Creatures:

4 welder, 2 shaman, 1 trike, 1 karn, 1 razmormane

Locks:

3 COW, 4 chalice, 4 smokey, 4 sphere of resistance, 1 3sphere

Tutors and bombs:

yawg will, demonic, vampiric, balance, swords to plowshares, ancestral, NO TIME WALK, crop rotation (this is why there is no need for imperial seal)

Mana:

lotus, 5 mox, 1 crypt, 1 sol, 1 mana vault, 3 waste (should I have 4th waste?), 1 strip, 1 b ring (questionable), 4 gemstone, 4 city, 4 workshop

Other than meditate and thirst, what other draw engines are there? So basically you are forced into running an inferior vamp.

And bring? I've cut this card long ago in favor of the 4th gemstone mine.

Why are three tutors necessary?

I thought you said you ran imperial seal as well.

I will never run less than 4x chalice of the void and 3x crucible. I am taking into heavy consideration yawg will. Right now, my colored bombs are:

1 Balance
1 Tinker
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Yawgmoth's will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic
1 Vampiric
1 Crop Rotation

Basically, the most broken stuff of every color. I have found no need for imperial seal.

What is everyone's opinion of the following cards in 5cc stax? These cards may or may not be deserving MD slots in the deck, but are controversial in whether they contribute to stax's goals  or distract from them. Here are my opinions:

Imperial Seal: Strange card. It's an inferior demonic, enlightened, and vamp. Is it worth having this over enlightened? Card disadvantage at sorcery speed sounds very sketchy despite Menendian's and other posters' support of this card in stax.

Library of Alexandria: This card sucks in 5cc stax. Stax often throws down its hand in most of its games, and it cannot afford to hold cards back. Slowest draw engine ever.

Null Rod: Sucks. Shuts off your mana. Good in uba stax, but sucks in 5cc.

Tangle Wire: Weakest lock, but shuts off mana drain. I'm unsure of whether or not this deserves a MD slot.

Engineered Explosives: Strong card, not sure if it deserves MD slot.

Swords to Plowshares: Seems necessary to stop decks like Oath and annoying aggro.

Gorilla Shaman: Is 2x or 1x good in this stax build? I like 2, but I'm not sure if I'd want to trade one of the slots for a lock component.

Sundering Titan: This card sucks without thirst.

Thirst for Knowledge: This card sucks in stax.

Razormane Masticore: Without an active welder, this card sucks.

Seal of Cleansing: Strong card; with Oath being active again in the metagame, this seems like a solid choice for MD.

Defense Grid: Stops counter threats, but is not really a lock, and doesn't do anything in the mirror. Not sure about this one.

Rack and Ruin: Very strong against the stax mirror. I have 2 of these in my SB already. Might be worth considering running MD depending on the metagame. Not sure if I want to run it MD though in place of a lock piece.

Karn: This card has always been strong in 5cc. I always auto-include him.

If anyone has any experience with the following cards, please share. My goal is to figure out which cards are deserving of solid MD slots, and which are inferior or SB material only. It seems like with the vast number of card choices available for stax, there are some difficult decisions to make. If anyone has different cards to add to this list, please do so as well.

What about Yawg Will there have been many arguments supporting and demoting this card. What is its role in stax? Yes, it supports an active smokestack greatly, but many say that it requires way too much non-artifact mana for it to function properly in stax. What does everyone think?

What do you guys think of the following choices:

Nether Void- only drawback is its high mana cost and non-artifact nature.

Mox Diamond- card disadvantage without COW

Chrome Mox- shit

4th Crucible- debatable, but I think this is more necessary in uba stax. In 5cc stax, I think we should replace this with another bomb.

What's better? Seal of cleansing or null rod for the last 2 slots?

What do you guys think of this new list?


