[Deck] 3c Scepter

[jCoKn]

I've been off TMD for a while now, and due to a move I now live in a small (but growing) T1 community. Over the past few months, however, I've been developing a resource denial based control deck that has had a lot of success in testing and at tournaments.

Without further ado,

3c Scepter

The Lock
3 Isochron Scepter
3 Orim's Chant

Nay-Sayers
4 Force of Will
2 Mana Drain
1 Counterspell

Resource Control
3 Gorilla Shaman
2 Crucible of Worlds

Draw and Utility
4 Accumulated Knowledge
1 Intuition
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Disenchant
3 Fire / Ice
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm

Finisher
1 Exalted Angel

Manabase
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
2 Volcanic Island
1 Library of Alexandria
3 Island
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria

Sideboard
1 Exalted Angel - Shines vs. aggro
3 Meddling Mage - Hurts Oath, Combo, etc.
3 Rack and Ruin - Necessary WS aggro and stax inclusion
1 Balance - Dominates the control mirror
3 Swords to Plowshares - Oath, randomness
2 Lava Dart - Control Slaver
2 Red Elemental Blast - Control mirror and TPS




The maindeck is solid, and cutting cards is next to impossible. Cunning Wish, more intuitions, more angels, more crucibles, ophidians, and many other options were all tried, but after months of tournament play and testing we think we've found a solid maindeck. The sideboard has pretty much evolved with the metagame switch to control slaver but could still use revision (I'd really like to see 4 REB's there). Essentially I'm posting this list for suggestions, but also to hear what the rest of the community has to think about this... scepter decks have been tried in the past but get hurt bigtime by Null Rod, but this one doesnt due to the presence of maindeck disenchant and Fire / Ice for the fishies. Is scepter not viable? Can it be tier 1?

The general idea here is to control the early game with a barrage of counters, mana denial and permanent destruction. When ready, throw a threat down on a scepter and go into hyper mode wrecking their men, drawing infinite cards, or just outright making their spells uncastable. In certain situations, an early scepter-chant can simply end the game, but leaves you vulnerable to it being destroyed, a huge tempo loss. From my limited testing of scepter/chant in extended, it's the same way: generally you should have already won by the time you play scepter.

As for card choices,

Only 3 moxes? It actually isnt all important to play out your whole hand on turn 1, and to add moxes I'd be cutting basics, something not advisable in most circumstances. I'll leave it at 3.

2 Drains, 1 Counterspell? Logically, if your opponent sees drain and cspell they might overestimate the amount of counters you're playing and assume you're playing a MonoU-esque control. I can't find room for more drains, however hard I try. Also, counterspell is usually always better on scepter.

1 Angel? It started with 3, and at one point there were 2 Angels, 3 meddling mages and 3 Shamans all MD but creatures suck unless they cost R, so we'll keep the shamans and the 1 angel, only cuz she's hot.

Mystical Tutor? This deck hates card disadvantage, so why bother with its inclusion...? Because while holding a scepter it can give you that silver bullet you need against X.dec whether it be more cards, more kill, or more control. We've tried cutting it, but miss it always.

No Cunning Wishes? The SB seems ripe for a wish heavy MD but yet it is so clunky and mana intensive, especially with only 2 Drains. Plus, 90% of the solutions you'll need can be found MD and the other 10% can often be worked around. We tried, but this failed.

1 Intuition? It's golden! I love it myself but some teammates disagree, opting for either a 2nd angel MD or Balance in there, but I swear that Intuition has won me so many games it's not funny. So why not more then? No, it has cunning wish syndrome, you want to be replaying wastelands, not using up all your mana to establish control when you already should be in another fashion. But this card is too good not to be in here and works super nice if crucible is in play.

2 Crucibles? I want 3. I really do. There's nothing I can cut! Help?



Matchup Analysis

Oath - depends on the draw, usually if they get the god draw of mox, orchard, oath (with counter) it will naturally be tough to deal with. Originally there were Gilded Drakes in the SB but then most of the meta shifted away from Oath, more towards CS so the SB was changed but regardless this deck has a strong matchup. If Oath will give you enough time to throw chant down on a stick of even disenchant, you've pretty much won. He has a lot of counters, but as soon as this is started, it's huge card advantage for you. If you can't win game 1 for some reason, SB wins the match.

Stax / WS aggro - Crucible is your worst enemy here. Even trinisphere can be dealt with, so long as crucibles can be kept from resolving, this matchup is a huge advantage for you. Gorilla Shaman is huge in this matchup, as are the disenchants. A scepter-chant is always game over** and the spot removal for welders is huge. Juggernauts are bad, but killable via chump + Fire or disenchant, etc. Just kill his manas and go for the win.

