Index.
I. History
II. Deck
III. Choices/Selection
IV. Match up analysis
I. History
There are going to be 2 subsections of this section, one being the decks history, and the other being my history with the deck.
Deck history:
Once the card Isochron scepter was printed many people saw many ways to use it in many various and practical ways. The general MTG public only first noticed the deck when it got 2nd place at PT Columbus (extended format, not legacy). Nicholas West piloted the deck. It is still to this day a tier 1 class deck in the extended format (at least until it gets rotated out).
There are still various decks that still attempt to abuse the ‘stick’ in our format with decks like counter-burn and of coarse San Diego Zoo made by Chris Montero. Isochron scepter was also made out to be much better than it actually was by the vintage community, due to hype and propaganda… unfortunately that’s all it was, hype. The card’s speed is perfect for our format though, not being broken fast, but being a strong threat that allows you to abuse annoying spells constantly throughout the game (which in some cases leads to a win in the artifact’s favor).
My history:
For me, the deck started out as a mono blue wizard deck (yes back when I was considered a noob)… I used to play after school with my friends every day, beating them with my counter-wizard deck. I eventually took the deck to a tourney, just to find that my deck sucked and it needed mass improvement. That is where I saw one of my first inspirations for the deck; I saw a BU scepter control that utilized diabolic edict, countermagic, and bounce spells (looking back it was far from optimal). I adapted my wizard deck to utilize his deck design w/ crappy tap lands that could tap for U/B (pretty sad)… I eventually turned that deck into a variant of counter burn, which had mild success until I saw it; I saw someone using Orim’s chant in their sideboard… not on a stick, but I immediately saw the implications there inlaid. The deck then became URW scepter control from there on out (that color combination still has not changed to this day).
II. The Deck
Lands// 23
4 - Flooded Strand
4 - Tundra
4 - Volcanic Island
3 - Island
1 - Plains
3 - Mishra’s Factory
3 - Faerie Conclave
1 - Barbarian Ring
Artifacts// 6
4 - Isochron Scepter
2 - Crucible of Worlds
Draw// 11
4 – Brainstorm
4 – Accumulate Knowledge
3 – Fact or Fiction
Removal// 8
4 – Swords to Plowshares
4 – Fire/Ice
countermagic/utility// 13
4 – Force of Will
4 – Counterspell
3 – Cunning Wish
2 – Orim’s Chant
Q.s
you might be asking yourself, why play this deck?
Why is this better?
A.s
Because most decks in the fomat actually do fall prey to the chant lock, and it does win; I have top 4d with this deck every time I have played it at a tournament (exceptions have occurred, when people boarded 12 cards against me).
Side board//
4 – Meddling Mage
4 – Pyroclasm
1 – Dismantling Blow (I sometimes use shattering pulse just to mix it up)
1 – Orim’s chant
1 – Enlightened Tutor
1 – Trickbind
1 – Angel’s Grace
1 – Starstorm
1 – Lightning Helix
For those who do not already know the purpose of the deck, it is to get a ‘lock’ with the combination of Isochron scepter & Orim’s Chant to make it so they cannot play spells or attack on their own turn, leaving them with only instances to play in response on their own upkeep or on your turn.
III. Card Explanations
Lands-
Tundra: this duel allows you to have either white or blue mana producents on the board at the same time, and since this is a 3-color deck this is necessary.
Volcanic island: same reasoning behind tundra, except this land produces blue or red mana. Auto include.
Flooded strand: mana fixing as well as deck thinning, allows us to search out almost all of our lands (has great synergy w/ crucible).
‘Manlands’: the main wincon of the deck, they produce mana while being threats; unless “swords’d” they will continue to come back to the board via crucible of worlds.
Basics: best way to scream F U to wasteland.
Barbarian Ring: a secondary wincon/removal spell; usually will not come online until late game, but will almost always do so. (Meta slot, doesn’t mess with mana production, and rarely does significant damage for the ping drawback)
Artifacts-
Isochron Scepter: allows us to abuse spells continuously, as well as being the main ‘lock’ piece; an auto include to the deck.
