[Deck Doctor] BUW Scepter Chant Control

[technogeek5000]

Following the example of popular magicthegathering.com articles I will deck doctor an inspiration I had. After all of this, i might have missed something so post if you think it should be changed in any way.

B U W Scepter chant control Deck Version 1.0:

Lands (16):
4 Flooded Strand
4 City of Brass
4 Underground Sea
4 Tundra

Non-artifact creatures (9):
4 Isochron Scepter
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black lotus
2 Chalice of the Void

Creatures (4):
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Duplicant
2 Morphling

Black spells (4):
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Blue spells (20):
1 Ancestrall Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker

White spells (6):
1 Landtax
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Orim's Chant

Sideboard (15):
4 Chill
3 Engineered Plauge
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Null Rod
2 Chalice of the Void

This is the Version I came up with. I added 4 Mana leaks to make the deck more counter heavy allowing important cards to go through. The deck has enough draw, and has 5 tutors so getting the cards you need doesn't seem to be that much of a problem. I splashed white for the orim's chant allowing the scepter chant lock plus land tax (to get duals you need) and the tutor. I splashed black for 3 tutors because tutoring your cards is more effective then drawing and yawgmoth's will because it allows you to replay draws, tinker, tutors, etc... The following was played on MWS.

Game 1(gifts/tendrills):
We Both greet each other, he gets the roll and decides to play, and we start this decks first game. My opening hand reveals mana leak, tundra, brainstorm, mox jet, tinker, and 2 orims chant... not to bad. He lays down two moxes, a lotus, and a petal. He merchants scrolls a Ancestrall Recall, draws into another scroll, gets a brainstorm, plays it, lays a polluted delta, and ends his turn. I draw a chalice and lay the mox and tundra first. I tap the tundra for brainstorm, and draw demonic tutor, Dsc (thank god it was a brainstorm), and scepter (WOOHOO!!!). I lay the leak on top of the Dsc, lay the chalice and EMT. He Lays a fetch and ends his turn. Here comes big mistake number 1. I draw the leak and play demonic tutor. The first thing on my mind was get tinker so forgetting my chalice i pull lotus and save him the trouble of countering it. After that golden opportunity flew by i started to cry inside and clicked the End my turn button. He untaps and lays Fact or Fiction. Here comes big mistake number 2. the 5 cards are 2 fecthes a Fow and a merchant scroll. In a desperate attempt to save my scepter i put the other 4 cards in one pile and he picks them up. He lays one of them and ends his turn. BIG MISTAKE NUMBER 3!!! I draw a land and tinker colossus ( i should have layed my scepter/ chant lock but i jumped the gun with the tinker). Im all tapped out that turn so i pass. He lays gifts, oh joy, and pulls recoup, Time walk, Yawgmoth's Will, and burning Wish. I send time walk and recoup by by and he plays another scroll and ends his turn. I draw and play the scepter lock and swing with the colossus. In response he played rebuild and i play the mox again and lay down the isochron scepter with my second orim's chant. It's his turn and he goes off with 8 spells and plays tendrills. I realize this loss was due to many errors and i had that game one, but alas i did make the mistakes so it counts towards a loss to this deck.

0-1

Game 2(some random discard deck):
He rolls a unmatched 20 on a die so he starts. My hand shows 2 scepters, tundra, sea, mana leak, manadrain, and duplicant. All he does is stall for a while and play a island. I draw another mana leak and lay down my tundra and pass. During his turn he strips my land and doesnt do anything after that. I lay down a sea and a mox i drew but he counters it with annul. Seeing as how i now dont have enough for a scepter i let him go. He untaps draws and, wat do you know, lays a land then passes. I draw a mystical tutor and take a orim's chant into my hand. The next couple turns are just repeats of me laying a scepter lock and him returning it to my hand. The last time it got returned he managed to make me discard the isochron scepter. I forgot to write the rest of this match down so i will tell it by memory. I counter a hypnotic specter and play a chalice for 0. He lays down 3 other creatures after this and starts to work at my life. I draw Ancestrall Recall and get the scepter lock. He cant do anything after this because i counter all attempts to get rid of my lock. I eventually draw tinker and win with colossus.

1-1

During this game i realized 2 things: I need to add a strip mine, and that mana leak is pointless. Here are the first changes.

