[Discussion] Inspiration from Europe on fusing Oath + TPS

[jshields]

About the time that Eternal Witness came out, I was just starting back in Vintage magic after a long period of work.  I knew that Oath was a good deck, already having its components sans power and always wanted to try a TPS variant deck, finding that it would be hard for me to build after having stopped magic for around 7 months in time to go the local type 1 tournament.  Initially, I played the standard u/g oath deck, but at the time and due to being rather rusty, I realized that it died horribly when a Platinum Angel, Maze of Ith, or Goblin Welder would resolve.  

Although the standard u/g Oath deck alone has plenty of control elements and enough land removal, I realized that it lacked removal for permanents.  Sure, it is indeed good to get Akroma on your second turn, but if the opponent can find a way to stop her or Spirit of the Night with their permanents, the deck seems to be a fish out of water.

What I liked about the TPS variant decks including the standard TPS, Death Long, and others was the ability to have a readily available toolbox through wishes and multiple back-up resources for emergency situations like the one mentioned above.  I played this deck and found that it, like oath was rather consistent, but being the worry wart that I am, I saw that games 2 and 3 would be against a commonly sided in Arcane Laboratory.

Now, I have nothing against either of these decks, but wanted to see what options were available and remembered seeing some deck back in November that used a combination of Oath of Druids and Eternal Witnesses to fill the graveyard and fetch a win.  This was particularly appealing to me as I owned the cards for this deck sans power plus I realized that due to a likely high amount of hate for combo, the typical oath engine would be somewhat of a surprise in my local metagame.  Although the deck listed below does not have as many reactive counterspells, with proactive sources such as Duress, Cabal Therapy, and Cunning Wish, the deck has proven its worth to me repeatedly and recently won first place at a local tournament.  Since I realize that most people around here are likely to look past this blah blah blah and look for the decklist, I will post reasons for my choices after the decklist.




NAME: Euroath (Ok ok so I am from the United States, but I did live in Germany for 3 years)
        3 Tropical Island
        3 Underground Sea
        1 Tolarian Academy
        4 Polluted Delta
        4 Forbidden Orchard
        2 Gemstone Mine
        1 Lotus Petal
        1 Demonic Tutor
        2 Cabal Therapy
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Sol Ring
        1 Timetwister
        1 Tendrils of Agony
        3 Duress
        4 Brainstorm
        2 Cunning Wish
        4 Force of Will
        2 Intuition
        1 Rebuild
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Merchant Scroll
        1 Yawgmoth's Will
        1 Mana Crypt
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Time Walk
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Emerald
        3 Eternal Witness
        4 Oath of Druids

SB:  1 Spirit of the Night
SB:  1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
SB:  1 Ascendant Evincar
SB:  1 Swords to Plowshares
SB:  1 Stifle
SB:  1 Rack and Ruin
SB:  1 Oxidize
SB:  1 Naturalize
SB:  1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB:  1 Gaea's Blessing
SB:  1 Fact or Fiction
SB:  1 Enlightened Tutor
SB:  1 Damping Matrix
SB:  1 Coffin Purge
SB:  1 Brain Freeze


Particular Tool Box Choices:

1. Oath Switch Sideboard: if I am playing a blue opponent, they would likely side in Arcane Laboratory and other means of combo hate.  This will get around their defense and has been a rather useful surprise tactic in the games I have played.

2. Ascendant Evincar: this 25 cent rare has been one of the biggest brainstorms I have had with this deck.  My metagame has a very strong influence with Fish, Goblin Welder decks, potential Oath Mirror and weenies, leaving this card as a rather interesting hoser versus weenies.

3. Damping Matrix: this gets the same explanation as Ascendant Evincar

4. Enlightened Tutor: Sometimes your initial tutors may be stopped, leaving this card as a backup choice for fetching Oath of Druids or an occasional Black Lotus.

5. Duress and Cabal Therapy: I love my playset of Mana Drains, but at times I have found that having a proactive removal source such as these will allow me to know what my opponent has in hand and to prepare plays based on what I have seen.

6. Merchant Scroll: There is already a heavy amount of blue instants in this deck, making this a useful option in fetching needed instants such as Ancestral Recall, Force of Will, and Cunning Wish.

7. Lack of Basic Lands: I really do not worry that much about a crucible lock since this is usually a rare situation at our local area and when it does occur, usually I am the person that has established such a lock when I play control slaver.


Props: www.morphling.de for having good quality decklists and listing them in English.

[rvs]

You might as well give credit where credit is due, namely to my teammate Marco Kiewit (BigMac on TMD). --> http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=238 . This is actually a working version of the principle.

The problem with Oathing up Eternal witness and then counting on it to come as late as possible (so that you have the best chance of just picking will, casting it and winning with a graveyard full of stuff) is a flawed concept at best. It's like attacking over several turns in T1; It might work sometimes, but more often, you'll be fucked over by it.

