Yesterday, I went to my first tournament since the latest BoM in May, 2010 (yeah, I've been pretty busy), and I didn't feel like playing either of the new meta's contenders (aka 'Shop and Jace-vault).

I rather decided to go and try something new, a rogue deck which should take advantage of the somewhat bland new meta, based mainly on artifacts and heavy-cost spells. Plus, I somehow felt aggro should make it.

Thus, I tinkered with a few lists, mainly Zoo, R/G beats, U/R fish and Noble Fish. The Zoo lists I found were too focused on the aggression, and the mana base was weak at best. Fishes were too slow, keen on slowing down the opponent, but with no real threat beyond the first 3 turns. I finally came to this list (see below), around 1 AM, a few hours before the tournament.

The results were so-so, as I ended with 2 wins and 3 losses by the end of the day, but with the feeling that the matches were pretty close, and that none was 'unwinable'. Had I had more time to train with the deck, I could have finished with a far better score. As I often say, "blame the driver, not the car".

Now, the list :

Zooligan 1.0

CRITTERS (27)
3 Mogg Fanatic
3 Tin Street Hooligan
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Gaddock Teeg
3 Magus of the Moon
3 Gorilla Shaman
4 Noble Hierarch

SPELLS (11)
2 Artifact Mutation
2 Path to Exile
3 Null Rod
4 Lightning Bolt

MANA (22)
2 Savannah
2 Plateau
2 Taiga
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Arid Mesa
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl

SB: 3 Kataki, War's Wage
SB: 2 Mindbreak Trap
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 3 Ravenous Trap
SB: 2 Relic of Progenitus
SB: 3 Nature's Claim

First match was vs a u/b/r Shop list. I won the first round although it seemed pretty impossible to win: he cast a turn 1 Trinisphere, turn 2 Golem, turn 3 Tanglewire. As I had started and was able to drop a land each turn, I played an Artifact Mutation at the end of his third turn, targetting Golem. I tapped the 4 tokens to the wire, and popped 3 Tarmo' and a Magus which ended the game promptly.

Second round I sided out 3 Gaddock and 3 Mogg for 3 Kataki and 3 Nature's Claim. I started by razing his board (bolt on his welder, wasteland, etc.), and committed the mistake which cost me the round by wasting his 'Shop instead of his Bazaar. He was able to come back to the game while I couldn't find my answers.

Third round was quite the same.

Second match, I played vs Aggro Shop, with Hellkites and Wurmcoil Engines. My opponents cast a turn 2 Hellkite, which met my Tin Street Hooligan. Turn 3, he played another Hellkite (!!!), but I cast a Null Rod. The next few turns, we traded damages, he found a blocker, but I topdecked an Artifact Mutation which ended the game.

Second round, he sides-out his Spheres in order to side in all the robots he can. He will win thanks to a Wurmcoil Engine, although he drew 4 Ancient Tombs as his only mana.

Third round he wins to a Wurmcoil Engine as well.

Third and fourth match (vs Jace-vault and Gush-TPS) I win mainly thanks to mana denial, Gaddock Teeg and Magus of the Moon. I sided in both REBs and Mindbreak Traps which were a huge help. The trap really are a good threat, as most players won't expect them in a R/G/W deck.

Fifth match, I lose vs Noble Fish (although the matchup is supposed to be in my favor) by drawing no mana sources and mulliganing to death.

So, what went wrong during this tournament ? Well, to put it plainly, this is a deck where each card can have a huge impact on the game. Thus, you have to play each card exactly at the correct time. Each game I lost, I thought to myself "had I played this card before/after this moment, things would have been very different".

Secondly, the list has a *lot* of space for improvement. For instance, room should be made for Ancient Grudges, as they create a nice card advantage. (I was also advised to play Sylvan Libraries maindeck, but I'm not sure I will). Mogg Fanatics are good vs Dark Confidants and Welders, but I saw very few of them, and the Moggs were a liability vs the rest of the field. I was quite disappointed with Gorilla Shamans and Kataki, as their impact on the game was not so impressive on the long run - but this could be due to the way the rounds went rather than a general statement.

Voila. Were I to run another average-sized tournament these days, I would still play this deck, as it was really fun and allowed me to have a lot of interactions with my opponents. Have fun!

Spell Pierce is what made the Oath deck viable again.

Atm, I'm playing 11 counters: 4 FoW, 4 Pierce, 3 Drain. I will test 2 Pierce / 2 Snare for the sake of it, not sure though.