-1 underground sea
-4 mana leak

+1 strip mine
+4 counterspell

Game 3(Control slaver i think):
My first turn i lay a tundra, landtax, and black lotus. He strip mines my tundra first chance he gets. On my turn i fetch a underground sea and play brainstorm. All he does on his turn is fetch a snow island (nice to see someone finally appreciate Coldsnap and its mechanics). I brainstrom again and lay down my fetch for a tundra and shuffle away the garbage. Next he merchants a recall and its my turn again. To keep people from getting bored i will stop from here on end with describing exactly every part of my games as i realize its just not interesting. I wait a turn and lay down the scepter but he manadrains it. He plays a welder and passes. I draw a force and every time I try to use my scepter lock he welds it. He merchant scrolls something (I dont remember what) and ends. I draw duplicant and on his next turn plays yawgs will and goes into all that combo crap and at the end tinkers for a sundering titan. God pretty much hates me because all i drew was another isochron scepter. Knowing that he had me cornered I throw.

1-2

I realize i need something to deal with creatures already in play. Also i noticed in play that i cant Land tax tundras or seas because they are non-basic. These next changes make me have more black then white in the deck so i will fix that too.

-1 land tax
-1 duplicant
-1 tundra

+2 Darkblast
+1 Underground Sea

Game 4 (didn’t get to see)
This is one of those games that you just feel sorry for someone and the bad luck they got. The person I played mulliganned not once, or twice, or three times, or four times, but five times and gave up.

2-2 (I guess)

Game 5 (again I am not sure have not seen this before)

My first turn I seal for a orims chant to play the lock next turn, and his first turn he workshops a metal worker. Next I play the scepter/chant lock and pass. He does this unlimited mana thing with voltaic construct and metal worker and plays two Darksteel Colossi. I lock him out of attacking by tapping 1 extra for kicker. He cant attack and he strips one of my lands. I draw another (thank god) and from here on out I lock him till I draw morphling, give it flying and swing for lethal damage.

3-2

Game 6 (U/W Fish)
My first two lands I get he wastes and he lays down isamaru first turn. I eventually get my lock with seven life left. Unfortunately, I don’t have a spare land to tap besides my city of brass. City of brass takes me down to four. I drew another orims chant and decide to risk a brainstorm. He counters it, I counter his counter, he counters my counter. I am at two life now and draw a fetch. I pull a sea and since I am at 1 and wont be losing life from city he decides to concede.

4-2

I will stop here with the games. Lets take a look at how much the deck changed and how it will fair against certain decks.

B U W Scepter Chant Control Version 3.0

Lands(16):
4 Flooded Strand
4 City of Brass
4 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
1 strip mine

Non-artifact creatures(9):
4 Isochron Scepter
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black lotus
2 Chalice of the Void

Creatures(4):
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Duplicant
2 Morphling

Black spells(6):
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Darkblast

Blue spells(20):
1 Ancestrall Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Counterspell
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker

White spells(5):
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Orim's Chant

Sideboard(15):
4 Chill
3 Engineered Plauge
2 Tormod's Crypt
4 Null Rod
2 Chalice of the Void

The deck has changed a grand total of 7 cards. But yet I only played single games so I didn’t get to use my sideboard. Lets take a look at some archetypes and see if we can make the sideboard better.

Gifts:
Gifts relies on the Uber tutor: Gits ungiven. It lets you replay cards you may have sent to the graveyard, so no matter what it is going to get the tinker and time walk, right? Well not necessarily, My sideboard contains tormod’s crypt which will remove them from the game, so if I make sure a burning wish and the winning piece (tinker) go outside of the game then I disrupt his combo. But wait, I can get countered right. He could FOW my tormod’s crypt or a counter that is meant to take out the gifts. I find myself being one mana short of a counter often so I should probably add a 1 mana counter or a counter that costs zero.

Choices:
Force spike: counter target spell unless they pay 1
Daze: Basically a FOW combined with a force spike.

Daze beats Force spike any day so daze will be added to the sideboard for extra counter backup… but wat to take out.

The choice is obvious: Null Rod. I am not sure why I put this in my sideboard. Besides chalice none of my artifacts are static, and the deck needs the isochron scepter, which Null Rod disrupts.

So the changes are:

-3 Null Rod

+3 Daze

Ill leave the last null rod for other changes.

Control Slaver:
Control Slaver uses mindslaver/goblin welder to make you hit yourself while it beats at you with its own baddies. Goblin welder owns this deck because it will weld out my scepter making the imprinted card removed from the game. The deck could counter it, but it can’t counter it every time. The deck already has 2 dark blasts in the main deck. This may not be enough so I should take out another null rod for a darkblast.

