DarkOath

[demonic effect]

Hey everyone.  I want to apologize for posting this decklist.  I have come to the conclusions about the deck myself but am sure that someone else has already posted a similar list somewhere (I just was unable to find it through a brief search) and therefore am reluctant to take sole credit for its creation.

To this end, lets begin;)  This decklist is definately a combo/control version of Oath that has eliminated blue from its decklisst (except for two creatures).  Why should someone play this deck?  Oath traditionally is a very simple combo requiring at worst a 2cc enchantment (one of the hardest cards to remove in the format) and a land and at best merely a 2cc enchantment.  This has allowed Oath to post numerous different decklists each with their own strengths/weaknesses.  This particular version attempts to capitalize upon two different aspects of Oath:  Its redundancy and the few needed combo components.  As such, the deck has cut out blue which was included for counters and draw for black which includes speed (dark rits) and tutors.  Because of the dark rituatls and the ability to tutor for the remaining combo part the deck has the ability to resolve Oath extremely quickly.  However, Oath is not a combo deck comparable to GrimLong or Pitch etc... and thus hate cards are included to improve resiliency.  This inclusion, combined with the ability of just tutoring for Oath and winning complicates the roll of the deck requiring a lot of skillto pilot it well.  One must not only know the matchup well (to determine role and thus if a mulligan is needed) but how to resolve certain hands which contain the "nuts" but little to no defense etc...  For example

If your hand was:  Forbidden Orchard, Mox jet, Dark Ritual, Demonic tutor, Chains of Mephistopheles, Wooded Foothills, ToA  And you are on the play playing against a deck that sports both Duress and FoW what do you do?

With every hand comes a different set of cards which can drastically switch the game plan from a combo to a control role.
With this in mind, the deck has very little to no mid-late game due to a lack of draw.  Thus, cards like Defense Grid and Tutors become increasingly important (as well as Chains of Mephistopheles) all of which allow you to force your game plan through in top deck mode while their strategy is disrupted.  The trick is figuring out how early and how important is hate for different matchups.

DarkOath v1.0
4x  Oath of Druids

4x  Chains of Mephistopheles
3x  Defense Grid
4x  Chalice of the Void
4x Duress

2x  Skeletal Scrying
1x  Crop Rotation 
1x  Imperial Seal
1x  Demonic Tutor
1x  Vampiric Tutor
4x  Grim Tutor

1x  Yawgmoth’s Will
1x  Tendrils of Agony
1x  Krosan Reclamation

2x  Tidespout Tryant

4x  Dark Ritual
5x  Moxes
1x  Black Lotus
1x  Forest
4x  Wooded Foothills
4x  Bayou
4x  Forbidden Orchard
1x  Strip Mine
2x  Wasteland

Sideboard:

2x  Simic Sky Swollower
1x  Defense Grid
4x  Naturalize
4x  Lleywein of the void
4x  ?

As a note before examining particular cards inclusions... the Sideboard was merely thrown together and has little to no bearing on the meta other than my own intuition born from lack of testing it.  It would be helpful for anyone to comment on what cards SHOULD be included in such a list.

Tidespout Tyrant:  Allows me to heavily disrupt my opponent and gain infinite mana.  Thus, cards like DSC, annoying cards like SoR, ensnaring bridge etc... can all be bounced.  Not to mention the incredible tempo boost that is given by returning lands to an opponents hand (making them choose to either search for answer before they have no resources with two in play or continuing their game plan with few resources = hard).

Krosan Reclamation: Allows for Yawg Win recursion -> devastating ToA kill as alternate win conditionv.  Also it prevents me from decking myself too early giving enough time for Tyrants to attack an opponent with nothing on their side of the board.

Yawgmoth's Will:  Great utility card in case cards get countered.  Alternate win with ToA.  I'm playing almost solid black... and its a combo deck (sorta) do i realy need to justify?

Tendriil's of Agony:  1 extra card which allows me to just "win" now with one Oath activation (if it is in my hand and two 0cc cards in play.  Also keystone of alternate win condition if my initial strat of creatures beating them down doesn't work for whatever reason.

