Isochron Scepter

[Brutal_Deluxe]

No doubt lots of people are toying around with this card that begs for abuse.

I am working on a counter/burn deck with the Scepter as a card advantage engine.

If making such a deck would it be good to rely on Cunning Wish  and make the sideboard imprintable meta-hate or should not bother with the wish?

I was wondering the the following combo would work:

Isochron Scepter imprinting Final Fortune with a Platinum Angel in play?

My next question then is would the combo make a counter/burn deck better? Although an imprimted Timewalk with counter back up is very fierce I do see the problem of getting the Angel in play. I would probably need to cut cards to make room for some mana acceleration (Sol ring/Seething Song, Ancient Tombs..?) to get an Angel out timely..?

I do not have power, put I do have mana drains.

Thanks for comments

[Razvan]

Yes, the combo works.

You cannot imprint Time Walk. Unless you meant Final Fortune.

The combo is a bit weak, because you can lose to an instant artifact destruction spell. And there's many of those.

[Squee]

Yes, that combo is rather easy to disrupt and can cause some unexpected losses for you.  What is a bit more consitent(albiet slower) is Panoptic Mirror imprinting Time Walk.  There have been some control builds utilizing the mirror but again, a single artifact kill spell can cause lots of card disadvantedge to you.    

Using Wish to pull out meta-specific cards out of the sideboard just to imprint is not a good idea.  It is too slow.  By the time you wish, imprint and activate you could have just answered the problem by casting the spell(much quicker) or the problem will have already killed you.

[type1playa]

there's a reason people call it isocrap scepter.  it's just not good enough for type1.  just brake down the steps here....play the crap for 2.  imprint something.  now you're -2 cards and haven't done anything yet except use up 2 mana.  you now have to use the crap twice just to make up for -2 cards.  that's 6 mana to use an instant that costs 2 or less twice.  something about that last sentence just makes me ask how is that helpful?  why not play sphere of resistence on yourself?  i understand that if it resolves early and isn't dealt with it can lead to tremendous card advantage and usually games.  but the truth is it can and will will be dealt with early, essentially your hymning yourself.  

if you want to play with it don't center your deck around it.  maybe play with 2 of em', and when it finally comes into play and you can protect it you can go, 'booya!' and procede to win the game.

[Brutal_Deluxe]

What if try to combo with Time Vault

That's 2 (Scepter) 2 Vault 2 tapping = 6 colorless mana to go off (3 cards needed, neither of which is restricted), subsequent turns I only need 2 mana, that cannot be so bad.

[type1playa]

brutal,
maybe i'm misreading what you wrote but i feel i speak for everyone when i say, 'what?'

it seemed like you said you were gonna go infinite there with an isochron scepter and a time vault.

[DEA]

he meant isochron with final fortune and time vault for infinite turns
since you skip the turn taken with final fortune, you don't lose the game during your next turn, which you of course take with the time vault

[xzero]

Playing any copies of Final Fortune in your deck makes any Slavery matchup (Workshop or Control) an autoloss.

The last time I saw, Slavery was being played a lot.

[Klep]

there's a reason people call it isocrap scepter.  it's just not good enough for type1.  just brake down the steps here....play the crap for 2.  imprint something.  now you're -2 cards and haven't done anything yet except use up 2 mana.  you now have to use the crap twice just to make up for -2 cards.  that's 6 mana to use an instant that costs 2 or less twice.  something about that last sentence just makes me ask how is that helpful?  why not play sphere of resistence on yourself?  i understand that if it resolves early and isn't dealt with it can lead to tremendous card advantage and usually games.  but the truth is it can and will will be dealt with early, essentially your hymning yourself.  

if you want to play with it don't center your deck around it.  maybe play with 2 of em', and when it finally comes into play and you can protect it you can go, 'booya!' and procede to win the game.

That's actually the first time i've heard anyone call it that.  The fact is, that if you want to use it, you do have to build your deck around it.  You can't just throw a couple of scepters in a deck and expect it to be good.  You have to have scepter as a part of your game plan.  

  You also make it sound like scepter is automatic card disadvantage, which it isn't.  For one, you don't have to imprint a card until the imprint trigger resolves, which is after your opponent's chance to counter the scepter or stifle the trigger.
Think of it like this:
1) You play scepter.  -1 card
2) Your opponent counters the scepter, or stifles the imprint. +1 card
Net 0 cards.

