Isochron extended deck

Herik · Joined: 01 Feb 2005 Posts: 49

This is the deck I´m building for extended; this is the first version so any suggestions are welcomed.

//NAME: 4 Color Isochron Control
3 Opt
3 Magma Jet
3 Last Gasp
3 Boomerang
3 Telling Time
3 Lightning Helix
4 Sculpting Steel
3 Mana Leak
4 Counterspell
3 Terminate
4 Isochron Scepter
4 Underground River
4 Sulfurous Springs
4 Shivan Reef
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Adarkar Wastes

exiledragon · Joined: 23 Sep 2005 Posts: 65

Fire/ice is much goodness in any scepter deck Smile

Alucart · Joined: 14 Mar 2005 Posts: 83

so is orim's Chant

gumonshoe · Joined: 15 Sep 2005 Posts: 433

how about diobolic editicit? serum vision also works nicly... and the whole archane labortoy and the flipy girl that counters spells works finally

Visara · Joined: 17 Jan 2005 Posts: 53

Serum Visions is a sorcery, so it won't work as well as other draw cards in this deck.

The deck is pretty cheesy as it is, so why not just get cheesier and play Orim's Chant?

And you need to play Fire/Ice as well.

Personally, I would never consider playing a deck like this.
Decks that 'win' by locking your opponent down with a cheesy Scepter/Chant or Scepter/Counterspell or Scepter/Boomerang take no skill to play and are extremely boring...but if that's your thing, have fun.

den18 · Joined: 11 Oct 2004 Posts: 387

I am sensing some resentment from when he got lockeddown in last extended season. Smile

ChristPunchr · Joined: 01 Sep 2004 Posts: 359

It's rad how someone just named a sorcery and a card that rotated out. I have a cool idea for an iso deck,it's called scepter chant,I hear it is somegood.

ChristPunchr · Joined: 01 Sep 2004 Posts: 359

daman4udog · Joined: 28 Jul 2005 Posts: 43

you know what takes a lot less skill than scepter chant/cspell?

Goblins. Most aggro decks.

ChristPunchr · Joined: 01 Sep 2004 Posts: 359

funny how people who have never played decks like scepterchant,counter oath,trix etc think they are easy to play.The only thing I imagine that could cause this is them playing sh*t decks that give little resistance against them,causing the lock deck or whatever to own them easily.
Thing is aout decks like scepterchant is if the other deck is made with beating your's in mind,things become quite a bit more difficult.I am sorry but people who don't realise that are savage scrubs. Creature decks only need creatures and so forth,control decks need answers,it seems obvious which is easier to achieve.

Visara · Joined: 17 Jan 2005 Posts: 53

Dude, please...a 9 year-old kid who's been playing Magic for 3 days could beat Kai Budde with first or second turn Scepter/Boomerang or Scepter/Chant. What does that tell you?

You don't know? Allow me to explain: It means that the person playing Scepter/Chant is so bad at Magic that he can't get a win by playing using strategy and skill, so he needs to resort to playing Scepter/Chant to rack up some 'wins' to make himself feel good.
Seriously, Scepter/Chant or Scepter/Boomerang on turn one or two is pretty much a guaranteed 'win' and takes absolutely no skill whatsoever to pull off. It's lame and boring and is played by bad players who can't get wins by playing decks that actually take talent to play.

crew · Joined: 05 Jun 2005 Posts: 22

@Visara, take a deep breath, put aside your prejudice, and read this.

Dude, please...a 9 year-old kid who's been playing Magic for 3 days could beat Kai Budde with first or second turn Scepter/Boomerang or Scepter/Chant. What does that tell you?"

This is such a false statement. You are hardly even putting any thought into your posts. Ok, so there is a first turn chant, tapping out second turn, to chant or boomerang. that leaves the stick vulnerable to being destroyed. All because you play a stick doesn't mean it is game over, you can play around the stick, if you are a smart player such as Kai Budde battling a 9 year old kid who has been playing for three days, then there ought to be plenty of opportunities for him to sucker the kid into leaving himself vulnerable.

