I believe Iona is the perfect piece to complement the platinum oath build.  Consider the double platinum shell, then substitute Iona for one of the angels.  You then have access to 4 pacts of negation.  If Iona gets out first, she's all but invulnerable already and your 4 pacts ensure that she stays.  The second activation sees platinum and that's a hard lock in most cases.  

This takes care of a great number of matchups, with some exception particularly stax, however, that may be a simple matter of boarding in 2 dragons or other hate cards.  It's difficult to think of any one configuration that takes care of ALL matchups so, as with any deck, this is a compromise.

Along these lines I propose the following list:

Pact of Angels Oath

Creatures (2)

Iona, Shield of Emeria
Platinum Angel

Instants (18)

4 Force of Will
4 Pact of Negation
2 Misdirection
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Brainstorm
2 Impulse
1 Lim-Dul’s Vault
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Echoing Truth
1 Vampiric Tutor

Sorceries (11)

1 Ponder
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
3 Thoughtseize
1 Duress
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Balance

Enchantments (4)

4 Oath of Druids

Artifacts (7)

1 Engineered Explosives
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Lotus Petal

Lands (18)

4 Forbidden Orchard
4 City of Brass
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland

Sideboard (15)

4 Leyline of the Void
2 Pithing Needle
2 Hellkite Overlord
7 *Others*
----------------------------
15


The ability to cast pacts give this an edge in most matchups, particularly against control.  The downside is that casting pact to force an oath runs the inherent risk that the first creature is Iona, in which case you have to pay 3UU at upkeep. 

Other cards.  Balance is a metagame call, while Y. Will is a card that I play even early in the game to replay Ancestral Recall or other draw spells.  I play it not as a control component but as a way to draw fast into the oath combo or win on a dime in the middle to late games. Petal over Ruby to bring the blue sources to 16.  You can substitute Ruby for Pearl to play Ancient Grudge or other red spells.  The land configuration is very flexible as it allows any minor color to be played without conceding to the drawback of Gemstone Mine.

I've also found that 2 Compulsive Research are manageable and they pack a punch.  Never mind that it's sorcery, everything is slow nowadays. It's particularly manageable running Drains but it doesn't require it. 4 Impulses are likewise good and I would choose them any day against another top-deck tutor.  I recall the time when even V. Tutor was excluded in some decks because of the tempo loss, well, the same argument holds true in the case of Lim-Dul's Vault.

I've tested 2 Compulsive Research and 4 Impulses, more in an Oath deck than anything.  And even without running Drains, I didn't have problems casting the Research.

@Isaac85:  This is a bit O.T. but I did change my engine to 4TFK+2Read the Runes (I changed Runes later to +2 Compulsive Research, which I think is better).  However, that is a different discussion entirely.  Like you observed, and as I experienced first-hand, Bazaar is not the best engine for this.  In Insomniac101's build, the engine is Intuition, in mine it is 4TFK+2 Compulsive Research.   

I do not want to update my thread barring new developments and I do not wish to hijack this thread, so I'll just post the relevant links for easy reference:

Tyrant Oath 2.0 TMD thread: http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36135.0

My tournament result (5th place) posted just this week at morphling.de: http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=857

Note that I did play Mox Pearl so the list is 60 cards, not 59 as reported.

There are 4 slots that are open:

Decree of Pain
Engineered Explosive
2 Read the Runes

Yes, Read the Runes is one of them.  To restate the premise, the main engine is Tfk.  It was my conclusion, given my time constraints, that RtR was most akin to Tfk (Compulsive Research losing out for being a sorcery, but this could very well change in further testing).   If I were to replace RtR, I would look for the next most similar card to Tfk.  The Decree and EE slots are control slots, they can be altered to admit a duress-effect or even an additional draw.

On the matter of the animate-effect, the additional cc of Necromancy is significant when an early play is available.  Assuming 3 mana, I would like to precede casting Oath or Animate with a thoughtseize.  Of course, I could go ahead and try anyway, but if the opponent successfully counters it, that's a lost turn. That difference of a turn could well be game. Granting the marginal utility of animating something at instant, your 90% play would be on Tyrant which can realistically be turned to a win only during your main turn.

