A more "Extensive" thread on Scepters

[Travis Lannoye]

First of all, congratulations and thanks to John for encouraging longer and more thorough posts. Turns out you had a really good idea after all.

Now, onto the main topic: I'm trying to come up with some kind of Scepter/control deck for Extended.

I was first inspired by the list that Adrian Sullivan used to get 3rd place at the Minn PTQ. However, it would be terribly shameless to copy his exact list card for card, and part of my nature demands that I make at least one blue mana every once in awhile (hence my decision to rock the Zendikar Island sleeves in my non-blue Valakut deck for Standard).

With these things in mind, I set out to try and come up with my own version of this type of deck. I had tried to play a few games on MWS with various similar lists, just to get a feel for what is out there. The core of Adrian's deck is a whole bunch of cheap instants, plus three other cards:
- Bloodchief Ascension (BA): Since the majority of the deck is cheap burn, this card becomes very easy to activate.
- Dark Confidant (Bob): Since nothing in the deck costs more than 2 (I cut the three drops), this card keeps my hand full of good spells.
- Isochron Scepter: With about 20 excellent targets for this card, it demands a reaction very quickly.

As for the cheap instants, there are three color combinations that I have considered: UWR, UBR, and BRW. My thoughts on each one are as follows:
- UBR is currently the front-runner in my book. Black is such a strong color right now because of three cards: BA, Bob, and Extirpate. All three are absolutely incredible right now. There are only two good cards I cannot play with this build: Path to Exile and Lightning Helix. Path is easily replaced by either Terminate or Boomerang (or both). Lightning Helix might be the single best thing to imprint on a Scepter, but Lightning Bolt does just as much damage, and the life-gain from BA will be much higher in the long run.
- UWR is just OK in my experience. It has access to all the best instants available: Path, Bolt, Helix, Burst, Punishing Fire, Boomerang, Negate, not to mention all sorts of versatile counters and bounce spells. However, the three black cards mentioned above are just too good, and there isn't a suitable replacement in the format for any of them. I've even tried to add in Silence for a soft-lock, and it still just isn't as good as BA or Bob.
- BRW is also just OK in my experience. I might just have a blue bias, but I just don't feel right without being able to possibly counter something.

My current UBR Scepter list looks something like this:

4 Grove of the Burnwillows
3 Marsh Flats
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Blood Crypt
3 Steam Vents
3 Watery Grave
2 Tolaria West
1 Island
1 Swamp

4 Dark Confidant
4 Bloodchief Ascension
4 Isochron Scepter

3 Boomerang
3 Countersquall
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Leak
4 Punishing Fire
3 Spell Snare
3 Terminate

Sideboard:
- Extirpate
- Shadow of Doubt
- Engineered Explosives
- Chalice of the Void
- Flashfreeze
- Negate
- Muddle the Mixture

I can't remember the exact numbers for all of the instants (I'll update that part later), but it's close enough. I tried to make sure that I had a versatile and diverse package of spells that could handle all of the most common threats in the format.

People always tell me that 24 lands is way too many in Extended, especially when my curve tops out at 2 mana. My response to this is the fact that I usually want to cast more than one spell per untap phase (one on my turn, and one on your turn). At the least, I want to tap three lands to recur the Punishing Grove combo at EOT, if I have nothing else to do.

Matchup-wise, I think my best matchups are Zoo and Faeries. I like the Zoo matchup because I think I have enough removal to be able to keep up with them, and late-game my Ascensions and Scepters just take over. Faeries doesn't have many ways to get rid of a Scepter if I resolve it, and I've won most of my games by following their Bitterblossom with a Scepter imprinting Lightning Bolt.

My worst matchups are the Cascade decks. The Hypergenesis version is just a question of whether or not I draw a counter. The Living End matchup is even worse because they have so much LD (4 Fulminators and 4 Avalanche Riders) plus the cascade combo. Thopter decks are also a problem because they have as many counters as I do, and my burn spells do not do enough damage before they get their stupid combo online.