-1 Null Rod

+1 Dark Blast

Fish:
I believe this deck is set with fish. The lock is enough to keep its cheep creatures from killing you, its win condition. Plus if the deck needs more control it can side in the two Daze put in from the Gifts change.

Stax: This is probably the most difficult match up the deck will play. Stax has tangle wire, smokestack, null rod which all disrupt this the scepter lock. A way I can think of halting this is adding meddling mages. With this just name tangle wire, smokestack, and/or null rod. Engineered plague I added because I believed FCG was still competitive but I did a little searching and found lack of this deck. Engineered plague would not fit in the sideboard since FCG is not viable anymore.

-1 chill
-3 Engineered Plague

+4 Meddling Mage

Pitch Long:
Long plays ass loads of spells, tutors tendrills, and casts to win. The way to counteract this is to limit the amount of spells playable. ARCANE LABORATORY... thats wat i have to say, pithing needle would help to.

-3 chill

+1 arcane laboratory
+2 pithing needle

With those changes here is the final list.

B U W Scepter Chant Control Version 4.0

Lands(16):
4 Flooded Strand
4 City of Brass
4 Underground Sea
3 Tundra
1 strip mine

Non-artifact creatures(9):
4 Isochron Scepter
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Black lotus
2 Chalice of the Void

Creatures(4):
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Duplicant
2 Morphling

Black spells(6):
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
2 Darkblast

Blue spells(20):
1 Ancestrall Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Counterspell
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker

White spells(5):
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Orim's Chant

Sideboard(15):
1 arcane laboratory
2 pithing needle
4 Meddling Mage
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Dark Blast
2 Chalice of the Void
3 Daze

Edit:
Game 7: My hand shows 3 lands, two orims, a tutor, and a counter. He rolls first and duresses me turn 1 for my tutor. I draw a 3rd chant and lay tundra then proceed to locking him out for 2 turns with the spares while building my mana to 4. I draw a brainstorm and it shows the following: tinker, sol ring, and chalice. I put the third chant on top of my counter and lay chalice then tap 1 for sol and lay Tinker for Dsc. In resp, forfeit.

5-2

the changes seem good so i will keep them:

+1 mox emmerald
+1 mox ruby
+1 sol ring
+1 black vise

-1 strip mine
-1 underground sea
-1 tundra
-1 yawgmoth's will

Edit:
Games 8 and 9:
On game 8 i had a mindblowing hand. a lotus, recall, vise, land, scepter, and other stuff. he lays a land and i go off.
I lay the lotus and land and draw extra cards with the storm i drew. I attempt the vise first because i would rather it get countered then my next card and it gets forced. Next i sack the lotus taking 1 mana burn and lay down recall on scepter. I use the recall scepter to draw me a total of 15 cards throughout the game. At one point i tinker for a colossus and we get into a counter match with him winning. I counter all other opposition with the help of the scepter and brainstorms and draw into morphling. I get the mana and he loses a force match then i lay a scepter with manadrain and we decide to go to game 2, (I mean nine).

6-2

Game nine shows another decent hand. I play storm on my first turn drawing two moxes and lay a counterspell on a scepter after a force match. He concedes because he knew i would just counter him throughout the whole game.

7-2

now the deck is showing vast improvement from its original form, and the 6 game winning streak is a nice feeling.

B U W Scepter Chant Control Version 5.0

Lands(13):
4 Flooded Strand
4 City of Brass
3 Underground Sea
2 Tundra

Non-artifact creatures(14):
4 Isochron Scepter
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox emmerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black lotus
2 Chalice of the Void
1 black vise
1 sol ring

Creatures(3):
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Morphling

Black spells(5):
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Darkblast

Blue spells(20):
1 Ancestrall Recall
4 Brainstorm
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Counterspell
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker

White spells(5):
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Orim's Chant

Sideboard(15):
1 arcane laboratory
2 pithing needle
4 Meddling Mage
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Dark Blast
2 Chalice of the Void
3 Daze

just because i have fun playing this deck i will do a few others and maybe i can catch something else.