1) You play scepter. -1 card
2) You imprint Mana Drain. -1 card
3) Your opponent Naturalizes Scepter. +1 card
4) You Drain Naturalize. +/- 0 cards.
5) Your opponent Oxidizes Scepter. +1 card
Net 0 cards.

1) You play scepter. -1 card
2) You imprint Brainstorm. -1 card
3) Your opponent Shatters scepter. +1 card
4) In response, you Brainstorm. +1 card.
Net 0 cards.

So you see, assuming you play something capable of generating card advantage on the Scepter, the only time have card disadvantage is when you stupidly tap out to play it.  That isn't to say there isn't a significant tempo investment, there clearly is.  But the idea that scepter sucks because it's card disadvantage only holds if you're a bad player.  The real reason Scepter isn't broken is because it takes a significant mana investment to use properly.  This is difficult to do, and as such requires a deck to be structured around the card.

-David 'Klep' Kleppinger, Raving Lunatic

[Brutal_Deluxe]

Ok there seems to be a misunderstanding due to my sloppy wording.

I do want to make a deck based around the combo:

Isochron Scepter (imprinting Final Fortune) and Time Vault (untapping the Vault each time with a turn gained with the Final Fortune) and consequently gaining a turn when I tap the vault.  

I thought this could be a good deck because
-I need only three cards -only two need to be cast and can be countered-, none of the cards is restricted
-I need only 6 colorless mana in the turn I go off, IF I cast all the  elements in the same turn
-However I need NOT to cast all the elements in one turn. An imprinted Scepter or a Time Vault with sufficient counter back-up could work.

I would play
-blue for the counters and
red for artifact destruction (since both Null Rod Chalice 2 spell game over) and (creature/player) damage

This would give access to both Mana Drain and Seething Song for mana tempo.

Would this be subpar in the current environment?

[Klep]

Would this be subpar in the current environment?

Probably.  You're either building a slow combo deck or a control deck with a lot of cards wrapped up in a combo that could be drawing things instead.

Odds are Tog will outdraw you,  Stompy will outrace you, and Slaver will just beat you to a bloody pulp.

Still, come up with a list.  Maybe you can surprise us.

-David 'Klep' Kleppinger, Raving Lunatic

[Grand Inquisitor]

It is most likely that if you try to make a combo deck around isochron scepter, then you'll end up with something clunky and suboptimal.

I've had success with adding scepters to established control builds such as Hulk and GAT.  It isn't true that scepter has to be the focus of the deck; it is true you have to adjust your deck to optimize scepter.  In the aforementioned cases, this meant running fire/ice main for utility, running three wishes, and having a sideboard chalk full of options.  It worked out pretty well, but this was before the metagame shifted against slaver (null rod and damping matrix).

[type1playa]

i don't know how i overlooked what you meant brutal, sorry bout that.  and i'm also sorry that i agree with klep on how your deck will work out.  but then again, that's just our opinions, be my guest to prove us wrong.  

and klep,  both situations you just mentioned that justified iso not to be card disadvantage ended up being a whole lot of tapping 4 colorless for nothing.  i know you don't have to imprint the card until your opponent lets it in play but i still think it sucks and is only decent in certain controllish decks like keeper or hulk and in minimal quantities like inquisitor said.  but both of the best versions of those decks don't run isocrap and niether do any of the top tier decks right now so that should say enough right there about this card.

[Klep]

and klep,  both situations you just mentioned that justified iso not to be card disadvantage ended up being a whole lot of tapping 4 colorless for nothing.  i know you don't have to imprint the card until your opponent lets it in play but i still think it sucks and is only decent in certain controllish decks like keeper or hulk and in minimal quantities like inquisitor said.  but both of the best versions of those decks don't run isocrap and niether do any of the top tier decks right now so that should say enough right there about this card.

I believe I did mention that there is a significant tempo cost to the card.  I was merely pointing out that saying Scepter sucks because of card disadvantage is erroneous.  I was also saying you can't just put some scepters in a deck and expect it to be good.  You have to prepare for it.  I have played both a Keeper in which I tried to use scepter and a U/R control deck that I built to use scepter, and I had far more success with the latter.  

-David 'Klep' Kleppinger, Raving Lunatic