Quote While the problem facing aggressive budget decks is...

[thefram]

Quote While the problem facing aggressive budget decks is, for the most part, Chalice of the Void, the problem that faces budget control is the general speed of the format. About a year and a half ago, one could still generalize Vintage to a game of rock, paper, scissors. Aggressive decks beat control, control beats combo, and combo beats aggressive decks. Combo has become so fast and so resilient that even control is now having trouble beating it consistently. This problem is only exacerbated for the budget control player, since without Power Nine (and without Mana Drain for most budget players), the control decks can often have trouble keeping up with the rush of broken spells from the combo decks. In this article I will be walking through the process I go through in making a deck, in this case Budget U/r Scepter.

To extend on the above problem:
How far should a budget control player go to speed up the mana development of their deck?
How many resources do you give up to keep up with the powered decks?
How much consistency do you forgo for more explosiveness?
Is it worth it to play cards like Lotus Petal?
How about Mox Diamond?
Chrome Mox?

Budget in the New Vintage - Building Blue Based Control

A quick note, I wrote this article before the restrictions were announced. After the announcement i feel the deck is even more viable than it was prior. I also made a case for the disclusion of Chrome Mox from the deck prior to its restriction. A PROPHET AM I! /kidding

-thefram

[Comrade Seraph]

Not a bad article at all... I like the list, especially the main deck stifles. I'm a little skeptical though that getting SB tech on a scepter is going to be that common an occurrence - since white is the prime splash, maybe you should drop the ebony charm and go-
-2 cities of brass
-1 island
+2 tundra
+1 fetchland

SB:
-1 ebony charm
-1 abeyance
+1 orim's chant
+1 stifle

Depending on your meta the Chrome Mox question may be different - the more scrubby sligh/stompy you see, the more important speed becomes. Now that is is restricted however it's a fairly trivial deck change anyway, though.

The counter count seems a bit low - I might drop a brainstorm for another mana leak.

Otherwise... bring on the tourney results =).

[thefram]

I think it was clear from the article that a reader could answer my rhetorical questions anyway they wanted to. If they felt like they wanted the White splash, that seems fine to me.

I like your idea alot, and I was considering it. The main problem was that i felt we needed graveyard hate pretty badly. The secondary problem is my readership tends to bitch if there are more than 4 duals in a deck, especially if the colors are a splash. They asked me how it was a budget deck. I know that for most of us this is a budget deck as it has no power, but for the majority of new to vintage players 4 duals can be a bitch if they dont feel like buying them.

But, in light of your comment, something like

-2 Mana Leak
+2 Swords to Plowshares
-2 Cities of Brass
+2 Tundra
-1 Island
+1 Polluted Delta

That seems fair, considering the absence of wasteland in the decks that Plow hates on the most(Mask and Dragon). I also think that plow is better than leak without moxes, since its active turn one while leak is turn two, and you need to reserve a wasteland often to cast it.

-Thefram

[BrokenDeck]

A couple of things to say.  First off, nice article there.  I liked it alot, seeing as I am currently trying to get a budget MUD deck together, which invariably loses to the powered version.  Your decklist looks like it will work pretty well, I am going to test it, and I also own volcanic islands! Overall, seems good to me.  The whole scepter specific sideboard seems kind of weak to me, but I feel that black may be a better color than white, as it gives better graveyard removal and yawgmoth's will, which is always good.

[thefram]

While its true that black generally has more powerfull cards, white is the more natural fit for many reasons.

1) More of the usefull white cards are instants.
2) Plow doesnt require Power to make it usefull. DT and Will are much less powerfull without P9. This means that your Will will not be equivalent to the Powered players will. In that case wouldnt it be better to stick with the more natural color?
3) White offers (Trenches), Plow, Orim's Chant, Abeyance, Disenchant. That means real win conditions, locks, and removal for the deck.
4) Black would require a higher mana commitment because it wouldnt get the benefit of being able to drop most of it's cards onto the scepter as white does. This would mean a hefty balck commmitment to cast DT, Y WIll, and Duress. This would only weaken Blood Moon.

I agree that the Scepter Specific Board is not the best strategy, but i think the idea of dropping the off color instants for white will give the board more continuity. I probably would have included white in the original list, but my readership would not have been happy. One guy has already ccomplained about the cost of the deck, though i politely asked him how much it costs to build a t2 deck from scratch and he stopped emailing back.

-Thefram