YOLO unless you got dat scepter swag tho

[hamfactorial]

Last year after Young Pyromancer came out, I brewed up a bad Boros Burn list with Isochron Scepter. It was pretty OK, but Jund was everywhere at the time. Filling graveyards full of instants for Deathrite Shaman to chew on was a bad idea.

One of the interesting choices that the UR Delver decks have adopted is Monastery Swiftspear, which promises to beat for 2-4 damage each turn with all of their cheap cantrips, burn spells and sorcery speed deck manipulation.

I looked back at my RW list and saw that Monastery Swiftspear could (and should) be part of the fun.

[deck]Dat Scepter Doe[/deck]

With UR variants everywhere, they're leaning really hard on Lightning Bolt for removal and soft counters like Mana Leak, Remand and Spell Snare. Enter Nivmagus Elemental, who helps fight against permission decks by converting countered spells into 2 +1/+1 counters (a 3/4 is pretty good with Lightning Bolt everywhere) or sucking up dead spells like Path to Exile and Zealous Persecution against creature-light decks. He's shitty in multiples, so 2-3 is probably the right number, but for now I'll run the playset and see how often he sucks.

Monastery Swiftspear triggers on any non-creature spell, so it gets a pump from an Isochron Scepter, as well as any free copy that I make with it. Young Pyromancer turns those free spells into tokens.

Basically, all 3 creatures love spells. Isochron Scepter loves spells. I love spells!

The main win-con is an Isochron Scepter with a Boros Charm or a Lightning Helix, but there are a lot of ways to victory here. Either a beefy Nivmagus, a swarm of 1/1 Pyromancer tokens, or chip damage from Swiftspear will get you there.

I have 5 random cantrips in here just to test them out. I've avoided targeted/conditional cantrips like Needle Drop, Stun and Altar's Reap in case I need to cast them on an empty board.

I'm certain that Manamorphose and Shadow of Doubt are the best, but I'm not sure of the right mix. I'm also wary of including spells that I can't cast without a Scepter. Shadow of Doubt needs double black, which I can make but not reliably unless I've fetched out 2 Blood Crypts or have a Manamorphose on hand. Perhaps a Steam Vents and a Godless Shrine would help ease this pain. Or 4 Blackcleave Cliffs.

Due Respect might be a fun way to combat Twin and randomly hose a player's land drop for a turn. To Arms! is an interesting idea. Swinging with the team and then using that to untap and screw up an alpha strike seems above average. Of the bunch, I'd like to put Manamorphose on a Scepter most, followed by Shadow of Doubt. I wouldn't waste a Scepter on the others.

I tested for 3 hours this morning and found that the deck performs very well unless it floods out or gets screwed (this is true of any deck). There were several games where I never saw a Scepter and just won on the back of YP$ and some burn spells.

The sideboard is just a pile of 1-ofs that seems like fun. I might identify a 4-of in the SB that I can swap Isochron Scepter with if I fear a Stony Silence in G2.

[LP, of the Fires]

I think you want to be blue instead of black. Then you can put Fire//Ice on your Sceptor and party like it's 2007.

[hamfactorial]

Heh, Fire // Ice isn't Modern legal but you know I'd be running a playset EZ.

[hamfactorial]

I tested for another 2 hours with Shadow of Doubt. It was nice for an occasional blowout but the RB lands kept me white mana screwed when I was trying to chain Boros Charms and Lightning Helix EOT.

Despite the mana problems, I didn't lose any matches against Burn, Delver and some odd Dredge brew.

I was playing with Slaughter Pact, but Path to Exile is equivalent and possibly better.

Back to 4 Manamorphose!

The red spell density makes me think Shrine of Burning Rage could take the place of some Nivmagus Elementals. I think a 2/2 split is decent as a starter.