Been doing a lot of deskwarming these past few months. Leaves me a lot of time for theorycrafting decks I haven't played for formats I've barely played. Also should probably mention that this is mostly cannibalized from FTW's dimir lantern list (the manabase ratios in particular) and thnkr's lists on mtgsalvation forums. That being said,
//Artifacts: 22
4x Lantern of Insight
4x Codex Shredder
2x Pyxis of Pandemonium
4x Arcum's Astrolabe
4x Mishra's Bauble
3x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Pithing Needle
//Instants: 6
3x Assassin's Trophy
3x Surgical Extraction
//Sorceries: 14
4x Ancient Stirrings
3x Scheming Symmetry
3x Thoughtseize
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Collective Brutality
//Lands: 18
4x Prismatic Vista
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Snow-Covered Forest
2x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Blooming Marsh
3x Ghost Quarter
1x Inventor's Fair
1x Academy Ruins
//Sideboard:
1x Assassin's Trophy
1x Nature's Claim
1x Surgical Extraction
3x Collective Brutality
3x Pithing Needle
2x Welding Jar
1x Grafdigger's Cage
3x Leyline of Sanctity
Went with GB for Trophy and Stirrings. Whir is great but 3U is tough.
Went with fetches and snow lands and Astrolabe and whatnot. Might be wrong for a 1-color build, maybe no Astrolabe and 4x Glimmervoid is correct (it's definitely more correct for my wallet). Especially since Astrolabe is my only blue source for A. Ruins, which is probably bad. On the other hand its an artifact that mana ramps and cantrips, idk.
3x GQ and 3x Surgical 3x Trophy main could go out for other stuff for sure. I just like GQ for the tron matchup and being able to mill a wincon and then surgical it has been a big draw of this deck for me. Total timmy reasoning I know.
The discard spell ratios can also be whatever as long as theres 6-8.
Ignore the sb, will probably be tailored to my local meta anyways. Whatever my local meta is. Haven't really had the chance to go to fnm due to covid and whatnot.
Funny, I've been thinking of doing something like this in legacy because I got some Mox Opals (right before the ban, lol.) Astrolabe seems like a logical place to start for replacing the Opals.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
Opal being expensive was the reason I didn't build the deck in modern but I'm still sort of sad to see it gone. I feel like the deck could still be fun to play in Modern though, maybe not top table worthy but definitely would be fun to bring to an FNM.
It'd be pretty fun to try in Legacy although I could see Brainstorm being an annoying card. Then again it might be worth going Dimir for those exact blue cards. There's definitely a lot more flexibility for color splashes with the legacy cardpool
Upping the land count to 20 and playing some number of Smallpox seems devastating, working to keep hands size low for Ensnaring Bridge and have them sacrifice a creature that they somehow managed to stick. Crucible of Worlds also seems to be pretty good in that kind of setup. One or two Life from the Loam wouldn't be bad either, along with some of the cycle lands. You could opt to use the Nurturing Peatland or just the classic Tranquil Thicket/Barren Moor technology.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
That's true, Smallpox and Crucible would both work pretty well, plus ghost quarters could upgrade to Wastelands. It also helps that Legacy has a bigger artifact pool to draw from and a lot more mana acceleration, plenty of possible t1 lantern + shredder hands. I might try to throw together some sort of tentative list to post in new/developing.
Although now that I think about it I'm not super sure about Smallpox. Deck space is pretty tight and whatever creature they stick ideally won't matter thanks to bridge (although I do see the synergy with keeping hand size low). Blue decks can sneak at least a few pieces through our mill rocks with cantrips so they could pretty feasibly land whatever Planeswalker and run away with the game which necessitates running at least one needle and some assassin's trophies. Making room for that + smallpox + crucibles (although I'd probably run it as a 1-of at least regardless) + loams while also going up to 20 lands means we'd have to cut consistency pieces.
EDIT: Actually playing around with the ratios a bit it does slot in pretty decently, maybe something like this?
4x Lantern of Insight
4x Codex Shredder
2x Pyxis of Pandemonium
4x Arcum's Astrolabe (assuming it doesn't get banned. wizards did let czech pile exist for a while so maybe snowko is going to get a bit more time)
4x Mox Diamond/whatever mana rock
3x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Pithing Needle
4x Ancient Stirrings
3x Scheming Symmetry
1x Life from the Loam
4x Thoughtseize
2x Smallpox
3x Assassin's Trophy
4x Verdant Catacombs
4x Prismatic Vista
2x Snow-Covered Forest
2x Snow-Covered Swamp
1x Bayou
3x Wasteland
2x Nurturing Peatland
1x Inventor's Fair
1x Academy Ruins
Seems like a fun list for legacy and maybe even pretty budget if you run petal or something instead of diamond and throw in a fastland or shockland over the bayou. I would love to fit some surgicals in the main. Also this is admittedly getting off the topic of modern so if you think this is a decent starting point I'll format it correctly and throw it up in the legacy section lol.
From my time playing latern in modern (where jace was a big problem) I don't think you can play lantern in brainstorm.format without maindeck narsets or chains of mephistophles.
this might mean you need to cut baubles/labe for petals.
That's fair. Going the blue splash for Narset and Whir could actually be pretty decent. It still wouldn't be great into blue.decks (especially miracles) but at least it'd be semi-playable hopefully.