And by the way, what deck would Kai be playing? Probably this one. Or goblins, or something that may have duress and/or cabal therapy. You put absolutely no thought past the point where the 9 year old lays down a stick. You think that is an automatic win? Then 1.x is not the format for you, in 1.x you put a considerable amount of thought into the turns ahead if you want to out play and win.

Plus the event of getting a the quick scepter/instant-win-card victory is not as common as you think.

"You don't know? Allow me to explain: It means that the person playing Scepter/Chant is so bad at Magic that he can't get a win by playing using strategy and skill, so he needs to resort to playing Scepter/Chant to rack up some 'wins' to make himself feel good."

God I wish you would not have made this comment. Read your comment again, and think about how much of a dick you come off saying this. You're running T&N in your 1.x's currently, what if someone made this comment about Tooth and Nail saying that exact same trash about it. You have obviously not taken the time to test against or with this deck, but you talk as if you were the last word on the deck's being. I bet you can understand the essence and intricacies of T&N otherwise you wouldn't be putting work into it, how would you feel if someone said that T&N could be played by some idiot 9 year old just because all he had to do was get out fast mana, cast a plow or two, grab two creatures with entwine and it's basically over. That's not fair man.

Also, I believe everydeck takes at least SOME skill to play if it wants to win more. Ok, let's say, yeah bad players want to play this deck because they think that they can pull off cheap wins. If a bad player can do well with this, then imagine how well a good seasoned player can do with it, being
able to handle tough situations better than a bad player, being able to seize more opportunities, playing the deck to its full potential. People who play goblin decks if they want to win more they will not walk into pyroclasms, deal with cop reds etc. Even Big read and mono green, the better you are the more you will win with these compared to a bad player playing these.

Your comment above totally ignores this idea, and I think it is poorly made.

"Seriously, Scepter/Chant or Scepter/Boomerang on turn one or two is pretty much a guaranteed 'win' and takes absolutely no skill whatsoever to pull off. It's lame and boring and is played by bad players who can't get wins by playing decks that actually take talent to play."

A guaranteed win against what? Your T&N, or random 3color green decks? I've looked at your sideboards and they have next to nothing against Scepter, you've let the fear or hatred of the mythical invincible stick on turn 2 completely get in the way of rational thought and basically you've basically conceded to scepter. You have such a poor attitude towards this match up you are doomed to failure. That won't help you one bit, the deck is not going to go away, good and bad players alike will continue to run this deck, that's reality, what are you going to do about it?

There are plenty of players who have piloted this deck to success, Adrian Sullivan set the framework for the deck, are you going to call him a bad, cheesy player that can't win with anything else?

If you think you are so much better than everyone who plays this deck, then play Killah or Custode in the UWr Scepter mirror match.

And finally, imagine playing Scepter and facing the cards people will sideboard in against you, pithing needle, disenchant, naturalize, duress, meddling mage, cabal therapy, oxidize, extraction. Or facing decks like the rock, goblins, etc. This is not as simple of a deck as it looks, there is no force of will in 1.x to give you more elbow room to go for the quick lock. Also when you are playing a deck with a cunning wish sideboard, skill becomes a big factor since you depend on it so much for answers, and deciding which answers are of what priority is nothing a child can do to the best of the deck's capability.

I really hate writing these kinds of posts because they aren't the most productive use of time since people who have views and opinions like these would sooner die than admit they were wrong, but this for your own good man. I applaud the fact you run your own decks and work on them instead of netdecking but even though this is a forum, you should still show some respect and try to be constructive if you are going to take the time to post, whining isn't going to get you anything but resentment and taints your credibility in future posts.

