Iso-Keeper

[Ray D 3]

Ok, for those who don't know me, I'm an old player and a veteran of the format, but I haven't played for a while now. That being said, I've been playing lately and noticed that an awful lot of decks are running standstill. I wanted to find a deck that wouldn't have a dead 4'of whenever it played against another standstill based deck that could still neutralize opposing standstills. I started testing an Iso-Scepter based deck and this is what I came up with. Ill post my list and some thoughts (good and bad) on my card choices. Mind you this is still something of a rough outline. Also, I'm sorry if another thread exists for this deck, but I couldn't find one.

Iso-Keeper

1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Exalted Angel
4 Isochron Scepter

2 Counterbalance
4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell

4 Fire/Ice
4 Swords to Plowshares

3 Cunning Wish
3 Sensei’s Divining Top
4 Brainstorm

2 Faerie Conclave
4 Mishra’s Factory
4 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tundra
3 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Plains


SB
4 Meddling Mage
3 Red Elemental Blast
3 Disenchant
1 Orim’s Chant
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Pulse of Fields
1 Rack and Ruin* (sucks)
1 Mystical Tutor



Crucible-- Seems like a strong 1 of as it brings back an awful lot of win conditions, wastelocks, and fetches every turn. Don't really want to see 2 of them in a game and can definately live without seeing one.

Exalted Angel-- Admittedly, I seem to be having trouble paying for her, but she is a great clock and neutralizes alot of aggro pressure.

Isochron Sceptor-- I think this is a very solid card to build a deck around in this format. It produces real card advantage. By that I mean, you know you can do something with it when it hits. With Fire/Ice you know you can either grab a card and tap a creature/land every turn, kill something, or put some pressure on when it comes time to end the game. You can tutor up a chant and say gg to alot of decks. You can imprint STP and watch your opponent not play creatures for several turns in the hopes that they can overrun you. You can throw down a brainstorm and generate crazy card advantage in quality and quantity while sealing the game with counterbalance. Point is, it is a very flexible engine.

Counterbalance-- Very nice with 3 tops, 4 brainstorms and 4 scepters, but I admit it often feels like a win-more card, and playing it on my turn feels wrong alot of the time. Maybe CounterTop isn't worth it in this deck even with Iso-Sceptor+Brainstorm.

Force of Will-- Format staple

Counterspell-- Control staple?

Fire/Ice-- Great imprint target. With scepter its a draw engine/endless removal/win condition. Not bad just to play either. Removes 2 or 1 or just cantrips.

Swords to Plowshares-- White staple?

Cunning Wish-- Silver Bullets. Solid win against alot of decks with sceptor (chant)

Sensei's Divining Top-- Good for card quality and CounterTop

Brainstorm-- Blue Staple

Faerie Conclave-- The deck needs more win conditions than 2 Exalted Angels and manlands make standstill a lousy engine.

Mishra's Factory-- same as above, but also makes a nice blocker in a pinch.

Wasteland-- Kills like 80% of the format with Crucible, destroys mana light hands, and wins manland wars.

Flooded Strand-- Fetches are good I hear?

Tundra-- Need Blue...Need White

Volcanic Island-- I figure it's worth running to be able to just play Fire and sb REB but not as a 4 of.

Island-- Basics are always nice to have

Plains-- Same as above


Sideboard:
Meddling Mage-- So much hate in one 2/2 beater's little body.

Red Elemental Blast-- I hear alot of people play blue?

Disenchant-- Board it in and/or wish it in. Solid slot.

Orim's Chant-- Answer it or gg.

Fact or Fiction-- Wish up some draw.

Pulse of the Fields-- Great against red spells aimed at your head, and some aggro pressure.

Rack and Ruin-- Sucks. Someone please find me a better wish target >_<

Mystical Tutor-- I thought maybe to find an imprint target, but this is another useless slot it seems.


Anyway, that is the deck. It performs fairly solidly. I enjoy the sceptor engine as it seems to work very effectively, and the ability to wish up chant and seal up games is lovely, but it does seem to suffer from drawing the wrong card at the wrong time issues as well as mana base troubles, and I am very unsure of CounterTop's place in the deck as well as using Exalted Angel as a win condition.