Edit:
game 10 and 11(MUC):
ok i can tell you that this was not a amusing matchup. Game one consists of me being mana fucked with the greatest cards in my hand without force. I get 1 city of brass and this is my mana for the entire game because he layed a chalice for zero on his first turn. I lay black vise and it hits him for three. his mana crypt seems to never hurt him as it won the flip 4 turns in a row (it dealt only three damage to him the whole game). Every attempt to stop him is quicly forced, dazed, dirupted, or drained. He eventually lays masticore and draws into 2x ophidian. He ends up winning game 1 with these.

7-3

I realize that darkblast wont remove somethreats and it should be taken out. Instead adding the greatest creature removal spell ever printed sounds like a good choice. Also these changes will turn the splash majority over to white again so that will be fixed.
Maindeck:
-2 darkblast
-1 underground sea

+2 swords to plowshares
+1 tundra

sideboard:
-1 darkblast

+1 swords to plowshares

game two (or eleven) was the same person rechallenged me. This hand was a little better but i was terrified of dumpin 2 moxes chalice and a chant. I get land screwed for a while until i draw a tundra and cast mystical tutor. it passes and i grab a force and pass. we just pass the next few turns building our hands and i get a isochron scepter. Here came the greatest counter war i have ever seen. He manadrains it, i force his mana drain, he disrupts my force, i force his disrupt, he disrupts my force, i pay 1, and he forces again. He must of thought i conceded because he said he won. The game was far from over seeing that he just dumped his hand of 1/3 of the counters in his deck in one war. I may not have won that game but he sure didnt have me beat so this will count as a draw.



7-3-1

Game 12 (UB fish)
First turn he layd a confidant. My first turn is little more impressive. I fetch a tundra and play sol ring. The i lay lotus for wish and grab hide/seek. I tap the ring for scepter and it passes. After the second force gets removed he forfeits.

8-3-1

[wethepeople]

You can't fetch for duals with Land Tax, only basics, making the card ten times worse. White is is only necessary for Enlightened Tutor, paying the Kicker for Chant, and in some Scepter Chants builds the kill, which is Exalted Angel.

I always liked running a single Black Vise (restricted) in Chant, you can Enlightened Tutor for it and it hits for about 3 a turn, so it should do you well. I say you focus on the Tinker/DSC kill, along with Black Vise for a very convenient alternate kill. i also suggest trying another singleton, which would be Arcane Laboratory. If you put a Drain/Counterspell on a Scepter and drop Lab you can counter every single thing they try to play.

One more thing, run a full set of of moxen, you need to be able to drop Chant/Scepter as soon as you can before they can get started, maybe even try Sol Ring (not Crypt, it'll probably kill you). this will make the whole Tinker thing work out much better, allow you to Scepter/Chant turn 1, and give you mana to activate Scepter as well as have mana for additional spells.

//wtp.

[technogeek5000]

You can't fetch for duals with Land Tax, only basics, making the card ten times worse.

I already noticed this in the thread. Its in the changes after game three.

thank you for your opinion i will mod the deck and play another game, if it runs smoothly i will keep it. I would also like to take out the strip mine because it basically does not help the deck. My deck needs 3+ mana consistently every turn so strip doesnt fit.

Amazingly i am seriously considering removing yawgs will. It costs three mana in addition to the thrre mana constant i have to maintain for the lock and that will normally leave me with hardly any mana to cast from the yard.

+1 mox emmerald
+1 mox ruby
+1 sol ring
+1 black vise

-1 strip mine
-1 underground sea
-1 tundra
-1 yawgmoth's will

I will edit the main post for the 7th game when i finish.

[wethepeople]

Strip is only good to slow your opponent down, however it also slows you down, wasting your only land drop. Once you've got Scepter/Chant down you shouldnt care what your opponent's got for mana, i agree with your choice in removing it.

your land count looks a little low (14), i dont think you should've cut those tundras/u.seas, even if you did at moxen. i say you go with something like this:

4 fetch
2 different fetch
3 tundra
4 underground sea
1 island
5 moxen
1 lotus
Lotus Petal? idk, try it out if you want

that is pretty much my mana base on my EBA deck with a few changes to accomodate your list. i play less black than white, hence why i only run 3 tundras, but you run much more black, so it should be the opposite for your list. fetch lands are much better in this deck, you do not want land coming to you late game because the last thing you want is your opponent breaking out of your lock.

i also suggest running atleast 1 Disenchant MD, you can tutor for it for times in need (for example, Null Rod). Yawg's Will isnt the best in your deck, you can go completely broken late game, but most of the time it helps very little, i used to run it in my Turbo Chant list.

goodluck! no one expects Chant these days, it hasnt seen much play since a few years ago (2004?) when Scepter was released, and back then the deck owned, so i can see it doing well now.

