[discussion] Oath + doomsday == winnar?

[orgcandman]

I've been playing with a combination of oath and doomsday strategies. Both are very similar combo in that once the key component resolves (be it oath or doomsday) your opponent has 1 turn to deal, or die.

What I started realizing is that the two strategies could possibly be combined for a strong union between combo, aggro, and control, making a deck that could go combo, aggro, or "slow-rolling" control* to try and achieve it's victory path.

I'd like to start by showing a sample Doomsday and Oath list. Note that both are Meandeck lists, as I feel those are the lists with the most testing behind them**.

Meandeck Oath
Jacob Orlove, 1st place, SCG: II
4 Oath of Druids
1 Gaea’s Blessing
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Spirit of the Night
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Intuition
2 Misdirection
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Mana Leak
2 Impulse
4 Brainstorm
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Flooded Strand
5 Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Black Lotus
1 Strip Mine
2 Wasteland


Meandeck Doomsday
Stephen Menendian, 3rd Place, SCG:III
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Beacon of Destruction
1 Black Lotus
4 Brainstorm
2 Cabal Ritual
1 Chromatic Sphere
4 Dark Ritual
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Doomsday
4 Duress
2 Flooded Strand
4 Force of Will
1 Gush
1 Hurky's Recall
3 Island
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Necropotence
4 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Time Twister
1 Time Walk
4 Underground Sea
4 Unmask
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will

The key differences between these decks are the combo engines: Oath vs. Doomsday.

Essentially, Oath and Doomsday do almost the exact same thing, especially in conjunction with yawgmoth's will. Oath dumps everything in one area, and with a will, can let you replay your critical spells and then win.
Doomsday, by the same token, will allow you to play your critical spells, and then just win.

Why would I try to get the two decks married? Simple. #1, oath allows us to go aggro, and accomodate a SB that could be either completely transformational into pure oath, completely transformational into pure doomsday, or run more disruption/protection. #2, by running more diverse strategies, we can overcome more hate. If someone has the hand to beat an aggro strategy, we can just combo them out. If they have the hand to beat a combo strategy, we can go aggro. #3, I really just wanted to see if it could be done. I'm going to talk more about how we can reliably cast will, as I feel once we've done that, we should win without a problem.

The first thing to consider is this: Oath is random in what it dumps to the yard. By that I mean, you could be dumping a bunch of useful spells before you get to a creature. You may dump nothing. What we want to do is make sure that we guarantee a good set of spells for our oath. This is why we need to guarantee that we can get yawgwill in hand, every time, on or by turn 2/3. How can we do this? We can use the oath to our advantage. If we run Eternal Witness, we can get a will in hand, without fear of the tutor being countered. We will need to guarantee that our casting of oath cannot be countered, but we should have at least a way of getting the will, without fear of counter. The other advantage to the witness is that we can tutor up any card we wish, in case we have will in hand. We can also run enough tutors that we should be able to get will no matter what. This raises a concern for how we can reliably, without fear of counter, cast will.

Cabal therapy, in my opinion, is what we need to make sure our combo goes off. Using the therapy means that we can not only use it after getting the will in hand, but we can benefit from seeing the "oath mirror" with multiple therapies in the yard. Additionally, it's 1cc allows us to play a more cautious turn 1, so that we can explode on turns 2 and 3.

I set out to refine the Oath combo list as much as possible. My choice for kill was the obvious tendrils kill, as that had the most chance at success. My initial list looked something like:

//Core (combo pieces + aggro win)
4 Oath of Druids
1 Eternal Witness
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath

//The meat
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Krosan Reclamation
1 Mind's Desire
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Brainstorm
4 Mana Leak
4 Duress
4 Cabal Therapy

//Mana Base
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Dark Ritual
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp

This list yeilded some surprising success for a 1st list. In fact, after approx 30 goldfishes, I only came across 6 scenarios where I didn't will the turn I oathed. The first time was when I needed to oath again, as I flipped over a witness as the second card retrieving a cabal therapy. The other times were when I flipped over an akroma instead of a witness and decided to go the "aggro" route (which means I was doing my "thang" for 4 turns). From those goldfishes, I determined a few things:

* Lotus petal is better in this deck than lion's eye diamond.
* Duress wasn't going to be as good as a Force of Will or some other "free" spell might be. The reason is, with forces, our blue spell count is at 17, so we can be assured to get at least 1 force through (beyond that, who needs 'em).

