LANTERN SURGERY
The name says it all. This is the best Legacy Lantern deck to date and is likely one of funnest decks you will ever play. Lantern Surgery is about controlling the board while surgically controlling and exiling your opponent's top deck. This deck has a ton of synergies and as you might have noticed, it gets it's name from two of the most important cards in the deck:
Lantern of Insight
and
Psychic Surgery
Play it right and not only will you establish board control you will make sure that your opponent will never draw another useful card again.
Combos:
- Control Their Top Deck / Manage Yours!
Lantern of Insight
/
Field of Dreams
+
Codex Shredder
/
Soldier of Fortune
Always know what card is coming up for both you and your opponent and then decide if you or opponent gets the next card.
- Make Them Shuffle!
Psychic Surgery
+
Scheming Symmetry
/
Portent
/
Lantern of Insight
/
Soldier of Fortune
Force your opponent to shuffle! All of these cards can make your opponents shuffle thus activating Psychic Surgery. The sooner you cast Psychic Surgery the sooner it goes to work. Remember, it punishes your opponent for using fetchlands / tutors and neuters their top deck tutors. With Soldier of Fortune you get a near hard lock.
- Lock Them Out!
Rest in Peace
+
Energy Field
This is a soft lock that is only strengthened by controlling the top of your opponent's deck. Not to mention, both are decent on their own. Rest in Peace locks out all graveyard based decks and neuters decks relying on abilities such as delve, dredge, persist, retrace and threshold. Energy Field on it's own can buy you a couple of turns until you get your lock.
- 4x Vampiric Tutor is Good!!
Scheming Symmetry
+
Codex Shredder
/
Psychic Surgery
It's almost as if these cards were created for each other. Grab any card in the deck as long as you have either Codex Shredder or Psychic Surgery.
- Wipe the Board!
Scheming Symmetry
+
Terminus
This combo explains itself.
- Nail in the Coffin!
Mechanized Production
+
Lantern of Insight
/
Codex Shredder
Enchant either Lantern or Shredder with Mechanized Production and you can pretty much completely lock your opponent out. Pick apart your opponent's deck by casting it on Lantern with
Psychic Surgery
in play. Use it's copies' secondary ability to force your opponent to shuffle thus dissecting their top deck every turn.
Cast it on Codex Shredder and get multiple Shredders over the next few turns. The more Shredders the more control. Win with it by either hard lock decking your opponent or by it's 8 artifacts rule.
- Win on the Spot!
Rest in Peace
+
Helm of Obedience
This is an automatic win. Although you can likely win by gradually decking your opponent with Codex Shredder, Helm of Obedience asks the question of: why not just win right now? With
Rest in Peace
even
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
can't stop it. Plus, Helm is decent on it's own. You can use it as a Codex Shredder if you don't have
Rest in Peace
in play.
Single Card Discussion:
Psychic Surgery
: This card is a beast in this deck! For only two mana, every time an opponent shuffles you get to pick apart their top deck. Fetchlands and tutors get severely punished and it only gets better when we make bad cards good by forcing our opponent to shuffle. This deck runs 14 of such cards:
Scheming Symmetry
,
Lantern of Insight
,
Portent
and
Soldier of Fortune
.
Portent
: Where as most decks in Legacy running blue run
Ponder
as the fifth, sixth and seventh copy of Brainstorm. Lantern Surgery runs
Portent
. Portent is better here and arguably one of the most important support cards of the deck. Although you get to draw the card the turn you cast it with Ponder, Portent gives you the flexibility to target your opponent (and you still get to draw). Control their top deck, force them to shuffle under Psychic Surgery or target yourself.
Brainstorm
: Brainstorm is obviously for searching out combo pieces but also for putting unwanted cards back on the top of your deck to either be shuffled away or Shredded to the yard. Also, it synergizes nicely with Terminus, getting it out of your hand and back on top of your library where it belongs.
Field of Dreams
: This card while not as good as Lantern of Insight, makes every Lantern you draw useful. Remember that Lantern of Insight has a secondary ability.
Polluted Delta
and
Flooded Strand
: Not only do they fix your mana, they allow you to control your top deck by shuffling away bad cards from the top of your deck.
Ensnaring Bridge
: This one explains itself.
Oblivion Ring
: This stops any single permanent, nasty creatures, artifacts, enchantments and planeswalkers in particular.
MATCH UPS COMING SOON!!
Feel free to upvote!
