OKAY, WE GOT LOST IN THE SAUCE TODAY! Lantern Control...with Painter Combo (Prison Legacy MTG)

[@ddiddle11]

Back when lantern first became popular in modern, I decided to convert my affinity deck to lantern control since I already owned the Opals. After the first FNM with the deck, the shop owner (a very close friend of mine) pulled me aside and asked me to never play lantern at his shop again... I miss those days :(

[@donaldtaylor724]

Smells like your opponents didn’t know when to concede. Back when I played weekly modern at my LGS, there was one regular on lantern. As a group, we came to understand that scooping when locked out was your best chance to either win the other games or salvage a draw.

[@johnlancaster2841]

I appreciate the effort on my list, I knew this was gonna be ROUGH but I'm glad you did the best you could with it.

[@ThrabenUniversity]

By our power combined, we made an okay first draft. That said, Lantern is just very conceptually rough as something to try and do within the confines of Legacy right now.

[@fiachhoffman9590]

I tried a similar concept a couple of years ago in a mono-u list. Even your first draft puts mine to shame 😂😂

[@skirk248]

You did better than my drafts before any edits man

[@Fyrefrye]

Question. In a deck that runs as many artifacts as this one and already likes self mill how viable would switching to a Loam/Lands alt win condition be in order to loop the Sagas? It would end up with Construct aggro, Depths combo, or even Field of the Dead zombie hordes as alternate aggressive angles. I'm not sure if the deck should be built with cradle control as the core or if it should be thought of as an alternate way to run a more typical lands control deck (rather than going the utility creature route). Cradle is a grindy control shell with built in deck selection, so the question becomes what other win condition does this best enable or overlap with?

[@TheFrozenMoogle]

This is your list? I submitted something incredibly similar.

[@persydiangelo8461]

As a lantern player (I was offended (not really)), there were a few deckbuilding decisions that could've made a huge difference for you this league. Firstly, you changed the deck to a two color deck, so every gold land in the deck could've been trops instead. Additionally, legacy gives you access to ancient tomb, which would've both activated Urza's saga better, and powered out a Lantern + Mill rock hand. It also can make Ensnaring bridge a turn two play. Without playing bosiegu, I think dropping green would let you use Emry to dig instead of Ancient stirrings, and let's you play another color like black for thoughtseize and fatal push access, both of which can deal with a psychic frog and other small threats before you get a bridge down. You could also go white and have access to Swords in the maindeck and deafening silence in the sideboard. Lantern is a tough deck to pilot these days, and has mostly been power-crept out of reasonable use, but hopefully this can help you prepare for when I have expendable income to subject you to Modern Lantern decklists.

[@Fateseal_MTG]

I will be right behind you on submitting my own Lantern list. I've been working on my own for 20 leagues now and am thiiiiis close to having a finely-tuned 75.

[@bishop_breloom]

The neat thing about Lantern control is that traditionally you don’t win, your opponent loses, which is a very important distinction

[@The_answer42]

Worse than that, trying to win makes your deck worse as win conditions could instead be cards that further help suffocate your opponent. It's not just that traditionally you don't win, it's that you are literally not supposed to even attempt winning unless it's as a byproduct of making it so your opponent cannot win.

[@senpaipugs]

When i explained lantern control to my friend, i explained it as "your goal should be to make your opponent lose. Your own winrate is an acceptable casualty towards that goal."

[@llamarama6976]

Nothing describes lantern control better than the rhystic studies "The zugzwang machine" its purgatory realised. It is beautiful and nightmarish equally

[@rgirado]

I'm sorry to see your lip is getting worse. I hope it gets better, that looks painful. I love the video tho!

[@Jeff-gc2sb]

What happened?

[@testingagent4517]

@@Jeff-gc2sb allergic reaction

[@rgirado]

One of his latest wins was so close that he ended up chewing through his lip in the tension, without even noticing!/s He had an allergic reaction to some lip balm.

