Isochron Scepter in UrPhid

[ELD]

My problem with Phid based decks is the lack of solutions to problems.  Sure it can find an answer in a fire/ice or a keg and take care of a problem or two.  It can't, however, drop solution that controls the board.  Against aggro Abyss, Moat, or even C.O.P's are not possible in the UR versions.  Enter the Isochron Scepter.  This may be the card to turn this all around.  Against most aggro decks, an imprinted Fire/Ice is a huge problem and it can certainly clear the way for the Phids.  After sideboarding the possibilities get much better.  Hurkyl's Recall, against any of the artifact based decks, is game over if there's if you can handle welders.  The Phid deck I've been running has a high density of cards which can be imprinted(damn near the whole deck).  Even removing a brainstorm or an A.K. has been solid, particularly against control and combo.  Right now I have cunning wish to really get insane in the mid game, but the wish may end up going for more scepters anyways.  Between the main and side here are the potential imprintees:

Ancestral Recall
Mana Drain
Mana Leak
Accumulated Knowledge
Fire/Ice
Brainstorm
Mystical Tutor
S.B.
Red Elemental Blast
Blue Elemental Blast
Boomerang
Hurkyl's Recall
Probably more to come if this card holds it's weight in tournament play

I find that I'll cast the scepter often with drain mana to get some card advantage early rather than a phid if I fear creature removal.  I'd like to know if anyone else is testing it in Phid right now and what they are finding to be a good number of scepters.  I'm running two right now and I love to draw them.  I don't think I'd be happy about two in my opening hand though.  Another option seems to be to go more colors to diversify the instants available.  Swords and a Disenchant effect is the only reason I can see for that though.  Anyways, hope to hear back from the comunity.  If the deck does well, I'll post a list.

Peace,
Eric
ELD

Changed the font color to one that increases the life expectancy of my eyes. Deleted the double post. Enjoy  -  Kaervek\n\n

[TracerBullet]

I'm running four, and have completely dropped Phids.  They're just useless when you have 12 card drawing spells that can be Sceptered (Fire/Ice, AK, Brainstorm).  It makes for a very tight running deck.  I'll post a full list once I have the mana base set.

[Pimpz0r]

Have any of you toyed with the idea of dropping the traditional Morphling?  Between having Fire/Ice MD and maybe adding a Lightning Bolt to the Wishboard, you may no longer need Superman.  Another idea is instead of using the traditional Capsize, use Boomerang, since it's imprintable.  I think the trick to maximizing the Scepter's usefulness is replacing some of the older more expensive solutions with quicker, imprintable ones.  I've found Impulse to be a savage card drawing tool while imprinted, giving you the ability to dig incredibly deep for the card you need.\n\n

[TracerBullet]

I thought about Impulse but decided that Brainstorm was better seeing as I'm
1: Playing Saclands and
2: Often needing to find a FoW first turn  (Brainstorm's not too good at that)


The problem with going with an all Fire/Ice kill is that you're then FORCED to get a Scepter on the table AND imprint a Fire/Ice AND protect it, which can be rather difficult.  It'd be like trying to use only Ophidians for the kill in the old deck- Doable, but difficult.

I have been running Boomerang.  It's been ok, but I'm not sure if it's necessary, as I'm already running Cunning Wish.

[|A|]

If your thinking about splashing a third color i just thought i'd add that I've been testing 2 in my rUb phid. Wishing for and imprinting Diabolic Edict or Funeral Charm in the right matchup wins games more often that not.

[Jebus]

Quote (Gabethebabe @ Sep. 29 2003,03:54)Uhhm, you do NOT want to imprint Hurkyl´s Recall on Isochron Scepter. You really don´t.

Self explanatory if you read the two cards.

As long as you don't target yourself with it, I don't see what the problem is.

[Kaervek]

With the increased card advantage the Scepter offers (epseically combined with the AK/Intuition engine), a Psychatog becomes a really viable kill.

I'm running 3 Scepters now, but that may be overdoing it. Inconclusive, though.

