If you have Lantern out with a single Codex Shredder, if the opponent sees two of these killer cards in a row, you lose the game. In this scenario, the universe of cards that matter is four cards - the Lightning Bolts and the Goblin Guides will kill you, and the Mountains do nothing. Imagine, as a simplification, a scenario in which you’re at two life and your opponent’s library consists of two copies of Lightning Bolt, two copies of Goblin Guide, and two Mountains. You can do this by either increasing the amount of mill rocks you have or by making the universe of cards that matter smaller (which is usually done via other lock pieces, such as Ensnaring Bridge, Pithing Needle, Grafdigger’s Cage, and Surgical Extraction). Your goal is to get to a scenario where this is not possible because the universe of cards that matter is smaller than the amount of mills you have access to. Because of this, it’s entirely possible that you see a good card on top, mill it away, and then there’s another good card on top right after that. When you have Lantern of Insight and some number of mill rocks, you’re not getting rid of their draw step they’re still drawing a card, just not that specific card. A lot of the time, if they draw a card that matters, you lose the game on the spot. Given enough of those in a row, you will win the game by default. Each turn of the game where they draw a card that doesn’t matter is a win for you. In my mind, I think of the cards that matter as the “universe of cards that matter”. For example, if they have ten lands out, clearly another Plains is a card that doesn’t matter, so you can let them draw it freely. Normally, when you reach this point of the game, your opponent will have certain cards that matter and certain cards that don’t. If you have Lantern of Insight and one of these mill artifacts out, you have control over what your opponent is going to draw. It does so by virtue of having Lantern of Insight, which means both players play with the top card of their libraries revealed, and then cards that can mill the opponent every turn - Codex Shredder, Pyxis of Pandemonium, or Ghoulcaller’s Bell (also called the “mill rocks”). The goal is to lock the opponent out of the game. If you’re not aware of how it plays out, it’ll look like a random assortment of cards to you, and even if you understand what it’s trying to do, a lot of the interactions can be quite tricky.Īt its core, Lantern Control is a prison deck. But is it powerful enough to basically resurrect the deck? I think so.īefore we delve into the specifics of the list, I want to talk a bit about how this deck works to begin with. So, we’ve established that Urza’s Saga is very powerful in Lantern control. Lantern Control traditionally is interested in playing certain hate cards such as Grafdigger’s Cage and Pithing Needle with Urza’s Saga, you have a lot more access to them (since you can also Ancient Stirrings for either piece). The third use of the card is to find bullets. What’s a hypothetical control player going to do? Keep Path to Exile in their deck? Urza’s Saga offers an alternate win condition in the form of a land that costs nothing to play because it’s part of your combo already, and this flexibility is also invaluable. In Game 2 and Game 3, however, the Construct becomes much better, because people will have fewer removal spells against you, so killing the opponent with one or two of them becomes much easier. Besides, they at least get to block sometimes even with Ensnaring Bridge a creature gets through (such as Noble or Ignoble Hierarch), and having a big blocker can be beneficial. In Game 1, Ensnaring Bridge can render the Constructs obsolete, but you’re still a deck with Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, and some removal spells, and sometimes your draw will line up in a way where they’re just dead to the Constructs and you don’t even get to cast Ensnaring Bridge. The second reason is that you can make Constructs, and rather big ones in this deck, since a lot of the deck is cheap artifacts. It’s impossible to overstate how strong it is to have your land turn into a part of your combo for free in the middle of the game, and that’s the main reason the deck is strong again. Lantern of Insight, Codex Shredder, and Pyxis of Pandemonium are your combo, and Urza’s Saga finds them all. The first thing it does is tutor up your missing combo pieces. Urza’s Saga does a couple of distinct but very important things for the deck.
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