Lantern Control won our MID Modern League in the hands of LukeS! After playing the deck to reasonable finishes over the last few leagues, he finally took home the trophy. I was able to ask him a few questions after his first Modern League win.
Congratulations on your first UOL League victory! Does it mean anything special to you to have won your first league?
I’m happy my first league win was in my favorite format using my favorite deck. I always like doing well with a pet deck, so being able to win a league for the first time with it is great.
Why did you select Lantern Control for your deck this season? What have you played in the past and why didn’t you play that?
I’ve been a huge fan of Lantern Control for a while, and played it in the past couple of modern leagues. In general I really enjoy decks with unconventional strategies, which Lantern Control definitely fulfills. I also enjoy combo decks like Twiddle Storm which I was considering playing, but I’m much more comfortable with Lantern so I decided to go with that.
What was your hardest game or match you played?
My semi-final match vs Mono-Red Burn was pretty difficult. I barely won at 3-2 and a lot of that was including 4 Collective Brutality as well as the one The Underworld Cookbook. They really helped me pull ahead despite the difficulty in dealing with the early pressure and late game inevitability.
What changes would you make to your deck in the future?
Some changes I’m making are mostly to the sideboard, like adding a Jegantha, the Wellspring and a second Life from the Loam to help me do better in grindy matchups. In my testing both in and outside UOL, I’ve found the hardest decks to deal with are those that like trading 1 for 1 on resources before pulling ahead such as Jund style decks and Control, so having cards like Loam to rebuy Urza’s Saga or a companion to draw an extra card can really help me keep up.
There is a lot of discussion going on right now about the power of Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer and other new cards. Do you think anything should be banned in Modern right now?
I’m personally very happy with modern as a format at the moment and don’t think anything deserves to be banned. While there are some very powerful cards from MH2 that are major players in the metagame, I’m enjoying the overall state of the meta.
Modern is currently one of Magic’s most popular formats. What do you like about Modern that has gotten you to keep playing it?
I really enjoy the breadth of decks and strategies that modern supports, and interesting games this diversity leads to. The existence of Lantern Control shows this, as there is no other format where you could find bulk cards like Lantern of Insight and make an entire deck around them.
What do you expect to play in the next season of Modern? Will you be changing it up, or running back Lantern Control again?
I’m planning on playing Lantern again, as it’s still the deck I definitely have the most experience with. There are other decks I’m interested in like Twiddle Storm or Jeskai Phoenix, but I still really enjoy the gameplay of Lantern and it’s the deck I’m most confident in my skills piloting.
Thank you for talking with me, and congratulations!
Thanks for the interview!
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