One more thing that I tried to do was to squeeze the Valakut/Prismatic Omen combo in here. There were three problems with that strategy:
- It was very fragile: if they got rid of the Omen, my manabase was wretched awful.
- It required me to splash for green, and there are no other good green instants that I can include (I looked).
- It took up 8 valuable slots in the deck list (4 Omens and 4 Valakuts). Those 8 spots could be put to better use.

That should be enough for the literary community. Thoughts are appreciated as always.

[Travis Lannoye]

I'm thining of getting back on this old horse again. The prison decks that we tried last night just weren't working, and the Scepter decks were always just fun to play with.

One question I've always had about this deck was the color combination. Right now, I feel like Grixis is the best color combination, for the same reasons listed above (and I don't have the Helixes or Hide/Seeks to make BRW work).

I even tried making a four-color Scepter list, that looked like this:
3 Arid Mesa
3 Marsh Flats
3 Scalding Tarn
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Godless Shrine
1 Steam Vents
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Plains
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
(23)

4 Dark Confidant
4 Bloodchief Ascension
4 Isochron Scepter
(12)

3 Echoing Truth
3 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
4 Mana Leak
3 Path to Exile
4 Punishing Fire
2 Searing Blaze
2 Terminate
(25)

Side:
3 Engineered Explosives
4 Extirpate
4 Hide/Seek
4 Negate

If I chose to just play the Grixis list, Searing Blaze would be right up there on my list of things to play. Here's how that would look if I ended up running it tomorrow:

4 Scalding Tarn
4 Blood Crypt
4 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
2 Drowned Catacomb
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
(23)

4 Dark Confidant
4 Bloodchief Ascension
4 Isochron Scepter
(12)

3 Countersquall
3 Echoing Truth
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mana Leak
4 Punishing Fire
4 Searing Blaze
3 Terminate
(25)

Side:
3 Engineered Explosives (for Zoo, Elves, or maybe Thopters)
4 Extirpate (for graveyards)
4 Shadow of Doubt (for Scapeshift, random searches)
4 Volcanic Fallout (for Elves and Fae, plus it activates Bloodchief)

Searing Blaze is one card that I'm really excited to play with. An ideal opening of turn 1 Blood Crypt, Bloodchief Ascension, turn 2 Steam Vents, Searing Blaze on your Kird Ape, Bloodchief at 2 counters seems amazing.

One card that is noticeably absent from this list is Spell Snare. I keep on trying to like that card, and for some reason I just keep cutting it. It's just too narrow for my tastes, and it's horrible on a Scepter.

I think I'm going to roll with one of these two lists tomorrow. I've played enough games with them, and even if I lose, the deck is far more fun to play than anything else I've tried. Plus, I have almost all the expensive cards...I'm just missing a Bob, an Extirpate, and a few commons/uncommons.

[John Galli]

I guess my main concerns with that choice is the lack of lightning helix and blightning. While blightning is a "three-mana" spell, it's certainly worthwhile, even if it doesn't help isochron - but maybe I'm wrong.

I feel like the deck needs helix to get out of situations. I ended up running over the scepter player that I played against at the last PTQ, and that was with a slow/clunky boat-brew deck. Lifegain is very important.

Countryside Crusher is fairly decent in the deck, but I'll agree that there are other options.

I hope I can figure a decklist out tonight. I really didn't like the direction those white decks were going, and I still have an urge to make boat brew work (assuming I can board enough to handle the metagame).

[Travis Lannoye]

Blightning is not playable for several reasons:
- It's a sorcery, so it doesn't allow me to leave mana open for burning/countering.
- It's 3 mana, which is expensive for this deck.
- It doesn't fit under Isochron Scepter.
- The discard doesn't hurt nearly as much in Extended as it does in Standard. In Extended, Zoo players will grow their Goyfs/Knights out of burn range (or dump their Punishing Fires), or pitch their Paths (which are almost dead cards). Thopter players will pitch their Swords, dead cards, or extra lands.