Crucible of Worlds: allows us to recur lands for multi use, such as rings, fetches, and manlands.
Spells-
Brainstorm: best draw spell in the format (arguably), allows you to dig 3, and has great synergy with fetchlands as most people know, usually will not cast a brainstorm without the fetch unless required.
Accumulate Knowledge: a very underrated card in our format, the first 1 is just 1 card, then the second one is a predict, the third one is a standstill, and the fourth one is simply broken… you won’t always see all 4, but you will usually see 3 in most games, making still quite good.
Fact or Fiction: awesome all around card, late/midgame power draw… meant to refill your hand after a disruption battle, or just to have that many more cards than your opponent.
Swords to Plowshares: best removal spell ever printed, cannot even fathom it not being in the deck.
Fire/Ice: it is a fine utility spell indeed, can either burn to the dome, kill a 2/2, kill 2 1/1s or tap something to draw a card.
Force of Will: Best countermagic spell in the game of magic, I have 25 blue cards in the deck to support it, and can usually hard cast it if need be in the late game, allows the deck more outs to first turn shenanigans, all around good card.
Counterspell: the best hard counter without an alternate cost, answers every thing beyond turn 1, short of split second spells.
Cunning Wish: the main reason this deck can perform the way that it does, it acts as Orim’s chant 3-5 & Isochron scepter 5-8… is also used in a tool box strategy to find solutions to certain scenarios that the deck may be faced with.
Orim’s Chant: the other half of the combo, by itself can be used as a time walk of sorts as a stall technique in order to find business spells, works great against combo as well.
IV. Matchups/strategies:
I will discuss the most important MUs as well as general MUs by archetypes.
First and foremost goblins:
This MU takes lots of hard work to reap the rewards of victory, but is very, very possible to win this game. REMEMBER, their most threatening card in the deck is Aether vial, once they get that online you can neither counter or lock them, the most common way they win is siege gang commander under the lock. If they
a.) Don’t have vial, but play a first turn lackey
b.) You can destroy vial before it deals too much damage
Then you can win quite easily, by either locking them out of the game (preboard), or just killing their creatures and blocking with factories.
-The white version brings in disenchant for their swords, while the green version brings in grip; making it the most dangerous variant.
Against mono red or RW goblins you board:
- 1 Accumulate knowledge, - 1 counterspell, -1 swords, -1 fact or fiction
+ 4 pyroclasm
Against GR goblins, you board:
-1 fire/ice, - 4 Accumulate knowledge, -2 counterspell, -1 fact or fiction
+ 4 meddling mage, + 4 pyroclasm
*They are counterintuitive, but you will never play a mage unless you have clasmed the board and plan to lock; mage names grip.
Overall % is 60% in your favor preboard, near the same post board, because your are boarding in a bomb; but goblins recovers very fast and you are bringing in an otherwise dead card solely for grip.
Threshold/Gro:
Tough Match up overall, most run MD needle (which will be blind first game unless they saw you play) they run less countermagic than you do (if you play around daze properly, making them have 6 countermagic and us have 8. A resolved Isochron scepter is game for the most part, whether it has swords, counterspoell, or Orim’s chant on it. Otherwise there is not much you can do; because they will go agro and cheap counter your threats.
The white variant is surprisingly easier to handle than the red, mainly due to the reach that the red has access to.
-Both versions will most likely board in 4 krosan grips
Against both versions you will board:
-4 fire/ice
+4 meddling mage
Overall % for this MU is about 55% in your favour (some versions do not run needle, which changes the MU a lot) preboard, but the MU gets very interesting when you board in the mages, because they might no have boarded out creature hate, so be careful when casting him.
Fast Combo:
Very easy MU for the most part, they can kill you first turn which you only have 4 answers on the draw and 6 on the play, but besides that the game is very winnable. My favorite play of the deck’s is in response to a mana excel, making them burn and basically screwing with that entire turns’ plans.