I suspect that the 4 open slots mentioned above are critical to pushing this from being merely viable to something competitive. I am looking at other cards to try out later which I'll post.

Thanks for the replies.  I'll break down my thoughts on it based on card choice, card play and matchups.

Card choice

1. Sensei's Divining Top - I liked Top. I liked it a lot, but it doesn't do as much as brainstorm and after the first activation, is strictly worse than Opt.  For that reason, I kept 5 fetchlands to maximize it and even use Krosan Rec at times to shuffle the library.  But playing it that way kept you back from maximizing your draw x's (Runes) or some other color-specific relevant play, especially Thoughtseize.  One way to see it is, the deck likes to dig. In the same way that Grim Long digs with draw 7's, mine digs with Tfk and Runes.  Another way to see it is in terms of card quality. I need to see new cards, not draw something I've seen the turn before.  In a strict sense, pure draw gives you more choices.

2. Read the Runes - I will compare the other draw cards mentioned.  Careful Study, Compulsive Research and Intuition.  Careful study is a good turn 1 drop, but in playtesting, it often competed with a turn 1 Thoughtseize.  I would prefer a duress-effect at turn 1 to disrupt my opponent's hand and gather intelligence rather than sculpt my hand.  On turn 2, most often you already have land, land, mox at which point you could do better than cast Careful Study.  A tougher call is Compulsive Research on turn 2.  But, again, as with Careful Study, you often find yourself holding Tfk and you can't cast both.  Also, holding back casting on your main phase turn 2, gives your opponent something to think about before casting any bomb.  Again, tough call but it's a matter of priorities. 

Intuition is another turn 2 card.  This is my scenario: I have developed my mana base but I need 2 cards to go off (Oath, Orchard or Animate + disruption or counter w/ Tyrant in the yard).  Intuition can give me 1 of those cards. I cast it, but opponent counters. All things being equal, the board retains the status quo. Scenario 2: Same board position. I cast Tfk to draw into random, likely 1 land, 2 business spells.  My business spells are likely to be control + combo.  If it's Thoughtseize and Animate ->GG. More likely it will be more board position.  Tfk (as with Runes) is meant to draw the inevitable combo, with control backup. In that way, it plays very similarly to Gush-Bond where you draw tons of cards, establish control and then go off.  I'm not saying Intuition is not good, as you will surely get the cards you need. I am just more comfortable with sufficient board control/backup before I try comboing out.

Back to Runes.  It's instant, same virtue as Tfk. Getting 2 on turn 2 at instant speed vs. 3 at sorcery (Research) is a tough call, but that's on turn 2. Down the line, Runes becomes increasingly powerful and with only 2 (a conscious effort to keep them out of the opening hand), the likelihood of mana aplenty before seeing one is very high. Also, the fact that Research competes for the same spot, not with Runes, but with Tfk was a major consideration. Finally, with Tyrant out, you can practically draw your deck and win outright with Runes.

3. Flash of Insight - Flash of Insight was a major boon to the Tyrant Oath build, not by what it did in the hand, as it was a poor to mediocre tutor, but what it did when it hit the yard. Fully 60-65% of Brainfreeze kills followed a recursion of Insight with Brainfreeze in the library or put back in it by Krosan Rec. Insight even permitted you to chain Ancestral, business, Tfk, business, Fow, draw, business, etc. to practically draw your library and win even sans Brainfreeze. So strong is this play, that Smennen lamented Insight's loss in the last iterations of Tyrant Oath. Presently, Insight, is even stronger as one of the main thrusts of this build is to actually pitch things in the yard. And there hasn't been a time when I wasn't happy playing Tfk/Runes and seeing either Krosan Rec/Insight/Tyrant in hand.

