I agree with this. And this is because when you pick up the deck and start innovating, it becomes incredibly techy and interesting almost immediately. There is no end to the possibilities for the creative minded deckbuilder.

Chalice for 0 is the single worst problem for this deck because of its speed and the fact that every deck can play it on turn 1. In theory you can fecth Engineered Explosives to get rid of it but in real play I have always found it to be difficult to do because you also need colorless mana, so a two card combo. You can add Tinker+11/11 to get around the Chalice for 0 problem, but 11/11 is actually much inferior to Salvager kill, it is two full turns slower, unless you can oath up Salvager and win next turn in which case you might as well have played two Salvagers. (In fact, playing two or more creatures slows the decks clock down more than many probably realize. If you do this you should adopt a controllish approach.) Chalice for 2 means you have to either remove it (if you dont have Oath in play) or just hardcast the Salvager. But Chalice for 2 is expensive. Chalice for 1 is the least of your worries because even if you can't cast the spellbomb initially, you can still make mana which is often enough to just go broken and win.

N proxy + X$ per additional proxy (no limit)

If you are going to do this, then you might as well set N equal to zero because you can always adjust the cost per proxy, X, to fit you preference, and you avoid having to choose an arbitrary nonzero number of free proxies to allow. You could even consider a non-linear proxy cost X(N), (i.e. the cost of the first few proxies would be symbolical, the cost of 75 proxies astronomical).

The term "Power 9" is certainly old and outdated if you consider Timetwister.. the card doesn't come close to the other 8 in terms of power or market price. But in an environment with 5, 10, 12+ proxies the term "power" has lost most of its meaning anyway. Why even use it or bother to update it? However in a DCI sanctioned (non proxy) environment, where a distinction between powered and unpowered decks might be important now or in the future, it would make a lot of sense to adjust the definition of "power".

Sure. In my experience Merchant Scroll fits very well in Oath because the deck takes the active role very early (it must be able to protect an early Oath anyway). The following is typical: Turn 1 land, mox, Merchant Scroll. Turn 2 land, Ancestral Recall + Oath. The Ancestral will often either get you the Oath you need, the counter you need, or it will act as 'bait' for the opponent's counter before dropping the Oath.

However, Scroll + Ancestral isn't a "draw engine" unless you figure out a way to play Ancestral more than once in every game. There are basically two ways to do this: One is graveyard recursion, using for example multiple Gaea's Blessings. The other way is to RFG the Ancestral (using for example Yawgmoth's Will or Phyrexian Furnace), and then fetch it with Cunning Wish.

My current Oath Salvagers build uses Merchant Scroll, Ancestral Recall, Flash of Insight, Cunning Wish, Brainstorm, Demonic Tutor, Krosan Reclamation, and Yawgmoth's Will.

You have to lock your opponent out for exactly long enough time to deal 20 damage. Sligh decks also did that (with Gorilla Shaman and Wasteland). The addition of Root Maze revitalizes and strengthens the game plan, but it is basically the same plan. Other than Gorilla Shaman, the creatures of R/G are chosen for their ability to deal fast damage, and nothing else. Pyrostatic Pillar probably also belongs maindeck for this reason, but adding more or less random disruption (in the form of REB, Naturalize, etc) weakens the deck's ability to consistently deal 20 damage by turn 4 (yes, it is very much "planning on dealing damage"). You don't want to trade cards 1 for 1 until the opponent's draw engine comes online. Fish can do that because Fish has a draw engine of its own.

R/G only wants to delay for 2-3 turns because that is all it needs.
That is what I mean when I say R/G plays like the Sligh decks of old.

