Lantern Control with Land Destruction
Modern forum
Posted on Sept. 25, 2022, 4:31 p.m. by StoryArcher
I've been playing around with a deck concept, a variation of Lantern control that focuses on attacking my opponent's mana. The soft lock is obvious, selectively milling land and other mana sources from my opponent's deck before they get a chance to draw them. The other side of it is being able to mitigate any resources they get until the lock comes on line.
Mono-Red seems to be the way to go on the surface, though Gruul or Boros, utilizing a mix of the many red land destruction cards and direct damage removal... Gruul seems to hasten the lock while Boros seems to deliver the control/disruption options necessary to consistently survive until the lock.
I've played around with a few card lists and I can post them if anyone is interested, but I'm more hoping for some discussion regarding the concept and how it might be best approached. Which cards would you consider to be 'must have' and which might be traps? What kinds of decks would it struggle against the most?
TheOfficialCreator says... #3
Meria, Scholar of Antiquity might be a good addition if you decide to go Gruul.
Other than that, things like Mystic Forge might be worth looking into. It could be an artifact-based lockdown kind of deck.
September 25, 2022 4:45 p.m.
What do you mean by attacking their mana? I've made a green control deck with Plow Under and Primal Command which makes them redraw their lands, is it a form of "attacking their mana" like that, or some other route? Want to clarify what you mean by that a bit?
September 25, 2022 4:49 p.m.
StoryArcher says... #5
Boom / Bust, Stone Rain, Pillage etc., possibly combined with Blood Moon or Trinisphere to clear out their mana sources early, and then selectively milling out land draws with Lantern & Codex once you get them into play.
It literally only does one thing.
Here's one (rough) mono-red example:
September 25, 2022 4:57 p.m.
wallisface says... #6
As someone who’s played a lot of Lantern, it feels like you might be spreading your resources thin. At the moment the deck already has very limited flex-slots, putting all of its energy into establishing the lock and preventing the opponent from having anything on-board or in-hand to get-around it.
I think if you are really wanting to target their lands, then your best shot is by doing it with cards that can also target their boardstate, if required. But keep in mind that the deck probably won’t have enough room to actually de-land the opponent, you’ll prolly only be able to get them down to 2ish lands reliably this way.
The most practical approach with the smallest overhead is probably just to run Wrenn and Six and then slowly hose-out lands with Ghost Quarter, Field of Ruin, and/or Boseiju, Who Endures. This has the added benefit of being able to mess with the opponents topdeck, so incidentally helps the Lantern-lock continue
September 25, 2022 5:06 p.m.
I like the idea of Wrenn and Six alongside more fetches. I don't know if the colorless lands suggested would dilute your manabase too much without enough upside, but they would be good options against more greedy manabases with minimal basics, as they become land destruction once your opponent runs out of basics. They do synergize with the deck's concept, since you could 'force' them to shuffle when you don't like the card on top of their decks.
edit: I would consider the other suggestions more of a meta dependent decision, where Wrenn and Six is a solid option regardless.
September 25, 2022 5:38 p.m. Edited.
wallisface says... #8
nbarry223 I think running a bunch of colourless sources would be fine... currently the only regular coloured cards showing up in these decks are Ancient Stirrings, Prismatic Ending, Inquisition of Kozilek and Thoughtseize, with everything else being colourless. By adding in Wrenn and Six, I think all it would mean removing is Prismatic Ending (i.e. replacing white for red to keep you 3-colour) and dropping the Urza's Saga package (because otherwise you would be lacking too many coloured lands)
September 25, 2022 5:43 p.m.
I'd be interested in seeing the deck list/variants.
Lantern control is a deck I find interesting but I have never been able to make it work.
September 25, 2022 10:42 p.m.
wallisface says... #10
September 25, 2022 11:35 p.m.
TheOfficialCreator says... #11
legendofa you might find this thread of interest!
September 26, 2022 7:20 a.m.