Belcher is a little more susceptible to hate than tendrils combo, but they can both be over come by this deck. The lock = GG in this MU as well.
-Both decks bring in about the same amount of hate, either needles, or artifact hate of the sort.
Against belcher you will board:
-4 swords to plowshares
+ 4 meddling mage
Against Tendrils combo you will board:
-4 swords to plowshares
-4 fire/ice
+4 meddling mage
+ 4 pyroclasm
you board in the pyroclasm, because they almost always either board in ETW, or have it maindecked. Swords and fire/ice were irrelevant in this MU already anyways.
There are hundreds of other MUs out there, but with the Meta being what it is today, these seem to be the most important 3 to list, the others can be summed up by these:
Solidarity:
although not too commonly seen, thee is usually 1 person piloting this somewhere every 2 weeks or so. This game is very difficult, and where your entire strategy is turned upside down. Yuo are going to want to chant them on your upkeep, if you read reset then you will see why. This game is winnable at that point if you counter wish and turnabout.
You will board:
-4 swords to plowshares
+4 meddling mage
mage usually names cunning wish & turnabout, in that order if you have the scepter lock; otherwise he names hightide.
Control:
landstill- 45% in your favour, they usually do not care what you do until the late game when both of you are looking for the kill.
Stax- completely depends on their hand, they can lock you with 2 challices, bad MU for the most part in that case, if they do not see a chalice then the game is yours.
For landstill:
-4 fire/ice
+4 meddling mage
for stax:
-4 swords to plowshares
+4 meddling mage
Agro-control:
Black based agro control- usually very good, for the most part their spells are all sorcery speed with swords and lightning bolt being the only exceptions.
Other blue based agro-control:
Doesn’t matter, just better for this than the thresh MU.
because against aggro, and aggro-control he is horrible, the only matchups that he helps in is combo and some controls, mainly loam based controls.
I see now, the Rg Goblins threw me off. I didn't read the Krosan Grip disclamer.
I will be adding more MU annalyses that matter in the future, the decks that I listed are really the only 'real' decks that see play at my tourney besides the crazy jank people play here as well; playtesting will be necessary for those important MUs that I will probably never see, but they are still important to know the outcome for.
Well Robert, it looks like a very good list along with a well written primer.
I have personally played against this deck for the past 3 years and have seen every combination of colors/cards that is available to this deck. As a team member I have helped to deelop the deck throughout many years. It's a very impressive deck and from a 6 month hiatus from this deck, Robert built it all last night and managed to get himself in 2nd place only tying one match to fall short of 1st. THis tournament had about 25 people so that is pretty impressive from a deck that hasn't been updated in the past few months.
This is my Signature
yeah Chris Montero was the guy that ended up getting first due to breakers, even though we tied our match. I had an interesting tourney last night too.
I played against some random decks.
I played against burn, SD Zoo, combo elves, Pikula, and some random deck that I still do not know what it was.
Last edited by thefreakaccident; 07-08-2007 at 04:32 AM.
What about newer split cards?
Development could be a wishable wincondition on a scpter.
Ends could stop aggro, although by the time you could wish, play and activate a scepter, it might be too late.
Hide and Seek could be Disenchant or extract on a stick.
Or are these too pointlessly redundant?
Awkward...
So, why Crucible? Why manlands? Why no Wrath?
For my confessions, they burned me with fire/
And found I was for endurance made
Either you should take advantage of your manlands by playing wrath or else you might aswell play some more effecient beaters to finish him off faster to give your opponent less time to find answers (Serra Avenger, Jotun Grunt, Exalted Angel and Serendib Efreet comes to mind).
Also I think you're underestimating Needle. A resolved Needle on scepter changes your deck to a bad U/W control deck.
I second the assessment about Pithing Needle. A resolved Needle, especially from another control or aggro-control deck is going to be extremely difficult for you to deal with. At that point, they need to stop Cunning Wish in order to make you fight honestly with Conclaves, Factories, and B. Rings, something most decks can deal with (possibly with more Needles).