I won't post solid match-ups, but I haven't really come across anything that seems like an impossible match-up. Any and all help would be appreciated, and sorry for posting such a pile of jank lol.

[AlterEgo]

When you activate Scepter, you still cast the imprinted spell - and therefore trigger opposing Standstills as well as Counterbalances.
Maybe I got you wrong, but didn't you chose Iso just in oder to avoid that?

Anyway:
I think Lightning Helix might be a solid option to imprint. Against aggro any recurring lifegain is welcome (as you already said about Pulse) - and lifegain, that roasts their creatures is twice as unfair.

[Ray D 3]

LOL! No I did not mean to imply that scepter got around standstill, but if scepter is on the board you should have little trouble outdrawing your opponent since you can crack it on eot and maybe get some discard out of the deal and continue to draw every turn it's on the table.

I meant that since we are running manlands as a win condition as well, it makes standstill a very awkward draw engine.

Anyway lightning helix looks like an interesting wishboard option, but it seems a little narrow in that it does nothing against creatures like goyf (who I hear alot of people are running now) and werebear and such. However it can pretty much end the game with a scepter against alot of stuff so it may be worth a try. I just don't know if that means it is ever better than chant since you'ld be wishing for both against the same sort of decks, and chant+scepter really does have gg written on it lol.

[sauce]

Isochronic?! Nice.. Is that like Isochron scepter but with shroud?

[Ray D 3]

Duly noted good sir. I said I hadn't played in a while.


...I would however like to know where you got shroud out of that.

[umbowta]

Nice to see you playin again...and contributing to the format again.

I started to question your inclusion of Counterbalance and Top and I noticed your comment about it feeling kind of win more. I agree. It doesn't seem to belong in this deck, especially when you're only giving it 5 slots between both cards. I think you'd be alot better off getting card advantage out of Engineered Explosives then trying to make Counter/Top work here. You should also be running at least one Academy Ruins.

[Jaynel]

Return to Dust might be better than Rack and Ruin, not really sure what you're looking for though. I also think you might want to find room for Counterbalances 3-4 somewhere in the 75.

[umbowta]

Return to Dust might be better than Rack and Ruin, not really sure what you're looking for though. I also think you might want to find room for Counterbalances 3-4 somewhere in the 75.

I am so sick of running counter/top, it's so "me-too", that I'm a little biased against it. If you're going to run it though, Jaynel is right.

[Jaynel]

I am so sick of running counter/top, it's so "me-too", that I'm a little biased against it. If you're going to run it though, Jaynel is right.

Well, the other alternative is to cut them entirely. But it seems to me like Counterbalance/Top is far better than Isochron Scepter/Counterspell.

[baghdadbob]

I'm running something like...

4x Scepter
4x Chant
4x Swords
2x Helix
3x Fire/Ice
2x Wrath of God
4x Brainstorm
4x Force Of Ill
2x Ajani Vengent
3x Cunning Wish
2x Counter Spell
2x Lightning Angel
2x Serra Avenger

1x Academy Ruins
4x Tundra
3x Volcanic Island
3x R/U Fetch
2x Polluted Delta
4x Flood Strand
2x Island
2x Plain
1x Mountain

Side Board (Wish Board)
1x Red Elemental Blast
1x Blue Elemental Blast
1x Disenchant
1x Wipe Away
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Trickbind
1x Path To Exile
2x Echoing Truth
2x Volcanic Fallout
2x Tormod's Crypt
1x Relic Of Progenitus
1x Engineered Explosives

If you're going to run counter-top then you might as well be running some enlightened tutors. To search for combo pieces. Then you could also run some more controlling artifacts/enchantments as 1 ofs. Some that come to mind...
Meekstone- Awesome with lightning angel, serra avenger, and ice.
Moat- Leaving your fliers to beat face.
Crucible- Man land beat down. If your running this then I would say add Faerie Conclaves and standstill.
Explosives
Runed Halo
Humility

Bottom line is the deck needs more threats. Good luck!

