I cut the Ancient Tombs for Crystal Veins, put in Therapies instead of Duress, and a 4th Enlightened Tutor instead of an Absent. Threw 4 Eidolon of Rhetoric in the sideboard and one other thing, I forget.
Played last night for the first time at a new LGS, so the meta was completely unexpected. It's a very competitive environment, moreso than other nearby stores. There were a couple other people there who didn't have an extensive Legacy collection, so they played Burn. Typical. I went 0-3 with a 4th round bye so I left. Didn't win a game. I think my matchups were genuinely terrible, but I made some glaring errors in the first couple games which kinda set the pace for the night. But hey, it's the first time I played paper Legacy in years, so gotta get the rust off somehow I guess?
The meta was:
2x Burn (1 optimized list, 1 budget minus Guides/Chain Lightning)
2x Miracles
2x Reanimator (UB and UBg)
Enchantress
Stax
Nic Fit
Canadian Thresh
Lands
GWb Maverick (I think)
Death and Taxes
Homebrew Grixis with 8x Surgical effects
There were 16 players, but the one I'm not sure about. I feel like there was another D&T player though.
Round 1 - Death and Taxes
Game 1 - He goes Plains, Vial, then Wasteland on turn 2 and Vials in a Mom. I have 2 Codex at this point but no Lantern effect. With him on just Plains and Vial (1 counter), I Absent his Vial and mill it. I guess I was hoping to disrupt him if he didn't have more land? I think this was a mistake. He goes on to play a Port and a Revoker on Shredder. Basically he ends up getting dudes out but I have a Bridge in hand so I just need to get to 4 mana (Wingmare). I Needled the Port, Tutored for Ancient Den, Thoughtseized away a Flickerwisp (2 cards in hand - both STP), and was able to drop the Bridge with no cards in hand around 6 life. 2 turns later he topdecks another Flickerwisp before I can find a Lantern effect (I did find a Bell by then to get around Revoker).
SB - +1 Dread of Night, +1 Engineered Plague. Not sure what I took out. Probably an Absent and Thoughtseize.
Game 2 - I set up Field of Dreams + Pyxis turn 1. Great. Now I just need to play around what's in his hand. I drop another mill rock, and he plays a Revoker again, naming Pyxis (awesome, it's a one-of!). I have Bridge, so I'm just trying to control him so he doesn't draw into a Flickerwisp or other relevant card. Things are going fine, but I never find any hand control (or Plague/Dread), so he blows me out with a Council's Judgment that was in his opener.
0-1 (0-2)
Round 2 - Reanimator
Game 1 - I keep a hand with 2 Therapies + Codex. I'm pretty sure I saw this guy playing Reanimator earlier, but I'm not 100% sure. So I lead with the Codex and figure I can strip his hand after seeing the first turn. He Studies a Griselbrand and Exhume into the grave and passes. My Therapy gets hit with FOW, and I don't have another black source so I pass. He has another Exhume and brings back Grizzy. At this point I comment that this matchup is probably horrible for me and just laugh while Griselbrand does his thing.
I feel like I should have led with Therapy, and named FOW if it resolved. Even if I'm not 100% on the deck he's playing, the information is enough to help.
SB - +2 Cage, +1 Spellbomb +1 Eidolon -4 I forget
Game 2 - I keep a hand with Therapy + Cage, but no extra mana. I lead with Therapy on FOW, which hits, but I see a Thoughtseize in hand (he had a Brainstorm too for FOW). He hits me with Thoughtseize and takes the Cage away. I fumble for a bit, at one point fetching a Watery Grave while I have 2 Tutors in hand. I know he has the gas to go off and I'm too slow to stop him at this point, so once he lands Grizzy I scoop it up.
0-2 (0-4)
Round 3 - Burn
I was dreading this, because I knew both Burn players were 0-2 and I would likely be paired with one of them. The one I talked to after round 1 lived about a block away from the store, so he figured he'd pick up Legacy as something to do on a Monday night. He didn't have Guides or Chain Lightnings yet, nor did he have the lands to splash, so I was hoping I would be paired against him. I was not. The other Burn player was a Vintage/EDH player who wanted to get into Legacy, so he had all the cards.
Game 1 - Turn 1 Goblin Guide draws me a shockland. Thoughtseize hits a Lightning Bolt (should've taken Eidolon), and I Surgical it. I have a Lantern out so I used the Surgical to shuffle away the Chain Lightning on top, but after the shuffle it's the same card. :( A couple burn spells later, I drop a Bridge to thwart the attacks, but he has Eidolon out already and I don't have a way to handle that before it kills me.