It's true that for a long time (after the printing of Orchard) there was little to no innovation on Oath decks. Meandeck Oath was the reference point for most of the tweaking - adding Duress and replacing AK with Scrying and stuff like that didn't change the way the deck worked, like a traditional kontrol deck with a fast win condition. The Oath/Y.Will combo is also old, but failed to put up results. More recently there has been some innovation, and they do seem to focus on abusing the graveyard more, such as Oath/Salvagers. I have been playing my own version of that for some time now, using 2 or 3 Flash of Insight with some success. Krosan Reclamation + Y.Will is a good secondary win condition, but on its own it is probably too vulnerable to rely 100% on. But then one can always add Tinker/Colossus...

Interesting read. A few comments,

-You mention the possibility of a workshop deck running Null Rod which is a novel idea, but you failed to convince me that its possible. Without moxen/lotus and other accel you are stuck with 4 random workshops, so I have to wonder what the deck's mana curve would look like?

-R/G Root Maze decks are played a lot in Denmark because it is one of the best unpowered decks available atm, right beside unpowered FCG and countless unpowered fish variants. But you don't seem to make any distinction between this metagame and the 5- or 10 proxied one. R/G is a true budget deck. It also plays very much like the Sligh decks of old, so including too many cards that don't deal damage (eg Null Rod, REB) might be counterproductive. It's true.

-On the comparison Oath/Orchard vs. Masknought combo,
Orchard and Mask are both useful on their own, but Oath is also useful on its own (Dreadnought isn't).
The Oath/Orchard combo effectively costs 1 mana (or else Oath combo takes up only 7-8 slots).

-Pithing Needle shuts down Bazaar of Baghdad. This is most unfortunate for Dragon decks because they rely heavily on the Bazaar engine. TPS is still the best combo deck, but long term the best combo deck will be the one with the best matchup against Fish.

Hmmm you probably mean the French Championship

Some more points:
-The unpredictability works both ways, you don't know if you'll draw a random 1-off or not, but that also makes you harder to defend against.
-All the T1 tutors make random 1-of's much less random because you can often find them when needed.
-Some unrestricted cards are 'natural' 1-of's and not random because of that, for example 1 Recoup. Including multiples of this type of card would probably suck, but as 1-of's they are fine.
-Some "random" 1-of's aren't really all that random. For example, 1 Death Spark in a deck with 4 Squee.

This is an interesting topic that I have given a lot of thought. There are many more pros and probably also cons to add, but let this be a start.

About the possibility of a root maze lock with crucible. Couldn't the same kind of lock be achieved with Dwarven Miner? It's only two mana and is a creature making it more of a fit for the deck, and this is a two card combo (opposed to root maze + crucible + wasteland).

Also, should this deck use Umezawa's Jitte (in the versions without Null Rod)?

Just throw unneeded fecthes away with Mask of Memory.
Same with Standstill (which is also blue -> FoW).

And just to continue the trend of expressing complex views with the "<>" signs,

5 Mox + Lotus > Null Rod.

warble has a point about the deck lacking hard counters in its current form. Misdirection is especially weak in Fish because the only thing that spell really counters is another counter, which is something Fish does not want to use its disruption for, it wants to disrupt BOMBS. Correct. However, warble does not do Flying Men justice. That is probably because he only sees it as a weak creature, when it is in fact a draw engine component. Fish has no creatures. It has only draw engine and disruption, and it kills with card advantage.

I have been playing Fish decks w/o Null Rod and w/o manlands for almost a year. Mask of Memory is underrated. Your deck can do very well in a metagame dominated by control and kombo, but will have a harder time against aggro and workshops. Also, this deck has more potential than the pile reffered to as 'ninja sword'. Unlike that deck, your deck can generate real card advantage, which also makes it a true Fish deck. Fish has always been about card advantage, tempo/mana denial is only one way to play out the card advantage, other forms of resource control can work just as well. That said, I think you should include 1 strip mine + 2 wastelands if you can. They way you are taking the deck now (lot's of artifact destruction in the sideboard) seems to imply that you might want to play U/R over U/W. Maindeck you would lose only Meddling Mage, you would gain Grim Lavamancer and Gorilla Shaman. This might be worth it, considering that your matchup is already good against combo. The biggest loss would be StP of course (but you would have Lavamancers, and you would still have the Jitte). You would gain REB and Rack and Ruin, but would need some other way to deal with Oath post SB.

