{"ops":[{"insert":"This is my interpretation of a Lantern Control deck: mono-white, budget, creatureless, and centered around an ancient commander who's activated ability has conveniently old formatting.\n\nYour average "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero"}},{"insert":" deck is supposed to do Rebel things - it says so right on the card. However, if you ignore what the card says and instead choose not to put any mana into her tap ability, she suddenly becomes a creature with \"{t}: shuffle your library\". It turns out that this is just about the most efficient way to repeatedly-on-demand get a shuffle, especially out of the command zone. The next question from there is what are the most interesting things to do with this ability (answer: improve your card selection), and from there you dive into the rabbit hole that is topdeck manipulation (oh, hello there "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Lantern of Insight"}},{"insert":"!). My original build had a rebel subpackage, but once you start plumbing into the depths of Lantern Control you can't really stop halfway. I found myself cutting more and more rebels in favor of do-nothing artifacts until eventually I had no rebels left... then I kept going until I had no creatures... and then I looked and saw the list barely had any expensive cards anyway so I snuck it into a $75 budget (it's risen a touch since I originally built it, but we're still solidly in The Precon Price Zone).\n\nThe basic gameplan is to more-or-less fairly play a ton of cheap artifacts, which all affect the top of your deck somehow. Some of them draw the card, some of them reveal it, some of them shuffle it away, some of them cheat it into play, and some of them just remove it entirely. Individually these effects are pretty weak or too inconsistent for a generic list, but as you stack them up you pretty quickly get to a place where you've got a powercycling engine that rips through the deck for whatever you need, whenever you need it. Conveniently, this engine will also let us see "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"our opponents'"},{"insert":" topdecks, and say \"no\" to anything that looks especially scary. This repeatable card selection on both sides of the table builds up a ton of value while we look to hit our one-card control wincons and close out the game.\n\nWincon-wise we've got "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Approach of the Second Sun"}},{"insert":" in here, obviously, but we've also got some high-value token generators and fan favorite "},{"insert":{"card-link":"The Millennium Calendar"}},{"insert":" to synergize with our plethora of tap-to-trigger artifacts. We've got a great Miracle sub-package here too ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Terminus"}},{"insert":" is a great boardwipe, and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Entreat the Angels"}},{"insert":" or "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Redress Fate"}},{"insert":" can absolutely blow open a game for us). We aren't able to go for a full-on lockout win like a true Lantern list, but that's probably for the best.\n\nOf course, we're both a) spinning our wheels a lot and b) playing confusing old cards which are disproportionately terrifying to your average EDH player, so we need a way to survive. My answer - and I freely admit this was probably the "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"wrong"},{"insert":" answer, but it was certainly the funny one - is fogs. Almost literally "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"all "},{"insert":"the fogs, in fact. White is the queen of fogs-that-aren't-fogs, and you learn real quick that each of the ones included here have little quirks that can be either highly beneficial or cripplingly flawed, depending on the game state. Special shout-out to "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Mandate of Peace"}},{"insert":" as a fascinating fog which deserves to see more play. Since we're looking at topdecks anyway the removal suite plays into this with tuck cards ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Oust"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Unexpectedly Absent"}},{"insert":" etc.) or forced-shuffle cards ("},{"insert":{"card-link":"Visions"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Prophecy"}},{"insert":" are terrible cards that I will never, ever remove from this list). Finally, I want to point out one specific card that plays much, much better than it looks and fits our list perfectly: "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Penance"}},{"insert":". We definitely love having a way to put a card back on top if we need to, but don't forget that this is an untargeted way to simply stop damage. No more commander damage threat, no more damage triggers, it has edge cases with non-creature sources... these things come up a lot. It doesn't even have to be coming at us!\n\nRecommended mulligans: \nYou keep topdeck reveal effects first and foremost. If you don't see one on the first pull I'd recommend taking a second look regardless of whatever else you've got. Outside of that you're looking for repeatable draw, repeatable ramp, and topdeck selection in roughly that priority order. You can typically get away with two lands so long as you have a good mix of the above. What you don't want to see early are the fogs or any wincon card (outside of "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Luminarch Ascension"}},{"insert":", for obvious reasons). The list has enough cantrip effects that you can usually feel comfortable going down to six or even five cards while you're looking for one or two of the big hits to get your engine going.\n\nNon-obvious strategy tips: \nYou'll eventually end up in a position where you have 5+ different ways to manipulate the top of your deck. Picking the right order of operations makes a big difference here. If you have a card on the top that's not helpful you want to go mill->shuffle->draw to get past it, and anything that doesn't spend mana comes before the things that do even if it's a less-preferred mechanic. The only things to think twice about milling are the counterspells, Approach of the Second Sun, and potentially Redress Fate; everything else has plenty of redundancies and/or recursion effects. It's OK to use up the self-sacrifice cards pretty liberally if they don't have a useful passive effect. Pretty much all of your triggered abilities are instant speed, so play that way. If you're putting away an opponent's topdeck, you want to go exile->shuffle->mill. We have those silly sorcery-speed shuffle cards floating around, so you do need to think before ending your turn on this side of the equation. Finally, you have exactly two counterspells: be very, very cautious about when you use them up. You can be a bit more loose with the fogs and other removal, but they're still a pretty limited resource and you almost always have reasonable mana sinks. If you can survive without using them, you really shouldn't use them. I'd also recommend sandbagging a topdeck reveal card in-hand. People don't tend to remove them on-sight, but after a couple turns of shenaniganry someone will realize how critical they are to your game plan.\n\nAll in all, the list works surprisingly well. Stunningly well, even - that Bracket 3 tag isn't a joke, it's competitive even into the upper end of that tier. With a decent mulligan2 to get you set up, you very consistently end up seeing/selecting a ton of cards, and while all the wincons aren't created equal you still have several options to sneak out games against \"obviously\" stronger decks. Just as importantly, the play patterm feels OK at most tables too. We don't hard-lock anyone so the salt levels usually aren't too high, we like to interact with what other players are doing, and we get to play a lot of \"wait what does that do?\" cards. It does take a good number of end-step game actions, so it pays to know the list well to minimize wasting time. The one big killer to look out for across the table is drain effects. Our fog-based gameplan leaves us vulnerable to taking small-but-consistent chip damage and we don't have a surfeit of answers for those derpy little creatures that don't need to swing to kill us. Outside of that (and to a much lesser degree, goading) this list matches up decently with pretty much everything else. We're monsters to the go-big-swing-hard lists, we have a reasonable amount of interaction versus non-creature gameplans, and we can typically outlast voltron lists.\n\nAnyone looking to upgrade the deck probably starts with tossing out half the fogs (plus the do-nothing shuffle sorceries) for a few value creatures and one or two more wincons. A small lifegain package plus Aetherflux Reservoir would fix our biggest problems and add more kill potential without paying much of an opportunity cost elsewhere. Another mana reducer or two would help consistency but would currently break my self-imposed budget. The list looks like it needs more lands, but the card selection is so good it's really not an issue if you put some thought into mulligans. Your mileage may vary though.\n"}]}