Aggro/Fish - Fire / Ice is the win and especially vs. Fish, crucible is gg. This is a favorable matchup in most situations, but FCG poses a bit of a problem as its solid manabase and fast fast creatures overwhelm pretty quicky. Scepter/chant is golden here (as is in most cases, but..) and exalted angel is the cream on the keg.

Combo (TPS, Deathlong, SX, all inclusive) - It is sometimes necessary, as is in most situations, to mull into a force, or an elsewise powerful hand. Against decks packing Duress, it is super hard to recover from barring a draw and counter heavy hand. TPS here is actually a marginal matchup, going slightly in the favor of this because a single cast orim's chant can win once he hits 7-8 spells. Keep him away from your hand and everything should go fine.

Slaver - If you can't resolve your scepter, you're in a bad spot. On the other hand, should you resolve a scepter on Fire / Ice you've essentially won. Without welders, CS can't go anywhere. Slaving you once cant be too disastrous if you prepare properly for it (use up disenchants, etc.) and Platinum Angel is easily taken care of. The Gorillas are huge in this matchup too, and overall this deck has a strong game vs. CS. Post board you get Darts, and potentially mages which help out the cause even more.

Other control (4c, tog, GaT, etc) - Mana denail is huge! If they're basic heavy, monkey will eat their moxen and card draw on the stick is GG. Not a hard matchup, and every time you get card advantage you get one step closer to the win in the match. REBs in SB come in and Balance is a bomb.

I think that's pretty much it, I'd appreciate feedback on what you think
of the deck, what you think could change and what results you get, if any, from testing with or against this.

For those intetested, this deck has posted reults of 2 Top 8's, 1 Top 4, and a 3-2-drop finish at medium-large events (40+ people, 5 proxy, power events) in recent memory and state of deck.

Peace
Jon

**(unless you're Ben Kowal and/or you're a psychic metagame predictor, who maindecks Rack and Ruins @ GP Boston and torches my crucible... with strip in grave... and my scepter... GG)

[Grand Inquisitor]

3 Isochron Scepter

I know this card is extremely powerful, but I also find it's tough to build a deck around it, since it can be extremely situational.  Would you consider going down to two, or is this really the crux of the deck right here?

2 Drains, 1 Counterspell? Logically, if your opponent sees drain and cspell they might overestimate the amount of counters you're playing and assume you're playing a MonoU-esque control. I can't find room for more drains, however hard I try. Also, counterspell is usually always better on scepter.

Wow.  I'm really surprised.  As for your "my opponent may overestimate me...", I don't think you want to pursue that line of reasoning when making card choices.  Not that a counterspell is an optimal choice for the scepter, I found drain on a stick to be fine, even in a low curve deck like GAT.  Where you have crucibles, and larger spells, I really think you should find room drains if you have 'em.

Stax / WS aggro - Crucible is your worst enemy here. Even trinisphere can be dealt with, so long as crucibles can be kept from resolving, this matchup is a huge advantage for you. Gorilla Shaman is huge in this matchup, as are the disenchants. A scepter-chant is always game over** and the spot removal for welders is huge. Juggernauts are bad, but killable via chump + Fire or disenchant, etc. Just kill his manas and go for the win.

I'd be expecting less and less of these archetypes in the coming months.  Can you make any guesses on how you'd change this list in light of this?  E.g. would you reduce the MD disenchants, and switch some R&R's out of the board for combo hate (which looks like a weak matchup)?

[jazzykat]

Jon,

I have to agree with GI on the mana drain issue. I would play 4 manadrains cutting the counter spell and exalted. I personally believe that you can win with either fire/ice on a stick and/or mox monkey beat down if you truly control the game.

I know it seems counter intuitive but I remember when I had a tog list and the only creatures I had were 3 mox monkeys post board vs. slaver.  It seemed really dumb but when you truly have control it doesn't matter what you kill with. The advantage you should be able to get with a scepter should crush the opponent.

Having another drain should help you with combo as well.

I am getting an EBA vibe from this deck which might be good considering people "should" be playing less workshop and EBA was a decent aggro control deck.

Also, I really like serendib efreets as undercosted beaters with evasion but that is probably moving towards a bad idea I have :B

[Ender]

I agree with everyone about the mana drain/counterspell issue. The tempo swing provided on a turn 2 drain into brokenness definitely makes up for the mind trick you might play on the other person. Don't forget, just because you run counterspell and drains doesn't mean the opponent will automatically think your running both. They just might think you either don't have 4 drains or not enough proxies.

I was wondering, is an AK based draw engine viable with only 1 intuition?

PS- You have 2 library in your list and I keep counting 60 cards with 2 libraries so I was wondering what's your last card? Unless I can't count =[

Edit- Sigh, nevermind. I can't count.