Imperial Seal/Vampiric Tutor/Demonic Tutor:  Besides Imperial Seal, the other two have found themselves into almost any deck that uses black (and many that include it for these cards and Yawg Will)  Since I have limited draw, these become staples in the deck.

Grim Tutor:  With Dark Rituals as well as the amount of mana accelerants and availability of black mana, these cards are easily cast by turn 2.  This is the reason why this deck is viable due to the speed and consistency to which Oath/Orchard/hate can be found.

Crop rotation:  Easy card to find Orchard with.  If nothing else, it allows me to find a strip effect or to increase storm or bounce (under tyrant) cards with

Skeletal Scrying:  It may seem like an odd choice due to the amount of CoM that are in the deck.  However, usually these are played before CoM hits in an attempt to increase gas.  Ex.  Dark Ritual, duress, skeletal scrying for two (on turn one)  turn two start with CoM etc...  It also serves as a threat that for some reason is countered often allowing you to play more important bombs after.  Honestly, it is on the verge of being cut I just don't know what for.

Chains of Mephistopheles:  Why this hate?  To capitalize on the fact that I don't use draw (except for scrying) and to allow me to capitalize on the fact that I can find bombs faster (due to tutors) than most decks will be able to counter them (if this is in play)

Defense Grid:  Since duress is the only card I play that provides proactive solutions, Defense Grid allows me to play tutors unmolested and defends tyrant for a turn while I bounce back the permenants I need to bounce

Chalice of the Void:  It allows me a tempo boost if I drop it for 0, is a card that helps me get infinite storm/bounce count, and can often be played for 1 which hurts most opponents more than me (considering i've probably already played the 1cc cards first and/or in conjunction with this card.

Duress:  Allows me proactive solution and needed information to figure out my role in game 1.  Game two it still is critical in defending my position.

Oath:  Namesake of deck so of course key.

Cards that I thought about seriously but did not include:

Null Rod:  Honestly, I almost played it.  It doesn't disrupt my combo in any way.  Is highly disruptive to other decks.  The reason I chose to cut the card was because the deck could not sport another 2cc card.  Additionally, it served a similar function as Chalice which is more versatile if I get in multiples and helps with the combo.  Thus, I had to either cut Chalice, or cute another disruption cards which, from my testing, proved to be important especially considering Chalice served a similar function.

Gaea's Blessing:  Not really useful if I want to use ToA kill

Other Black Tutors (spoils, consult, etc...):  They removed cards from the game which could be devasting due to the limited number of actual win conditions in the deck and no way to retrieve them.

Cabal Therapy:  Never did I find a point in which I would sacrifice my creature for it and if used from my hand it often did not impact the game as much as I would have hoped

Unmask:  Was too big of a drain on gas  Since the deck does not sport draw every card is important

Cabal Ritual:  It created too big of a drain on mana resources since it is not reusable.  Considering the difference in tempo boost early in the game (which is when i tend to use Dark Rit)

Comments, questions, sideboard help all welcome

[netherspirit]

May I suggest Night's Whisper? This deck looks like a decent build of Oath, although I can't say much more than that without testing; but Night's Whisper would probably help give you a much needed tempo boost.

[demonic effect]

Yea, I've thought seriously about night's Whisper.  My initial testing is that it rarely got enough cards for me to satisfy/justify its inclusion.  There are times when scrying will only get 2 cards.  There are also times when I need it to get more cards and there are times when both cards end up being dead in my hand.  Scrying also has the annoying habbit of getting drained if I play it later in the game.  The reason I chose scrying over Night's Whisper is thatit is an instant and thus I'm able to play it on my opponents turn in addition to it being able to get more than two cards.  Both are key since the first lets me force through other key spells as well as draw into cards that I can then play on my turn, the latter allows me the opportunity to get as many cards as I need vs. a total of 4 potential cards that can be drawn in my entire deck.  This is not to say that Night's Whisper does not deserve a spot at all, but I'm relectant to replace it with a tutor since getting the card I need now vs. drawing into cards is way better IMHO especially when I'm only able to draw 2 cards and unable to chain into more draw spells.  Additionally I'm reluctant to replace too many of the "hate" cards since they fill a nice role in beating blue decks in particular which i've found to be rather annoying as I try to force through my strategy.

