Let's Talk About Lantern Control

Pro Tour Rivals Champion Luis Salvatto

 Earlier today, Luis Salvatto took home first place in Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan, with his Lantern Control deck overtaking Gerry Thompson's Mardu list with a 3-0 record. Both players brought their all to the table, and Luis took home his first Pro Tour victory. With Luis's victory, however, came an outcry of people calling for Lantern Control to be on the business end of the banhammer. As a Lantern player myself, I'm going to use this article to discuss my experiences with the deck and the good and bad things that come with it, as well as talking about some of the criticisms people direct towards the deck and what might get banned if Wizards chooses to take that course of action.

The Good

I like playing Lantern. I've always been a fan of control, and part of what interests me about Lantern is the fact that while it is a control deck, it's not a Ux deck of counters and removal.  Instead it's based around using artifacts - one of my favorite card types - to lock opposing players out of the game. Furthermore, I enjoy how it rewards people for having a large knowledge of Modern in general so that you know exactly how to keep your opponent from winning the game.

However, my favorite thing about it is the fact that it displays the charm of Modern. Browsing Luis's decklist, we find cards printed in a variety of different sets, including Ravnica, Coldsnap, Lowyrn, Rise of the Eldrazi, Dark Ascension, New Phyrexia, Aether Revolt, and more. Now, plenty of other Modern decks do have cards from a plethora of sets - Gerry's Mardu list contained cards from Dragons of Tarkir, Innistrad, and even Alpha. The two lists also shared a small number of cards. The difference is in where the cards see play. Almost every card on Gerry's list sees play in a variety of different decks while the majority of the cards in Luis's list see little play in any other deck - notably the ones that make the deck tick. It is a culmination of cards that was only able to be built because of the vast card pool Modern has to offer.

I've also learned a lot from playing Lantern. One of the most valuable lessons I learned was how to play fast on MTGO. I wasn't exactly slow before I started playing - I tended to be within a few seconds of my opponent, regardless of being ahead or behind on clock. But playing Lantern quickly taught me the glories of F6 and now I typically finish with 2+ minutes over the average opponent. Something else I learned was how to read the board better. My typical decks were either control decks playing the simple philosophy of counter and kill, or burn playing with the mindset of point and shoot. Playing Lantern helped me to pay greater attention to the battlefield than I had before, which is something that had made me a stronger player across all decks.

The Bad

Every deck does have its drawbacks, so let's talk about some of those. The biggest issue that comes with playing Lantern is that people hate to play against it. I can still remember the first time I played against Lantern. I was still fairly new to Modern and Magic in general and I came across it. I left the match thoroughly confused, not entirely sure how I had lost to a bunch of tiny artifacts. Now I don't mind the match-up because I find it interesting. That being said I'm one player. The drawback that comes from people disliking playing the match can show in a number of ways; some people will concede immediately which doesn't really leave either player happy, and some players will either try to time their opponent out or harass them in chat on MTGO.

Another issue is that playing against or even with Lantern can be demoralizing. From the view of the Lantern pilot it's possible to slip up, to make a tiny mistake that completely changes the game dynamic or even leads to an immediate loss after multiple turns of carefully keeping your opponent locked out of the game. On the flipside, the opponent can find it demoralizing to watch as the turns go by without drawing anything relevant until they're finally out of cards, or possibly lose to a Pyrite Spellbomb of Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas. This is really why play hate playing against Lantern, and it actually has a lot to do with my next topic:

Topics of Lantern Discussion

Here I want to discuss three different things I hear a lot about Lantern. These are things I've picked up on from seeing what people are saying about the deck, both in Twitch chat and on Twitter. Most of them are complaints against the deck I've seen people use to justify banning cards, but this first one is something a little different:

