Lantern Control: Modern

This week we are heading to modern to find one of the meanest, most awful decks to play against, and also one of the most fun decks to pilot. This deck is of course Lantern Control. Lantern Control is a deck that is built around the card Lantern of Insight. This forgotten card that nobody cared to look at soon became the center of a powerful archetype that no one ever wanted to be paired against. 

The way that Lantern Control works is it is focused on controlling your opponents draws. With Lantern of Insight, you have the ability to look at the top card of your opponent’s library at all times. Knowing what your opponent is drawing is already a powerful effect, but controlling that draw is even better. With cards such as Codex Shredder, Ghoulcaller’s Bell, and Pyxis of Pandemonium you can choose whether or not they get the top card of by milling that card. If your opponent has a ton of lands but no spells to cast you just mill whatever spell you see if they have spells but no lands you mill those instead. Once you are able to establish a lock it is very difficult for your opponent to get back into the game because they can no longer top deck a win con. If all your opponent needs is a Lightning Bolt to seal the game you can ensure that they will never see it. Then your opponent will slowly be milled until they can no longer draw any cards and therefore lose the game. 

The only way to beat Lantern Control is to kill them with the cards that you already have. If you are able to kill your opponent before they are able to establish a lock or play a threat that they cannot deal with you will win the game. That’s why Lantern Control will use cards such as Ensnaring Bridge and Pithing Needle to answer anything you do play. Discard effects such as Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, and Collective Brutality will also allow you to pick apart your opponent’s hand before they are able to get too crazy. 

Lantern Control is a fascinating deck that was able to take advantage of a card deemed worthless and make it into the powerhouse of a deck that it is today. Seth probably better known as Saffron Olive, recently uploaded a video where he explains that as a brewer you need to look at every card as if they are good. Lantern of Insight is a card that many people had written off as being bad, but once someone looked at it in the right way a powerful deck was born. Here is the link to Saffron Olive’s video if you would like to check it out yourself. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRnxBAJyuiE

I hope you enjoyed this week’s article! It was a lot of fun to write, especially because I had never looked at Lantern Control in depth before writing this. I had no idea that a card such as Lantern of Insight even existed, but once I learned what the card and deck could do it was actually really fascinating. If there are any specific decks you would like to cover in the future just let me know. See you guys next week!