This weekend I played a deck with one Salvagers and one Cognivore (no Blessing).

It was allright, but the problem with running a single fat creature is that if you are going to win games with it, why run suboptimal cards (LED, spellbombs, etc). I think 1 or 2 Salvagers is the way to go, or maybe 1 Salvagers + 1 Living Wish, like I saw someone suggest somewhere.

I played with 2 Conjurer's Bauble and no other "spellbombs".
It worked well and I think this is superior to all other kills because the Bauble has a very useful (and very cheap) cycling ability on its own, and when you go combo you can simply draw your entire library AND graveyard, and then Wish for some random win condition in your SB, with 8-10x counter backup.

The Conjurer's Bauble idea is from the thread in the Open forum which got locked. I can't imagine why, because the emerging deck is an absolute bomb. (Maybe that's why?)

I had no wastelands, because they are next to useless in my meta anyway (TPS with 3-4 nonbasic nonfecth lands, and Stax with 3-4 maindeck Crucible). This deck can be just as fast as TPS which doesn't run any strips either.

Be careful with only 2cc removal (such as Echoing Truth and Naturalize) because you want to be able to destroy Chalice for 2.
In my opinion you should be OK without Mana Drains, but then you may want to replace the Intutition/AK as well.
Splashing black just for the two tutors and Y.Will is well worth it IMO.

Good luck with the deck, it's fun as hell to design and play.

I like the name Ubg-Oath better anyway...

I too have been trying to find a better Oath build than those suggested and played when Orchard first became legal. I never really liked Meandeck's build, in the article on it you can see that they considered many interesting cards, but for some reason settled on a very traditional control build.

For example, the Meandeck decklist started out: 5 moxen, lotus, 4 drain, etc with the "only" reason given that those are some of the best cards in T1. Then, because they started out with all that fast mana, the build naturally came to include Intuition/AK, just because it could. More mana-light, and faster versions were apparently never explored. The fact is, the Oath/Orchard combo is the cheapest combo-kill that ever existed, only 1 mana! So it seems natural to me to try something lighter and faster.

I have played the deck a lot (Ubg-Oath) and it has some issues that I haven't been able to resolve, but are still working on.

One issue is the draw engine. AK is slow, and it isn't good at all until after you Oath, at which point you've won anyway. Impulse was made for this deck, but it isn't draw. Skeletal Scrying I have not tested, but I am going to. I have been playing the following draw engine instead:

2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
2 Merchant Scroll

The reasoning is that with this deck you only need to resolve Ancestral once to push for the win, and if not then you can always recur it by simply hardcasting Gaea's Blessing. That gave me the perfect excuse to include the second Gaea's Blessing. FoF is backup draw and Mana Drain sink (I play with Mana Drains, but not with the two off-color moxen). Another advantage to 2 Merchant Scroll is that they can fecth you the often needed Brainstorm, or a blue instant-removal in the deck (no Cunning Wish).

Another problem with the deck is the creature base (Akroma + SotN), it's very vulnerable to removal before sideboarding. That means sometimes you can't win even if you have an active Oath, because of fear of double StP, recurring Duplicant, or whatever (or you may have Akroma in hand). I have been in that situation so often that I no longer feel comfortable playing the deck without something untargetable or something recurable (eg Trisk) in the deck. And then the deck becomes slower...

T1 is at a point where some of the one-of's (Lotus, Y.Will, Tinker, Academy, Strip Mine) have become more problematic (in terms of randomness) than any of the four-of's, with the possible exception of Workshop. This means that fixing the format by simply restricting more cards might no longer be possible.

How about raising the minimum deck size to 80 cards?