SB - +1 Warmth -1 Thoughtseize
Game 2 - Therapy hits a Lightning Bolt and I Extract it. I see 4 Destructive Revelry in the deck. Great. I'm also able to set up Bell + Academy Ruins as a pseudo-card advantage engine, and it finds me a Bridge. Anyway, he gets 2 Eidolons this time and I have no answer for those. Shocklands obviously didn't help.
0-3 (0-6)
Round 4 - Someone dropped, so I'm the only one with 0 pts. Bye and I go home.
Thoughts - I still like the idea of a singleton Pyxis. Even if it's a nonbo with Academy Ruins or Surgical, it works better against decks like Reanimator, and it throws people off their Needle/Revoker/Therapy game. Absent was never there when I needed it. I know I sided some number of them out, but I don't think this is right. I'm still bad at sideboarding (I know what to put in but often don't know what to take out). Crystal Vein was great and I could see that being a relevant choice over City, even without budget concerns.
Reanimator seems like an atrocious matchup, and Burn doesn't seem much better. We can at least lock out Burn, but only if we can avoid Eidolon (not that we can't answer it with Decay/Absent, but it still hits us hard). If this meta is consistent, I don't think it's a good place for this deck at all; at least without some tuning.
*Disclaimer: I don't play Lantern, nor have I ever played against it.*
Has anyone considered going for a Red build featuring Goblin Welder? Welder feels like a good fit to me, and could help get your lock assembled quickly. Red splash could also give you things like Bolt, Pyroclasm/Electrickery, Faithless Looting, and Blood Moon.
I can't say I'm too surprised by jrsthethird's summary, with this many moving pieces you need time and protection (i.e. you need to be much more blue, and probably black). This is a modern deck ported into legacy, and it is only equipped to fight serum visions (where you know what they can draw at all points). Probably the most important playtesting continuing down the non-blue path would be to use the modern version of lantern against other blue modern decks powered-up with 8x real cantrips [for example ponder and preordain and no copies of serum visions] and see where the deck has to go color-wise.
@Stuart Welder turns on opponents' creature removal so I doubt it will be good.
In regards to Brainstorm/Ponder/Preordain...why not just run a Package of Chains of Mephistopheles/Spirit of the Labyrinth in the Sideboard? Chains probably being the better option. Also useful vs SneakShow, turning off Griselbrand (got Needle or Revoker there as well but you can name Sneak Attack and fetchlands now).
Ah! I did run Spirit of the Labyrinth in the sideboard, not Eidolon of Rhetoric. I get my Enchantment Creatures mixed up all the time.Originally Posted by Alexeezay
Chains is good, but $$$. I don't even have the dual lands yet. X_X
There's a UB build proposed with enough blue to support FOW, as well as a BG build with Abrupt Decay. I had most of the cards for this version so it's what I went with. I don't have Decays and only have 2 FOWs right now so it was the only option at this point.Probably the most important playtesting continuing down the non-blue path would be to use the modern version of lantern against other blue modern decks powered-up with 8x real cantrips [for example ponder and preordain and no copies of serum visions] and see where the deck has to go color-wise.
Chains of Mephistopheles is not so good. Chains more-or-less reads "Instead of drawing a card, you loot: draw then discard (but in reverse). Given that Lantern denies them relevant draws, they just hold crap in their hand and use cantrips to loot away the crap. Chains actually doesn't impact the lock in any positive manner.
Really not a fan of running FOW in a deck that wants to empty its hand ASAP.
Why do you think the deck doesn't work with cards in hand? Just because you play Ensnaring Bridge doesn't mean you're always facing 1/1's.
Since we already know that pithing needle is MVP here, why not add 4 trinked mage?
It could be the ideal midgame play... Finds all the lock pices + needel + top.
I know its slow but there are just so many cards you want to needle! You cant ignore DRS forever...
“Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
If you playtest the deck a lot you will find you do not ever want Trinket Mage. You don't need redundant search when the deck power-draws you into whatever you want.
There's also the fact that this deck is more than able to prevent itself from drawing FoW mid-late game if bridge did have to be on zero.
Exactly. if you can support FoW i see zero reasons not to play it.
Additionally, it helps to cut down on your hand size by two, helping with Ensaring Bridge. On that note, I've also considered playing Peace of Mind, I'm just not sure how well it'll work. I've considered it as more of a sideboard option against burn and aggro. Are there better options?
Fun is a zero-sum game in Magic. Therefore, Prison is the best archetype.