I do miss Lightning Helix, which is the main reason I might try the four-color version of the deck. Life gain is very important, and Helix is one of the best possible spells to put on a Scepter.

If I had Countryside Crushers, I might consider them, but I just think they validate spells like Path and Smother. If there was a better draw spell out there than Dark Confidant, I would probably cut him as well. Phyrexian Arena comes to mind, but Bob is so much better:
- Bob can attack an empty board and thus trigger Ascension.
- Bob can block for a turn if necessary.
- Bob can be turned off at any time by almost every spell in the deck. Arena needs to be bounced.
- Bob is cheaper, so he can either come in on turn 2 or come in and leave more mana open to play other spells.
- Bob doesn't cost double-black (although I think I have enough fixing so that shouldn't really be an issue).

I wish they had an instant version of Ponder or something like that. I'd totally play it. Even if Treasure Hunt was an instant, I'd play it. Bah!

[John Galli]

I don't think Blightning's quite as useless as you make it out to be, but to each his own and it's not the right fit for this deck.

4-color seems stretchy.

Bob is awesome, Arena is not even in the same league, especially in this deck. Do you have any?

I think the deck is a good choice for the metagame. It's one of those decks that doesn't have to interact with the other person other than kill their dudes. Otherwise it just goes to town building and burning until their dead. There's also not a lot of hate cards that really do much to it aside from damping matrix slowing down the isochron and disruption running you low on cards. In my games against the deck I just tried to put out a swarm of threats to force them to use up burn spells and land a few timely hedge-mages against scepter or ascension.

[Travis Lannoye]

I have three Bobs, and I think Matt said that he has a fourth.

At this point, with so little time before the event, I think it's a safe call to make. At the very least, it's a fun deck to play.

[Travis Lannoye]

So, the bad news from yesterday's PTQ was the fact that I punted all but one of the six rounds I played in, and I spent about $40 doing it ($25 entry fee, and $15 on ONE Extirpate...FUCK YOU DAN BOCK).

The good news is that I have made a new list, and after playing a few games with it, I like it VERY much.

The new list:

4 Bloodchief Ascension
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Phyrexian Arena
4 Psychogenic Probe
(16)

3 Hide/Seek
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lightning Helix
3 Path to Exile
4 Punishing Fire
2 Terminate
(20)

4 Arid Mesa
4 Marsh Flats
3 Blood Crypt
3 Godless Shrine
3 Sacred Foundry
4 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
(24)

Side:
3 Dead/Gone
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Extirpate
3 Silence
3 Volcanic Fallout

