Spellskite can redirect the the lands ability for haste so you were still safe from them having a 2x Titan in hand/top decked Titan. Feels a lot safer then planning to Assassin's Trophy a resolved Titan.
I thought this was legacy during the deck tech so when you said we dont have mox opal anymore i was like “WHAT?” and ran to check if there was a banlist announcement lol
This was my favorite deck in 2017/18 pre mox ban. Luis Salvatto won the pro tour with it. I have a question for everyone, this deck died completely when they banned mox and I always wondered why? Like there was no other card that could fit into that slot? The deck did its thing even when you didn't start a turn or two with mox.
As much as I miss Mox Opal because of decks like this and Whir Prison, I know that it wouldn't be healthy for the format with Hammer being a deck, Scales coming back, and with Affinity being fringe. As long as Saga, Emry, and Urza exist in the format, Opal will never be safe and it makes me hurt.
I was told that the ceiling of this deck is very high. Meaning for a given player playing RG ponza for example, because the deck has a low ceiling a highly skilled player will easily fill out the ceiling once the basics of playing the deck are learned, it doesn't take too much to reach that final 10% of perfect piloting. Lantern deck has a high ceiling, and ridiculously skilled players will be pleased that the deck allows their skill level to fill that ceiling to the max. 👻
I was literally brewing a version of this deck in Legacy last night... 4 Murktide Regent 4 Karn, the Great Creator 4 Brainstorm 4 Daze 4 Predict 4 Force of Will 4 Ponder 3 Mishra's Bauble 1 Aether Spellbomb 3 Codex Shredder 3 Lantern of Insight 1 Pithing Needle 1 Shadowspear 4 Ancient Tomb 4 Flooded Strand 3 Island 1 Otawara, Soaring City 4 Seat of the Synod 4 Urza's Saga 1 Hullbreacher 2 Flusterstorm 2 Hydroblast 2 Force of Negation 3 Dismember 1 Tormod's Crypt 1 Codex Shredder 1 Lantern of Insight 1 Ensnaring Bridge 1 Mycosynth Lattice
@@BoshNRoll Yes, 1080p in Theater Mode on a 1920x1080 monitor. Specifically I had trouble with the deck tech and battlefields. It wasn't a huge issue since you do such a good job narrating, but I remember you asking about this type of thing a few videos ago so I thought you'd want to know.
Because it’s based on decking your opponent over many turns while hiding behind ensnaring bridge. Ring kills you with damage while making Bridge ineffective.