Ok, as long as you feel that what you sacrifice with running Burning Wish is not greater than what you gain by running it.

Sorry to double post but just posting my testing results:

Maniac is way too fragile to be a steady, reliable win condition. Maybe as a s/b card but even then it is still shaky. The fact that you are vulnerable to almost anything that hits Maniac makes Maniac like Painter's Servant; he is very powerful but not reliable enough.

Oath has switched engines from Mana Drain to Dark Ritual.

Why are wishes so essential to the deck? They only fetch the win conditions and Yawgmoth's Will. It seems rare that they will be used to fetch the answers. I think they should be cut for more color consistency. Replace them with MD Tendrils and Will, plus some more Cabal Rituals to speed up the deck.

Right now, the deck can win if it draws into brokenness, that's great but so can other Vintage decks. What we need to do with this deck is to give it a structure so that even in crappy draws it is strong. That is why Burning Wish should not be in this deck for color consistency reasons with Dark Ritual, as well as making Demonic Tutor/Vampiric Tutor less useful, and adding 1R to all your finishing spells. Those spells should instead just be in the deck and add more Cabal Rituals for mana.

I think this did end up happening. At least for the playing mat.

I've been working on a list that seems solid enough, but not yet dominant. Posting this up for group discussion.

Mana:
4 Orchard
7 SoLoMoxCrypt
4 Fetch
3 Underground
2 Tropical
2 Island
1 Tolarian
1 Library

Win:
4 Oath
2 KeyVault
1 Maniac

Awesomeness:
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will

Protection:
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Thoughtseize
1 Duress

Plan B Packet:
1 Demonic Consultation

So So but still necessary:
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant's Scroll
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
2 Preordain
1 Memory's Journey

The Universal Vintage Blue Deck Bomb:
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

S/B:
4 Void
2 Relic of Progenitus
3 Flusterstorm
1 Dragon Breath
1 Emrakul
3 Nature's Claim
1 Hurkyl's Recall

I may be coming. I live in Manhattan on W. 3rd and Broadway so it will take me 2 hours. If I am running late can I call you to ask that you guys wait for me?

Interesting idea and powerful enough to be worth a shot! Remember, it's the other 59 cards that make the deck strong too, not just the 1 finisher.

do you really have enough articles to take advantage of Tezzeret?

Why not just run the Narcomeoba engine?

Maybe do an guide on how you play a particular deck?

But you only get to draw +1 card when you sac it. It's a great cantrip for Workshop but is it good enough?

Thank you for this article and keep up the good work! 

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Elephant-Oath/149573185099141


b^_^d

I agree.

I am just saying that I do not think it will make too much of a difference in terms of the turn 1 land if you go over a certain number of nonbasics.

Don't get me wrong, there is a huge difference leading off with Duress versus having a Spell Pierce in hand. But usually after a certain number of nonbasics, I will start off with a nonbasic holding either Duress or Spell Pierce anyway.

Sweet I loved Carmen Sandiego (the game)

I'm of the opinion that after a certain number of nonbasics, it does not matter as much; every additional nonbasic you add is insignifigant in terms of opening yourself to Wastelands.

Your point is that Duress is more offensive than Spell Pierce I take it. True but not always.

TPS lists do use Spell Pierce. If they do not, then they use Duress/Thoughtseize. They are after all more Black than Blue.

I believe there is an answer here. Spell Pierce is very strong but people should compliment it with Thoughtseizes and Mana Drains. The reason it is very strong is because it allows you to have a 1 mana counterspell early game until your Mana Drains get online. Thoughtseize compliments it because it also stops their threats for 1 mana but at a cost of being slower and not blue. So Spell Pierce fits where both Thoughtseize and Drain cannot. And where Spell Pierce is weak, Thoughtseize/Mana Drain are not.

Mixture of both actually. They compliment each other quite well.