Also, you threat assessment from Stax is whacked out. Your biggest enemy is going to be mass land destruction in the form of either Armageddon/Ravages of War or Boil. Next is going to be Smokestack until you actually stick a Crucible of your own. You'll also be dealing with Chalices, Suppression Field or Pithing Needle, and Trinisphere.
Edit:
After reading some more, your analysis against fast combo is abysmal as well. Fast combo comes in essentially three forms:
Belcher (somewhat like Tendrils without good bounce, except they have access to Ancient Grudge)
Tendrils without good bounce normally available (older TES, older SI, Nausea)
Tendrils with good bounce (Iggy Pop, newer TES, newer SI)
As most of the current Tendrils lists are in the third category with things like Echoing Truth and Wipe Away main (with some combination of Chain of Vapor, Echoing Truth, Wipe Away, Hurkyl's Recall, Rebuild, or Rushing River in the sideboard), you'll find that resolved Scepter with Chant imprinted is rarely going to be gg. In fact, with these newer lists running a minimum of 4 protection spells (Duress/Cabal Therapy/Orim's Chant/Xantid Swarm/Defense Grid), you may not even be able to cast Orim's Chant when they go off turns 1-3, with a higher certainty if they play safely and simply wait until they can play 2-3 pieces of protection and afford to get something countered.
Speaking as an Iggy Pop/TES/SI pilot, I would never board in Needles. I would board in Echoing Truth or Rebuild to pair with my maindeck solutions (Wipe Away, Burning Wish) and wreck you eot, possibly with Chant protection myself. I would highly enjoy seeing this list across the table from me, and would recommend testing the matchup a bit more before blindly declaring scepter-chant to be gg.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
You actually can't win against High Tide if your opponent is at all competent, by the way.
Crucible seems out of place, and Fire/Ice doesn't seem nearly as good against aggro as, say, Lightning Helix. Accumulated Knowledge without Intuition is pretty awful, but you could stick a third Chant maindeck and use Intuition as DT.
You can probably tune it to beat aggro decks or combo/control decks, but not at the same time, and people can probably get edge just by boarding Ancient Grudge or Grip.
The main problem is that you spend all your time assembling a two card combo, but then sometimes when you get there you lose anyway.
Play at least 24 land. I would probably run 25.
I always liked Flaming Gambit or Brain Freeze in the sideboard as an alternate win condition.
When in doubt, mumble.
When in trouble, delegate.
high tide is far from an auto loss, if you activate Isochron scepter on your own upkeep, than they are left with only 2-3 untap affects in their entire deck; therefore making it very easy to make them fizzle. As I had said before grip is probalematic, but most things that can be countered aren't; Meddling mage usually comes in to deal with such threats anyways.You actually can't win against High Tide if your opponent is at all competent, by the way.
Crucible seems out of place, and Fire/Ice doesn't seem nearly as good against aggro as, say, Lightning Helix. Accumulated Knowledge without Intuition is pretty awful, but you could stick a third Chant maindeck and use Intuition as DT.
You can probably tune it to beat aggro decks or combo/control decks, but not at the same time, and people can probably get edge just by boarding Ancient Grudge or Grip.
The main problem is that you spend all your time assembling a two card combo, but then sometimes when you get there you lose anyway.
Play at least 24 land. I would probably run 25.
I always liked Flaming Gambit or Brain Freeze in the sideboard as an alternate win condition.
crucible is there to recurr manlands, manlands are there to free up space and to serve as a kill condition, wrath is pointless and win more (I have boardable wrath effects as well as wishable + chant lock).Awkward...