Card Play

1. Tfk - I've never had the problem pitching artifacts to the GY. I see this as an issue, however, if you are using Tolarian Academy.

2. Triskev - Tyrant Oath wins about 20% after the first activation. But it wins upwards of 75% of the time after the second activation on the back of Tyrant, Krosan Rec and Flash of Insight.  Triskev or Triskel in the board may be a good call, however, depending on what you expect to fight against (i.e. Slaver) and you choose that approach.  I would rather have an active Tyrant, however, as it can just as easily remove welders, among other things. One other interesting play with 2 Tyrants is in having two moxes and bouncing 1 of your opponent's permanents and 1 of your moxes. Rinse, repeat to remove ALL his permanents. You can't do that with Triskev. 

3. Flash of Insight/Krosan Rec - I can't emphasize enough the significance of the first builds of Tyrant Oath with Krosan Rec and Flash of Insight.  Those 2 cards interact so well in the GY after a successful Oath activation that the combo is strictly diminished without either one of them.  In fact, I would go so far as to say that I am playing something else than Tyrant Oath combo without those cards. 

4. Thoughtseize - I play this everytime I draw it, even against control. It severely disrupts your opponent, keeps them from killing you outright or paves the way for an instant during their turn. At the very least, you gather intel on what he has. The question is, whether you want to combo off or wait for FoW/Thoughtseize as backup, you usually do.

5. Mana - 16 lands, or I should say: 2 islands, 5 fetchlands and 3 underground seas were meant for: a) turn 1 thoughtseize, b) get stripped and still draw with Tfk/Runes, c) avoid getting stripped in the first place.  But I did find myself holding on to Orchard if there wasn't one already in play, as this is easily the most important land.  Island in the opening hand and a mox/crypt usually meant turn 1 Tfk/draw into more mana such that mana denial becomes even less of a threat.

6. Animate Dead - Yes, I've had the chance to target an opponent's creature (in that case, a meddling mage from a fish player) intending to name Stp.  But he countered it, which was just as well since I netted a counter. I could imagine other nasty stuff, from opponent's Welder's to fatties and I can see how that can be a really fun exercise.

7. Decree of Pain - I tested this thoroughly the night before the tourney as a replacement of 1 EE.  Apparently, the mix of Orchards, fetches, underground seas and artifact mana was more than enough to make cycling this card viable on turn 3, so much so, in fact, that I had no qualms replacing 1 EE. Having said that, the strength of this card is really against fish and particularly so against versions running man-lands.  The tempo loss from cycling this on turn 5, for example, against attacking Factories or Conclaves is practically GG. This and EE, as I mentioned, may be replaced by Rebuild or Hurkyl's at the drop of a hat. This is a control slot, same as Echoing T. or Chain of Vapor and may be adjusted, even replaced, by a duress-effect against control matchups. It's important to note that any change in these slots does not essentially alter the deck flow. The structure is fundamentally resilient.

Matchups

1. Grim Long - Yep, my bad. I was wishing I had 3 COTVs to deal with this.  Maindecking this runs counter to the design however and would be a mistake.  3 in the side board is good. For that, I would cut Blazing Archon, Massacre and 1 Pithing Needle.  Why am I holding on to the 2 SSS? Quite frankly, it's won me many games that would otherwise have been difficult, but that's ascribed to my Stp meta. If you're expecting something else, go ahead and cut.

2. Slaver - I wanted to test this out but didn't have the chance anytime before and during the tournament.  I would speculate however that, all things being equal, Oath has a greater chance of going active before welder does, especially with the draw package outlined.  Also, you have 2 maindecked solutions in the form of EE and Decree of Pain to deal with Welders.

3. Workshops - I am reasonably comfortable in any Workshop matchup, as an active Oath is practically GG and your draw package gives you that edge. Rebuilds should give you an out for COTV@2. Oxidizes are another if you're expecting a heavy workshop meta.

Let's hear those ideas and I'll post mine as they come along.

I will post a link to the tournament details when it's available. 