From a strictly theoretical viewpoint, why is this good?

You get a 2/2 Thieving Magpie, without evasion (except on the turn it comes into play). And the cost is 1U, plus what you used to get an unblocked creature in the first place (the unblocked creature doesn't even get to deal its damage on the turn you Ninjutsu it to hand), plus what you now have to use to get that same creature back into play again. Without some extra synergy added (e.g. Thalakos Seer, or Standstill) this might not even be worth it.

How can a card's banned status in Legacy be an argument for restriction in Vintage (Workshop and Bazaar), but at the same time another card's non-banned status in Legacy (Dark Ritual) is not an argument for its continued non-restriction in Vintage? Anyway, none of those arguments make much sense because Legacy banning is a totally unique concept. In Legacy cards can actually be banned for being too expensive, something that can't happen in Vintage or other formats.

And what exactly is wrong with being a combo enabler?

If this Q&A was a test, that guy would most certainly fail.
How can he design Magic for a living?


There is only ONE format where they are legal.


Timetwister goes in ANY top deck from now on.


They also appeared in 'Beta' and 'Unlimited', but let's forget about that.


Ha, I drew my Mox Emerald first, gg!


But if it were fun, Wizards would print them again, right?


Also, it's NO FUN. So even if they could find these EXPENSIVE cards and buy them, they wouldn't play with them.


Not all kinds of old cards are legal in T1. (Ante cards, etc)

Kami of Ancient Law is obviously strong against Oath, as is Meddling Mage. The reason I don't like maindeck Kami is that he is just a Grizzly Bear against the two decks I consider strongest right here and right now: TPS and Stax. Against Oath, Fish and FCG, Kami is the way to go. I think I'll reserve the right to change my mind on Kami...

Army of Allah is not win more, it's relevant as a finisher. Because without it (or with something controllish like Exalted in its place) the deck soon becomes predictable as a bus schedule. Especially combo can just wait until the very last moment before doing anything. As long as they don't die next turn, they can keep setting up. A finisher like Army of Allah prevents this and makes the deck upredictable. +2/+0 is also surprisingly much damage, even by T1 standards. In an environment with little to no creature removal it effectively speeds up the kill by one turn.

I can see the synergy between Vial and Standstill. You still can't drop a Standstill with nothing on the table however, like you could if you had six manlands. But if it works, it works :)

Just some thoughts of mine on WW hate (in the Samurai age), and the cards that go in.
Maybe you can use it, maybe you can't.
It's mostly based on the Scandinavian metagame.
None of this is set in stone anyway.

True Believer + Samurai of the Pale Curtain is what makes the deck playable. Before the Samurai you had to either splash blue for the less effective Meddling Mage or play with some 2/2 evasion and/or protection from some color, which is just useless. Vanilla creatures like Savannah Lions are also crap, and we need to let them go. (1-2 Isamaru is OK.)

The blue splash for Vial + Standstill looks interesting. Like I said, I don't think Meddling Mage is necessary now that we have Samurai, but maybe the splash is worth it for Standstill alone. Although in my experience 4 Standstill without any manlands is never optimal, unless your environment is 100% control. There is also negative synergy between Ancestral and True Believer, but at least you don't use Skullclamp + Samurai which is just sad.

In a Stax infected environment you can also use a mono-white build with 4 Land Tax.
This will let you play 4 Remote Farm, which in turn will let you play with 4 Aura of Silence.
Aura of Silence is the correct maindeck choice for WW because it hurts prison AND combo. Abolish is useless against TPS-like decks, and is not that easy to cast with the alternative cost anyway, unless you have Land Tax in play.
Abolish is a sideboard card against prison and Oath.

You don't need 4 StP AND 4 Javelineers maindeck. The Javelineers are only marginally useful. You can take out Welders with StP if you have to, and you can just overrun other little weenies. 4 StP have worked well for me as the only maindeck creature kill.
Auriok Transfixer taps Trinisphere and Colossus. It's not bad.
Army of Allah is an excellent finisher in a deck with 20+ creatures.