[@williamragle1608]

Okay brother, as a modern lantern player, I have to say this is far from the best list I can imagine in legacy. Here's why - you took a prison deck and added a combo who's pieces are irrelevant to the prison. If you were to add an alternate win condition, it needs to be something that has the smallest possible footprint (~2 cards as opposed to 8) or it needs to be incredibility synergistic - preferably both. Remember the prison deck also functions as an incredible card selection engine for you, so you can easily afford fewer cards dedicated to a "combo" finish. Typical combo finishes include 1 pyrite spellbomb + 1 academy ruins. This has the major up side of being very versatile, but the downside is it takes up to 10 turns to execute the combo, Emery is worth noting here since you are already playing it. Another has been Tezzeret Agent of Bolas to finish with the ult and other relevant abilities (you haven't lived until you attack with a 5/5 irrelevant artifact on turn 2). You also mentioned Karn But those are modern options. Legacy has a possibly bigger card pool that could offer some interesting options. I wonder if milling something to reanimate with goblin welder would be viable? Probably less good than the aforementioned options but still worth mentioning. Maybe trying to go a lands/lantern hybrid would be good to unlock the mana denial potential in lantern along with wastes and maybe tabernacle. Retrofitter Foundry is a 1 card win the game if you can keep them at bay long enough, although arguably Saga already fills that role on it's own. Even the combo you did choose to play is arguably good enough, just way too many slots committed to it. I'm also disappointed to not see any meaningful interaction outside of the lock. There is a reason lantern just plays a bunch of strange interaction, and that's because it's really good at drawing towards it's outs. You could go a whir/force/emery blue package to have at least FoW. If that's too much of a nonbo with bridge then I'd like to see some discard possibly, or maybe just the best removal options, or both. If you don't have the UUU requirement on whir then I think testing something with Ancient Tomb to pull ahead early would be good. Anyway, lots of wasted potential with this deck submission IMO. Would love to see a round two.

[@bpgoss]

%100! Grindstone/painter in there has no place in the prison. Heresy!

[@SweetManaT]

To be fair, this was doomed from the start. You have no discard or way to see the hand. The purpose of lantern is complete information. The inability to see the opponent’s hand, means you don’t 100% know what problem to solve. You could’ve removed the Emrys and 2 grindstones for 4 thoughtsieze and 2 mainboard surgical extraction. Surgical is fantastic in this deck. Just my thoughts though. Love lantern and played it back in 2014 modern. It is one of my favorite deck to this day.

[@akioto1116]

You need free spells to make this work at legacy speeds, be it forces (will, nature, unmask, even solitude helps) . Without that the turn 1 combos will win every game they start

[@gunty77]

lantern player here, in modern we completely removed creatures from the deck outside of urza's saga tokens because we want to reduce the value of our opponents cards. when we have important creatures in the deck, we have to target our opponents removal and ensure they never draw it, as their removal is "active". by not playing creatures, their removal is "inactive" and no longer something we have to think about at all, lessening the strain on our mill rocks. If you run important creatures, hand attack will be one of the most important things in your deck. Lantern doesn't want to win on turn 3, so you can wait to play painter and win till after you've thoughtseized on the same turn.

[@The_answer42]

But you're not supposed to win! These decks are actively worse when win conditions are included as your plan is literally to prevent your opponent from winning and you usually need every single non mana-source card to help facilitate that. Win conditions actually make the deck less consistent and weaker - worse at executing its gameplan of just making the opponent lose.

[@jamsmadison3495]

My favorite deck. 5 color bad stuff.

[@IcePhoenixMusician]

Did no one notice that this deck was 3 The one rings, not singleton like Phil said? 33:57

[@Pixelatedude6]

YES YES LEGACY LANTERN THE DECK IVE BEEN WAITING FOR

[@ahhhabee]

LANTERN CONTROL MY BELOVED

[@tylermfdurden]

Lantern Control today? Let me just put playback speed on 2x

[@TheMagicRat933]

Your monoblack opponent turning your own painter on you was hilarious

[@xZipkan]

As a long time lantern player I can say with certainty that the deck is really bad until it's not. You don't really do a whole lot at first, but once the hooks are in, they are in.

[@MrHabugagiba]

This is the fastest click I've given to one of your videos. I suspect this will be a rough league but please embrace the lantern jank every now and then

[@joelstephenson]

Greatest intro you've ever done

[@alenphull]

Having messed around with painter in legacy some before, I definitely feel like trying to just adapt the ensnaring bridge shell is the wrong way to go. Blood moon seems to be way more promising as a build around, since it actually shuts down a lot of the ways legacy easily avoids the lantern lock. Bridge is still important, but not a stand-alone win in most matchups.

[@EsauEric]

Back to tell you another fever dream... Psyche your just awesome

[@Korwinga]

I have no idea if it's fast enough or not, but I feel like this deck wants to be an Oswald Fiddlebender deck. You need to assemble some specific A+B combos, and all of the pieces cost 1, 2, or 3 mana. Being able to swap your soft lock pieces into a combo win also seems pretty cool.