      // Lands            
1   OD   Barbarian Ring   
4   AN   City of Brass      
3   WL   Gemstone Mine      
4   AQ   Mishra's Workshop      
1   AQ   Strip Mine      
1   US   Tolarian Academy      
4   TE   Wasteland      
      
      // Creatures            
1   AL   Gorilla Shaman   
4   UL   Goblin Welder   
1   MR   Triskelion   
1   FD   Razormane Masticore   
      
      // Spells            
1   B   Ancestral Recall
1   B   Balance   
1   B   Black Lotus   
1   UL   Crop Rotation
3   FD   Crucible of Worlds
1   B   Demonic Tutor
1   PR   Mana Crypt   
1   B   Mana Vault   
1   B   Mox Emerald   
1   B   Mox Jet   0   
1   B   Mox Pearl   
1   B   Mox Ruby   
1   B   Mox Sapphire   
4   US   Smokestack   
1   A   Sol Ring   
1   UL   Tinker   
1   DS   Trinisphere   
1   VI   Vampiric Tutor   
4   MR   Chalice of the Void   
4   EX   Sphere of Resistance   
1   OV   Swords to Plowshares   
3   NE   Tangle Wire   
      
      // Sideboard            
1 Karn, Silver Golem   
2 Swords to Plowshares   
1 Fastbond   
2 Seal of Cleansing   
2 Viashino Heretic   
3 Red Elemental Blast   
3 Blue Elemental Blast   
1 Sundering Titan

This deck is the result of much testing. Please tell me what you think. Razormane is AWESOME with welder. It also kills opposing welders. Fastbond is only good in the mirror. 3 crucibles are better than 4. Tangle wire is very good with chalice+spheres.

Why should more crucibles be added? I do not understand. Why the sudden inclusion of null rods in almost every build? I have found this to be quite disruptive to my own plan. Why no karn? Why only 3 wastelands?

These pieces of advice all go against conventional wisdom. Someone please explain.

With the recent successes of stax, it may be important for the vintage community at large to admit its power of what was once thought to be weak. Ubastax is no exception. However, I believe that the best stax build is still going to be of the 5cc variation due to its large base of broken sorceries at its disposal. I have been tinkering around with a variation of existing stax lists and have made the following changes to Roland's deck, which I believe to be the best as of yet.

Chalice MD: This card is too much of a powerhouse even if the stax player is not on the draw. The mana curves of most decks seem to be at around 1-2, so if it cannot stop moxes on the play, there are plenty more threats it can hold on its own.

Fastbond: Sick on its own, crazy with crucible.

4th TFK: TFK makes goblin welder playable, and not vice versa. Simply, the draw power of 3 TFK's is not enough.

Loss of tangle wire: This card is trash against most competitive decks. Does not do anything against CS, nor gifts.

Currently, I am trying to fit in a 2nd Swords to Plowshares, but I do not have enough deckspace for it. The deck's main weakness is oath 1st game.

Loss of a crucible: 3 crucibles is excessive. I got tired of drawing a dead one after I had 1 or two already in play. 2 seems to be the more optimum number than 3, or even 4 as I have seen in some builds.


1   Barbarian Ring
4   City of Brass
3   Gemstone Mine
4   Mishra's Workshop
1   Strip Mine
1   Tolarian Academy
4   Wasteland
   
3   Goblin Welder
1   Gorilla Shaman
1   Karn, Silver Golem
1   Triskelion
1   Sundering Titan
   
1   Ancestral Recall
1   Balance
1   Black Lotus
1   Crop Rotation
2   Crucible of Worlds
1   Demonic Tutor
1   Mana Crypt
1   Mana Vault
1   Mox Emerald
1   Mox Jet
1   Mox Pearl
1   Mox Ruby
1   Mox Sapphire
4   Smokestack
1   Sol Ring
1   Swords to Plowshares
1   Tinker
1   Trinisphere
1   Vampiric Tutor
4   Chalice of the Void
4   Thirst for Knowledge
3   Sphere of Resistance
1   Fastbond
   
   Sideboard:
   Swords to Plowshares
   Choke
   Jester's Cap
   Red Elemental Blast
   Seal of Cleansing
   Tormod's Crypt
   Viashino Heretic

Decklist made legible. Next time, please don't post these weird comma separated values or excel columns or whatever the hell it was you did. The formatting was awful, and contained heaps of info noone needs (like 'card type', 'color' and 'mana cost'). This is Vintage Open, not an mtg tutorial....   - Bram

Also, my PM told you to clean it up yourself or you'd get a warning, so you get a warning.
-Jacob


I have also been thinking about adding in RNR MD or maybe an e-truth or tormod's. Please discuss what you think in addition to the strengths and weaknesses of the deck as of yet.

