Lantern Control

That actually seems quite good in another deck of mine, but it could work here as well. Thanks!

No problem. I'm working on an artificers lantern myself.

Nice! Let me know when you finish it I'd love to have a look.

I will bring you an update, but it might take a while.
Artificers intuition has the potential to replace both whir of invention and ancient stirrings by being able to convert any artifact in hand into the keycard you need.

It demands less pressure on the colorthemes of your deck and promises more flexibility.
And by being a permanent it will also mean that you will need less of whir and stirrings, allowing you to incorporate more utility artifacts strengthening the overall concept.

It's a small wonder why the card has been overlooked by past lantern brewers :)

I swapped the two field of dreams for 2 artificer's intuition because the field of dreams was there as an extra lantern of insight so to speak (to reveal top of libraries) but the artificer's intuition can just tutor the lantern of insight itself, or if I don't need it, go get something else.

After 3 turns. It's a little slow imo

Lantern is very much about planning ahead, being able to fetch exactly the right lock against some decks on turn 3 can be very usefull in a few games. At other times it will be best to hold it back for a while going for a block.

Makes sense, I'll try playtesting with it a bit

Also makes sense, sometimes things seem logical, but you miss the clarity of playtests :)

I did some playing with Urza's Saga and you're right. This card is freaking busted haha.

In my current experiments with commoncard "lantern" versus 2018 modern merfolk I've learned that it doesn't take much to establish control.

I have a core that consists of:
4 cards able to look at my top costing 1cc
(Depending on the deck color I use Delver of Secrets, Mudbutton Clanger or Thoughtpicker Witch)

2 cards able to look at my top costing 3cc
(Depending on deckcolor I use Brutal Deceiver, Cruel Deceiver and Callous Deceiver)

4 Darksteel Pendant

4 ghoulcaller's bell

I also use 2 Lurking Informant if the deck is black or blue.

I've experimented with aggro lantern before and can recommend both delver and informant if you want to try out that direction.

In any case, lurking informant is incredible at locking down merfolk early, and frankly, since I've got no ensnaring bridge I use removal instead.

I'm also investigating a variant with fog rather than removal as less fogs would be needed than it needs removal cards.

Glad to hear it worked out :)

Thats an interesting idea about the fog. I've been working tweaking an old mono white turbofog type deck I made a while back in modern. Fog works, but you can also run Ethereal Haze or Dawn Charm and there are some creatures you can sac as a fog too like Kami of False Hope or Children of Korlis. Teferi's Protection and Angel's Grace are also fun options for that sort of strategy. Let me know how it goes!

I'm testing the fog half, and fog has 7 spells costing 2 mana, four of which are really interesting.
I'm also testing out an old variant of thoughtpicker witch which can mill to a certain degree.

But I think modern could be beaten by a "fog-lantern"

The fog creatures are too kill-able, but I'm going to test if a few spore frogs can't make a difference.

Yeah the fog creatures are quite kill-able. Thats why I run stuff like eight-and-a-half tails, rebuff the wicked, and dawn charm (regenerate mode) in my turbo fog deck to protect them, although it costs quite a bit of mana so I don't know if the deck will ever be competitive. But I'm working on it haha

Another interesting possibility is running Hana Kami. Very specific, but since Ethereal Haze is Arcane it can return that.
You could also play something like Brought Back to recur the fog creatures

Btw I found a lot more than 7 two-cost fogs. Not all of them are good, but some are pretty decent:
1 cost:
Fog
Ethereal Haze
Holy Day
Darkness
Undergrowth

2 cost:
Angel's Song
Batwing Brume
Blessed Respite
Commencement of Festivities
Constant Mists
Dawn Charm
Defend the Hearth
Druid's Deliverance
Energy Arc
Haze of Pollen
Lull
Moment's Peace
Pollen Lullaby
Respite
Root Snare
Tangle
Terrifying Presence
Winds of Qal Sisma
Deep Wood
Heavy Fog

Yeah, I was still in "common card" country when I searched.
I just searched for the phrase combat damage in green common cards.

Some like Ethereal Haze for example just prevent damage dealt by creatures or some such like that, so I search for just text containing "Prevent all" and "damage"

I'll do that :)
The wider the collection is, the hardier the decks will be.

I think there's enough cards there to build a white version of the fog deck if it works out in green.
I particularly like dawn charm because it can counter something targeting you.

Yeah, that's one of my favorites. I run 4 in my mono white turbo fog deck.

I've just finished my "front" for the silhana fog build.

Search for the decktag: halfdeck front

You should be able to see both the lantern builds and the fog build.

Sweet I'll check it out tomorrow!

Karn might be a little too steep on the mana, lantern builds no longer have opals.
It might be doable with a return to whir of invention though, so what would have to go ?

Theres also a heavy increase in user accounts with double consonants in their names.
Some of them very old, so forgive me for thinking you might be a troll.

There is the odds that your occurrence reminded the trolls of their old accounts and that you kickstarted them by appearing, but I'll keep an eye out for the behaviour of double consonant accounts.