On June 20 Tyrant Oath lost the Gush-Bond engine.  There were some that espoused alternative ways like Bazaar of Baghdad and Deep Analysis to get around this, but my testing didn't yield anything encouraging.  I tried different card combinations, leading to my initial suggestion contained in Imsomniac 101's topic, "Epiphany..."  For those who haven't read that post, the premise of the design was to either oath up Tyrant or animate it.  This was the engine I suggested:

4 Bazaar
4 Deep Analysis
3 Tfk

It became clear, however, that the OP and I were taking different approaches to the deck design so I decided to continue refining the list before I posted it again. In subsequent testing, I found that the deck functioned well enough by cutting Bazaar altogether and keeping Tfk.  This meant I could focus on pure card advantage and hand-sculpting.  With that in mind, I added Mana Crypt to speed up the draw.  When I did so, I realized that I can now use other draws, particularly, Fact or Fiction and Read the Runes. Both spells complemented the overall approach which was card advantage, hand sculpting and discarding Tyrants.  I also didn't need Mana Drain to accomplish this, as a turn 2 play was almost a given with all the artifact acceleration and Crypt acting as Mox 6.

Before I posted this, I wanted to try it out in a real-world scenario, and a major tournament was the perfect opportunity to do just that.  On July 6, I took this to our Mid-year Vintage tournament.  It was attended by 57 players.  Here's what I brought:


Tyrant Oath 2.0

4 force of will
4 thirst for knowledge
2 read the runes
1 brainstorm
1 ponder
1 fact or fiction
1 ancestral recall
1 time walk
1 flash of insight
1 brainfreeze
1 echoing truth
1 krosan reclamation
4 oath of druids
3 thoughtseize
2 animate dead
1 demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor
1 yawgmoth's will
1 decree of pain
3 tidespout tyrant
1 engineered explosives
--------------------------------
36 spells
 
1 black lotus
1 mox jet
1 mox emerald
1 mox sapphire
1 mox ruby
1 mox pearl
1 sol ring
1 mana crypt
--------------------------
8 acceleration

4 forbidden orchard
3 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
3 underground sea
2 tropical island
2 island
--------------------------
16 lands

SIDEBOARD
1 hurkyl's recall
1 rebuild
2 pithing needle
4 leyline of the void
1 tormod's crypt
2 simic sky swallower
1 blazing archon
1 platinum angel
1 massacre
1 gaea's blessing
---------------------------
15

I faced Angel Oath, 2 Painters, TMWA, Fish and Grim Long.  It came in 2nd place after 6 rounds and finished 5th overall, conceding to Grim Long, the eventual winner.

Notes:

1. Krosan Reclamation was stronger than ever in this design since it can now be used to reclaim discarded Tyrants with an active Oath in play.

2. 2 Animate Dead(s) is the Goldilocks number in my testing.  3 shows up too much when I didn't want it to and the available draw means you could find it whenever it's necessary.

3. Cutting Bazaar meant you could draw to your heart's content without worrying that you might be seeing an Oath just to ditch it.

4. It plays aggressively. It doesn't need to keep mana up and it doesn't need Mana Drain to power its draw either.  Artifact acceleration is more than adequate to do so.  Here, I would acknowledge Mana Crypt for making it possible.  Incidentally, Mana Crypt is also marginally useful as Tfk fodder but it also sacrifices to Read the Runes when you need to.

5. Read the Runes is Tfk 5-6 and it can be a gem in an oath mirror to get rid of tokens.

6. Engineered Explosives and Decree of Pain are metagame calls.  I anticipated a fish meta.  Decree of Pain mattered on turn 3 onwards, at which time I had more than enough mana to cycle it.  It was particularly nasty against versions running man-lands and I actually managed to hard-cast it once to win outright. Instead, you may run Rebuilds and Hurkyl's Recall, if that's needed.

7. Sideboard is totally metagamed. Although I have to say that SSS really mattered if you're expecting Stp. Of course, you can just rely on bouncing Tyrant and getting it back in the game down the line.  It's a question of priorities and your metagame.

