Also, this is impossible to pull of under Xantid protection, as you will already have used your one attack. [Insert joke about some stupid extra-attack-phase-creature]

/Jan

OK, we can agree that this card is good against Brainstorm and Thirst etc. This is fairly obvious.

Lets discuss, what cards would be good in a deck with Psychic Possession ie., what cards have synergy with it.

On top of my head:

Arcane Denial - Opponent draws up to 2, you draw up to 1+2

Mikokoro, Center of the Sea - Opponents draws 1, you draw 2

These two are rather slow, and would pull the deck to wards monoU style control.

Draw 7s in general and Windfall become rather crazy with ~this~ in storm combo decks. This might result in a deck based around High Tide because of the heavy blue commitment necessary.

The question is, does Psychic Possession contribute enough to these decks to make them Tier 1?
For control type decks, I think the answer is no, because you need to play too many bad cards. (AD & Mikokoro etc.)
For blue storm combo I fear 2UU sorcery speed may be too much for an effect that doesn't draw you a bunch of cards NOW.

Can we find enough synergistic cards to make a deck based around it viable?

/Jan

That should be rather obvious. For example you can go "ping - Brainstorm - Ping" to take out a Meddling Mage.

/Jan

If I understand you correctly, your main concern is targeted removal, (Swords, Lightning Bolt, Bounce) because it both hampers your ability to gain control by removing your draw engine, and your ability to win (aka. not loose aka. Paltz).

Some tech that has been tested in early Welder based decks is Lightning Greaves. In theory it is perfect for this deck, because it can protect both the Confidant and the Angel. It has two huge problems though, and both are related to speed:
1) Equipping is sorcery speed, so your creatures can be taken out by most removal in response.
2) The mana cost. You already have a lot of two-mana cards competing for your resources in the early turns. Confidant itself, Mana Leak, and Mana Drain.

Also, if you succeed in protecting the Confidant with Greaves in the early and mid game, your opponent is likely to have a huge stockpile of removal in hand for the Angel when she enters.


Another option is to board in (or leave in) Duress in these matches. You would be able to snag a removal spell now and then, but it will too often force you to delay the Confidant for a round, or simply "miss" when you see a hand consisting of creatures and lands.


A third option is to add a few more copies of Misdirection. This should work wonders against targeted removal in creature based decks, as they will likely have an "Innocent bystander" on the board to direct the removal at. There are more efficient (in respect to Card Advantage) alternatives to Misdirection, (Divert, Intervene, Meddle etc.) but these are probably too narrow.

All in all, Misdirection seems like the best solution to me.

/Jan

I guess combo is your worst match up? You have almost nothing to board in against combo. The extra Null Rod is the only option I see. Apart from Root Maze, the only anti-combo options in G/W I can think of are:
 - Rule of Law. It may be too slow with a casting cost of 2W
 - Orim's Chant. Casting Orim's Chant in response to Duress is fairly solid vs. Storm Combo, and will often buy you a round at least.
 - True Believer. It's a beater and a hoser in one. Protects vs. Gifts, Duress, Tendrills etc. Actually I think you should run this maindeck. More on this below.

Karakas is a poor option vs. Oath, as they can just waste it. You would need Sacred Ground to solve this problem, and it is huge against Stax too. Still, I think I would prefer 2 extra Ray of Revalation as Karakas and Sacred Ground just seems a bit too cute.


Generally for aggro creatures in Vintage, a good body for the mana cost is less important than a good hosing ability.

Therefore I don't think creatures like Watch Wolf, Isamaru, and Skyshroud Elite are viable without a blue counter base to disrupt your opponent while they do the beating. I think you need to look for more creatures that can also help slowing or stopping you opponents game plan.

 - True Believer as mentioned above.

 - Weathered Wayfarer can help you run a chain of Strip-effects. It does have some anti-synergy with Root Maze and Suppression Field though.

I can't think of any other good creatures right now, but I'm sure there must be some.

Other cards to consider are:
 - Aura Shards. Maybe it's too slow, but if it resolves (and you live to your next turn), it should be a house against Workshop decks and Control Slaver.

 - Life from the Loam. Allows you to recur Wastelands and Fetchlands. Again it may be too slow.

Yes, definitely. Again disruption is key for aggro.

Most of my suggestions are based on the principle of maximizing disruptive impact of your threats. I may have underestimated the disruptive power of your combination of Rooz Maze, Suppression Field and Null Rod. Do you generally find that it is enough, or are you often raced by Tinker+Colossus or some other combo? (As I suspect)

/Jan

I think maindeck Crucible is a better answer to land destruction than adding a basic swamp.

Resolving Crucible early against LD.dec is obv. powerful in itself, but in general knowing that you have Crucible in the deck, allows you to be less careful about fetching your 2 Seas in the early and mid game for Duress, Darkblast and Tutors.