As a side night, Scrying is also nice as an instant that only costs a B and thus allows me to bounce spells if needed on my opponents turn

[edit]  I've recently tried testing Night's Whisper in my deck by taking out certain cards and have found it to be a good addition.  I still stand by what I said earlier, but certain cards were just not making the cut and so Night's Whisper definately helps out... here's the new list and the results from my brief testing...


The new decklist is as such...

DarkOath v2.0

4x  Oath of Druids

3x  Chains of Mephistopheles
3x  Defense Grid
4x  Chalice of the Void
4x Duress

3x  Night’s Whisper
2x  Skeletal Scrying
1x  Demonic Tutor
1x  Vampiric Tutor
4x  Grim Tutor

1x  Yawgmoth’s Will
1x  Tendrils of Agony
1x  Krosan Reclamation

2x  Tidespout Tryant

4x  Dark Ritual
5x  Moxes
1x  Black Lotus
1x  Swamp
4x  Polluted Delta
4x  Bayou
4x  Forbidden Orchard
1x  Strip Mine
2x  Wasteland

To make the inclusion I cut out crop rotation, Imperial Seal, and 1 Chains of Mephistopheles.  I did this for several different reasons
:
Imperial Seal:  Although good and definately a decent card at finding specific combo parts, I found that its sorcery speed and thus the amount of time lost getting the necessary card was unnacceptable.  Ultimately this works against the focus of the deck which is already borderline crazy (i'll explain later).

Crop Rotation:  Great card and it definately serves a purpose in terms of easily finding a combo part at instant speed.  However, all too often I found that my opponent had a creature in play already and thus was unnecessary or that I had the Orchard but not the Oath.  As such It was borderline not being cut but wasn't essential enough to outweigh Night's Whisper

Chains of Mephistopheles:  With the increase reliance on draw spells, this card becomes increasingly weaker.  While still a good card, I prefer to draw into them rather than start with one in my hand now and thus I find 3 to be optimum.

With this in mind, lets figure out what niche Night's Whisper fills...
   In Vintage every deck packs disruption of some kind.  With such a streamlined plan (tutor -> combo) it leaves me very little room to defend myself against disruption.  In particular, duress, and counters are a huge problem because decks that play counters also tend to pack a lot of draw in order to keep up the tempo/pressure.  My deck has sacrificed draw for tutors so that I can win sooner.  However, in doing so, my hand becomes depleted very quickly and thus I am unable to keep up the tempo/pressure.
   The way the original version of the deck was able to compete was by analyzing the hand and determining if there was enough disruption and/or gas to fight through the hate.  Dark Rituals and the redundancy of the deck allowed the deck to put a lot of pressure very early on because every card became a threat (either b/c i tutor for a combo piece or is disruption) meaning that in the end both me and the opponent probably are left with few to no cards left in hand by mid game.  For this reason, disruption like defense grid (which helps nullify their counters) and Chains of Mephistopheles are used to halt that tempo.  With that plan in effect, me and my opponent are left in top deck mode where under a chains I should be able to provide more threats than them (because every tutor = threat and every combo piece = threat) and if i have a defense grid out i can just play the tutor/combo piece w/o worrying too much.
    Although relatively effective, this method provided a lot of strain on the deck in terms of mulligan decisions (because the only draw besides two scryings was through the draw phase) meaning that against a deck that can provide a lot of tempo, the loss of a single card due to a mulligan might mean that I am unable to force the opponent to exhaust their resources at the same pace I am meaning that I am left behind in top deck mode unable to recover.
    this is where Night's Whisper comes into play providing help in 3 different areas:
    1.  It allows me to chain together a land, mox, dark rit, threat, and night's whisper in the same term (if duress is hate then mox is not needed).  This play was traditoinally very strong in terms of early advantage but left the deck with nothing left at the end of the chain meaning the deck was out of gas.  With Night's Whisper added, I can still do what I want to do and draw into more threats meaning that I can keep up the pressure.
    2.  It allows me a solid first turn play that, if countered, opens me up for a better threat next turn and if not, gives me enough threats to often fight through the hate.
    3.  It gives me a stronger mid-late game strategy when combined with Scrying allowing me to compete (although the deck is not designed to go into those stages)
Overall, while I admit there are a lot of decks out there that have disruption, the ones that I have found to be the most problematic are decks packing FoW and duress.  Sure, a 1st turn trini wrecks my plans, but it does that to almost every deck.  Usualy the deck is able to race most hate which, even if I start to get behind, with the activation of oath for tyrant I am able to recover enough that next turn when i get the second tyrant and return all of their permenants I am fine.  Remember, my requirements for most decks packing permenant hate usualy run creatures (except sometimes the mirror) so my requirements to get an active oath are a lot less.  This is the reason for the hate cards i've listed as well as the reason Night's Whisper is so potent.

