Vedalken Shackles: This is our replacement for Ensnaring Bridge. The downside is that it is not immediately impactful. The upside is it provides a wincon and allows us to hold cards in hand. That is probably the biggest advantage mono blue has over b/g. The best time to steal creatures is on the opponent's upkeep or end step. There are a number of ways to defend yourself with this. The main way is to grab their biggest creatures then hold the board down with Synod Sanctum and Aether Spellbomb. You can also grind them down by chumping with all their small creatures until the field is clear and you have enough islands to steal the big guys. Creatures like eldrazi, Death's Shadow, Tarmogoyf, Gurmag Angler, and Tasigur, the Golden Fang present a unique challenge in that they come down big and early, so it's important to try and counter these or chump/bounce your own creatures until you build up enough islands. Death's Shadow is probably the toughest since it can grow in power at instant speed and once you gain control of it, it will be weak or dead. It's a better idea to just bounce them and hold up some way to counter them on the way down.
Trinket Mage is definitely a x4. A tutor that plays defense while providing a cheaper clock than original Pyrite Spellbomb = the difference between halting creatures & stealing creatures. Also a more reliable fetch of combo pieces.
Stoic Rebuttal feels amazing in lantern control. If something gets through before you get enough mill, you can deal with it before it gets to the field. That's the weakness of sorcery speed disruption in original. A better top deck than Thoughtseize and useful to recur with Codex Shredder. Con: suffers from being T3 instead of T1.
Counterbalance acts as a mini one sided Chalice of the Void. How many quick decks thrive on strong 1drops? Dig for a specific cmc or just put one on top with Academy Ruins. A lot of instant speed draws can be stopped this way. This is great against burn if you keep them off instants. Hard to find a good 2 mana artifact though. Spellskite would be good but I can't afford it at the moment.
Synod Sanctum acts similarly to Welding Jar but has better synergy with Vedalken Shackles, Elixir of Immortality, Trinket Mage, and mill artifacts by depositing them untapped for an extra activation if needed. Also helps against swarm decks by exiling their shackled creature on their endstep opening them for a new target on your turn. Con: expensive activation costs.
Set Adrift is not as good as Abrupt Decay, though it gets easier to cast the more you dig for it and is a main deck answer to Leyline of Sanctity. So is Ghoulcaller's Bell though... sideboard or mainboard?
Reverse Engineer's closest comparison in the standard list is to Collective Brutality I think... They are hard to compare as Brutality is loads better in stabilizing and Ensnaring Bridge doesn't care about card advantage. Running out of counterspells is not good though. This deck wants loads of cards in hand. Reshuffling these back in with Elixir of Immortality really helps.
Aether Spellbomb is a cute little road bump in the early turns but can turn into a dump truck for your artifacts recurring it later with Academy Ruins to bounce Trinket Mage. Really useful for knocking +1/+1 counters off creatures too big to target with shackles or stalling until you draw enough islands. 3-4
Elixir of Immortality is inevitability. It can be repeatedly tutored for and is great in the mirror and burn match ups.
Was toying with Broken Ambitions in here, but not worth it when accidentally milling eldrazi nuisances. Maybe Condescend as a 2 of?
Spell Snare vs Metallic Rebuke: with the addition of Counterbalance and running a bunch of 1cmc spells, some 2cmc holes needed to be plugged up with something. Rebuke is nice for having a hard counter T2 while still laying down artifacts. Snare is great against most artifact hate out there and enemy counterspells. Leaning towards rebuke, since there is always the option of denying them lands to keep it effective.
Surgical Extraction might need to be higher in number, since the original thrived on having hand knowledge to make decisions and they banned Gitaxian Probe, so that's... what? Peek? Would have to take a spot from Reverse Engineer and maybe something else? Doesn't seem worth it especially at that price...
working on sideboard to find tutorable artifacts so I considered Engineered Explosives against tokens, that might be all the value I get out of it being so mono-color. Might go with Engulf the Shore or Echoing Truth instead? Ratchet Bomb is also an option.