Card choices:
- Phyrexian Arena: Call me crazy, but I like this card more than Bob right now. We live in an Extended world where a one-toughness creature that costs less than three mana is just not going to survive long enough to impact the game. Every time I played Bob, he got killed before I could use him. The only exceptions were in round 5 against an Elves guy who had no removal (there IS no green removal) and in round 6 against a dude who didn't know Flagstones of Trokair was legendary and triggered landfall a lot of times (can't believe I lost to that tard-monger!). The Arena, unlike Bob, is very difficult to remove, and will almost always guarantee me an extra card or two, which this deck was BADLY missing all day. Plus, now that I run Hide/Seek, there's a chance I can turn it off if I absolutely need to.
- Hide/Seek: This is probably one of the most versatile cards I have played with in awhile. Both sides are incredibly useful. I'd almost go out on a limb and say that this card is the best thing to imprint on a Scepter.
- 24 land: Not sure yet if this is the right number. One Godless Shrine cound eventually turn into a 4th Path to Exile.
- Psychogenic Probe: I had a chance to play against this card today (oddly enough it was my only win of the day) and it completely fits my deck. The extra 2 damage will make fetching and tutoring VERY painful, and it also activates my Bloodchief Ascension much easier. I only wish I had seen this card earlier, I would have run it in a second. It even makes Path to Exile better.
- Engineered Explosives vs. Volcanic Fallout: One of these cards is probably going to get cut, I'm just not sure which one. I feel really vulnerable to combo decks like Scapeshift and Cascade (either Hypergenesis or Living End). I'm not sure what the replacement card will be (there are a lot of options), but I don't think I need both of them.
- Searing Blaze: I'm not usually one to disagree with a professional, but I found throughout the day that Searing Blaze was very cumbersome in my deck, contrary to what Adrian told me before round 1. Part of the problem was the fact that it cost double red, which affected my fetch targets. The other part of the problem was the fact that I needed a landfall trigger to make it effective, which was hard to do on my opponent's turn. Therefore, it did not make the cut.
- Shadow of Doubt: This was another card that continued to disappoint me all day. In theory, it seems like a great way to totally blow out the opponent if they try to fetch early, or if they try to play something like Scapeshift or Cranial Extraction or something. However, the only time it was even close to good was when I needed to cycle it to dig for other answers.
- Silence: This is the best answer I can come up with for Cascade decks. Depending on how popular they get, this may go up to 4.
- Dead/Gone: This is another very versatile card. It is primarily used as a second out to Marit Lage tokens, but it can also kill first turn Elves or Steppe Lynxes.

In general, I think I learned a lot today about how to play this deck in Extended, and I am really looking forward to getting another crack at it, despite my horrid performance today. Now, I just need to acquire some Helixes...

[Travis Lannoye]

Yesterday's testing further solidified my decision to run Phyrexian Arenas over Bobs. Arena was solid all day, drawing me so many extra cards that I desperately needed, and at a very small price to pay. Bob would have been dead on the spot in every game.

Bloodchief Ascension was also amazing. Now, I might just be saying this because I drew more Bloodchief Ascensions last night than I did all day at the last PTQ, but still...that card was great! Punishing Fire was another all-star. Re-usable removal is just insane in this format.

[John Galli]

You really need to test against the decks that you'll actually see tho. I wish I had had my zoo/thopter decks on me last night, but regardless I'm sure you'll get that going at some point.

Glad to hear the hater-juice deck I brewed up was competitive, I'd also like to playtest that white build that I posted in the aggrolicious thread at the bottom.

[matth]

I was impressed by the playtesting today against my Tribal Zoo (sans Qasali Pridemage :/ ). Sometime Zoo does just get there, but a lot of my removal, especially my Paths, were dead cards because you don't have creatures. I'm a little worried about how reliant you are on getting Bloodchief Ascension out in the first couple of turns. It works great when you do, of course, but it seems too slow if it doesn't. The life gain is a nice touch, and so is the Psychogenic Probe. I think the games you lost were mainly because I drew a ton of burn; the creatures didn't matter as much, since they never lived very long. Punishing Fire after turn one Steam Vents into Kird Ape = AWKWARD.

[Travis Lannoye]

Bloodchief Ascension is definitely a big boost in that matchup, but I have accepted the fact that I don't always get it, and I think I'm capable of winning without it, as long as I can stick a Scepter for a couple turns, or keep my hand full with an Arena.

Now, I'm sure that our results would have been a little different if Matt was running Qasali Pridemage, or if he hadn't played a Kird Ape with a Steam Vents, but that's not the point.

Psychogenic Probe has been kinda underwhelming for me. I thought it would have been a lot better against Zoo, but it just kinda held me back a lot of the time. Searing Blaze was also not as good as I thought it would be. There were a few times where it would have been better than a Lightning Bolt because it could trigger Bloodchief Ascension, but that only worked when I HAD a Bloodchief Ascension. More often than not, I would need to find a land to make it work, and that just held me back even more. Sometimes you just need a Lightning Bolt.