Mother of Runes is strong against aggro and can make a turn two 'hard lock' against combo with True Believer.
Cho-Arrim Alchemist is an overlooked creature. Threats in T1 are often HUGE, and this little spellshaper deals with them all. Anything from Akroma+SotN to Charbelcher and Psychatog. Nice synergy with Land Tax too.

For the record, I am a Dane.


Yes it is to some extent a resource war, but most people here are content with that. They buy, borrow, and rent cards. Or they choose to play without power and compete for special prizes. Don't you have your own resource war, as in "what is todays five proxy deck of choice"? Besides, I don't think that proxy/no proxy is the issue here. Or is it? Most players I know who own a playset of shops choose to play with them. Because frankly, not playing with your own shops is considered a waste of resources. It is not that Stax decks and variants are particularly interesting, surprising or challenging to play (no offense to Stax players worldwide intended) but Workshop/Trinisphere/Smokestack is just so broken that leaving your shops at home to play something else and less broken is considered silly, at best. Maybe that is part of the explanation why US players aren't proxying up 4 workshops as much as they should be (from my point of view). They can play some flashy, interesting new tech-deck of the month without having to worry about losing part of what they invested in 4 Workshops. I know this doesn't apply to you Smmenen because you already said that you do own a playset of shops, but all I am saying is that maybe my environment (of savage resource war) has developed a more realistic notion of what is broken.



Gustav already adressed some of the objections I was going to raise, so I will just stress this point:
Energy Flux is strong, but you need three mana to get it into play and when it does come into play, it doesn't even help you if there is a threat. For that reason alone I would say Rack and Ruin is probably better. Now, the problem of getting to three mana in the first place from under a Workshop/Trinisphere/no FoW opening is very hard. You probably have it all figured out, so I will just say how I see it and you can correct me if any of this is wrong. First you have to drop a basic or a fetchland or a strip. You can also waste his shop if you have a strip, but then you still have to hold or draw three more lands, that is 4 lands in 11 cards, so your deck should have at least a 22/60 land ratio, and that still only gives you a 50% chance. But if he played a Mox before the Trinisphere then he only needs to draw two more lands to get back into the game after you strip his shop, or 3/10 which is a lot easier than 4/11. Plus he could easily have played a Sol Ring/Crypt, or Lotus, or two Moxen, or he could hold or draw another Workshop, and then you're just screwed. Regardless of whether you're screwed or not at this point, the second land you play should also be a basic or a fetch, or a strip. Only the third land you play can be wasteable.
So the "optimal" anti-Stax landbase would look something like this:

5 Duals/LoA/other
5 Strips
12 Fetchlands/Basics

That much land would allow you to strip away the shop and still have a 50% chance of getting back into to the game on your own turn 4, that is if he does nothing else broken until then.

I will try harder :)

Sure we are metagaming. TPS is the deck to beat Stax because of the maindeck Hurkyl's Recall and Rebuild (In response to some people in that private forum: TPS has maindeck artifact removal, helloo!?). But TPS has other uses for those Rebuilds and Hurkyl's Recalls, it uses them to go off and win. And that's what really makes the deck viable: That its maindeck Stax hate is not dead against other decks. Maindecking 2 StP is fine because they can save your life and are almost never dead AND they provide tempo. Using three mana to take out two 0CC artifacts is technically card advantage, but it is also a huge tempo loss. If you start maindecking multiples of a card like Rack and Ruin (one of the few cards that can singlehandedly swing the game your way against Stax IF you ever get to three mana) then you will have much worse matchup against many other decks that may run artifacts, but don't invest mana in them. Imagine topdecking two Rack and Ruin against Food Chain Goblins, for example. Most decks have at least Colossus to hit with StP.