8. Some cards that didn't make the cut: a) Sensei's Divining Top - My other draws were strictly better, and they complemented my goals of card advantage, hand-sculpting and discarding Tyrants. Top contributed to hand-sculpting, 1 of 3 goals met. b) Impulse - 2 mana for 1 card.  It contributed only to hand sculpting, 1 out of 3 goals met. c) Merchant Scroll - no synergy, random. d) Tolarian Academy - You don't really maintain a high artifact count (i.e. Tfk). e) Show and Tell - Waiting for this card to come along while holding on to a Tyrant - which is more likely (3 to 1) - when you're deciding what to pitch is a waste of time. f) Skeletal Scrying - I could reliably cast Read the Runes on turn 2 for 2, or turn 3 for 3/4.  Scrying can't. This is not a control deck; its combo-control, emphasis on the first.

For anyone trying this out, I would like to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for reading. 

Mike

The list featured the 2 angels again.  Given a lone brainstorm and the chances of having to discard an Angel to Tfk, would the inclusion of Spirit of the Night be desireable now? I'm considering the likely situation now, with brainstorm restricted, where an angel is either stuck in hand or was pitched. Having 2 fatties left would mean retaining the 2-turn clock.

I see that the differences in our list has to do with the strategy.  Your list really abuses Intuition to get the cards you want and go broken. Mine is about managing Bazaar and then going for the win.  Your engine is really Intuition so I guess that's -1 Bazaar, -3 DA.

It also seems this will primarily  be a beatdown deck, after establishing control with Tyrants. Apples to oranges I suppose. 

I note the OP's mention that he shouldn't have posted this list. I'm glad that he did and started this. This is, in fact, a necessary discussion after 6/20.  I've also been experimenting with reanimation since the restriction of brainstorm often left my hands with unwanted Tyrants and 3 only meant it happened more than I would have liked.

Smennen's list generated a buzz, but after having tried it, I found it could do with a little more "oomph!" I also wanted an out to having Tyrants in hand so I began at our common card, Bazaar.  It can, after all, chuck unwanted Tyrants, DA and x card to the yard.  My problem was what to make of that "lost Tyrant" and lost x card. Here, I harkened to Dragon reanimation and looked at Steve's list at SCG back in March 2008. http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=24506. 

Although this was a Dragon list, the mechanic was instructive.

I noticed that he had 4 Oaths on his board, and the idea struck me that this could be a way to sneak Tyrant back into play. Essentially, Animate Dead did in the GY what Oath did in the library.  It was faster and more resilient as you are no longer dependent on Oath.  For now, I'm going with 3 Animate Dead, 0 Necromancy, 0 Dance of the Dead. This is, after all, still an Oath list, but more resilient.

Now, the second problem was what to do with the card disadvantage.  I experimented with adding anything from AK to Tfk.  After some tests, I've settled on Tfk.  By itself, it's a card advantage engine, but it also has the added advantage of being Bazaar 5-7.  So my engine looks something like this:

4x Bazaar
4x DA
3x Tfk

Like 3x Scroll, 4x Gush/bond, 4x BS/Ponder before it, it doesn't care about playing the control role as much as it focuses on finding the win. Incidentally, this combination was only made possible with the recent restrictions as it is strictly less efficient than Gush/bond, Scroll, BS/Ponder.  A note too on Tfk, it doesn't need Mana Drain as it can work well enough using just artifact mana.  Tfk was also chosen over Read the Runes as the former is simply more efficient: 3 cards for 3 mana, possible net of 2. In this way, I view Tfk as a bridge between Bazaar and DA and the "missing link" for the "engine" to really kick into high gear.