[TracerBullet]

The biggest reason to run U/r is so that we can run Blood Moon.  That said, Black is unnecessary and unwise.

[Godder]

There's no need to run land of the third color, just imprint the instant out of the SB via Cunning Wish. Edict is good, or StoP, or Funeral Charm, or whatever...

[Crater Hellion]

Quote (Gabethebabe @ Sep. 29 2003,06:54)Uhhm, you do NOT want to imprint Hurkyl´s Recall on Isochron Scepter. You really don´t.

Self explanatory if you read the two cards.

lmao this is like literally the third thread you've posted this on. fucking learn to read.\n\n

[Kerzkid11]

Quote  Often needing to find a FoW first turn  (Brainstorm's not too good at that)

Actually, with 4 brainstorms and 4 FoW in your deck, going first, you have about a 42% chance of getting a Force of Will between your opener and the 3 from brainstorm.

[Jamino]

Well acually, me and Pimpzorz, where testing a differnt version of it, and I really really found the scpter sub par.
I even tried replaving the phids with them, but even though at first I was always happy to draw them and imrpint something snappy on it, it just didnt make the cut. I came down 1 turn to slow. If you do end up playing it, definaetly DO NOT base a deck around it. I mean when you think of it, so many decks are runnign Null Rods, Gorilla Shaman, and theyre is so much artifact hate its scary. Dont forget what the main idea of URphid is, disrupt, this the shamans and wastes, counter, and draw.
Scepter will not draw you a cad the turn you would draw a card with an AK (for those who play it). Scpeter will not counter a spell the turn you would want it to be coutnered like a normal counter, and scpeter will not disrupt unless the imrpinted card was really searched for, and then you obviously playing the deck wrong.
For the first week, i even won a small friendly tourney Mirroden legal with it, but I really did not like it and felt insecuer. A early scepter is uselss and is not FoW pitchable, a Mid game scpter, unles you have alot of counter magic is useless as it will end up probably costign you more then what you will eb gaining, and a late game scpter, well if the game goes into the late game you should win anyways...
I am by no means puttign down your ideas, which btw look somehat like that I played, but I really think the scpter is not what URphid wants, and rather more disruption then anything else.
For those interested, heres what I played. Maybe you can get some ideas.

4x Waste Land
1x Strip Mine
5x Moxes
1x Sol Ring
1x Black Lotus
4x Polluted Delta
4x Volcanic Island
1x Library of Alexandria
4x Islands
4x Force of Will
4x Mana Drain
4x Mana Leak
4x Ophidian
2x Impulse
1x Morphling
1x Ancestral Recall
1x Time Walk
1x Merchant Scroll
3x Cunning Wish
3x Gorilla Shaman
3x Isochrons Scepter
2x Blood Moon
3x Fire/Ice

Sideboard:
4x Red Elemental Blast
2x Hurkyuls Recall
1x Brain Freeze
1x Fire/Ice
1x Boomerang
1x Shattering Pulse
2x Blood Moon
3x Flametongue Kavu

Hope this was of some help,
             Jamino

[mrieff]

Quote (Kerzkid11 @ Sep. 29 2003,16:23)Actually, with 4 brainstorms and 4 FoW in your deck, going first, you have about a 42% chance of getting a Force of Will between your opener and the 3 from brainstorm.

Im not a math expert, but i think that is incorrect.

If I brainstorm I've drawn 10 cards. On average, there should be a force in each 15 cards (4 out of a 60 card deck)

So that gives me roughly 66%. ( I know it doesnt work exactly like this, but just want to give a rough estimate)

[doublej20]

Quote (mrieff @ Oct. 02 2003,08:30)

Quote (Kerzkid11 @ Sep. 29 2003,16:23)Actually, with 4 brainstorms and 4 FoW in your deck, going first, you have about a 42% chance of getting a Force of Will between your opener and the 3 from brainstorm.

Im not a math expert, but i think that is incorrect.