I've looked at all 8 lantern decks featured on mtggoldfish, and the only build there with karn in it got a 79th place.
Everything else 5-0.

So your advice doesn't speak heavily in your favor, but there is the odd chance that you got this advice from someone trolling you...

Or your advice is from before 2021.

Honestly I really don't see what you would want from the sideboard that isn't already in the lantern core to warrant 4 mana. Adding karn just seems like it would unfocus the deck.

I could think of a bunch of cards.
Chalice of the void
Engineered explosives (good with academy ruins)
Relic of progenitus

Just to name a few.

But Karn was a lot better when mox opal was in the deck and whir of invention was more playable.

Oh I can absolutely think of a bunch of cards I'd like to bring in, but who wants to spend 4 mana to put a chalice of the void in hand? Yes you can use it multiple times, but honestly how long is karn gonna stick on the field anyway. And you just spent all your mana to cast him so hes pretty much an open target unless you've got a bridge out, but even then you're up to 1 card in hand unless you want that 4 mana chalice to be on 0... I just don't see the value. There are much better things for the slot.

Yeah, like I wrote, the deck with karn got 79th place, and all other lantern brews went 5-0.
It was bad advice.

I've been hunting trolls in here for more than 2 years, and at a point where the trolls realized that I'm to stubborn to be influenced they turned on others.

Two things are suspicious about this youhoo guy, first his account name has two oo's side by side in the name, and theres been an influx in active accounts with, aa, ee and other doubles. If you use mtgvaults search engine on doubles like those you can see old troll user accounts that used them.
And he gave what seems like a bad advice.

Well thats annoying... Has the mtgvault community fallen that low?

My guess is that there's a few irregular visitors and a solid group of trolls.
The problem is pretty old.

It's why I put up warnings on all my posts.

I recently updated the link about it
https://www.mtgvault.com/wickeddarkman/decks/beware-of-extortionism/

Seems a bit paranoid but oddly feasible...
In any case, regardless, its just a good idea in general not to put out too much information about yourself on the internet where anyone can read it anyway.

No kidding :)

I'm asperger which is why I have the "ability" to spot the trolls.
Over the years there's been plenty of witnesses.

At a time my reputation was at minus 2000 as a result of trolling which I've used plenty of times as proof.

I can also recite a number of spam sessions and the user accounts that did the spam.

Makes sense. I've also seen your posts getting randomly downvoted for no reason... Like someone is going around just finding all your posts and downvoting them. Seems kinda low...

I didn't realise they followed me in here before years later, but they were dumb enough to move into here using account names based on their real life names and when I discovered that they were spamming me a couple of years ago I've uncovered clue after clue. The most usefull thing has been their modus operandi, as they've changed their account names over time, but their oldest transitions were a hybrid system of passwords.

As an example, their oldest system was to have a keyword in all their account names for example "tiger" and would call themselves stuff like bunnytiger, lovetiger, tigertank or more advanced stigerosaurus.

This way they could identify each other and cooperate with each other on their trolling.

Later when they got more advanced they knew people would figure out that they were trolls so they sometimes made a name change by switching from tiger to tank or love depending on which they found more funny.

So they would switch in chains lovetiger into lovelace into laceventura into venturamitzu and so on.
(This is just an example, don't bother searching for it)

But this also meant they left a trail of breadcrumbs all the way back to their original names.

Wow... people are dumb

I think back when they started they didn't think deep about it and when they layered the things they probably just forgot. And I sort of missed the connection for years. I thought people in general was spamming out of desperation to be seen.

Karn isn't super popular anymore, but there has been a solid upswing of turning to white for prismatic ending. Its the best removal in the format right now, and while running 3-4 colors you would be able to beat through pretty much all of the scary threats in the format (like wrenn, 3-feri, ragavan, etc.)
Abrupt decay can deal with all those threats too, but the ability to exile is extremely helpful in a ton of matchups (especially with drc and goyfs running around). You wouldn't even have to adjust your mana base all too heavily to enable it.
Also, I have no clue what you meant about the troll name, I've used this as a screen name for roughly 10 years.

I think you seem legit, but it sounds like wickeddarkman has had to deal with some really shitty people in the past. Probably just a coincidence that your name matches their MO.

Yeah Prismatic Ending is really good and I could see it as a pretty decent removal option for this deck even though it doesn't really run white. Shouldn't be too hard to splash. I'll try and playtest it when I get a chance! Thanks for the feedback!

Posts where you and me have been talking are getting flagged,
I think the trolls might think you are righteousbrightgirl.
Make all your posts private if you are, before the trolls get personal info.

I don't have any personally identifiable info on mtgvault so they can scour my posts all they like, they won't find anything.
And no I'm not righteousbrightgirl whoever that is.

Good.
Just taking steps to prevent retaliation on others than me.

I have had my thoughts that it might be gary in disguise to see how bad things are.

Sorry to disturb.

Who is Gary and righteousbrightgirl? I am not up to date on the mtgvault lore.

Gary is the site owner