Making those replacements I started testing again. This time, not only goldfishing, but also some brief testing against Toadislaver, Zherbus 4cC, Stax, and the oath mirror.***

Test build
//Core (combo pieces + aggro win)
4 Oath of Druids
1 Eternal Witness
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath

//The meat
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tendrils of Agony
2 Krosan Reclamation
1 Mind's Desire
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Brainstorm
4 Mana Leak
4 Force of Will
4 Cabal Therapy

//Mana Base
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Dark Ritual
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
2 Island
1 Swamp

I found that against slaver, it's really a racing game. Their intuitions are fast enough that they can just randomly out-broken you. However, I feel that this matchup pre-board is about 50/50. Depending on their sideboard, this matchup can get ugly. If they bring in crypts, you're probably not in a good position. They can usually match fow's that you play, but your advantage is with cabal therapy. The fact that you can attempt to hit potential counters, and know when it is safe to go off is gold. I feel that going aggro in this matchup is a good stall tactic before oathing again. It makes hitting the critical tendril's count easier (by 3) and especially if you oath into akroma first can lead to some major surprise factor. The deck has a built in loss condition (Oathing for a 3rd time) so resolved + activated mindslaver == dead.

4cC is favorable pre-board. Their low blue spell count makes comboing out a shade easier. Not only that, but you can choose to go the aggro route safely, as your only threat comes from StP. If you do choose to go the aggro route don't worry about a flipped up angel. Not only would you be able to block and kill it, but you don't have to worry about fire/ice pegging akroma for the critical point to nullify the aggro plan. The big spells you fear from them are mind twist (some people have cut this) and post board REB, and Tormod's Crypt (again...this one hurts). I feel that this matchup is favorable all around.

Stax is a tough matchup. If they resolve trinisphere, you're doomed. If they resolve smokestack early, you're also probably doomed. Even a mediocre stax player should be able to have this matchup in the bag. I would try to avoid playing this deck in a field of stax, because it's just that bad. The problem is resolved trinisphere means that you HAVE to go the aggro route, but a smokestack following means that you CAN'T go the aggro route (you won't get enough turns with damage). When I do get around to developing a sideboard, there will be some slots dedicated strictly to this matchup.

Oath is an easier ride for you. Because of cabal therapy, you're able to oath first, usually, making your combo a shade easier to get off. The fact is you've got enough control elements to not worry about the early game. If this match goes into the "late" game, your angel can buy you time while you attempt to go off. Just remember to keep watch on what color and how much mana they have access to. You can use that to safely assess whether or not you may need to oath into akroma or not.

The times I oathed into akroma were usually good times to go aggro. Oathing into the combo pieces for tendrils kill were usually good to assist akroma in doing her business.

Overall, I can't see why anyone would play this over any other combo other than surprise value (which is probably now ruined). It's not faster than belcher, and it's probably not as consistent as dragon. I do feel, however, that the varying roles the deck can play may warrant the community at large to take a close look, as oath is certainly a VERY powerful tool.

* = the reason I said "slow-rolling" control was that I felt that after an oath, you __COULD__ sit on your haunches trying to guarantee you had the upper hand. Usually that's NOT what you want to do, but in some instances (most likely against a landstill deck although I didn't test that) it may be appropriate.

** = I don't mean to say that other builds are NOT tested, simply that almost everyone runs meandeck oath or meandeck doomsday when running an oath or doomsday build.

*** = My testing is rather limited. This is exactly WHY I put this in newbie section. It makes no sense for me to commit this as a "true and tested" decklist, especially when there are people out there who put most likely more testing into their decks.

[Freelancer]

Why not cut the akroma and go with the single eternal witness so that if you oath you oath a big chunk of your library into your grave (probably with a cabal therapy) than flash back therapy killing the witness and pick on any counters than go off...why would you ever want to go the aggro rout when the combo rout is faster/more resilient?

If I where you I would play with double duress and double cabal therapy this way you are almost ensured to get therapy (if you run single witness plan) into your grave when you oath and duress is when cast first without flashback better than cabal therapy.

I don't know about vault is the extra tutoring power really needed? a extra duress (3 duress, 2 cabal therapy) as added protection is always nice...