[warble]

I just wanted to point out to you that chant on a stick isn't a lock against another control deck.  You just force the chant, drain the chant, whatever the chant and play something ridiculous like mox+mox+walk into will.  I like the metagame with shamans against well everything, but with minimal beatdown and you tying up your own mana with the scepter, I don't see how you expect to cast your exalted, isochron and still have enough for a force+drain.  Especially since you've cut 2 moxen.  I'm guessing you think slaver will always fight over the scepter, but I'll tell you I'd expect slaver to allow the scepter to resolve, letting you tie up your mana on the copy, drain the copy losing either 1 or 0 mana, and play one of the numerous broken cards slaver runs.  Even tutor into walk after forcing the scepter should be enough to get off a slave on you.

I only point this out to you from experience playing against resolved scepters.  In one instance, I allowed imprinted fire/ice on an isochron, ice guy tries to tie up my tolarian academy with ice, and there is a play-around for me with drain resolving welder and force/draining response.  With isochron costing you 3 mana instead of 2, it would be even easier.  If you expect a lock piece costing 2 to be more valuable then a lock piece costing 1, I wonder if you usually hold 3 white mana and double-chant in response to a drain/force on the first chant?  If this is the win, it would be valuable to learn.

Another point, I can't endorse any fully accelerated deck that doesn't run 5 moxen.  It's basically a joke, because I will out-broken you too consistently with any fully accelerated deck (oath, CS, TPS especially) for you to respond.  Do what you have to and get the last 2 moxen in there, and run 2 more drains.  If you can't do that, I can guarantee that you lose consistently to the top decks in the metagame.  If you want to run 4 chalice and have to cut mox for that, more understandable...

[jazzykat]

I only point this out to you from experience playing against resolved scepters.  In one instance, I allowed imprinted fire/ice on an isochron, ice guy tries to tie up my tolarian academy with ice, and there is a play-around for me with drain resolving welder and force/draining response.  

Now I don't know both board positions but I feel these 2 obvious points must be adcdressed:

Unless you knock out the scepter your welder is toast next turn.

Next depending on your mana development icing during your upkeep isn't that clever of your opponent.

I don't know if this deck is good but I can tell you that a resolved scepter with fire/ice is not good for slaver. Yeah, they can drain your sceptered instants but if you time your instants intelligently its pretty strong.

Also, 4 drains should make it much easier to cast a free scepter or less costly scepter as well.

WRT: chant vs. control. I have to agree with warble partially. It depends on your mana development. I don't think that chant vs. a control deck is that hot if you don't have counter back up because you tie up mana that could be used for straight up countering things. They can also just cast their instants during your eot or in response to your chant.

On the other hand on turns 2-4 it could strongly stunt development of the opponent or allow you to play anything you want during your turn as well.

[Ender]

WRT: chant vs. control. I have to agree with warble partially. It depends on your mana development. I don't think that chant vs. a control deck is that hot if you don't have counter back up because you tie up mana that could be used for straight up countering things. They can also just cast their instants during your eot or in response to your chant.

On the other hand on turns 2-4 it could strongly stunt development of the opponent or allow you to play anything you want during your turn as well.

I agree but only to a point. If you have chant on a stick and one of the copies is countered, depending on the hand size, board position and otherwise, it might be better just to let it resolve. I mean chant is just another must counter spell for control. Your just drawing out their counters.

[jCoKn]

I see all your points regarding Drain vs Counterspell. I'll say that first, proxies aren't an issue... second, the deck is REALLY tight and cutting stuff is next to impossible.. and third, that I think counters have to be upped to 8 primarily just to stay on par with CS.

Re: 5 moxes... no, the manabase is too fragile to afford the 5 moxen without cutting basics, or running city of brass, and without exalted that's not happening. Test this and you'll see for yourself.

Now on to the Slaver issue; The real reason why I believe Slaver is dominant in the metagame is primarily because it's so hard to hate. Welder destruction is hard because of the good counterwall behind it, etc. But there's only so much countering that deck can do for your silver bullets like F/I, monkey, and intuition. Shay slaver in this situation is easier to combat because of the weaker draw engine and lack of an AK war, whereas Goth is a sloppy game (g1) dominated by massive counter-wars. In regards to Warble, your point about letting scepter resolve and just countering the copy is really weak, because over the long run I will have tremendous card advantage and the game is won. Also, welders are fairly easy to shut down. Turn 1 monkey nullifies welder! I'm sure people will always say, "well your deck isn't good because it can't do this and that consistently if slaver goes off on you once" but it's quite possible to fight back from an early slaver given the proper setup. And to those continuing to say that chant on a stick is not great vs. slaver : I KNOW! Hence the reason why I suggest getting F / I there. In my extensive testing vs slaver, the build that play Blood Moon main are the biggest threats, should it resolve without you having W to float, or basics in play already.

Either way, the matchup is not quite as aggravating as one would think.

Thanks to all for the input,
Jon