For reference here was my previous FOW/Lantern test list
Latern with Force Test List no.2
4x Enlightened tutor
4x Codex Shredder
4x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Field of Dreams
4x Gitaxian Probe
4x Force of Will
4x Thoughtseize
4x Metamorphose
2x Ghoulcaller's Bell
2x Mox Opal
2x Pithing Needle
2x Chrome Mox
2x Lantern
2x Cabal Therapy
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Pyxis of Pandemonium
10x Other Lands
2x City of Traitors
2x Academy Ruins
my observations from running this deck were as follows:
1) IMO deck runs way to little lands - would really prefer 2-3 more lands.
2) Force is really useful to have - it has saved me multiple times. Running more blue, would obviously be a plus ( the difference between 16 and 20 blue cards is 3.3% of getting Force and another blue card in your hand turn 1 [16: 32.6% vs 20: 35.9%], so you're losing roughly 4 more games out of a hundred against turn 1 combo type decks.))
3) Cabal Therapy is better than Duress in my testing - with Probe/lantern/metagame knowledge it is extremely good.
4) I really like enlightened tutor compared to stirrings.
5) running 1 Surgical is hard - wish I had room for 2
6) running 7 mill rocks is fine if you are running tutor.
7) Fields over lantern in the 4/2 split is fine, but I occasionally miss the lantern's reshuffle ability
8) Metamorphose is better than I thought it would be.
9) 6 discard plus 4 force is enough protection IMO. Thinking of cutting 1 thoughtseize for a land or surgical.
10) Again, biggest issue is that 14 lands leaves little room for artifact lands - which leaves little room for Opal. At this point Opal can be made into more lands. Chrome may be cut to 1, and if necessary can be tutored into to discard force to protect yourself under bridge.
11) While I think we run too little land - now that the deck doesn't need to provide double white or BG for one spell, makes it feel a lot smoother.
In regards to whether I think we should be running FOW? Yes. I believe it is necessary for any deck that can support it - it saves you many games, and it gets our mill-rocks into play when they would be countered. The mill-rocks themselves can help shuffle away unwanted forces, and if you are desperate you can make yourself discard with cabal therapy or thoughtseize as they dont target an opponent like duress. Moreover this is where chrome mox does double duty if you need it to.
In regards to my observations - I would make the following changes
-2 Mox Opal
+1 Land
+1 Surgical Extraction
-1 Thoughtseize
+1 Cabal Therapy
I ran a one-of Warmth in the event I played. There were two Burn decks out of 16 in the event, so I would definitely increase that number next time. Peace of Mind is interesting, the one huge benefit over Warmth with it is that it keeps Bridge low without having to cast spells, so you aren't burning yourself when the Burn player has Eidolon out. I think we can beat the Burn player if they don't draw Eidolon, but we don't have a way to empty our hand without casting spells, so in both games I was left with the decision of "dump hand and take 2" or "let him attack under Bridge and take 2".
With Bridge and our lock set up, we don't need more cards. So we're effectively gaining 3 life per turn, which pretty much negates the entire plan of the burn deck (late-game, at least). Whereas with Warmth, we only get 2 life per turn, and that's assuming they draw spells, which we don't want them to do.
As far as FOW goes, I think it's totally necessary.
If you're considering Peace of Mind also consider Hypochondria; you may waste an effective life point here and there, but it can fire off one additional time sacrificing itself. There is also an interesting interaction versus infect and lifelink that is specific to prevention of damage.
Hypochondria seems bad, because being reactive doesn't play well with Bridge. If we discard to keep Bridge active, the opponent can use Instant speed burn on our turn to punch through. We can prevent that, but then we're at mercy to their topdeck. Obviously we try to control those but it's not 100% effective even with a couple lock pieces.
I don't think Infect can win through Bridge and our deck doesn't give a shit about life total so I think those other interactions are irrelevant.
Agreed. The main reason I love Peace of Mind is the incremental life gain over time instead of being reactive. Yeah, I can prevent damage all day, but if they have the burn to kill me before my effect goes off, that sucks. Peace of Mind also plays well into the proactiveness the deck runs. Mill a threat before it gets out of hand, buff your life before you NEED that life.
Fun is a zero-sum game in Magic. Therefore, Prison is the best archetype.
In most scenarios peace of mind is better, but hypochondria is technically more value (as it can also sacrifice itself). Peace of Mind is the correct effect vs burn spells whereas hypochondria is better against infect and griselbrand. If you're not meta-gaming, Peace of Mind is the go-to.
Honestly I am not seeing the value of adding in cards like peace of mind or hypochondria. You don't need discard that badly, and if you do you have discard and chrome mox for that.The deck doesn't really have room to run life gain cards.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Reply With Quote