//wtp.

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

What on earth are a pair of Morphlings going to do? I'd hope to pitch them to FoW 98% of the time. They along with a great bulk of this deck needs cutting, but start with those.

[chrissss]

I must agree with sob about the morphlings, morphlings day of being superman is long gone. Morphling is just too slow for todays meta. I would play one morph tops.

The cards I would play in scepter is Fire // Ice. Its great with the scepter, because it can serve as a kill, and it can be a card draw engine, perhaps tapping important permanents of opponents ( swarms, DSC, Oath creatures).

I would play Cunning wish, and put the great Ravinca split cards in your SB. Bound determined is a good card to imprint in most cases, it serves as a swarm, and cantrips. Research // Development is insane on a scepter.you can get your SB into your library, or use the development turn after turn. Either you get 3 /3/1's, or 3 cards. Hide // Seek is amazing. With this in play, you remove your opponents deck from the game slowly while gaining life. You can protect your own scepters, and even get rid of annoying cards if they hit play. It even takes card of a DSC.

[wethepeople]

Seek is also playable if you want to just hardcast, Hide on the other hand is not, but it is worth the slot in the sb. i agree with Bad Wolf on Fire/Ice, it takes care of almost everything. it kills most creatures in fish (besides grunt, but Ice can take care of that until it dies) it takes care of DSC as well as giving you a card each time, and also slowly beat the opponent down. go Fire/Ice!

[technogeek5000]

morphling helps the games taht dsc gets bounced but i see the error of having 2
Main deck:
-1 morphling

I have found that since i added a full set of moxes, chalice of the void hurts me more then my opponent

Main deck
-2 chalice of the void

sideboard:
-2 chalice of the void

sometimes there is a card i need gone that the swords to plowshares wont fix, so i will test the all powerfull and versatile vindicate.

Main deck:
+2 vindicate

counterspell i usually use to pitch to force so i dont need 4. I have had my eye on misdirection so i will swap and test on workstation.

Main deck:
-1 counterspell
+1 misdirection

i believe cunning wish is a good idea with the ravnica split cards and fire//ice plus hide//seek.

Main deck:
+1 cunning wish

Side board:
+1 fire//ice
+1 hide//seek

[chrissss]

let us know how the deck does now. I am not a big fan of Vindicate in T1, because its a sorcery. If its drained, you have 3 tapped mana, and they can use your mana to kill you.

Have you considered a fire Ice in the maindeck?
I would really look into having it in the maindeck, because its amazing. Its a reason for me to splash red. What about Hide and seek maindeck?
When I had seek in the maindeck, It was always a great card, most of the time removing a DSC, akroma/razia, or a tendrils, which made life difficult for my opponent, plus it gives life.

[technogeek5000]

Game 13(affinity)
Ok this guy was a novice i have to say. After two turns and him laying down defense grid ravager disciple and a couple artifacts, i lay the lock. We got into a argument that i had to pay an extra 3 because of defense grid. I explained to him that defense grid only made the mana cost higher, and i was only paying mana for a activated abilities so i could still use it for 2 + 1 (kicker). He got mad and quit. Since he was wrong this is a win. Can anyone please confirm that i am correct.

9-3-1

I will update this post with deck results from here on end because the old one is becoming to hard to search through.

game 14 (5c stax)2/3:
Ok game 1 was just a early turn one lock with him forfeiting. I side in 1 pithing needle and a few mages after this. Game 2 was him winning on the back of Sundering titan through tinker, i had unfortunately used up my force. Game 3 was the most exciting. He leads with a early chalice for 2. Thats a bitch because a large majority of my deck is 2 mana. I eventualy get a vindicate and trash it. we both pass turns and i draw sol ring. I tutor up a chant and tap the ring for the lock. I have to mana spare so i lock him out until he decides to concede.

10-3-1

game 15 (same guy):
Ok i dont like this guy anymore, it was fun when it was me flatout owning him but not anymore. I counter a trinisphere only to be met by a smokestack next turn. he stacks me out and lays crucible. This is followed by 2x sphere resistance. I stock up my hand for several turns with all sorts of goodies. Then it hits me that my moxes cost 2 now so i was stocking my hand for nothing then quit.

10-4-1