General It could happen in any number of formats

ahadabans

ahadabans

Getting two for one'd with scepter sucks though. So does getting stuck with it in your hand and nothing to imprint on it.

It's certainly fun though and I had a friend who auto drafted it when it was in my cube. So I've thought about adding it back in, especially know that I've culled some of the artifact removal cards as part of my power purge. It will play better now for sure.

EDIT: That's a messed up combo BTW. LOL
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Jason Waddell said:
When I ran Scepter it never hit any middle ground between useless and really stupid.
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I saw it in two games of the months it was in my old cube, and it had been cast twice: Doom Blade and Lightning Bolt.

Lightning bolt is probably fair, but given that every single other time it rot in a sideboard...
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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CML said:
Scepter is miserable come on guys
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I agree. It also subtly forces your hand in cube design, since you need to have a critical mass of 2 cmc instants. So, you run Diabolic Edict instead of Chainer's Edict, or Lightning Strike instead of Volcanic Hammer. I took out the Scepter when I realized I was cutting sorceries and 3+ cmc instants that played really well in order to ensure a big enough number of 2 cmc instants in each color combination.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Eric Chan said:
This sounds like it should be a topic. Another card in that category:

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I disagree. Clamp is probably at it's most fair in random midrange decks, which happen alot when your drafters aren't very good. It actually has a really nice middle ground, where it basically protects against wrath
 
Changling Bob

Changling Bob

Onderzeeboot said:
I agree. It also subtly forces your hand in cube design, since you need to have a critical mass of 2 cmc instants. So, you run Diabolic Edict instead of Chainer's Edict, or Lightning Strike instead of Volcanic Hammer. I took out the Scepter when I realized I was cutting sorceries and 3+ cmc instants that played really well in order to ensure a big enough number of 2 cmc instants in each color combination.
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How much of a critical mass is it that you need? How many 1-2cmc instants does a deck with scepter in it need?
 
Changling Bob

Changling Bob

Also a lots of <=2 CMC instants are combat tricks, so if your power level is too high to support those, yeah it'll suck, and also your cube is objectively too powerful to play meaningful magic.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
Eric Chan said:
"Random Midrange Deck": the deck that makes all your stupidly broken cards fair!
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I've actually recently gone back and played that dragony mess :p
It's improving. They finally put enough work into balancing the thing that swords/jitte are now considered unfair, and while there's still more removal than creatures in some colors, the creatures have a fighting chance now.

Still at 8% fixing in a 1080 card cube though
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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Changling Bob said:
How much of a critical mass is it that you need? How many 1-2cmc instants does a deck with scepter in it need?
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I think we can turn to the Karsten article on mana bases again. Provided you want to drop the Scepter on t4 so that you can activate it immediately, mitigating the removal blowout, we can look how many instants ("lands") we would need to play in order to "guarantee" (90%) at least one imprintable card on t4. The answer is 7. My gut feeling was 6-8, so that's nice :)

Assuming you can pick up around 50% of the 1-2 cmc instants in both of your colors with a bit of effort, you would need 7 targets in each of the five colors, for a grand total of 35/360, or almost 10%. Those would have to be targets you would want to imprint. Disenchant, for example, is typically not an Isochron Scepter candidate. Personally I would skew the balance towards grixis colors a bit if you wanted to support the card, because UB (denial/removal), UR (denial/burn) and RW (burn) are usually the best shells for Isochron Scepter.

Below are all the targets in my current cube, with the unlikely candidates stricken through:
Faith's Shield
Harm's Way
Mana Tithe
Path to Exile
Disenchant
Unexpectedly Absent
Brainstorm
Counterspell
Into the Roil
Memory Lapse
Miscalculation
Remand
Condescend
Darkblast
Go for the Throat
Burst Lightning
Incinerate
Punishing Fire
Vines of Vastwood
Setessan Tactics
Dimir Charm
Sundering Growth
Lightning Helix

As you can see, I was able to drastically cut down on 1-2 cmc instants. I once had enough to support the Scepter, but now I only have 15 cards left that I would be (moderately) happy to imprint.
 
Changling Bob

Changling Bob

I fundamentally disagree with a bunch of your unlikelies. Given you run counterspell and remand, I can see why you wouldn't like miscalc; it's still perfectly fine, just there are better things.
 
Changling Bob

Changling Bob

Also, here's some freebie interesting things for isochron scepter, based off of these rulings:
12/1/2004You don't pay the spell's mana cost. If the spell has X in its mana cost, X is 0. You do pay any additional costs for that spell. You can't use any alternative costs.
12/1/2004If the copied card is a split card, you may choose to cast either side of the split card, but not both. The split cards Fire/Ice, Illusion/Reality, Night/Day, Stand/Deliver, and Wax/Wane all have at least one side with converted mana cost 2 or less.)
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E: I see you have a strive and a kicker in your list already. Fight me.
 
Suicufnoc

Suicufnoc

I feel like if you want to make scepter semi-fair and consisted you'd have to run tons of mediocre 2 mana instants. Though that may weaken the format, making scepter better again..
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

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Changling Bob said:
I fundamentally disagree with a bunch of your unlikelies. Given you run counterspell and remand, I can see why you wouldn't like miscalc; it's still perfectly fine, just there are better things.
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Well, unlikely is not the same as impossible. I would put probably put a Miscalculation under the Scepter if the opportunity presented itself, but I wouldn't be really happy about it.

Furthermore, the problem with Scepter isn't that there aren't enough interesting 1-2 cmc instants, it's that you have to put them in your cube over potentially more interesting 1-2 cmc sorceries and 3+ cmc instants and sorceries, just to make Scepter a viable card. If you don't support it, it just becomes a mediocre inclusion in your cube, and at that point you might as well cut it. Thus it either warps the cube around it (which imho is undesirable) or it is a suboptimal card (which, again, is undesirable).

E: A weaker overall power level is not achieved by keeping the Scepter in your cube, it's achieved by making choices that don't subscribe to the power-max ideology. Like swapping out Lightning Bolt for Rift Bolt (better for aggro, and synergy with bloodthirst), or Swords to Plowshares for Oppressive Rays (a one-mana removal spell that favors aggro decks, and synergy with an enchantment matters theme).
 
Lucre

Lucre

I forgot to say about my the Grixis deck I played recently

  • Okay Firstly I had a couple of games where I would use my Remand and my Snapcaster Mage early making sure my opponent had no fun ever and then proceed to lategame Profane Command my Snapcaster Mage into anything because it doesn't really matter what you're doing when you've already gotten to value town.
  • The real charmer was that I was usually able to get to Cruel Ultimatum pretty quickly, or before the game had seriously bogged, but 3 games I had nothing better to recur than Baleful Strix, and let me tell ya, you tend to win those games.

I really love where Strix sits on the power level. It's so good but not back breaking until you have the chance to rebuy it, at which point you've probably won if it gets into play again.
 
CML

CML

Contributor
Lucre said:
I forgot to say about my the Grixis deck I played recently

  • Okay Firstly I had a couple of games where I would use my Remand and my Snapcaster Mage early making sure my opponent had no fun ever and then proceed to lategame Profane Command my Snapcaster Mage into anything because it doesn't really matter what you're doing when you've already gotten to value town.
  • The real charmer was that I was usually able to get to Cruel Ultimatum pretty quickly, or before the game had seriously bogged, but 3 games I had nothing better to recur than Baleful Strix, and let me tell ya, you tend to win those games.

I really love where Strix sits on the power level. It's so good but not back breaking until you have the chance to rebuy it, at which point you've probably won if it gets into play again.
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i think it subtly wins games to the point where you realize it's not all that subtle
 
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