@Herik-

You need some basic lands in there buddy or you are going to have a tough time with dust bowl, wasteland, back to basics, and blood moon. but at least you won't have to worry about sundering titan Wink

. But man, swallowing 2 damage to cast a counterspell, terminate, boomerang, and taking pings with all the other spells seems pretty brave (assuming you don't draw a stick or it gets destroyed.) If you stick to the all painland motif, at least get some Chrome Moxes in there.

Sculpting Steel seems like a win more, or a dead card all together most of the time since your only other artifacts are scepters.

I would consider running Chrome Mox and cutting a few land, that way you could also run a few thirsts for extra pick up, and also gain some tempo.

Chants and Fire/Ice should definately be in here, but you don't need to be so square with 4's and 3's, the deck functions well, and is more interesting to play with 2s3s&4s, making lobotomy, therapy, and extraction less painful.

Think about adding some sort of reset button just incase things get out of hand such as wrath, starstorm, or pyroclasm. Things can go wrong, and it's good to still have a fighting chance when that happens.

Lastly, I think you should consider a cunnning wish sideboard to, since you can wish for options that will stick it to your opponent, (c'mon this deck is all puns anyway). An alternate win condition like Exalted Angel would make things much harder on your opponent, avoid an auto-loss against extraction, and close the door quicker once you get things going your way.

I hope this all helps somebody out.

Crew

ChristPunchr · Joined: 01 Sep 2004 Posts: 359

Visara=Powned
I must admit though,I have played Tooth and Nail plenty...
aside from making the sideboard and effectively using,it isn't exactly a skill intensive deck,maybe a little forethought in playing and searching for urza lands but by no means a skill intensive deck though. Bad example deck,good you went into the detail I am too lazy to.

To be totally honest though,in regards to Herik's deck,the point of this thread(not a showcase of VISARA'S complete scrubness) I think the only colours that could properly compliment iso is white and blue,or at least mostly.
Reason is that when you have a spell stick out,you need to be able to a)protect it b) insure that you get maximum benefit with it. Unfortunately those two are tied together.
You also need to keep in mind what your route of victory is should your scepter get dummied. I can see you set up a manabase that can support all the spell selected,but there looks like there is too much pain in the manabase. My best suggestion,if you wanna keep the colours and everything is drop TONNES of one colour that way you will not be punished nearly as much for tapping lands and add a resilient creature or something for a second win condition. I still think you should just go with ctrl scepter and make your own build. You get tonnes to work with. Good luck with revampage! =D

booboobear · Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 10

I think the deck should stay as u/w as possible to help keep a consistant mana base, i.e. flooded strand, adarkar wastes, islands, plains, and chromes if need be, (not to mention the vamp land that will come out in the second or third set in rav.). though a turn one stick is not a win, turn 1-2 counters sure do help. consider switching boomerang with echoing truth, adding force spike, 1 more mana leak. 4 cunning wish. run 3 of the spells you want to stick main and one of each in the s.b. to wish. use mages for naturlize, and needles for deed. run fire/ice, its a must, or at least one s.b. hand hate is your big fear since brainstorm is out. and extraction spells murder if you let it resolve, so stock up on counters since every b, g/b, or u/b build out there is going to run em. have at least 2x angel, or work on an alternate win condition.

both sculpting steel, and helix are intersting additions, I'd consider helix, dont know if steel is worth keeping.

In my home town I play up aganist rock quite a bit so consider the following when play testing;

t1 duress/or therapy/or birds.
t2 therapy+therapy flashback off birds/or duress/or deed.
t3cracked deed up to 4converted/or extraction for your stick./or theres a naturalize ready for your stick.

this is my nightmare, if you can figure out how to beat it, even just the first three turns listed, (consistantly) then grats. you have a stick deck worth playing.

mkbush · Joined: 18 Dec 2005 Posts: 8

Scepterchant is not a playable deck atm imo. Who isn't packing 2~4 needles in his SB? On top of that there's artifact removal.