With that in mind, here's my working list:

Creature
3 Tidespout Tyrant

Core
4 Oath of Druids
3 Animate Dead

Combo
1 Brain Freeze
1 Flash of Insight
1 Krosan Reclamation
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Engine
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Deep Analysis
3 Thirst for Knowledge

Control
4 Force of Will
3 Thoughtseize
1 Echoing Truth/Chain of Vapor

Utility/Tutors
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
------------------------
37

Acceleration
1 Black Lotus
5 Moxen
1 Sol Ring
------------------------
7

Lands
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Flooded Strands
2 Polluted Delta
3 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Island
------------------------
16

(x sideboard)

Note 1:  No BS, Ponder, Merchant Scroll.  Not needed.  They just get in the way of finding your combo/engine. Even Ponder, which I really wanted to include, operates too isolatedly. I want my Tyrants and DA in the yard. Ponder doesn't do that. Tfk creates card advantage AND dumps Tyrant/DA for ready re-use. Thus, it took a backseat priority which, eventually, warranted a cut.

Note 2: 23 mana producers.  Without Bazaar, I wouldn't go below 24.

Note 3: Why not eschew Oath altogether and go full reanimator? Simply put, Oath is the most efficient creature tutor AND it puts that creature into play.  Animate Dead's strength is that it synergizes perfectly with the Bazaar/Tfk "engine".

This is a work in progress and by no means a final list.  However, I've seen that the addition of Tfk really speeds up the draw, enhances card advantage and puts Tyrant and DA in the yard for immediate use. Finally, Animate Dead fully functions here as Oaths 5-7.

That article was a good read and it articulated a lot of the sentiments that have been running high since 6/1.  I'm also looking forward to Mike Turian's clarification to get a bearing on where Vintage now stands, vis-a-vis the DCI.

With regard to getting the DCI more on board the Eternal formats, my vote is on printing "official proxies".  That generates income for the DCI ($10 Ancestral, anyone?) and encourages potential new Vintage players, without warping the secondary market and without ruining the collectible nature of the game.  It's absolutely win-win.

Therein lies the priority differences that's the cause of some of this see-saw discussion.  It is an intriguing part of your design strategy to prioritize the ability of your card to cycle over its specific ability.  As to how this prioritization (and consequent choice of cards) will contribute to a win can only be tested in actual games.  There's little else to be gained in debating the strategy behind your prioritization since it can only be proved or disproved with empirical data.  I do hope you bring your list to an actual game, even a proxy one, and let us in on the result. 

I've been brooding over the possible reasons to gut Brainstorm and Ponder and any reason I can think of is disquieting.

Let's first consider what it is NOT.  It is not to neuter a powerful deck, nerfing Flash would have done that.  It wasn't to neuter a powerful engine, nerfing Gush would have done that.  Killing Scroll would have done both.  But neutering both Brainstorm and Ponder isn't just an attack on a color, it's an attack on the skill factor - the very thing that makes this such a cerebrally fulfilling game.

Here's what's disquieting.  If they intended to take a color (blue) down a notch, they have done so.  But to what end?  To boost other colors? In and of itself, that doesn't make sense.  Ironically, however, it does strengthen two already powerful decks: Stax and Ichorid.  To foster the attack phase?  Yes, but only marginally to the extent that it slows down the format and certainly not to the extent that restricting Flash or Gush did.

Brainstorm and Ponder are decision-critical cards that are not per se domineering.  They tend to create incremental advantages that reward playskill and encourage interaction - goals shared, I would have thought, by Wizards in their presumptive quest for a balanced format.  The recent restriction challenges this assumption and makes every staple card a candidate for inclusion on the basis of consistency or speed.  That is a subtle way of undermining Vintage, which is precisely predicated on those two principles.

Dude, check the list under "Double Platinum: Oath's Greatest Hits". That's the deck suggested by the author.  It has zero mana drains.

The Double Platinum build sacrifices control for a more combo-ish alternative. You effectively give away 4 counters (pacts) which you can otherwise use to fight a control war.  Imagine a scenario where you are faced with potentially devastating hand disruption, a fatal gifts, or game-ending tutor and you're holding a...pact of negation.  The other "proactive" solution is duress but it's irrelevant at this point.  So you're left with 4 FoWs. Not much.