1. "Players should concede when they lose." This is something that I see from a lot of Lantern players, sometimes said in other ways but they all generally boil down to the fact that the opponent should scoop after the lock is assembled. I partially agree with this sentiment, but dislike the phrasing. First and foremost, it's completely up to the opponent to play out the match and completely within their rights as a player. Gerry demonstrated this mentality during the finals when he told Luis that he would concede when the lock was assembled. But there's nothing wrong with your opponent playing the game out. The flipside to this issue is this:
2. "Lantern generates long, drawn-out games." Yes and no. By its nature, Lantern Control is designed to lock the opponent out of the game and win by making it so the opponent can't win. The way the strategy works does lean towards creating a very long game. But the game only goes on as long as the players let it. To repeat my statement above, it is up to both players whether or not they choose to scoop. If they wish to stop once the lock is assembled they can, but they can also keep going. The issue I find with this point is that more often than not it's people who choose to play out the match who take issue with this. There are two major reasons to play out the game versus Lantern: Specifically on MTGO it's more than possible that your opponent will time out, or you can hope the Lantern pilot makes a fatal mistake. I've come across more than a few players who get salty after they take on of these courses and lost. Lantern creates a drawn out game when the players choose to let it become drawn out; getting salty about your own choices in the game taking so long is a mute point. It doesn't get you anywhere because you're just playing to the nature of the deck. I'd like to propose an example with this: If you were playing against Storm, would you watch them go through the entire combo to try and hit a Storm count of 20 to Grapeshot you to capitalize on the chance that they make a mistake or time out? If the answer is no, then why would you sit through a lock that takes up many turns for the same hope?
3. "Lantern is miserable to watch/play against and should be banned." This is something I see a lot of, that it's not interesting to watch it or play against it and should be banned because of it. These are both subjective points that depends on the person playing or watching. It's hard to make a counterargument to saying something that is not good to watch. The best I can do is point out the following: According to Esports Charts, the peak viewer numbers for Pro Tour Ixalan hit 31,000. When I was watching the finals of this PT, there were well over 40,000 viewers, which is also twice that of last year's World Championship. As far as it being miserable to play against...well, there's not much of a defense I can make here. It's as simple as the fact that it's not to everybody's tastes to play against. There's not much to be said here either, but I think every format will have a deck that people generally don't like to play against for one reason or another. But should it be banned? The short answer is no. As for the long answer....

Bans and Lantern

 I do not think that Lantern should be banned right now. It only makes up a sliver of the meta, it still has its share of bad matchups, and all it's done at the moment is win a Pro Tour. First of all, I think almost anything that won would have people calling for bans. I'm sure that if it was Tron or Storm hitting the top, people would be clamoring for Urza's Tower to be gone and if Death's Shadow hit the top people would be asking why Street Wraith wasn't given the banhammer. However, I won't pretend that it's impossible for it to be banned if it starts getting more popular after this. So I want to look at what I think would be banned from the deck, from least to most likely.

Wizards of the Coast

So, this is obviously the piece that makes the deck tick and it would completely fall apart without it. However, Wizards has shown before that they will try to weaken a deck before they outright ban it, so I think this will be rather unlikely for them to get banned, at least at first.

Wizards of the Coast

This is only slightly ahead of Lantern because it would very heavily neuter the Lantern deck without technically killing it, but would require lists to change very rapidly. Banning Ensnaring Bridge brings the benefit of not really hurting other decks, but the draw back is the fact that more than a couple people would be out a considerable amount of money given the costs of the old card.

Wizards of the Coast

 Whir is certainly a powerful piece in the deck, essentially acting as 4 extra copies of almost every non-land card in your deck. The biggest reason they would ban this card would be to try and tame the deck without actually killing it, and banning Whir would have little affect on any other decks. The question is whether or not this would really make the difference a banning should since Lantern existed before Whir and could easily work after it.

Wizards of the Coast

 Mox Opal. For many players this card has always been on the fringe of the ban list, but it's been there for so long that I don't know if it will ever get there. Banning this cards comes with some benefits; it would require a rework of the manabase to help cast its spells and the lack of mana acceleration would slow down the assembly of the lock. The main drawbacks to banning Mox Opal would again be the cost factor, as well as the fact that banning this card would also do a number on Affinity; the reason that it's not lower is because it is a card that players have wanted banned before.

Wizards of the Coast

This is the card I find most likely to be banned. It lends a ton of consistency to the deck, almost as much as Whir of Invention, and banning it would impose minimal costs on players. It's also a very powerful cantrip that doesn't really have a drawback because the decks that care about it are playing colorless cards anyway. Banning Ancient Stirrings with the intent of weakening Lantern Control could be a double-edged sword, however; while it would weaken Lantern it would also weaken Tron, one of its natural predators. But if Wizards chooses to impose a ban on Lantern without killing the deck in the first ban, this is the most likely card to go.

Conclusion

Lantern is a powerful deck. There is no doubt about that. Is it ban-worthy? Not at this point in time. I will admit there may be a future where Lantern becomes a dominant deck that needs to be controlled, but at the moment I think it's fine. It's just another facet in the multitude of decks that fill Modern, one that does its own unique thing with a combination of cards that wouldn't have a place elsewhere. While there are many, many opinions surrounding the deck, its place in Modern, and whether or not it should be banned, I don't think that winning a single tournament is worth getting rid of it. Last but not least, congratulations to Luis and all the other players who made it to the Pro Tour!