I almost thought the OP was directly referring to Menendian with his last paragraph, which gave me a good laugh. Great article. I loved the part about gaining small advantages, as most vintage players often overlook that. Keep up the good work!

2 FBB Tundra
2 UL Tundra
15 R Tundra
7 R Underground Sea
10 R Volcanic
1 UL Bayou
6 R Bayou
1 UL Tropical Island
7 R Tropical Island
8 R Taiga
4 R Scrubland
3 R Savannah
1 R Plateau
3 R Badlands

B/R list will kill grimlong.

Moderators will kill worthless one-liners. Verbal warning for spam, and please read the rules.

-Jacob

You fail to mention that meandeath does  NOT consistently win turn 2. Most often, it wins turn 3 or turn 4. It is more vulnerable to force of will. TPS not only overcomes these problems, but it wins consistently at roughly the same time as meandeath, give or take half a turn.

In my testing of control slaver nowadays, Yawg Will seems to be a dead card in the opening hand. I've never really liked the three-color builds very much, and the lone underground sea to support the will is an extra card and an extra color in what I believe to be the optimal CS deck.

Unless you are playing Shay Slaver, I do not believe that the inclusion of Yawg Will is necessary for the above reason. Intuition is much faster, can be used as Force of Will food, and can be played very early in the game, as opposed to YG.

In fact, in my testing, I found Intuition to be so useful in the Intuition/AK version of the deck, that the inclusion of 4x intuition makes the deck that much faster.

Decklist:

4 Goblin Welder
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Intuition
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel
1 Mindslaver
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Tinker
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Lotus Petal
4 Flooded Strand
4 Island
1 Underground Sea
4 Volcanic Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Stripmine

Intuition is useful for not only searching for AK's. Even without welder, one can intuition for COW/Strip/Black Lotus to provide an insane early game advantage. Again, without welder, Intuition can also be used to search for the remaining 3 AK's in your deck, when you are holding the fourth.

Comments for this build are welcome. I am not yet done testing this slaver build as well as several other versions of shay slaver.

Today I played against this deck, and I was utterly amazed. It eliminates threats with a turn 1 duress, then proceeds to build up a storm count. Does anyone have an exact decklist of this deck or know where I could get one?

What do people think about playing mana crypt or sol ring in UG oath for faster intuitions? Is this a viable solution for speed?

If anything is certain, it's the acknowledgement that AK/I in ANY oath build, let alone control slaver sucks the big wang. I like the skeletal scrying draw engine. However, the only problem is its dead weight sitting in the opening hand along with GB, Akroma, and SoTN. Besides, Scrying is only good after you trigger oath anyways. Oftentimes, I found my LOA useless because it only allows me to draw once I've reached my threshold of 7 cards via scrying. My aforementioned point is that scrying is utterly useless without triggering oath in the first place: a problem that bites back on its own tail.

When I playtested JACO's build, I noticed that it was really hard pitch-casting Force of Wills and Mis-D's. Most of the time, due to the lack of other blue cards, I was pitch-casting them to each other, which defeats the purpose of the inclusion of BOTH cards, with multiple counts of each card. Impulse and Mana leak have nice synergy: if there is nothing worthwhile to counter, turn your stall into a combo-fetch. With my build, the plan is basically to stall long enough you see a window for a crucial impulse which will fetch the combo and win you the game. With the impulses and leaks, there are more blue cards which can be pitched to the forces and D's in the event you need to protect your combo when you are tapped out (this happens many many times in JACO's build, and I was unable to protect the combo during playtesting due to non-blue cards in my hand).

I have on the sideboard the inclusion of 3 naturalize to deal with platz/dup in the event that the mirror match is control slaver.  Hopefully the naturalizes will be able to eliminate these threats before they really start to kick in. Besides, C Slaver depends on the power of TFK to fuel its draw engine, which duresses are great at taking care of. In the design of my deck, if you stall properly with the assload of maindeck counters, they will never be able to dump their artifacts into their graveyard unless through discard, which by then you will hopefully be winning.

I am a firm believer that although OATH has not put up any impressive recent results, it is surely NOT dead, and will thrive once someone discovers the proper build. Does anyone (JACO?) have any advice on sideboarding DOA? I hate how deckspace is so limited.

