I agree with netherspirit. But... this card can get your opponent by the balls if the following conditions are met:

1) You're not playing "real T1" (with moxen and that kind of stuff) and mainly walk in an unpowered metagame.

2) You're playing a deck that has a long-term gameplan (typically control). That is quite important, because if you
play a speedy Deck, your opponent would never had drawn the removed copies anyway: In that case, you don't give
your opponent enough time to dig through his library. Duress or Cabal Therapy are better choices.
Since (real) T1 IS typically the speediest environment, Duress or Cabal Therapy are (lightyears) better than Cranial Extraction.

3) Your opponent plays a deck, that relies heavily on only one 4-of-Card. Take Oath for example. If you manage to counter the
first Oath and then aim a Cranial Extraction at the remaining Oath-Copies: GG.

I personally like to side in Cranial Extraction against opposing Control-Decks. Aim them at their FoW or Drains, and they are forced to
counter it. If they do/can, you had drawn a Counter. If they do/can not, the opposing Deck lacks a serious amount of Control.
For me, Cranial Extraction is only a sideboard-option. In the first Game, you often do not know wich card to call, because you don't know
the deck you're fighting against.

Over and above Cranial Extraction, I'm also a big fan of a mid-game, Burning-Wish-fetched, drain-powered Haunting Echoes. Let the opposing
graveyard contain only 4 to 5 "4-of-cards", and the game should be your's. But that would be another card discussion

Silver Knight
Soltari Priest


That was a good hint! But Massacre can not be a complete substitute for Pyroclasm.

Here we go with the new list (not all modifications refer to your posts, some are just the result from additional hours of intense playtesting):

Creatures:
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Non-Scepter-Instants:
4 Force of Will
2 Muddle the Mixture (could be imprinted, but serves mainly as tutor)

Scepter-Instants:
4 Mana Drain
3 Fire/Ice
2 Research/Development
2 Disenchant

Artifacts:
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Isochron Scepter
2 Vedalken Shackles
(-1 Crucible of Worlds, strong card, but at the very last end not essential to this deck, running now +1 compulsion instead)

Enchantments (Squee-Outlets):
3 Compulsion (+1 here, sometimes I already had a Squee, but not the Compulsion. Furthermore a Compulsion gets often eaten by FoW)
1 Peace of Mind
1 Zombie Infestation

Sorceries:
2 Pyroclasm
1 Recall
1 Demonic Tutor

Mana-only-Lands:
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
4 Underground Sea (+1)
1 Tropical Island

Fetch-Lands:
3 Flooded Strand (-1)
2 Polluted Delta

Strip-Lands:
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Special-Lands:
2 High Market (to use in combination with shackles, excellent vs oath to kill orchard-tokens)
1 Library of Alexandria

Sideboard 
(-3 Swords to Plowshares / not chalice@1-compatible)
(-1 Circle of Protection: Red / to "narrow")
(-2 Disenchant / Substitute: 2x Hurkyl's Recall)
(-1 Decree of Justice / No need for that card, there are enough permanents against staxx)
+2 Massacre
+2 Exalted Angel
+2 Hurkyl's Recall (god-card against Raffinity [one of the most frequently played deck in my store], especially when imprintet)
+1 Chalice of the Void (Kill-Switch (on 1) for quite some decks)
1 Pyroclasm (best card against those f****** Goblin-Decks, Deck should have the possibility to go up to 3 Pyroclasm)
2 Trickbind
3 Cranial Extraction
2 Tormod's Crypt

I'm very, very satisfied now with this deck-configuration. Thanks!

Thanks for your input. After contemplating quite some time on K-Pax, I've come to the following results:

- Going from 3 to 4 chalice is obvious when the goal is play chalice@1 as early as possible (as I stated). But there are still some matchups where
chalice@1 is only "nice to have" and in some matchups it is close to useless (White Weenie, one of the tougher matchups because of the protection-from-red-dudes -> Pyroclasm & Fire(/ice) fail). 3 seems to be the right number in my meta. I now play the 4th in the sideboard (s.b.).

- I did'nt know the No-Stick-Deck. Apparently it was a more or less successful Type-2-Deck, build solely around the Scepter in combination with Lightning Helix. I don't want to be 100% dependent on only one card in an Deck. In my concept, the "Stick" is only one half of the card-advantage-core. Furthermore,
three Scepters already suck sometimes, when one of them sits on my hand and no imprint-target is in sight. Going up to four Scepter would nurture
this problem.

- Peeking the No-Stick-Deck, I discovered a "solution" for my Swords-to-Plowshares-chalice@1-Problem. It's a well-known sexy lady in white, 4/5, flying with an
amiable ability.

Conclusion:

Even though the proposal (=new deck) from user glix did not fell on fertile ground, I was able to pull some VERY helpful hints out of it.
All in all, your feedback led to the following modification:

SB:
-3 Swords to Plowshares
+2 Exalted Angel
+1 Chalice

It looks like K-Paxians are very consulting-resistant - they are not. It's just the disciplined appliance of the rule of thumb not to change to much in an already smooth running system

Hi folks,

here is my actual build (from a crazy european

Meta: heavy-aggro-T1-kiddy-meta in the magic-store-around-the-corner.
Availability of P9: No.

Concept:
- drop Chalice-1 as early as possible
- drop Scepter with Fire/Ice, Research/Development or Disenchant to establish constant card-draw or board-control
- mid-game card-draw: compulsion + x squee
- since this deck goes VERY long distances, you need lifegain: peace of mind + x squee
- primary kill: zombie infestation + x squee / extra-cards from scepter+development
- if necessary: multiple sideboarding via research (+scepter)

The deck is fun to play. If you manage to survive the first few rounds, it will gain
complete control and can draw absurd amounts of cards with scepter+development, since most
opponents don't want to get flooded with 3/1-tokens. In fact they get (a bit later) flooded
with 2/2-Zombie-Tokens

I'm quite satisfied with the deck right now, but there's always room for improvement.
I would be pleased to get feedback from the T1-cracks here! (possibly you solve
my chalice-1 <> swords to plowshares problem after sideboarding?)

Creatures:
3 Squee, Goblin Nabob

Non-Scepter-Instants:
4 Force of Will
2 Muddle the Mixture (could be imprinted, but serves mainly as tutor)

Scepter-Instants:
4 Mana Drain (most of the times, the other cards are better imprint-options because the deck does not know where to put big amounts of mana)
3 Fire/Ice
2 Research/Development
2 Disenchant

Artifacts:
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Isochron Scepter
2 Vedalken Shackles
1 Crucible of Worlds

Enchantments (Squee-Outlets):
2 Compulsion
1 Peace of Mind
1 Zombie Infestation

Sorceries:
2 Pyroclasm (primary to sweep the table against those speedy goblin-decks, but disciples and welder also burn)
1 Recall
1 Demonic Tutor

Mana-only-Lands:
4 Tundra
4 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Tropical Island

Fetch-Lands:
4 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta

Strip-Lands:
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Special-Lands:
2 High Market (to use in combination with shackles)
1 Library of Alexandria

Sideboard 
3 Swords to Plowshares (known issues: not chalice-1-compatible)
1 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Pyroclasm
2 Disenchant
2 Trickbind
3 Cranial Extraction
1 Decree of Justice
2 Tormod's Crypt