[Ray D 3]

I am so sick of running counter/top, it's so "me-too", that I'm a little biased against it. If you're going to run it though, Jaynel is right.

Ok, I agree with everything you said except the last part. I only chose to run 2 because you don't want to see more than 1...almost ever. Top is good without CB and so is Scepter, but without either CB sucks. However if it lands in a control mirror, it can break the game on card advantage from random flips, make top a must-counter, make scepter even more daunting (brainstorm), and draw removal off of scepters.

I don't think running 4 would be wise, as it was never meant to be a building block of the deck, just a nice powerful tool to have. You say 5 spaces are dedicated to it, but tops aren't half bad on their own. It is a nice way to control land flow, push back cards you don't need right away, and dig for something important. The whole set-up fits in nicely with the Keeper "Silver-Bullet" mindset.

However, I agree that dropping it entirely would not be a half bad idea. I would like to fit FoF back into the deck as a 2 of, and I would love to have more counters and/or removal.

My question would be what would be the best choice if I cut it out and threw in 2 FoFs. EE, Wrath, Mana Leak?

Lastly, @baghdadbob's list: I would prefer not to run chant maindeck, as I think a huge disadvantage of Scepter-Chant is that alot of decks can make it worthless. I think it's nice to be able to grab and end game's against opponent's who can't deal with it, but I would hate to be clutching a halnd full of chants against an opponent who can. As for the random creatures, I think your creatures are too few and far between to play such non-game ending creatures. That's just my opinion. I also hate helix maindeck as it is dead against anything with an arse bigger than 3 and they seem to be common lately. It also requires secondary and tertiary colored mana which may take you a few extra turns to get. I love Volcanic Fallout as a wish target though.

[Moonlight]

Isnt it just better to grab a ''The Mighty Quinn''-list and add red or blue? ;)

[pi4meterftw]

Kgrip makes scepter a really hard call to make. You can get card neutrality by activating it right away but to do this safely requires 4-6 mana. By the way, this is where the shroud comment came from I presume.

Exalted angel is an outdated win condition. Actually I never thought it was good, but I'll admit that some people thought it was good a few years ago. At the very least, you would instead run baneslayer angel, but you wouldn't run that either. Nowadays people like to run elspeth, or perhaps more removal.

Every so often wizards does get around to printing a good counterspell, and the latest two occurrences of this are spell snare and spell pierce. I suggest you make room for spell pierce. Also, for the same mana as a scepter cast plus activation, you can get fact or fiction, which:

Does not depend on you having another instant, so it can break a topdeck war.
It is not vulnerable to Kgrip.
It's not vulnerable to stifle.
Is an instant instead of requiring 2 of the mana to be paid as a sorcery, and then another 2 to be paid at sorcery speed if you want to think about tapping the scepter before it gets Kgripped.

Also, note that qasali pridemage sees play in bant as well as zoo.

However, with these changes, which I already argued for, it's natural to cut counterbalance top since your curve no longer calls for it.

I never liked standstill either. I suggest the following:

-4 scepter
-2 exalted angel
-4 fire ice (Unless your metagame is all elves, goblins and merfolk)
-3 top
-2 counterbalance

+3 fact or fiction
+2 elspeth
+1 humility
+3 WOG
+3 firespout
+2 spell pierce
+1 vedalken shackles

You'll enjoy a decent aggro matchup because you run a pretty awesome removal suite. You'll have a decent control matchup because control decks typically either run a lot of creature removal. (Nonblue control) or it runs standstill. You'll have a combo matchup that leaves some things to be desired game 1, but then game 2 you would bring in various hate.

I suggest reworking the sideboard. It looks like you sort of went down a list of cards that a wish board "should have as a rule of thumb." Sideboard space doesn't become worthless after including wish. Actually I really dislike wish, and would replace your maindeck wishes with a draw engine of your choice (such as jace) at 1 or 2 copies, and then engineered explosives in the rest of the space.