Tbh it'll still be more fun than trying to run the deck in modern rn regardless lol. Having to go up against stronger decks is tough but actually having mana rocks is pretty nice.
Maybe something like
Artifacts
4x Lantern of Insight
4x Codex Shredder
2x Pyxis of Pandemonium
4x Lotus Petal
3x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Pithing Needle
Instants
3x Whir of Invention
3x Assassin's Trophy
3x Surgical Extraction (flex slot, could probably put something else here)
Sorceries
4x Ancient Stirrings
3x Scheming Symmetry
4x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
Planeswalkers
2x Narset, Parter of Veils
Lands
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Polluted Delta
1x Misty Rainforest
2x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
1x Tropical Island
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Island
1x Inventor's Fair
1x Academy Ruins
and then have another 1-2 Narsets in the board.
Maybe I missed something earlier, but why the heck are we not playing mox opal? Isnt that the whole point of going to legacy?
Additionally you have enough coloured cards for chrome mox (>=20 imo) which plays very well with opal. I would consider adding 4 over petal and/or some lands. Since your decks isn't playing force or wasteland or chalice you will need to set-up very fast to win.
One consideration for chains instead of splashing for blue is that a simpler manabase allows you to run a few of the artifact lands, which helps opal considerably. I think you should look at tezzerator builds for manabase inspiration (although they are usually higher curve than you, so you don't need sol lands)
The main reason I didn't throw Opals in is because I was having trouble finding the space to make it consistent without running more mana rocks (+ the lack of artifact lands). If I went back to 2 colors and cut Whir I think 8 Opal 8 Chrome would probably work well enough. Alternatively for the 3-color build I could just cut Surgicals from the main and shave off a Trophy for Opals then swap the Petals for Chrome.
I like Narset more than Chain just because Narset feels like she has at least a slight bit of utility with her -2. Whir being able to tutor out silver bullets is also nice. Do you think
4x Lantern of Insight
4x Codex Shredder
2x Pyxis of Pandemonium
4x Mox Opal
4x Chrome Mox
3x Ensnaring Bridge
1x Pithing Needle
3x Whir of Invention
2x Assassin's Trophy
4x Ancient Stirrings
3x Scheming Symmetry
4x Thoughtseize
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Narset, Parter of Veils
4x Verdant Catacombs
3x Polluted Delta
1x Misty Rainforest
2x Bayou
1x Underground Sea
1x Tropical Island
2x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Island
1x Inventor's Fair
1x Academy Ruins
would be consistent enough, or will I have to swap to 2-color + artifact lands to optimize Opal?
Crucible is classic Pox tech as well, recurring lands you sacrifice to Smallpox. I could easily imagine Blast Zone being part of your mix as well. The issue is you don't have fast mana that dodges Smallpox (like Mox Opal or Dark Ritual) so it's difficult to play Smallpox AND somehow get to three mana for Ensnaring Bridge, especially in a 20ish land deck. Sequencing will be pretty important. Sometimes you may have to Scheming Symmetry for a land. I think Smallpox may need to be trimmed to 2-3 copies, it's really a continuation of the lock and not a piece that establishes the lock.
Call me absolutely crazy, but I would want to play 4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth alongside Spreading Algae. I've been looking for a deck to utilize that synergy.
Maybe this, just a rough pass:
4x Lantern of Insight
4x Codex Shredder
3x Pyxis of Pandemonium
3x Ensnaring Bridge
3x Smallpox
2x Abrupt Decay
3x Thoughtseize
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Ancient Stirrings
1x Sylvan Scrying
4x Scheming Symmetry
4x Spreading Algae
1x Life from the Loam
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Overgrown Tomb
2x Blooming Marsh
2x Forest
1x Swamp
4x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3x Ghost Quarter
1x Blast Zone
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Mutavault
With the land destruction theme, I wonder if Ensnaring Bridge is necessary. Maybe going all-in on Smallpox would be better.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
If we took out Bridge I suppose we'd be able to throw in everyone's favorite companion Lurrus :p (although I do expect him to catch a ban in Modern, probably)
Algae + Urborg seems like it'd definitely be worth testing. The more angles we can fit into the deck the better, and I've always been a fan of mana denial strategies and Prime Time/Tron both seem to be relatively popular so we'd definitely improve a few matchups.
If you're interested in what's happening on the Legacy side, we're discussing it in the Pox thread. It's looking pretty spicy...
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
I've read it over a few times and it does look pretty spicy. I'd love to give the list a spin sometime if I can find a near-ish Legacy scene (if worst comes to worst maybe there's something in Seoul and I'll just have to deal with the commute). MTGO might also be a necessary evil, I've hesitated to invest in a deck there because I'm worried it'll get phased out by Arena and I also hear the interface sorta sucks, but oh well.
Astrolabe just got the ban-hammer in Modern, not sure how much it impacts your game plan. It might open up just enough space to play more lands and Smallpox/Loam.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
The modern metagame is a complete mystery to me right now. The last time I played modern Oko and Urza based decks were destroying the format. I think if you play on MTGO it would be worth testing it out, but otherwise I probably wouldn't bother. Paper tournaments just aren't happening for the foreseeable future.
Brainstorm Realist
I close my eyes and sink within myself, relive the gift of precious memories, in need of a fix called innocence. - Chuck Shuldiner
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