// Lands
    4  Forbidden Orchard
    4  Misty Rainforest
    3  Tropical Island
    2  Underground Sea
    2  Island
    1  Forest
    1  Tolarian Academy

// Creatures
    1  Terastodon
    1 [ARB] Sphinx of the Steel Wind
    1  Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

// Spells
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    4  Force of Will
    4  Spell Pierce
    3  Mana Drain
    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Black Lotus
    1  Tezzeret the Seeker
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Jace, the Mind Sculptor
    1  Time Vault
    1  Voltaic Key
    1  Sensei's Divining Top
    4  Oath of Druids
    1  Regrowth
    1  Mystical Tutor
    1  Thirst for Knowledge
    1  Merchant Scroll
    1  Gifts Ungiven
    1  Time Walk
    1  Brainstorm
    1  Tinker

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Bribery
SB: 4  Ravenous Trap
SB: 1  Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2  Pyroclasm
SB: 2  Nature's Claim
SB: 1  Show and Tell
SB: 2  Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2  Duress

The list was first inspired by Ben Carp's. I believe most people mistake it for a "simple" Oath list, while it should be played as a control deck with a twist. Most games I won thanks to the Vault/Key combo, an EOT Gifts or a deadly Will after a counters war.

I tested a slightly different list on Friday's side event (50+ players), with Terastodon, Iona and DS Colossus, and LOA instead of the 3rd Tropical Island.
Terastodon proved to be particularly efficient, and I won each time it landed (I even cast it once). Colossus I didn't want to play, as trampling over one's own tokens seems bad. As for Iona, I decided to fire her, expecting to find many Shop and Dredge decks on the battle field.
Lastly, I'm not a fan of the LOA, as it can have you mistake a bad opening hand for a good one.

On Sunday, I played with the list above, and regreted none of the choices I made.
To sum it up:

- Terastodon is a blast, as it will remove opposite threats from the board upon arrival. Generally, you will destroy one of your opponent's land, your Oath and a mox/land you don't need. I used it once to destroy an opposing Smokestack while my opponent had board advantage, and once skipped my turn to Time Vault in order to Oath Terastodon and swing for 18 on my additional turn.

- Emrakul was an auto-win each time it hit the board, but I believe it's mainly due to the fact that people are still unprepared against its threat. It won me the game where Terastodon couldn't, as removing your opponent's whole board is more efficient than destroying 3 non-creatures permanents.

- Sphinx helped me race a Leviathan in a mirror match, will block a Golem, but can be killed quite easily.

All in all, I think the creatures you play depend on your metagame. I was content with what I chose.
Jace and Tezz are good too, and will win some games for you.
The side deck proved efficient vs Dredge and Stack, but not so much against over control decks.

Well, thanks for the "bad players", you're such a charm

I performed honorably with an Oath/Tezz list, ranking 8th (1st French player) on the 8th round, before being kicked out of top 8 by Michael Lelouche's Madness deck.
Still, playing the Vault/Key combo, and Terastodon / Sphinx / Emrakul was the good choice, imho. I won against 3 shop decks, 2 dredge, and lost only to TPS and Madness, and these matches were really close!

Not sure Oath was the worst (nor best) choice possible, but the latest builds do rely on the pilot, and I could have made better choices.
After second thoughts, I would have played the same deck, and tinkered with the side a bit more.

Atm, I'm testing 4 Fow, 3 Spellpierce, 2 Mana Drain in my The Deck list - and it's doing good so far.

Spellpierce is a must have during the early game, but later, when your opponent has the possibility to expand its manabase, you do need a hard counter - which can also turn into a potential Dark Ritual.

Wow! Can't believe I missed this thread!

For starters, let me say we had the exact same conversation over French forums a couple of months ago... but the opposite way! People were asking wether the "no proxies" rule over here was not killing the format.

This said, I'm starting to think that the problem is global, and could well be concerning MtG itself. I play only Vintage & Pre-releases now (after a long time playing T2 tourneys), and the attendance seems to wane (50% loss on Shards in Paris, but that's another problem). Thus, we definitely need more *new* players, and although there are a few things to be done, there's no obvious way. For the sake of this post, I'll try to point a few of the "good" things that have been done in my country, and hope it will help.

1/ Promotion, promotion, promotion. I have the luck of working for a successful MtG magazine in France, and we had a series of articles made to promote tournaments and decklists alike. I took some time to make the difference between powered, unpowered and even "Budget" decks (decks without expensive card, no BoB, LoA, 'shop etc.). My specific aim was trying to help newcomers see the format was still open to improvement, had a healthy metagame, and was not entirely made of "oops-drop-my-hand-on-the-table-I-win" games, which seem to be a common misconception about the format.

2/ Sanctionned tournaments offer prices for unpowered decks (most of times FBB duals, sometimes T1 staples like Mana Drain, or even a P9 Mox), and sometimes for budget decks even. Another good thing is that powered/unpowered prices overlap: if you Top 8 while playing an unpowered deck (which happens sometimes, as a matter of fact), you'll get the Top 8 prize + the unpowered price. A good incentive to playing on a budget, that keeps players in the community.

3/ A national Vintage Championship (at least it was true a while ago). Sanctionned tournaments offer some ranking points for a special, invitations only tournament, first of which took place during our National Championship (in Disneyland Paris, yay!). You get points for doing well in tournaments (which must have a minimal attendance), and your score will be set to 0 after each Nat'. I think it does well to show that the format is healthy, and keeps new players coming.

My 2 eurocents.