[@will11233]

@0:43 yes very offended but also **squeal lantern control game play**

[@justryangeorge]

Now hear me out: try playing lantern control in commander! It's wild! I run Pako, Arcane Retriever and Haldan, Avid Arcanist as the Commanders. You really dig deep for cards that reveal the top of everyone's library, and is the reason Field of Dreams skyrocketed!

[@QuesoDipp]

R2G1 turn 3, didn't you just have the win via Grindstone since they had necro in play and everything goes to exile?

[@persydiangelo8461]

It's grindstone, which reads differently than Helm of the Host. Grindstone says, "if the two cards are the same color, mill again" while Helm reads, "mill cards until a creature enters the graveyard." Similar cards, but different routes.

[@briandixon9140]

Love the intro here

[@Scherezad_]

Okay, I'm only 25 seconds in... but yeouch, them lips look _painful_ Know what happened, hope they feel better soon.

[@nerdyjoe314]

I am both offended, and I do in fact know.

[@EsauEric]

Jail... Girlfriend... Laundry... Where's the minds desire!??!! I'll look

[@luidgigiordano9480]

R1G2 is the reason why Eye of Ugin has to go if we have a playable Eldrazi shell like we do now.

[@alexanderfluckiger6431]

Always appreciate the lantern deck 😙

[@quincywilliams9860]

Cold open is exceptional today👌

[@rgirado]

Would a set of vantress gargoyles help you diversify your threats, give you some protection against frogs and still fill similar requirements. Or is the critical mass of creatures too low and you are concerned about them being more vulnerable to creature removal on game 1?

[@ArsonBjork]

So it's like 8cast-painter except with 10 dead cards instead of carddraw?

[@masterandcomandr3441]

At 38:48 is there merit to use grindstone activation to mill opponents psychic frog over playing out another grindstone?

[@tpslowbie]

I mean, just play more bridges in a painter list. Love the video

[@tarultoyarto]

This and Blue Painter. Painter is hard to assemble without Goblins to tutor out Painter's Servant. Saga gets the Grindstone, but you always have to naturally draw the Painter.

[@raznaak]

Inventor's Fair XD

[@soraru-san3072]

My boyfriend spends more time watching your videos than me

[@ThrabenUniversity]

Have you tried playing bad decks? That might get his attention. 😂

[@Mmoll1990]

Then spend more time watching Phil's videos to beat out your boyfriend.

[@chappachie4168]

feels like pyxis of pandemonium would be the best millstone in legacy given the prevalence of reanimator. might not matter cuz you can just let them draw it but decks like tin fins can cast their big bads sometimes

[@Fateseal_MTG]

I've been playing Lantern for over 10 years, and recently started a KZbin channel dedicated to the deck. I am a longtime subscriber and am actually going to send you my Modern list soon as a dono deck if you like. I'm gonna watch the league first and put my thoughts below...

[@Fateseal_MTG]

I'm not convinced that Lantern is viable in Legacy. The format is too fast and too broad. Ensnaring Bridge doesn't stuff decks like it does in Modern. Such a slow deck practically demands free countermagic like Force of Will, but Force doesn't play nearly as well with Lantern as discard spells do, and Thoughtseize just isn't nearly as good as Force. That being said, I don't think this build was particularly effective either. You saw first-hand why Lantern should NEVER play creatures; you only play a tiny handful of creatures, which just immediately eat your opponents' dead removal. You also did not have access to discard, so you could neither gain perfect information nor create a gameplan around the hole discard punches. This build also doesn't use the very few upgrades that Lantern gets by porting to Legacy - things like Ancient Tomb (which you pointed out) and Lotus Petal mostly. I also firmly believe that blue is the wrong color to play if you aren't playing Whir of Invention, but this build is nowhere near capable of playing that critical consistency piece. Also Codex Shredder is worse than Pyxis. You absolutely need to at least play 3 Pyxis. I play 4 in my Modern build. This was a nice video to watch though! Thanks to John John for getting this list in your hands.

[@raoulselten9480]

imo lantern in modern is a bit like hardened scales... it shits itself if you're not piloting it perfectly. but if you have a PhD in the deck, you have a very good shot at 5-0ing any league

[@TROLOLOLOLO007]

Lantern control in modern is pretty good right now though

[@zotmaster]

Would it have been worth it to board in Consign to Memory against Necrodominance as a potential Time Walk?