If you choose to do this, I suggest you look at the NoGoyf thread for further suggestions on how to sideboard effectively when playing a UW deck. Perhaps the only suggestion that would not apply to you is thorn of amethyst. I'd actually still run it. You don't really care if you pay 1 extra for stuff.

[Illissius]

Krosan Grip has seen a steep decline, corresponding to Countertop decks no longer being Public Enemy #1 in the format. This is very good. However, Qasali Pridemage can still be bad times for Scepter. If you can make sure to basically always have removal for it if it's in play before Scepter, and to always have a counter for it if they play it after, maybe you can make it work. With both Counterspell + Spell Snare and Swords + other (F/I, Helix, Path, whatever), this doesn't seem necessarily impossible. Humility can also help.

[pi4meterftw]

Krosan Grip has seen a steep decline, corresponding to Countertop decks no longer being Public Enemy #1 in the format. This is very good. However, Qasali Pridemage can still be bad times for Scepter. If you can make sure to basically always have removal for it if it's in play before Scepter, and to always have a counter for it if they play it after, maybe you can make it work. With both Counterspell + Spell Snare and Swords + other (F/I, Helix, Path, whatever), this doesn't seem necessarily impossible. Humility can also help.

But why would you care to try to make it work? When it doesn't work you get much less than FOF, and when it does works it's not much better if at all.

[Illissius]

Well in that case you'd just go one step further and play Countertop.
I sort of assumed the idea was "well we already know that Countertop is good, let's see if we can't make this other idea also work" as with most decks on this site.

[BreathWeapon]

IDK, Scepter is solid vs Zoo, Helix on a Stick pretty much destroys aggro - that'd be worth it.

[MattH]

F/I is pretty awful these days. Does ANYTHING have less than 3 toughness? Grim Lavamancer, I guess?

[umbowta]

Ok, I agree with everything you said except the last part. I only chose to run 2 because you don't want to see more than 1...almost ever. Top is good without CB and so is Scepter, but without either CB sucks. However if it lands in a control mirror, it can break the game on card advantage from random flips, make top a must-counter, make scepter even more daunting (brainstorm), and draw removal off of scepters.

I don't think running 4 would be wise, as it was never meant to be a building block of the deck, just a nice powerful tool to have. You say 5 spaces are dedicated to it, but tops aren't half bad on their own. It is a nice way to control land flow, push back cards you don't need right away, and dig for something important. The whole set-up fits in nicely with the Keeper "Silver-Bullet" mindset.

However, I agree that dropping it entirely would not be a half bad idea. I would like to fit FoF back into the deck as a 2 of, and I would love to have more counters and/or removal.

My question would be what would be the best choice if I cut it out and threw in 2 FoFs. EE, Wrath, Mana Leak?



I see you mean for Counterbalance NOT to be a building block, but thats the type of card it is. You have to commit to it otherwise its just weak. That's why I say cut it.

I like 2x FoF with 2x EE and an Academy ruins. You could also look at Spell Pierce/Snare. Both are very efffective right now.

[pi4meterftw]

The point isn't to build new decks. There has to be at least some reason to build a new deck.

If a sequence of strict improvements leads to standstill, why would you play this deck?

I was only suggesting some improvements. I wasn't trying to turn the deck into standstill. It's a pity that this happens automatically, but that might just be a comment on control's viability in the metagame. Scepter was pretty great during its time. (Because counterbalance top wasn't printed so there was less hate, creatures had smaller behinds, so they died to burn on a stick, control had mana drain so that you could drain into scepter with countermagic backup much earlier, etc. etc.) I used to play scepter, and it became apparent even then that fact or fiction was really close to being better in some situations, and flat out better than others.

Anyway, when you do switch to landstill or something related, it's still bad to run cunning wish, but presumably the landstill thread already reached this conclusion, or at least one would hope.

The above is from a tournament player's perspective. If on the other hand, you are interested in playing casually (but from the OP it seems like you're not) and you think scepter is fun, then go for it! The way I interpretted your request, though different from Illissius' interpretation, is that you were asking what cards were still good though, and sadly this doesn't include scepter in most typical situations.