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Testing did not go as planned, car problems and then a bad flu kept the games against actual opponents to a minimum. I started off with an Enchantress/Desire deck, a red green aggro deck (vaguely similar to RDW), Pattern/Ghoul, my PM Landlock deck and a Scepter/Tog build from PT New Orleans. I quickly found that Tog was an easy win over the combo and lock decks, not much of a surprise, but still the severity of it was surprising. The other matchup was still in Tog's favour as well. So I tentatively decided that I was going to play Tog. I did however think that if I was going to use the Scepter I would like greater access to what I think is the best possible card to imprint, Orim's Chant.

I took the decks to play with a real opponent once the car was operational again. After some games the same ranking became quickly apparent, and stagnant. Dave Redfern (the real opponent), had been thinking about playing Pirates and since we had pretty much determined the natural course of the other decks, we needed something to throw at Tog, so we proxied it up and started playing games. This matchup was much closer, the Pirates mana disruption was really hurting, in particular the Wastelands and Dustbowls. I was packing a lot of non-basics to have access to the red and black mana, when the deck barely needs them at all although it's important to note though that it does require them. My only out seemed to be through multiple Chrome Moxen, in one game I had four of them in play, and was thankful of drawing them despite the card loss. I'd also been thinking on just how many decks fold to Chant-on-a-Stick. It was at the end of these games that I decided I should investigate switching out the red in my deck for white. Instead of Fire/Ice I would have Orim's Chant. I could also add a few Absorbs as extra counters and to aid in races against damage (also handy as an imprint on Chrome Mox early game). Most importantly I could use another set of saclands, to greatly reduce my susceptibility to Wasteland, and Dustbowl. So I started making the changes. There didn't appear to be much space in the deck to play around with. Initially I was going to take Tog out and cut the black entirely, but I didn't like any of the alternative win conditions, they were just to slow for my liking. As you all know Dr. Teeth can swing for lethal damage if left unchecked, that's a lot of good in matchups where your opponent is likely to 'board in the instant speed removal needed to nail the scepter with Chant on it.

It was now early January and I started to look at the Christmas time PTQ results that were showing up on the net. One in particular interested me, Adrian Sullivan had written a report about his PTQ winning "Chronoscepter" deck on Starcity Games, His deck was U/W/R not U/W/B but his distribution of coloured spells was similar. There were two interesting things for me, the first was in his mana base. Instead of the standard 4 Chrome Mox, he had 2 Chrome Mox/2 Mox Diamond, to sure-up the colours. I'd like to say at this point that since adopting this I have never drawn a hand where I have regretted this choice. Not to say you won't, but if you're playing the third colour in a deck with this amount of card draw, I'd recommend it. The other interesting thing to note was the inclusion of one Mystical Tutor to make 'virtual' two-of's of several cards in his deck. I had originally had a few two-of's, Stifle/Boomerang/Intuition and three Chants main. This switch gave me that little extra space to play with the deck, while still giving me the adaptability I wanted. The Friday before the tournament was the last good chance to practice, and another friend, Dan Edwards came around to get in some practice with his deck of choice, The Rock. This was a matchup I hadn't tested at all, and it was one with a lot of hand disruption. Before sideboarding it seemed fairly even; if I could drop Scepter with Chant early I won as he had no main deck answers, but if the game went on I normally got beaten down. He'd Living Wish for a Withered Wretch and eat my AKs while the disruption kept me away from the lock. All in all I was a little in front - then he sideboarded. In came 2 Naturalize, Defense Grid and Damping Matrix. I proceeded to lose 9 games straight, with, as far as I could tell, only one of them due to play error. I had gotten careless in my frustration and lost a Scepter with Chant on it.

I spent several early morning hours trying to figure out how to deal with it. In the end I decided to improve my main deck against small irritating creatures by adding in two Smother, and decided it would be good having another Scepter, so I added in one Enlightened Tutor. Enchantments and artifacts dominated my non-wish-target section of the sideboard, and the Tutor also gave me better access to them post sideboard. I finally got rid of the Absorbs and Memory Lapses for Mana Leaks and one Misdirection as the 3cc was hurting against the Rock. I had also had far too many times with Lapse in hand when a Mana Leak would have done the job better. I did go to 61 cards though, which I wasn't happy with that, but exactly what gets dropped will be sorted out with time..
So here's the deck I ended up with.

 

   4 Brainstorm
   4 Accumulated Knowledge
   1 Intuition
   3 Cunning Wish
   1 Mystical Tutor
   1 Enlightened Tutor
   2 Fact or Fiction
   4 Counterspell
   3 Mana Leak
   1 Misdirection
   1 Stifle
   1 Boomerang
   2 Orim's Chant
   2 Smother
   2 Psychatog
   4 Isochron Scepter
   2 Chrome Mox
   2 Mox Diamond
   8 Islands
   4 Flooded Strand
   3 Polluted Delta
   2 Plains
   1 Swamp
   2 Underground River
   1 Adarkar Wastes

 
Sideboard
   2 Chill
   1 Tsabo's Web
   1 Engineered Plague
   1 Spiritual Focus
   1 Orim's Chant
   1 Fact or Fiction
   1 Corpse Dance
   1 Stifle
   1 Disenchant
   1 Boomerang
   1 Heroes Reunion
   1 Fire/Ice
   1 Diabolic Edict
   1 Forbid

At this point the individual matches are starting to blur, so I'll avoid writing a tournament report. Suffice to say, I didn't win the PTQ, that went to Peter Allen with his Tradewind-Seedborn Muse deck. I did however go undefeated in the Swiss portion of the tournament, with four wins (against U/G/W Scepter control, Dumptruck, Goblins, U/G Madness) and two IDs. With the second game win against the madness deck, piloted by Levi Hinz, the most enjoyable game of the day. Beaten down and having pain from saclands and painlands put me on two life, I needed card draw to win that turn. I drew Brainstorm, into Cunning Wish, Wish for Fact or Fiction, play and attack discarding all my cards and removing every last one from the graveyard to deal 20 damage, with Levi on 20 life. The biggest disappointment of the day was seeing 3 main deck Powder Keg in the straight U/B Tog deck my quarter finals opponent (Danesh Jogia, I hope that's the right spelling) was playing. And which he proceeded to use handily to crush me in two straight games.

Aftermath
I've yet to figure out which card to remove from the maindeck. The sideboard is different, the Heroes Reunion, Disenchant (or Boomerang) and Spiritual Focus should probably come out for 3 Duress. Anything extra to force through card draw on a Scepter in the control matchups is welcome. While the removed spell's abilities are almost completely covered by other spells in the matchups that you would want use them in.

I personally like this style of U/W/B Chant/Tog deck, but have not seen any net coverage of a version like this deck. I hope people enjoy.

Thanks to David Redfern (above), Dan Edwards (above), Lance Wearmouth (games against his unpowered Type 1 Suicide Black gave me the initial push towards two Smother that later play proved to be a great boon). Also the other members of my social play group, Darryl Greensil, Michael Mason and Samantha Hepworth, for valuable input during construction and the borrowing of missing cards.

I'll try to write again soon,

Tim Butland.
PS After playing him, I don't feel so bad. I might even learn to like the little fellow. But for now, at least, I'm at peace with Dr.Teeth.

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