So, why Crucible? Why manlands? Why no Wrath?
well actually, needle is not an issue in the least, your assessment is incorrect. Technically you have all the time in the world with the amount of draw in the deck (15 including fire/ice) and 8 countermagic spells, you are more than likely to find that game winning cunning wish and have it resolve before you die (I can get infi blocks with manlands as well).I second the assessment about Pithing Needle. A resolved Needle, especially from another control or aggro-control deck is going to be extremely difficult for you to deal with. At that point, they need to stop Cunning Wish in order to make you fight honestly with Conclaves, Factories, and B. Rings, something most decks can deal with (possibly with more Needles).
first off, I have never seen a competative deck ever run boil in my entire life; but I guess that's just me.Also, you threat assessment from Stax is whacked out. Your biggest enemy is going to be mass land destruction in the form of either Armageddon/Ravages of War or Boil. Next is going to be Smokestack until you actually stick a Crucible of your own. You'll also be dealing with Chalices, Suppression Field or Pithing Needle, and Trinisphere.
Their other threats can be countered one at a time (seeing as most stax builds run no card draw), and a resolved scepter lock first game does win that first game (saying challice was not set at 1, which is why I said it was unfavorable in that case, even moreso with it set at 2).
Serum visions is a sorcery, if Isochron scepter could imprint sorceries it would be restricted in vitage (infinite sinkhole, time walk, pyroclasm)... and would be banned in our format.I would drop the AKs for Serum Visions ASAP. I'm not sure what this deck needs is more slow card advantage (that is graveyard dependent to boot). Visions gives you fast card quality, and allows you to mulligan less. Also, it kicks complete ass on a stick.
Sorry bout that. I knew SV was a sorcery, and that sorceries couldn't go on a stick, but somehow my brain was unable to make the connection. In my defense, last night was my birthday party and I downed way too much Jack.
I still think AK is the wrong choice here, but now I'm not 100% on what to suggest as a replacement.
If they counter the Chant, you're screwed. Remand works particularly well against spell copies.
Well, actually, if Needle weren't an issue, it wouldn't stop you from going off until you found a Cunning Wish and forced it through. 'Infi Blocks' won't work very well if your opponent has many more creature than you have manlands, and you can only recur one per turn. It will still take you time to find your Cwish, and that may very well be all the time your opponent needs to win.well actually, needle is not an issue in the least, your assessment is incorrect. Technically you have all the time in the world with the amount of draw in the deck (15 including fire/ice) and 8 countermagic spells, you are more than likely to find that game winning cunning wish and have it resolve before you die (I can get infi blocks with manlands as well).
You and anyone else who hasnt read Emidlin's Sun Tower primer.
first off, I have never seen a competative deck ever run boil in my entire life; but I guess that's just me.
Unless they are running win conditions that don't require casting spells or attacking, like barbarian ring.Their other threats can be countered one at a time (seeing as most stax builds run no card draw), and a resolved scepter lock first game does win that first game (saying challice was not set at 1, which is why I said it was unfavorable in that case, even moreso with it set at 2).
I still do not understand why everyone is still stuck on stax being a bad MU, I know it is; I posted that in my opening post... All I said was that if they do not have an opening challice than I can still win that MU, that's all.
no offense, but I don't think his deck will be a meta concern (I like the deck, but I have never seen it played b4).You and anyone else who hasnt read Emidlin's Sun Tower primer.
If they counter chant then they must not be very intelligent (unless they have like 7 lands out) tapping 2 lands on my upkeep with 5 0r so lands makes it easier to make hem fizzle (they now have 3 lands to work with, you could then force a fizzle, unless they go off on their own turn which is the overall goal of chant to begin with).If they counter the Chant, you're screwed. Remand works particularly well against spell copies.
The deck has creature control, and first game they would usually not have needle, secondly Threshold only runs 10-12 creatures which makes recurring blocks more realistic.Well, actually, if Needle weren't an issue, it wouldn't stop you from going off until you found a Cunning Wish and forced it through. 'Infi Blocks' won't work very well if your opponent has many more creature than you have manlands, and you can only recur one per turn. It will still take you time to find your Cwish, and that may very well be all the time your opponent needs to win.