Grafdigger's Cage is a no brainer sideboard card
Hope of Ghirapur is useful when Vedalken Shackles has nothing to target. If they are relying on sorcery speed spells to win the game, this lil guy and Academy Ruins can lock them up, while using lantern combo to keep opponent off instants.
Hurkyl's Recall is a good affinity/mirror card and can also be used defensively if need be. Opens up the possibility of casting Engineered Explosives for 1.
Considering Altar of the Brood as an additional millrock. Adding some mainboard bounce like Echoing Truth or Hurkyl's Recall actually turns the lock into a near impossible situation for the opponent. Scenario: you had 2 Codex Shredder and an Altar of the Brood on the field. The number of relevant cards the opponent would need in sequence jumps by a factor of 1.5, from 5 to 7 (potentially 8) if you drew another permanent on your drawstep. Con: sometimes your plays become awkward if they are on a dead draw and you need to stick a Pithing Needle or make a land drop to hold up a counterspell. I will test this out since it may be rare that this happens and if it does, patience would suffice. Plus it gets around Stony Silence if I can find some way of putting permanents onto the battlefield cheaply.
Expedition Map is useful in conjunction with Synod Sanctum, Elixir of Immortality, & Academy Ruins. You can tutor up Ghost Quarter, destroy opponent land, put map back on top, draw it next turn, play it, activate elixir, activate sanctum targeting elixer, shuffle GQ into library, tutor it again, sac sanctum to return elixir... How many mana is that? too many... like easier to just do a Codex Shredder loop for ... Anyways still great for fetching lands and shuffling away bad topdecks.
Since this deck forgoes Ensnaring Bridge and Leyline of Sanctity can be a problem for Codex Shredder, I'm considering some sort of Plan B finisher. Maybe Cranial Plating on a Glint-Nest Crane? Or a late game Chimeric Mass? Etched Champion? Removing bridge opens up a whole aggro element against other decks that don't run many creatures.
Mechanized Production is a VERY interesting card to me. I'm imagining putting it on a Codex Shredder, strengthening the lock while making a pretty quick clock (as far as lantern control decks go) if I am bouncing Trinket Mage to find the other 3. I would only run it as a 1-of and if it gets destroyed, I can recur it with one of the tokens or continue with plan A and mill them out. 4cmc though... hmmm what other 1cmc artifacts could I break this with?
Sea Gate Wreckage was good in the original list, but not so sure about it here since an empty hand is not ideal in this deck and with the island count so high for shackles. Getting colorless mana without sacrificing utility may be tricky. Requires testing...
Needs an answer to a T2 Stony Silence or Chalice of the Void in case counterspells aren't available. Hmmm... so far Set Adrift, Commit / Memory, and Reality Acid. Reality Acid has a neat little exploit with Synod Sanctum I just learned. If an aura enters the battlefield and it wasn't cast you choose which permanent you want to attach it too and it doesn't target. This seems broken and I must use it with recycling Synod Sanctum.
If there was some way to speed it up, maybe using Etherium Sculptor for free artifacts. He would also be useful as a 2cmc artifact for Counterbalance. Another possibility is including a bunch of artifacts to try and enable T1 Metallic Rebuke and Stoic Rebuttal with Mox Opal. Kind of $$$ though....
Dissipation Field works great against aggro. They will never be able to out tempo Vedalken Shackles and Synod Sanctum. You can lock them up with Counterbalance this way putting an artifact on top at the end of your turn.
One thing I'm noticing when playing this is that there are far more active cards that need milling when trying to hold down the board with shackles. Sometimes you want to keep them off creature removal. Spellskite would help tremendously in that regard, but I am not a rich man.
Agoraphobia would be useful in Death's Shadow matches. They would have to drop super low to keep it out of shackles reach.
Phyrexian Metamorph functionally serves as the 4th copy of both Trinket Mage and Vedalken Shackles which frees up a card in the main deck, while also serving as a 4cmc counter with Counterbalance.