Fantastic report man! I love Steel Hellkite (and hate it when playing against it with Oath). You should run 4 of them! (I would cut the Crucible as it is too slow in my opinion.)

Source:

Testing as oath with my friend who plays MUD.

My Opinion

Vintage: Way too slow and in order to make it consistently combo out, way too many vulnerabilities in deck design will have to accommodate it.

Legacy: Legacy is the Wild West in comparison to Vintage. Everything is possible here and I really think that a combo deck supported by Ponder, Brainstorm (maybe Preordain and Top and Jace) with a huge crazy sorcery like Cruel Ultimatum or something would be possible and even very effective (Even Tier 1!)

EDH: Yeah sure why not? It's strong.

Yes

@Storm

That is a question for a TPS player. But against Blue decks, I believe that BSC is the right choice most of the time


@Lemnear

Thanks but that was never my point to compare DSC to BSC. Rather the point out the fact that BSC does not contribute to the damage race and can sometimes hinder Oath. 

A thought just came to me as I played yesterday. BSC should not be considered a 21/11 (as many TMD guys say it is). Rather it should be considered the following:

BSC
Artifact Creature - Golem (relevant because Precursor Golem makes other Golems the target of all abilities and spells)

Indestructible and unable to go to the graveyard
Poison Trample 11 (I made this term up but it's what I feel best to explain BSC), Withered 11 (again the number following Withered is made up)

0/11

When thinking about it, I have to realize that it does not contribute to the Damage Race (the race to see who can get the other guy to lose life the fastest). Imagine this scenario: Opponent 9 or less life with 3 Spirit Tokens (or any combo that results in having 2 toughness blocking our attacking BSC and another our other creature). Us with BSC and Terastodan. If our BSC was DSC, Sphinx, Inkwell, or even Plat Angel we would win this already. But since it is not, we have given the opponent 1 more turn.

Rather BSC should be regarded as starting and only participating in a whole new race. The Poison Race. Where it is an 11/11 Trampling Robot. In that case, having at least 2 toughness worth in blockers against BSC would make it exactly as effective as DSC (and as a result perhaps worse than Sphinx because it cannot save you while winning the game for you). The Withering effect should be taken into account. But in terms of pure offense, it is only better than DSC/Sphinx if it can attack into less than 2 toughness.

To paraphrase there are 2 reason we take BSC over Sphinx (in Oath). 1. The fact that BSC exists means that we need to run our own BSC or else our Tinker will be worse than their Tinker 2. BSC "promises" to 1 shot the opponent while DSC does not. We don't want to use DSC because if we cannot 1 shot the opponent, there will be too many situations where we would rather defend (keep in mind Oath has a high chance of taking a lot of damage versus MUD/Selkie/Spirit Tokens/Confidants before it gets a guy out)

Reason 1 still holds. Reason 2 is a bit iffy now. But we still have no choice but to run BSC. My point is that maybe Oath was rather weakened by the introduction of BSC into the Vintage world; by contrast Control and TPS were both (relative to the strength of Oath) strengthened.

Psssh Mana Drain never even went away 

And I would love to have a debate with you and explain to you why I have chosen to run Sphinx as opposed to all other possible choices in my Elephant Oath deck. (I actually wrote a whole article on it and posted it here on TMD)

With all the available options, why would you pick Steel Sabotage over Thoughtseize or Spell Pierce (More Thoughtseize though lately).
My personal benchmark is high too because there are just other options that answer more things. Bounce is important, but why not just counter/discard their Tinker/threat? Jace himself is already bounce too, not to mention you are running maindeck Hurkyl's Recall.

I disagree with you on Goblin Wardriver. I am going to really try it in my Legacy Goblins and I think it really strengthens the deck. But this is just theory  Results may or may not follow.

Nice review! On the side note you missed the fact that Sphinx still gains life and in the damage race it can be preferable to BSC in situations where you need to defend. (Although I am in the opinion that everyone should run BSC because of the fact that it exists and not running it would make my tinker worse than their tinker)