You have not addressed the issue of dead cards. You have MANY dead cards that would be useless sitting in a hand. Slowing down tempo? Does Cunning Wish NOT slow down tempo?

Also, when do you suggest playing duress? The turn that you decide to play oath, or ASAP?

Main Deck: (61 cards)

Engine
4 Oath of Druids
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Spirit of the Night

Counters & Disruption
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection
3 Mana Leak
4 Duress
4 Mana Drain

Other Business
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
2 Skeletal Scrying
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Impulse

Mana Sources
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
4 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria

Sideboard: (15 cards)
3 Ground Seal
1 Back to Basics
3 Naturalize
2 Arcane Laboratory
1 Platinum Angel
1 Pristine Angel
1 Iridescent Angel
1 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Energy Flux

After testing the current DOA, I decided that the build offered by JACO is a bit outdated. When I playtested the deck, I had a lot of problems trying to find the pieces of the combo, thus the inclusion of 4 impulse.

In addition, I have removed the second blessing from the engine for the following reason. Oath tends to have a lot of excessive cards that are absolutely useless when drawn at the wrong time: Skeletal scrying in opening hand (thus the cutting down to 2 counts), Akroma, Spirit, and Blessing. With all these dead cards, it is important to alleviate the count as much as possible. Getting a guaranteed shuffle is not as important as getting a card that you need.

Impulse works great with brainstorm, often putting your chaff all the way on the bottom of your deck so that you don't draw it again. If you have not drawn your blessing, and using impulse you uncover a creature, put the creature on the bottom of the deck to ensure that blessing will trigger within the next 1-2 oaths.

Another major change is the removal of all land hate. It is much more important to get the combo out rather than destroying non-basics and the like. Blue mana sources are important, thus the inclusion of 2 extra underground sea and 1 island. If anyone discovers something interesting after playtesting my new build, please share your thoughts. Despite the current slaver-heavy metagame, I am a firm believer that Oath is a solid deck, and can beat slaver when properly designed. Please help me on my quest to develop the perfect Oath.

mmmm..... no, that's a terrible win condition.
mmmm..... no, that's a terrible post. Warning for spam (again!)

Why is oath not in T8's anymore then?
This post is just unacceptable. Warning for spam.

Hello, my name is Ici. I'm friends with Sonata of the Cathedral (Elias), as well as some other players here. I am a regular at Neutral Ground in NYC. I've been lurking for awhile, and this is my first post.

I am an oath player by MTG profession, and several reasons have prevented me from switching over to the current disputably most powerful deck: control slaver. At heart, I believe that Oath is far superior for reasons I will now address, and these reasons have kept me firmly-rooted in the oath tradition. In my opinion, Oath is the best deck, and will be for quite some time. At Neutral Ground, I regularly beat all the players except for Elias on Friday tourneys. I have faced control slaver decks many times, and I believe that oath is far superior.

Ever since Jacob Orlove won the SCG tourney with Oath, I have been fascinated by the deck. I run a variant of his deck that consistently beats slaver and most of the other top decks: TPS, etc. This is my decklist:

Current Deck- Oath Control

Main Deck: (60 cards)

Combo
4 Oath of Druids
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Spirit of the Night
 
Counter Magic
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak
2 Misdirection
2 Echoing Truth

Draw/Search Engine
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
2 Intuition
2 Impulse
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Library of Alexandria

Mana Sources
4 Polluted Delta
5 Island
2 Tropical Island
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring

Sideboard: (15 cards)
3 Ground Seal
1 Back to Basics
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Arcane Laboratory
1 Platinum Angel
1 Pristine Angel
1 Iridescent Angel
1 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Energy Flux
2 Control Magic

Oath is superior to Slaver because: it has a cheaper win condition, half of which cannot be countered. The draw engines are similar, with Slaver engine slightly better, depending on build. Oath also has more counters than slaver. Mana leaks are amazing, one of the best counters in the game. The inclusion of mis-d's also give strength to the deck. Once oath is up and running with 1-2 counters as backup, the game is usually over.

Anyway, please feel free to discuss any interesting points. If Oath is truly better than slaver, why hasn't it won any major tourneys recently? Why is oath dying?

This is your first offense, so this is just a verbal warning. You violated the following rules:

1. Lack of Content
3. Unjustified Thread Redundancy

Please read the rules of TMD over here before making your next post.