I thought I had while I was driving to work this morning was what about a skred red shell? Blood moon effects for attacking the opponents Mana base and then using the lantern to shuffle away any relevant threat?
September 26, 2022 10:13 a.m. Edited.
TheOfficialCreator Thanks for the tip!
StoryArcher I've done a very little bit of experimenting with Blood Moon in Lantern Control, but it felt like it slowed the deck down more than it helped. In general, if you try to hybridize two decks (in this case Red Ponza and Lantern Control), you end up with inefficiencies on both sides. Your list is a lot more developed than any of mine were, though, and it would be interesting to see in action.
wallisface I like that Wrenn and Six package. I'm taking notes.
Icbrgr Are you thinking of using the Lantern to shuffle threats back into the library, or to mill them with Shredder and friends?
September 26, 2022 1:07 p.m.
@legendofa I think it would still use shredder and friends... this is my regular skred red list that I run for reference for my thought process... it coincidentally has an artifact sub-theme because skred red is a very small shell to begin with....I imagine taking out some of the current cards and implementing 4x Lantern of Insight, 4x Codex Shredder and 4x Mishra's Bauble with maybe 1-2x Ghoulcaller's Bell/Pyxis of Pandemonium if there was room.... have some neat synergies with Galvanic Blast and such... id need to actually playtest it but from the hip is seems plausible.
September 26, 2022 1:37 p.m.
wallisface says... #15
Icbrgr one big strength of Lantern is being able to assemble the required pieces quickly with Ancient Stirrings and Urza's Saga while also using hand disruption to remove the various artifact-destruction pieces from the opponents hand. My one thought with your concept is that it’s going to be a lot harder to assemble the Lantern lock, while also being a lot easier to tear-down.
If your skred plan is still strong enough to prop-up the rest of the deck it might still work, but the Lantern components here won’t be particularly effective imo
September 26, 2022 2:58 p.m.
I agree completely wallisface.... I think this would be more of a control deck with Lantern of Insight in it rather than a deck dedicated to being a true lantern control deck... but honestly im not sure if the "synergy" is really worth it... it could just end up being really awkward hands/boards with Koth of the Hammer, Mind Stone and....Codex Shredder.... and then just hoping Skred/Galvanic Blast would be enough... ill playtest it and report back here... it seems worth testing out.
September 26, 2022 3:16 p.m.
Did some playtesting last night with "regular lantern control" just to get a feel for how the deck...quickly discovered that I am a terrible and incompetent pilot of this deck in its base form... but I got the idea and really got to appreciate wallisfaces decklist that was posted above.
This is how playing "lantern control skred red land destruction" went for me last night...it feels awkward...always lol... with the exception of "bolt the bird" and playing Mind Stone on turn 2 into Lantern of Insight then playing Koth of the Hammer on turn 3 it just always felt bad... I was surprised how often I naturally opened with shredder and lantern though which was neat... Blood Moon, Pillage/Molten Rain... these cards feel like they should be better than they are... but kinda just felt like "win more" or wishing for something else.
All in all sure it can work but I really found myself missing Inquisition of Kozilek more than anything.
September 27, 2022 10:30 a.m.
wallisface says... #18
One more idea that could work in a more traditional Lantern build would be to include 1x Quicksilver Fountain alongside 3x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds (to keep your own lands safe, and the opponents stuff islands forever), and 4x Whir of Invention (as a way to search for the fountain, or other pieces).
^ I think this would perform similarly-well to the W&6 idea I posted before. This one is probably more consistent from having the added search options in Whir.
September 27, 2022 3:31 p.m.
StoryArcher says... #19
Alright, well I'm going to give my original idea a run. There's some local Modern play tomorrow night and then a tournament this weekend. This is the card list that I'm running with for now:
It's basically Ponza, utilizing Lantern to filter out land draws and a few big critters to finish things off.
shadow63 says... #2
I think at that point the deck is trying to do too much . Especially with how fast the current meta is
September 25, 2022 4:36 p.m.