Ak might not be the strngest draw spell around, but it gets the job done pretty well. I also perfer instant speed draw spells over sorcery speed draw spells, you do not want to tap out on your turn early game if you have a counterspell, but if they don't cast anything worthwhile then you draw EOT... that's my main reasoning behind AK.I still think AK is the wrong choice here, but now I'm not 100% on what to suggest as a replacement.
Edit:
and again, I do not think his deck will be much an a meta concern... I have wishable artifact destruction if that is that much of a concern.Unless they are running win conditions that don't require casting spells or attacking, like barbarian ring.
Find me at Gencon. ;) I'll be the guy with 4x Rolling Earthquake playing Stax with a draw engine.no offense, but I don't think his deck will be a meta concern (I like the deck, but I have never seen it played b4).
It works like this: they wait until they get 5 lands out. They tap two for Remand and Remand your chant. They now wait for your draw, where they play a High Tide, then a reset, then proceed to pwn. Alternately, they just Force it.If they counter chant then they must not be very intelligent (unless they have like 7 lands out) tapping 2 lands on my upkeep with 5 0r so lands makes it easier to make hem fizzle (they now have 3 lands to work with, you could then force a fizzle, unless they go off on their own turn which is the overall goal of chant to begin with).
It's not that my deck is the problem, it's that the problem exists. A deck like Confinement, certain 43land builds (I've seen several that run Crucible), and other red splash control decks can do the same thing, and will likely see far more play than a metagame-specific deck weighing in at $300-$400 in specialty cards alone.and again, I do not think his deck will be much an a meta concern... I have wishable artifact destruction if that is that much of a concern.
Also, infi blocks only works if your manlands aren't needled as well. Generally when people play Pithing Needle, they play more than 1. When this happens, the card becomes a much larger issue.
BZK! - Storm Boards
Been there, tried that, still casting Doomsday.
Drawing my deck for 0 mana since 2013.
I've got some things to say about that:
a) Nobody has even mentioned Teferi in this thread. He should maybe be a 2-Off to prevent you from losing to Krosan Grip against any Green Deck.
b) I could repeat what some other people said, but you pretty much can't win against Solidarity. I'd bet quite some dollars (or euros in my case), that I would win like 9 out of 10 games against this Deck preboard and 6-7 out of 10postboard and there sure are some better solidarity-players out there than me. Chanting them in your own upkeep means you have no clock at all, which gives them time until like forever to go off. If you don't believe this PM me, I'll play testgames with you, if you want.
c) Wouldn't you want a counter in your board to wish for?
my 2 cents
there is no where in that Mu annalysis that says that I beat solidarity all the time, all I gave was the general game plan given to the deck... I also didn't say that stax was favourable either... frankly I don't care about those MUs anymore for lack of players, it just so happened that I had played solidarity recently and thought I might mention it since it is known to be blue control's worst MU.Solidarity:
although not too commonly seen, thee is usually 1 person piloting this somewhere every 2 weeks or so. This game is very difficult, and where your entire strategy is turned upside down. Yuo are going to want to chant them on your upkeep, if you read reset then you will see why. This game is winnable at that point if you counter wish and turnabout.
You will board:
-4 swords to plowshares
+4 meddling mage
mage usually names cunning wish & turnabout, in that order if you have the scepter lock; otherwise he names hightide.
what countermagic would be worth wishing for that I am not already running MD?c) Wouldn't you want a counter in your board to wish for?
Now if you guys actually have anything productive to add to the deck (like different card choices/ideas) then I would love to here it... honestly I have not heard a single productve thing come out of all your guys' posts yet.
lets start a survey.
manabase:
manlands, hot or not?
crucible:
helps from LD and gives consistancy (Is it worth the slot)
draw:
Is AK as good as it seems, it has done wonders for me, how about you guys?
what would fit better?
Has anyone evr played this kinda deck before?
If so, how did it differ?
In your oppinion was it better? How?
does the deck need a finishing card? what?
answers to those questions would be greatly appreciated, any more posts about stax and solidarity will not be responded to, simply ignored.
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