[@joelgomez9073]

This is exactly what I need in my lofe

[@lemoncobra2563]

hilarious i left a comment about lantern on the jeskai pyrogoyf video only to see this today lmao

[@gigglepants3006]

17:43 wasnt it better to play painter to make the eldrazi no longer colorless?

[@Fyrafox77]

My favorite deck style! If only it was actually good T.T

[@alicetheaxolotl]

As a Lantern Control player: Yes, I know.

[@Qbr12]

I think you misplayed against eldrazi by not rushing out the painter. R1G3 you knew the opponent had Eye of Ugin in hand and an ancient tomb, so playing the painter on turn 2 to make all the opponent's spells no longer colorless would effectively turn off the Eye of Ugin.

[@ThrabenUniversity]

I think that's totally reasonable!

[@Karl_Smink]

I'm guessing the existence of Field of Dreams doesn't make this deck any better?

[@ThrabenUniversity]

I'm not sure how a baseball movie is going to help the dec...oh, not what you meant.

[@IcePhoenixMusician]

You offended me, a lantern of insight junkie. Like this comment if you were offended lmao

[@swampybwoy]

“With my deck that is trying to wi…..ff.”

[@HutMitLama]

0:53 WRONG! the goal is to make the opponent miserable ;p

[@Mmoll1990]

Are you okay, Phil? 😢

[@aidancarmody877]

At a curiosity why did you drop the hand attack?

[@darienmckenzie7729]

Sorry about lip try aquapor it's great for tattoo but will help your lip heal

[@aqueductp9819]

Doesn’t painter mess up glaringfleshwraker

[@incommunicado_o]

kind of sad that the lantern aspect of the deck turned out to be contingent during the whole duration of the league, at many point I was thinking that ponders and other card selection might have functionally replaced the entire lantern package, especially considering how you decided to use it during the league it seemed like the whole point of the deck was to power out sagas or painter combo and another mvp was bridge, it really feels like most top decks in this format can't answer bridge meaningfully

[@usagi2988]

I was around for Lantern Control in Modern and it was miserable to watch, let alone play against.

[@jeromelim2928]

Phil your lips look brutal. Hope you're feeling ok.

[@VivBrodock]

I absolutely love Lantern, but it does not belong in legacy at all.

[@lui2322]

Modern?

[@bidu2331324]

Legacy decks having such high threat/land ratio makes lantern so much worse than modern tbh ngl

[@richardershig8601]

As a lantern of insight one trick, i am very offended by the intro

[@ThrabenUniversity]

XD

[@Aiden9696]

Hope your ok bro..

[@bpgoss]

I’ve been watching your content for years. Loved most of it. Grindstone in lantern control? Nah brah. 4x shredders 4x bells 1x pyxis. I couldn’t handle this heresy. I stopped watching before the deck tech was even done.

[@hugovellver5114]

first, hope your lips get better soon big fan , now to the sauce , you are pulling a deck that wants to play really fast and mixing in a turbo ending, the swapping colors fked the deck really bad , maybe a trasformational sideboard , if you want lantern then the old version with abrupt decay and discard might be better for legacy , this deck is consistent and tries to grind info for sideboard games the side was just not on point , i ser deck contruction problems buy hey ty for trying lantern , love the content!!

[@loveshackty]

You should consider getting your allergic reaction checked out by a doctor, as it’s been over a week, right? A steroid could reduce that inflammation so quickly and get you back to normal, as you deserve to be!

[@ThrabenUniversity]

Already have. It just takes multiple weeks for lip injuries to fully heal. XD

[@loveshackty]

@ No way! It looks like it is not fun, I can only imagine. And all from one stinkin chapstick! Wishing you the best

[@EsauEric]

Farscape...

[@robertherlihy917]

Is Phil dying?

[@dm1004]

as a lantern player ?? its not unfun on my side. opponent side ok

[@maciejwawrzyn4674]

Sad to see this. Please do this deck justice play it in modern

[@assault410]

Winning is for losers

[@nicholasiverson9784]

I like conceptually A + B combo in the shell, that it's more artifact stuff that your opponent already wants to sideboard against is a bit sus.

[@MagicUrk]

Sucks this deck is so far poorly positioned like the idea tho

[@littlesid2499]

Im offended, nothing that was said is wrong but im still offended.