Going with the combo of finding oath and resolving oath, the build can find it a bit faster than tyrant oath as scroll enhances ancestral and brainstorm. Note that it has no bearing on ponder at all or tutoring directly for oath like the intuition builds.

Bottomline, IMHO, this is probably the most combo-ish version of oath right now. If you can try to overlook the control war and  play aggressively for a win, you might achieve just that.  But there are many pitfalls (read: Stifle, Trickbind, Krosan Grip). And if you trip, you have less chance of recovering than a dedicated combo deck or the non-pact oath build.

I quoted this fully because while I agree with some of the premises, I differ on its conclusion.  In my playtesting, the deck has superb synergy. But after deck synergy come your next two tests of deckbuilding:  Strategy superiority and the gauntlet. 

As far as strategy superiority goes, you just traded a control strategy (Gifts) for a more comboish-aggro one that would compensate for some weaknesses, particularly, against decks like stax and fish.  Though, if you include SS as a fish variant, I would be strongly disinclined as the results show SS edging out almost any deck with an oath monicker.  Now it is stronger vs stax, but gifts was never that lopsided a matchup to begin with.  The other up side is the ability to just beat down in classic oath fashion, which the hybrid now gets.  Which leads to the  strategy superiority question:  What does the hybrid do (or at least aim to do) that the progenitor cannot, or does worse at?  I posited this question because the two progenitors - oath and gifts - are focused strategies; and the risk of diluting (a.k.a hybridizing) focused strategies is that it may seek to answer a problem that doesn't exist or one that may be dealt with post-board, or worse, lose the edge of both.

Going to the litmus test of strategy superiority:  The gauntlet.  For reference, I cite below the results of the top 8 in the recently concluded SCG Power 9 tournament (source SCG):


StarCity P9/Charlotte/2006-07-09

1.  Sullivan Solution
2.  Oath of Druids (ICBM version)
3.  Pitch Long
4.  Sullivan Solution
5.  Friggorid
6.  Gifts
7.  Burning Slaver
8.  Aggro Stax


Contrary to what was mentioned, oath is not on the decline and it will be part of the gauntlet for the foreseeable future.  I think there is already a concensus that a head-to-head against a dedicated oath deck is not a favorable one for the hybrid. 

Next is Sullivan Solution, elegant and fun....and on the rise.  I would not take the results of Charlotte as preordained in the least, but the relationship of SS and anything related to oath is one of anti-strategy. Disruption and point removal is a bane to most things oath, and oath has to up the ante post-board to achieve parity.  But, isn't this the point of hybridizing, to shore up the weaknesses?  Not when it loses some cards that should make this happen.  Gifts, yes, but copies of it.  A lone gifts could only do so much to alter the tide already set by the anti-strategy.

Against Gifts, the hybrid will do best with an explosive start (ala oath), but would generally be fighting at an increasing disadvantage the longer the game goes.  For this reason, when I tested this match-up, I included duresses. And then some more. 

Against slaver and stax, the hybrid might prove better than both as oath itself is strong in these situations.

Generally however, the longer I tested and the more tweaks I made to improve on the strategy superiority, the more the hybrid resembled its progenitor, one way or the other.  While some match-ups were indeed improved, others were diluted to the point where it must be asked:  Will the hybrid do better than either of the progenitor in the gauntlet?

My testing showed that it is unlikely.

Nice to see a burning oath thread.  I'm having a blast giving this a try myself, though I run no less than 2 gifts ungiven.  Its a breakout card that creates a solid developmental lead or simply outright wins. 

My question is the match-up against ICBM Oath.  How do you think you'd fare game 1? Post-board?  Given ICBM has at least 3 strip effects, what's your gameplan? Consider that ICBM can also bring in extracts post-board.

It won a modern vintage tourney with no MWS or drains and isn't red.  How sweet is that?  This should help dispel the notion that ours is a staid format.  Kudos to the designer and the pilot.