We’ve seen a lot of exciting technology come out of the Legacy weekend at Grand Prix Prague and Columbus. One innovative take on the format was to take the Lantern of Insight shell from Modern and port it over to Legacy, where you get to include even more hateful combinations of artifacts and enchantments. Let’s take a look at how all the pieces fit together:

Lantern Control ? Legacy | shadowgripper

• Spells (40)
• 1 Helm of Obedience
• 1 Humility
• 1 Porphyry Nodes
• 2 Field of Dreams
• 2 Metamorphose
• 3 Enlightened Tutor
• 3 Ensnaring Bridge
• 3 Pithing Needle
• 4 Codex Shredder
• 4 Energy Field
• 4 Lantern of Insight
• 4 Pyxis of Pandemonium
• 4 Rest in Peace
• 4 Unexpectedly Absent

• Lands (20)
• 3 Island
• 4 Plains
• 1 Karakas
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 2 Marsh Flats
• 2 Tundra
• 3 Seachrome Coast
• 4 Flooded Strand

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Back to Basics
• 1 Porphyry Nodes
• 1 Runed Halo
• 2 Containment Priest
• 2 Peacekeeper
• 3 Flusterstorm
• 4 Meddling Mage
• 1 Forest

Buy This Deck

A huge advantage this deck gains in Legacy is the inclusion of Field of Dreams as Lantern of Insight number five and six. Not only that, but Enlightened Tutor serves as additional copies of Ensnaring Bridge, Lantern of Insight, and other Codex Shredder effects. The presence of Enlightened Tutor also gives you the option of playing hateful cards like Humility, Moat, Porphyry Nodes, or even Back to Basics, depending on what effects the matchup calls for.

Lantern aficionados will notice that this deck plays the full four copies of Pyxis of Pandemonium over any copies of Ghoulcaller's Bell. This is because of the card Energy Field. Energy Field functions as an additional layer of protection in tandem with Ensnaring Bridge, particularly with the likes of Rest in Peace and Pyxis of Pandemonium to ensure you can continue to execute your game plan without allowing any cards to hit your graveyard. Additionally, in post-sideboard games, you gain access to Peacekeeper, which may be straight up unbeatable after your opponent sideboards out all of their creature removal.

It’s also interesting to note this deck gets the advantage of being pure U/W rather than having to splash many colors. This means you get to play fetches and basics over cards like Glimmervoid and Mox Opal. This is because you can lean on removal spells like Unexpectedly Absent and Metamorphose rather than needing Abrupt Decay, and you have the on-color Enlightened Tutor rather than Ancient Stirrings.

The last missing piece is the actual win condition. While in Modern, you can frequently lock opponents out completely and win via decking your opponent with Academy Ruins, Legacy is a little more volatile. There are so many cards, and moving pieces it’s much more likely your opponent will be able to find a way to break out of the lock, particularly given the prevalence of Abrupt Decay in the format. That means it’s in your interest to have a real win condition. Rest in Peace plays directly into the deck's plan of disrupting graveyard decks and making Energy Field a hard lock, but it also means you have access to a combo kill in conjunction with Helm of Obedience.

This is not the style of control deck Legacy is used to. This is no Counterbalance deck like Miracles. Rather, this deck aggressively tries to prevent your opponent from being able to interact in any meaningful way. I don’t know if the deck has what it takes to seriously compete against all the top players in the format, but I’m definitely excited to find out.