The deck looks quite nice actually...good thinking...  (although I don't think you should go the aggro route you can better make it more combo/control)

[Fominian]

The deck looks quite nice actually...good thinking...  (although I don't think you should go the aggro route you can better make it more combo/control)

Agreed, with you dumping the majority of your library with oath, then getting rid of it with 'Day it would make for a much more streamlined deck to run a combo. (If you still want aggro, you can go with a transformational SB).

Combos you could go with are the standard one piloted by MeanDeck, a Tendril variant, or even a Soldevi Digger (stretching but it came to mind) as well as some others not mentioned.

[orgcandman]

Re: Duress

The problem is that the deck is so mana tight that running the duress sometimes ended in me being 1 mana too short to go off. It wasn't by any means a common thing, but the fact that it came up more than 2 times during testing made it apparent that the duress was somewhat risky.

Re: Pure combo

I wanted an easier way of transforming. If I were to make it pure combo, I'd probably just drop the akroma for an additional witness.

Aaron

[exit music]

Re: Duress

The problem is that the deck is so mana tight that running the duress sometimes ended in me being 1 mana too short to go off. It wasn't by any means a common thing, but the fact that it came up more than 2 times during testing made it apparent that the duress was somewhat risky.

Aaron

I have been testing quite a bit with this deck and I found that the addition of Fastbond made going off completely reliable, so duress could be counted on. In fact, I found that I didn't need as many Cabal Therapies (I went down to 2) and I was using 4 Duress and 1 Fastbond.

Dan

[orgcandman]

I don't see how fastbond would fit into the deck, but if you'd be so kind as to post a decklist, and what matchups you've been testing that would be great.

I've been testing and re-testing the stax matchup, and it's starting to get better game 1 (I think that's only because I'm getting better with the deck) while the oath mirror is slowly creeping to 50/50 range instead of 60/40 (which I feel it was). I think I'd attribute this to playtest partners becomming more familiar with how both decks function.

I've been partially experimenting with the pure combo route, and it's been pretty good. Especially with 2 witnesses, I will usually be able to will, and if it gets countered, attempt will again next turn. However, I do still like being able to change gears and go aggro with akroma.

As always, feedback, flames, questions, or other comments (including fellating of my ego ) welcome.

Aaron

[exit music]

Fastbond is helpful when you are going off -- if you ditch it, along with a handful of lands after an Oath, you can play fastbond from the graveyard via Yawgmoth's Will, then play enough of the land in your graveyard so you don't fizzle or run out of mana when you are trying to combo out.

I'll post a decklist in a bit after I am more comfortable with it.

dg

[Methuselahn]

Totally off the cuff here:

Why not just keep Oath.dec very control based as it has been and replace the standard 2 creatures and blessing with 2 Reclamations and a single Tendrils?  Granted, the mirror may be your worst match up, but if you built up enough mana to flash both reclamations vs control and used jank like Bojesui (sp?) Protector of All (you know, that one land) you could push through a counter wall by Reclaiming Yawgmoth's Will and counters.  A single Cunning Wish (post Will) could fetch a Hurkyll's to build up storm if needed.

And I agree, this type of deck requires surpise and a lack of other Oath players in your tournament.

[c hurrle]

I played a version of Doomsday Oath at a small tourney for fun. The problems that I saw were: 1. Lots of STP in my local meta 2. Ancestral Recall 3. Regular Oath was just as good and didn't leave me open to a random Stroke from a Dragon player with a bad hand (i.e. 2 Rituals, Stroke of Genius, 4 lands)

Just my $0.02

[orgcandman]

1. Lots of STP in my local meta

STP doesn't hurt this deck all that much. What do they do? Stop your akroma? oh no! You just oath up witness next turn and win. They STP your witness? So what, with will in hand you win. Or you oath up akroma next turn and go aggro.

2. Ancestral Recall

I fail to see how ancestral is a problem. You run 2 Krosan Reclaimations.

3. Regular Oath was just as good and didn't leave me open to a random Stroke from a Dragon player with a bad hand

I don't see how you can say regular oath is just as good (actually, it's probably better in some areas, and worse in others). This deck can just win. Regular oath requires 3 attack phases. This deck requires none. This deck can combo off without oath. Aggro-oath decks need to drop oath.

This is a storm deck with an alternate win in aggro. I don't think you can look at it as an aggro deck that goes combo.