4 Color Control Oath??

[taniquetil]

So, the Carps have proven again at the lastest TMD Open that they know Oath pretty well. I know they probably will have something to say about how my build is insuffecient, but here's my list, originally the GWS version, but I tweaked it a little bit.

The reason for the tweaks if for the advent of Extirpate and Ancient Grudge along with the fact that Oath is in decline for everyone except the Carps.

I have chosen a 4 color build since I think it gives much more options than a three-color traditional build. Besides, most lands in the deck are 5-c lands anyway so the mana base won't be damaged too badly by the advent of a fourth color. Here it is:

Lands/Mana- Debating whether Sol Ring would be a good idea or not?
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
3 Blue Fetches
2 Island
2 City of Brass
1 U-Sea
1 Volcanic Island
1 Trop. Island
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus

Creatures- These are always debated and subject to change. Just live with these two for now.
1 Akroma
1 Razia

Mandatory Stuff:
4 Oath
1 Gaea's Blessing

Protection Engine-
4 FoW
4 Mana Leak

Important Spells:
4 Brainstorm
4 IMpulse
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk

Tutors-
1 Crop Rotation
1 Vamp. Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imp. Seal

Open Slots-
8

As you can see, this build doesn't run Mana Drain, instead choosing the much more budget-friendly yet still effective Mana Leak which is sometimes Rune Snag.

The differences from the list Dan Carp ran at Waterbury are the exclusions of Chalice and Null Rod, and he adds in more disruption over my Impulses. I also run one more land and Imperial Seal.

So now I have a skeleton with 8 slots to work with. Of these 8, I can safely assume four of them are either going to be Duress, Extirpate, or Chalice. Need some input on this.

Here's where the inclusion of Red is important:
I will be able to run Ancient Grudge and REB/Pyroblast. WIth 4 slots left to work with I can either,

Include red goodies like Ancient Grudge and R&R.
Expand on the above 4 slots of (Duress/Extirpate/Chalice) and run another one of them for a solid disruption core.
Run More countermagic. Carp's list runs 10, I run 8. I could add in MisD, or I could go with 4 Rune Snag 2 Mana Leak or even 4 Counterspell 2 Mana Leak.

Do you guys have any thoughts?

[madmanmike25]

So now I have a skeleton with 8 slots to work with. Of these 8, I can safely assume four of them are either going to be Duress, Extirpate, or Chalice. Need some input on this.

Why not run both Chalice and Duress?  Actually on second thought, you only run one fetchable black source and from my experience it sucks fetching an underground sea and having it wasted next turn.  But since Oath's mana curve is so low its still possible.  In my Oath builds I always run a lone copy of Life from the Loam.  You can reccur stripmine which is a powerful play with chalice @ 0.

Therefore I would go:
4 Chalice
3 Duress
1 Loam

Just a suggestion, but I'm no expert at Oath

I think the red is only good for SB cards, or god forbid, hardcasting Razia.
Since most Oath decks run Crop Rotation to find Orchard, why then does no one run the lone Enlightened Tutor for the 5th Oath?  Is that one W mana that prohibited?  So far this decklist has 8 potential W sources, 9 with Crop.

[wethepeople]

Seeing as you are using Mana Leak primarily towards resolving Oath, why not just use something like Misdirection?

If you depend on Mana Leak to garuntee resolution, you must leave {G}{2} open to even cast the two of them in one turn, which by that time your opponent may have already achieved to pay for Mana Leak.

REB's are good for a situation like this, though even then it seems difficult to have access to that much mana in time.