[BigMac]

I actually thought about using oath to combo out and found that this concept to much wants to walk two roads instead of one stable road. For that reason i made a transformal sideboard to play TPS main deck and when the need arises, due to heavy blue or expected anticards, i can change into a reasonable oath deck.

Although my original deck has flaws it sure has potential as it has a multitude of possibilities. I didnt post this deck yet as i think i do not have enough tested with it, not enough good results. The top 8 i made with it was a very lucky brainstorm in the decider against stax after a very bad play on my side. The loss in the quarters was a very unlucky minds desire with me wasting the win opportunity with again a very bad play. The other tourny i played in i made very bad plays combined with very bad draws, but mostly very bad siding choices making winning to an almost impossibility. So i dropped after going  1-3 with it that time.

As said my deck has potential but it needs work and untill then i will keep on testing it.

[[supa_t(im)]]

The version I built ran a couple of different card choices.  I tried to make it a little more deathlong ish and I added death wish and burning wish.  I then put YawgWin in the SB and wished for it.  The problem with that is that I needed a bit more mana than the deck usually needs.  Once again I tried to make it into a little more combo and put in dark rituals.

This does open the deck up to various grave hate, but its quite easy to transform the deck after boarding.

Not sure if this helps at all, just trying to spark ideas.

Good luck!

[MisterShark]

Evincar kills the Orchard Spirit tokens and prevents you from further Oathing.

[jshields]

I saw the decklist that your buddy ran and will also give credit to your buddy.  However, the big kudos will go to Thomas Musmacher, who originally inspired my deck.  Although there are slight changes in my version, I enjoyed his design enough that I thought I would give it a try:

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Demonic Tutor
3 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
2 Cunning Wish
4 Force of Will
 2 Intuition
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Rebuild
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
3 Eternal Witness
4 Oath of Druids

Lands (17):
2 City of Brass
4 Forbidden Orchard
2 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea

 1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Brain Freeze
1 Coffin Purge
1 Damping Matrix
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Naturalize
1 Oxidize
1 Phantom Nishoba
1 Rack and Ruin
1 Sacred Ground
1 Stifle
1 Swords to Plowshares


Some of the most obvious choices are that where I live, there are only 2-3 people that regularly run wastelands (1 of which is myself), giving me a better chance to use the duals and no need for sacred ground.  Also, I tried Phantom Nishoba, but found that it was usually too slow for my environment, prompting me to first experiment ala Forsythe with Darksteel Colossus with similar ho hum results and then switch to Spirit of the Night.  

Like other people have posted, the biggest thing about this deck is that like TPS and other combo decks, it is a major gamble to play.  However, to gamblers like myself, I usually enjoy the risk and will have to wait a couple of turns to get a couple of witnesses out.  The other reason that there are topdeck tutors in the deck is due to being able to put the card on top and then oath out.  Although there may be some graveyard hate, usually that is what I save my counters for when I see an opponent running such options.  Also, I usually do not feel like I have to rush and have found that my deck works in general against most of the metagame.  Although I am not a pro (pro events are too far away for me) and I have nowhere near perfected this design, I realize that certain cards such as Ascendant Evincar may seem redundant with Forbidden Orchard, but once he hits the table, he is usually enough of a lock against weenie situations.

[Arkeld]

I prefer going with Rector if you want to go TPS. For instance:

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=245

check out number 7 there. It's unpowered to boot. I think it has tons of potential.

[erictehfatz0r]

Have you thought of lowering the Witness count down, to maximize the potential for a massive Yawgmoth's Will? How about cutting intuition for Unmasks, or other Proactive Disruption, to keep your combo fighting?

Just some thoughts.

[oldbsturgeon]

just like with the cerebral assassin deck, these fusion ideas seem only natural to try out, as they provide the necessary flexibility to handle many decks.
while unmask could be strong, i dont think you would want to cut the intuitions as it might make force of will difficult to play. sure the deck would still have lots of blue spells left over, but honestly many of those are the business spells that are necessary. the intuitions while important are nice to have when you only needed 1 and have the other for force food. unmask wouldnt let you do that.

[MisterShark]

I realize that certain cards such as Ascendant Evincar may seem redundant with Forbidden Orchard, but once he hits the table, he is usually enough of a lock against weenie situations.

Redundancy is not the operative descriptor here; counteractive is what I think you meant.  Forbidden Orchard revolutionized the current batch of Oath decks.  To negate their effect is to throw your deck back in time and remove the edge that the Orchards have granted.

No offense but if you are looking to kill off your opponent with a 3/3, targetable creature like Evincar over the course of 7 turns (not counting the turns it took before the Evincar hit the table) then Oath is not the deck for you.
And if that opponent can't come up with an answer during the time that you were swinging all those times, then he/she was never really a threat to be concerned about & dedicate a sideboard slot to anyway.
Engineered Plague should buy you the time you need if weenies are bugging you.