[Deck] Final Fantasy (Countertop with Fortune-Sundial Combo)

[a-slice-of-cake]

This is something I'm just brewing right now, but it looks like a sweet combo endgame to countertop. If there's one thing Vintage has taught me, it's that taking infinite turns is pretty sweet.

Here's the list as of right now:

Artifacts:
3 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Isochron Scepter
1 Sundial of the Infinite
1 Engineered Explosives

Enchantments:
3 Counterbalance (you only really need one, and there's Enlightened tutors)
1 Humility

Instants:
4 Force of Will
2 Mental Misstep
1 Final Fortune
1 Orim's Chant
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Brainstorm
2 Fire // Ice
3 Cunning Wish (goes and gets Scepter targets or silver bullets)
4 Enlightened Tutor (I'm not sure if this is too many, but we need to assemble countertop asap, even moreso than normal lists)

Planeswalkers:
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Land:
4 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding tarn
2 Plateau
4 Tundra
5 Island
2 Plains
1 Academy Ruins

Sideboard
1 Aura of Silence
1 Cursed Totem
1 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Pithing Needle
3 Red Elemental Blast
1 Counterspell
1 Final Fortune
1 Orim's Chant
1 Chaos Warp
2 Firespout
2 Relic of Progenitus

The combo works as follows:
-Cast Isochron scepter, imprint Final Fortune on the scepter.
-Get Sundial out.
-Use Scepter to cast a copy of final fortune. Take another turn.
-With the "lose the game" delayed trigger on the stack, use scepter to cast another copy. Once that copy resolves, end the turn with Sundial. Because the "lose the game" trigger was on the stack when the turn ended, it vanishes and you get another turn.
-Repeat as necessary until you kill them with Jace.

In addition to that, there are other delicious combos to put onto the stick.

-Orim's Chant + Scepter: Provided you have white to kick it, they never cast a sorcery-speed spell nor attack ever again (if they don't have instant speed removal).
-Scepter + Fire // Ice: Gets rid of annoyances like Lavamancer each and every turn, or turns into a tempo and draw engine. Remember, you can cast either side.
-Brainstorm + Scepter: A little expensive, but a brainstorm every turn is nothing to complain about.
-Enlightened Tutor + Scepter: With all the targets we have, stacking our draws each turn seems legit.
Really, anything can go on the stick and be a beating, but these are the most potent.

Vulnerabilities:
-Fast, maindeck arti/enchant hate: I'm looking at you, Qasali Pridemage. Because we win via enchantments and artifacts (both via the stick and via countertop), it makes sense that mainboard hate is going to make life rough.
-Lack of card advantage: We gain virtual card advantage from having no creatures (so opposing removal is blanked), but because we "lose" card advantage due to scepter, with no way to recover it unless we imprinted Fire/Ice or Brainstorm, or we have Jace going. If Jace is going, we've probably already won anyway.
-Krosan Grip: The current list is severely lacking on the 3's, which makes K-grip a beating. I haven't seen much of it lately, but it's best to always be prepared.
-Light on win conditions: The only way to win is Jace, and if the opponent mises into Leyline of Sanctity, etc., he's shut off. I'd like to find another win con that could work with the deck. I suppose having Fire/Ice on a stick and shooting them 10 times isn't out the question, but that seems somewhat miserable.
-Stifle: It's pretty brutal to get Sundial stifled with fortune's trigger on the stack. Though playing in a countertop shell mitigates this threat somewhat, you could always face the dreadnaught joker with trickbind...

Strengths:
-Recursion: Academy Ruins does work, whether it's recurring explosives from the sideboard or getting back scepters lost to Pridemages/Predators/etc.
-No dudes: Compounding this is that most aggressive decks will board out "blank" removal, while we board in Peacekeeper. Trolololol indeed. We also don't need to attack to win, which is pretty awesome.
-Multiple locks: Between CounterTop, ScepterChant, and SundialFortune, the opponent has so many untraditional must-answer threats that they're going to have a hard time keeping pace with all of them -- let alone find time to win.
-Red: Red Elemental Blast is a godsend in control and many combo matchups. I wish I had another red card that I could put in the board that'd be sick.
-Silver Bullet Sideboard: Enlightened Tutor sure does work.

This list is untested, FYI. I plan on hammering it out over the next couple of weeks. I welcome your thoughts!

[Guy I Don't Know]

Where is final fortune?

[a-slice-of-cake]

It's a 2-of in "instants" in the main list.

[rupus]

Some thoughts off the top of my head:
In the main:
A single ensnaring bridge gives you a 3 that can be tutored for plus own creature decks.
Elspeth provides a win con that attacks from another angle or you could always throw in the thopter combo.
Predict was the nuts when I played a countertop superfriends deck and gives you precious CA while all having the ability to mill chaff from brainstorms or tops.
The mana base needs a major overhaul. I would suggest cutting down of volcanics and the basic mountain for more fetches maybe a single plateau and maybe more basic islands. I would try to find some of the order UWr countertop lists and steal their mana.
A single ee should be main because its an out to everything.

Sideboard:
Other fun red cards are lavamancer and firespout (another three!)
Disk seems lame when your colors already have efficient ways to deal with everything.

My biggest problem is why is Sundial better than thopters or elspeth? Thopters doesn't win on the spot but it is very hard to lose with it active. Plus foundry provides marginal value alone. Sundial needs you to assemble 3 cards only 2 of which can be tutored for and 2 of which are dead on their own (barring corner cases like needing 1 extra turn to ult Jace or playing vs. Hive mind.

[a-slice-of-cake]

I dislike the thopter combo because it can be answered while it goes off and also requires dudes swinging to win. I recognize that it's powerful, but I'd prefer to just win the game right there than give my opponent a chance to get an out. Elspeth is pretty awesome though, I do want her in there somehow, and I'll find a way to shove EE in there.

Yeah, the manabase was mainly guesswork because I couldn't find any UWr builds. I really appreciate the advice here.

Lavamancer seems to break the rule of "no dudes", but it could be similar to Peacekeeper as a surprise out of the side. Firespout seems great against fish and other aggro decks; I can't believe I forgot about it.

I guess the Disk is unnecessary.

The scepters are amazing though. Nobody expects stick-lock anymore, though I wish I had more competent opponents to test against.

Predict seems great. I'll overhaul the list when I get back from my bowling league.

[from Cairo]

Cunning Wish could maybe be good? It's a 3cc for CBT and it could tutor Final Fortune or Orim's Chant - in addition to some removal if you felt like freeing up more sb space. Admittedly, it's clunky, but seems ok game 1, and you could potentially board them out g2 and g3, if you keep some form of silver bullet ETutor sb.

[a-slice-of-cake]

Okay, did a big edit of the deck.

1. Added a Cunning Wish package. I'd been trying to make it work before, but I finally found some targets I like (the 1-of counterspell for the classic no-stick seems pretty sweet).
2. Put in another Scepter. That card is really what makes this deck from "meh" to "Holy shit".
3. Adjusted the sideboard to correspond to both Wish and Tutor targets. Firespouts for good measure (and more 3 CC's)
4. Adjusted the mana base as best I could. Not sure how good it is still.
5. Took out a couple missteps. Because countertop locks them out of 1CC anyway, I was getting way too many lategame that were completely useless.

Still trying to find a way for Predict to work. That seems good on a stick too.

[morgan_coke]

If you really want an infinite turn loop in a control shell, I'd recommend Deserted Temple/Magosi/Rings of Brighthearth, as all three pieces do stuff on their own and two of them are lands.