Only recently have i started playing MD Crucible in CS, and I have been very pleased with it. Also it is a lot easier to set up a Slaver hard lock with Crucible+Citadel+Welder than with Pentavus+Welder+Welder.

I know that the intention with this thread wasn't to discuss "Crucible or not in CS", but you can't really answer the basic Swamp question without considering if you should play Crucible.

/Jan

How do you hope to accomplish this without a solid draw engine? (Like Phid in MonoU or Curiosity / Ninja in fish.) I imagine you would often run out of cards, especially with the high number of pitch counters (4 FoW + 2-3 Misd). A random Fact or Fiction and a Deep Anal or two doesn't make up a solid draw engine IMO.

The advantage of Oath as a win condition is its cheap casting cost which results in SPEED. As I see it, you have constructed a deck, that actively tries to make this advantage insignificant by dragging out the game in a war of attrition on counter spells. As I already said, I wouldn't wager on you to win this war against the control decks to beat. On top of the lacking draw engine, you are running a lot of cards, that won't help you stay on top of the control battle. (Angels, Blessing, Oath etc.)  You would be better off playing a win condition that makes sense when you are trying to make it for the late game. Gifts for instance.

Tutoring up Oath with one of your conditional counter spells is cute, and if you insist on going down this route, cutting down the number of Oaths makes sense. However I believe that the basic concept of using Oath in a pure control deck is just flawed for the stated reasons.

@ Latnam's legacy:
Nice way to get rid of Angels and other dead cards in your hand, but in the early and mid-game it will cost you tempo and possibly force you to lower your counter-parades. In a more aggressive oath build with full moxen and Chalice, Thirst for Knowledge fills this role very nicely and often gives card advantage, but that has already been discussed in the GWS Oath thread.

The way you described how you play the deck sounds a lot like how I believe Gifts should be played, so could you please try to explain how your deck is better at this than Gifts.dec?

/Jan

Actually I do have a few comments.

First let me say that the build Wikoogle suggested is sorta off topic in this thread, as the builds we are discussing are basically just variants of Fish with a faster clock and an answer to Juggs/Werebears/Factories and such. Having no mana denial component and more counters, it is a deck that plays VERY differently from GWS / 9000 Oath. I would call it outdated.


On the Thirst vs Impulse discussion:
Impulse does dig one card deeper, but that is just about the only advantage over Thirst.

Costing 3 mana instead of 2 is not always a drawback in a deck that already has huge problems with Chalice@2. I don't see how going from 2 to 3 mana makes it a HUGE drain target. Often you will have either Duressed you opponent before casting Thirst or denied him of UU. Especially in the early game.

Looking at more cards is not all that matters. Being able to replace cards that are dead due to Chalice is very important.

Discarding drawn creatures is nice, when Chalice@1 has shut down Brainstorm. I realize that you won't draw them in the first place with Impulse, but sometimes they just end up in your hand anyway. Allowing the deck to play Chalice@1 and not screw itself too badly is useful in many matchups.

I can see that digging deeper for turn 1 Chalice is nice, but I don't think it outweighs the versatility of Thirst. If your opening hand is dependent on finding a Chalice with Impulse, it probably should have been a Mulligan anyway.


On Trike vs. Spawning Pit:
As Nataz pointed out, Trike seems like a win-more option. If you managed to active Oath, it seems like you have already won the Orchard war. Your gameplan in the mirror seems like a coin flip to me. Keeping in all 4 Oaths is just begging for dead cards - which is even worse when you can't replace them with Thirst.  

The Pit is truly dead in all other matchups, but it ENSURES that you win the Spirit token race. Furthermore if you happen to face a build with bounce or Swords, you can also sac Akroma to send her to the graveyard instead of to the hand.

The sideboard doesn't seem too hard pressed yet to include a card that is useful in only one mmatch up when it virtually ensures victory in that mmatch up Especially when that mmatch upis very likely to come up in every tournament.

Oh, and the Library:  
Please stop suggesting Library in this deck. That is just absurd. The manabase is horrible. You will be playing as many spells as possible in the first few turns. There are too few lands to fetch already.  You hardly have any draw spells to replenish your hand. The list of reasons not to play Library is long.


Well that was my opinion on some of the card choices that seem to be disputed the most. Since And11 introduced the decklist he posted in this thread to our team, I have been doing a LOT of thinking to try to improve it, but I would say that the maindeck is pretty much perfect for the current metagame, and I can't find a single slot to chance. The sideboard is a lot more tweakable.

/Jan

Maybe in some High Tide-Reset-combo? You don't need that many Islands and/or High Tides for Reset to go infinite.

(Not saying that its a good deck in the first place)

/Jan