Now, if the Workshop was cheaper than it currently is (or if we played with 10+ proxies) then it wouldn't be so bad because a lot more people would be playing with shops (the best answer to Workshop, Trinisphere is not FoW or Wasteland, it is a Workshop of your own!). In that sort of metagame I would imagine maindeck Rack and Ruin being strong. But the reality is, we are not infested with a billion Stax decks, its just that those Stax decks that we do have, win a lot. You can't make your way to top 8 by beating up Workshop decks, but if your plan is to win the tournament then you are going to have to beat them sooner or later.


Yes it's possible, but in my opinion not likely. I thought of a way to prove that it isn't so, but I don't think its possible to prove either way, since (generally speaking) the best players ARE playing Workshop decks (if they have a playset) and we can only guess what would happen if they weren't. My guess is that other players with Workshop decks would win more, and become the best players :)

In Denmark, Workshop based decks (Stax mostly) make up about 40% of any top 8. From what I understand it is even higher in Sweden, but they probably have more playsets. So in this part of the world the trend continues. TPS in the hands of a skilled player can and does compete, but Workshop/Trinisphere/Crucible soft lock followed by Smokestack hard lock is clearly dominating. It's fine that Wizards will 'keep an eye' on trends, but I am not sure how exactly they plan to do that, since trends in US and Europe seems to be moving in different directions. On this website I see many strange new decks lately, constructed "to be played with five proxies", a concept that is totally irrelevant here in Denmark where players tend to borrow (or even rent) power for the big tournaments.

Wouldn't Phantom Nishoba be strictly better than Exalted in this deck?

Demonic Consultation?

And you know, you CAN play combo with R/B gobbos:
Mogg Maniac + Fire Covenant.

I would play it safe in this situation, but I would search agressively for disruption. The reason I wouldn't play the Doomsday gambit against an unknown deck is that the risk of being disrupted turn 1 is too great and I would be throwing away perfectly good cards in my hand that I could use to win a few turns later, even against that same disruption. Brainstorm, Lim-Dûls vault and Chr.sphere all become worthless if I play Doomsday turn 1 because I will draw Ancestral next turn anyway, and those three mentioned cards then become irrelevant. I would have effectively disrupted myself of three good cards, and for what? I am still not safe from a turn 1 Trinisphere or Tangle Wire, a FoW, a Stifle/Daze, or even land, Mox, Mana Leak. Immunity to Duress is nice, but that's about it.

OK, but if you play SurvivalotF with a land plus a Mox on turn one you still can't activate it until turn two, and then only twice (unless the Mox was Emerald). But if you go turn one Lumberjack, you can still go turn two SurvivalotF, AND activate it three times. Thus the card disadvantage involved in saccing the forest is instantly regained because you get one more Squee. And if the first SurvivalotF gets countered you can drop another on immediately (if you have it) and still activate it once. This is the same as if your turn one SurvivalotF (played with land + Mox) got countered, and you then played a second one on turn two. Except that your opponent gets to counter over two turns, meaning that (if he played first) he could Mana Leak the first one and Mana Drain the second.

And Lumberjack is a creature

That's true. But then Temper also cost 1RR to hardcast, and can only be madnessed out with Bazaar.
Orcish Lumberjack instead of one or more of the off-color Moxen?
Moxen ONLY give you one lousy mana anyway

Why not run 4 Pyrostatic Pillar MD instead of 4 Null Rod?
It seems to fit the deck's "all or nothing" fat aggro theme, which btw I like.
Maybe then take out 1 Bazaar and 1 Squee and add 2 Violent Eruption.

So you have constructed a Fish deck to beat Oath. It's really not that hard. Try constructing a Fish deck that can beat anything and not lose to Oath. That's hard.

From the looks of it, any streamlined Stax variant with tear your deck apart, they will just laugh at all your Grizzly Bears and go broken on you with an army of Stacks, Spheres, Wires, and Crucibles.