“I think oath has control and aggressive builds, and if the build is aggressive mull, if it's control don't.”
The deck I posted to go along with the hand is an aggressive build. If you were to replace the City of Brass with an Orchard this would be a good hand. The problem with this hand is you can't rely on digging for both of your combo pieces. The proper turn one play with this would be to mulligan. Oath wins with 2 Cards+Protection. This hand has neither of the combo pieces and no reliable way to get them. The hand: Polluted Delta, City of Brass, Wasteland, Impulse, Mana Leak, Duress, & Sensei's Divining Top can't even beat Goblins a 90/10 Match..

I will keep this hand every game because chances are the 6 card hand will be worse.  I have turn 1 Duress. turn 2 Leak/Impulse or Waste+Top.  This hand isn't that bad at all.  These are the hands that separate those who really know Oath from those who don't.

Einlanzer, that sounds like a great idea, but unfortunately, you'd be catching alot of hate from people that expect to hate on Dragon.  My advice would be to do something like Gifts --->  TPS.  Not exactly sure what that would look like, but you wouldn't have to devote your entire sideboard to transforming.

Naming Time Vault with Pithing Needle is like trying to stop Inspector Gadget with a brick wall; he'll just use his helicopter hat to get around it instead.

I personally don't believe it is undefeatable.  I would RATHER hear other decks telling me how they beat it, and how I can fix the weaknesses.  This is where granite shards came in against CS.  Defense grids are new against Drain decks because the powered up drains were brutal.  If people say gifts is going to wreck this, then great.  Tell me that, and ALSO say what is gifts weakness.  What does THIS deck need to do to beat gifts.  This is what it should look like.

Why is anyone surprised that Steve played Grim long? That deck is absolutely incredible. I play it a lot and if you know how to exchange slots in the maindeck, it can destroy people.

I'm actually depressed no one really plays the deck.

Analytically, there is nothing inherently wrong with what you've done to Uba Stax, but I really don't see this deck - either variant, as Uba Stax.

Uba Stax is a decklist that maximizes particular synergies and has a very slow soft lock that eventualy becomes a hard lock.    What you have done is added a whole bunch of tempo cards and cards that do not affect the board at all.  The increase in creatures is also indicative of this.

Moreover, Null Rod is, in my view, the innovation to emerge from Uba Stax.  It occurred because suddently with Bazaar and Welder your reliance on accelleration dipped significantly. 

Your variant worked, imo, becuase it occured at the right place at the right time, and, you piloted it well.


Thats correct, which is why he named it a different name

Jester's Cap, like Diceman said, is savage.  It preys on so much that Vintage does - but you've traded a card that is metagame good (if you are winning) for one of the objectively strongest cards in the format (null rod). 

I say all of this not to say that I think your deck is bad, but to suggest that it isn't even Uba Stax anymore.  This is indicative of how bad you find Smokestack.  Your using much more tempo and other cards rather than traditional uba stax lock parts to win games.  I think Vroman would have a heart attack if someone suggested juggernaut in Uba Stax, but I could be wrong. 

So, in summary, you have appropriated the mana shell of Uba Stax and have fashioned a new workshop deck.

Congrats, Rich! It was great to see you again, and awesome to see Control Slaver dominate pretty much the whole weekend.

Thanks Ben, on the congrats.

As for the deck:  Both decks were complete metagame calls that paid off much more wonderfully than I expected.  Jester's Caps will probably not be run in the near future, as Gifts decks WILL most likely start running 4 win conditions, albeit I have no idea what.  As for Null Rod:  I saw that problem and had Shattering Spree in the sideboard for it.  Lyle had out a Null Rod which I Shattering Spreed, including his chalice for 0, so I could play Tormod's Crypt.

Ben, the decks that I played are not optimal for any means.  I have already said that I metagamed for the tournament because I know Ubastax so well, and can change the MD and SB to do well in any given enviroment, which means if you put me up against a field of I.T., I can do well with it, even if Eric Becker is 6-0 against Ubastax in tournaments, (I.E., Caps and Spheres MD).  I probably shouldn't have had Smokestack in the MD Day 1.


I disagree completely.  Smokestack won me ONE GAME Day 1.  Jester's cap flat out won me six games Day 1, eight games Day 2.  It really is the card that won me the tournament, and without it I would have probably gone 0-2 drop.  Moreover, cards like Sphere of Resistance were worse than Force of Nature in my deck.


...are you serious?  Not only did I win against Outlaw, LaPlante, RICH SHAY, and Lyle, but I played against an almost entirely unwinnable matchup BOTH days in the top 8.  I'm insulted that you would even insinuate that my playstyle (which got me to two top 8s by the way) would cost me games against 'name players'.  Neither DeMars nor my Day 2 Opponent in the Top 8 advanced farther than T4, so does that mean that they're bad players as well?

Anyway, thank you everyone on the congratulations, and I'll try to get the Day 2 listing of the tournament report done today.

I completely agree.

JD, I can't believe that.  You won and your tie-breakers went DOWN!?  I feel so sorry man.  Don't stay up too late writing those decklists up.  Petition for more Top 16's!    I really liked the way the SCG was run, most professional vintage tournament I have ever been to by far.

Rich, I told you at Richmond and I'll tell you now:  You're once of the nicest guys I've ever played, and I'm honored to have won a game against you.  I'm so glad that you won the Lotus, and really hoped that you would have top 8ed day 2.  I feel bad that you didn't because of me.  But really it wasn't.  It was because of that evil guy Smennen.  We should egg his house.

Force of Nature

No.

A point should be made here that Oath DOES lose a lot because it doesn't have these cards. It can't run Will because of the Blessing dealie, and DT is a little slow. Since it cannot run these, it doesn't have the broken plays that other decks have and it loses to them. That's why monoblue was a good deck until it hit bomb after bomb. It couldn't keep up. Oath is the same way. Purposefully neglecting Yawgmoth's Will is folly, IMO.

hmm.. just wondering the merits of going with a stroke based kill over a storm kill. Even if you're choosing to drop black from the deck, wouldn't it be easier to kill with brainfreeze than stroke?

otherwise, if you are going for a win based on generating massive mana with cradle/academy have you considered any of the following? : Frantic search, timespiral, candelabra of tawnos?

also, i'd definatley run tinke/jar in this build - at the very least as it gives another way of saccing a clamped creature with a toughness greater then 1, then can speed you into a draw 7 style win.

maybe if the blue count could be upped enough, you could also run FOW, making up for losing the disruption of duress/cabal therapy in the builds running black.

anyway just a couple of ideas - hope they're useful