If I brainstorm I've drawn 10 cards. On average, there should be a force in each 15 cards (4 out of a 60 card deck)

So that gives me roughly 66%. ( I know it doesnt work exactly like this, but just want to give a rough estimate)

Menno, good line of thinking, but it's a little incomplete I think. I'm certainly no expert either (as math was not my strong subject), but my line of reasoning would be a little more like this.

If you have 4 Brainstorms and 4 Force of Wills (1/15th of your deck), and on the first turn you Brainstorm, you have already seen 2 out those initial 7 cards (the Brainstorm and the mana source to play the Brainstorm), so it is essentially 8 possible chances to see a Force of Will (5 remaining cards in your hand+3 from Brainstorm). So wouldn't the line of reasoning be a 8/15 chance, or 53% chance? Or if your opponent played first and you drew an additional card, it would be 9/15 or 60% according to this line of reasoning (which may be flawed, I don't know).

[hippie tourach]

Consider it this way. IF you go first, the probability of a Brainstorm in hand is (7/15), which also isn't quite right because you're not counting the probabilty of getting two Brainstorms but then you probably can't cast both unless you have mox sapphire which is (1/60) but there we're getting to very insignificant probabilities... So let's ignore such things.

So IF you have a Brainstorm (7/15) what is the chance one of the OTHER 8 cards (10 - land - Brainstorm itself) is a FoW? Well, it's (8/15).

What if you don't draw Brainstorm (8/15)? Then you have a (7/15) chance of drawing FoW.

In probability, "or" is addition and "and" is multiplication. So what is the chance that I get a Brainstorm "AND" a FoW "OR" no Brainstorm "AND" a FoW?

P = (7/15)(8/15) + (8/15)(7/15) = 0.4977777 or about 1/2.

[Gzeiger]

The correct formula is simply the chance that the first card you draw will br NOT FORCE OF WILL (56/60) times the chance that the second card will be NOT FORCE OF WILL (55/59 since we already saw one non-Force card) etc until we've seen ten cards (this is an approximation, as there is a better than even chance you won't see the Brainstorm either, so really you'd discount the 8-9-10 factors by 60%).

Mathematically we would say P(Force in top 10 cards) = 60!/(50!)(60^10) = .45. If you messed with the Brainstorm odds also, the number is indeed around 42%.

The reason this differs from the above estimates is that if there is REALLY a Force of Will in every 15 cards then you're cheating. Cards don't distribute themselves that way, and the probability reflects the chance that there is a clump of Forces in a part of the deck that you're not drawing from immediately.

[Kaervek]

Gzeiger is absolutely right. This a so called hypergeometric distribution problem (the formula he mentioned uses this). It's used for determining the probability of specific sets of occurrences when extracting elements without replacing them (i.e. drawing cards from a deck).

The 42% is spot on.

[Rico Suave]

Of course then we'd have to include Ancestral, Merchant Scroll (for Force), mulliganing, and other factors.  

It shouldn't be too far from 45%, I'm guessing.

[Jacob Orlove]

Quote (Rico Suave @ Oct. 02 2003,15:57)Of course then we'd have to include Ancestral, Merchant Scroll (for Force), mulliganing, and other factors.  

It shouldn't be too far from 45%, I'm guessing.

Actually, if you're willing to mulligan an average opening hand that doesn't have force, you can bring the odds of drawing it up a ton. You have about a 35% chance of getting force after one mulligan, and about a 30% chance after 2 mulligans, so that means that if you mulligan every opening 7 w/out a force, you can get one about 63% of the time, and if you're willing to double mulligan, you can get force in your opening hand 75% of the time.

This doesn't include effects like brainstorm, though.

These numbers were originally calculated for sphere/chalice, where getting one out turn 1 is just game against certain opponents. Mulliganing very aggressively is the way to go in those matchups.

Of course, the math gets a little more complicated if you want to draw chalice and sphere. I did those numbers in the newbie forum someplace.


Now, let's get back on topic.

[wuaffiliate]

Jamino, did you test vs post nov decks or the current standard builds? you know that may make a difference . rods will be replaced in most decks with chalice since its so easily abused with minimal changes.

also, it doesnt matter id scepter isnt pitchable look at your list and count the non ancestral blue cards...