[demonic effect]

sorry for double post.  my computer has a messed up screen and so i could hardly tell that the modify button existed.  I have fixed it but am unable to delete this post now... sorry

[netherspirit]

My deck has sacrificed draw for tutors so that I can win sooner.  However, in doing so, my hand becomes depleted very quickly and thus I am unable to keep up the tempo/pressure.

How about including Necropotence and/or Yawgmoth's Bargain? I know they seem very cost prohibitive, but as you're running rituals you shouldn't struggle to play them too much.

[demonic effect]

Hi, I've tested both briefly and was not overly impressed and thus dropped the idea.  I will for sure test them again but my initial testing showed me this...  Bargain became too cost prohibitive in that, while I have dark ritual, I tend to use them as soon as I get them during turns 1-2 so that I can play multiple threates/tutors at once in an attempt to get ahead.  Bargain, at the earliest, can be played turn 3 meaning the soonest I can play Oath is turn 4.  Usually, something has gone wrong by that point and either I am tryng to recover through hate cards like Chains which doesn't work well with necropotence or Bargain or my oppoenent is in a good situation to drain it (especially since my only defense against that is duress).  If I already have a defense grid in play, I'd rather just tutor for the remaining combo piece and play it turn 3 rather than wait for turn 4.  With this in mind, Bargain wasn't that great.

Necroptence is another issue.  It becomes especialy bad with Chains out due to the RFG effect, however, it has the option of being played turned 1.  It is a card that I will almost never tutor for as it gets progressively worse throughout the game and, without a ritual, will at the earliest be available turn 3 which falls into the same critique of bargain.  However, I definately am more inclined to play necropotence than Bargain and will definately give it a second look.

The biggest problem I have is that the deck has a love/hate relationship with draw cards.  While draw can definately help the tempo issue, since I don't run brainstorm, I have no means of cycling drawn creatures back into my deck.  This tends not to be a problem in most games on the off chance that I draw one Tyrant because the other tyrant should be sufficient to disrupt the opponent, and if need be, another activation of Oath (with one creature already gone) will set me up for a lethal tendrils.  Draw definately gives a player more leeway/options in terms of staying ahead in the game.  However, the deck should almost never be behind so far that mass draw becomes a factor.  Small cards like Night's Whisper seem to be sufficient due to cost and the liklihood of not drawing tyrant but still has a high chance of drawing threats.  Additionally, this is a major reason for the inclusion of cards like Chains -- to hurt their tempo/draw.

Think of it this way... with an active Chains in play, either an opponent won't use draw spells preferring to use only the draw step to recieve new cards.  This effectively cuts out 8 (approximation) cards in their deck.  More specifically the 8 cards that are designed to give a tempo boost...In contrast, I have tutors to search for my combo.  Thus, I am more likely to get the card I need because I effectively have more oaths etc.. (because each tutor counts as one) than my opponent has ways of winning.  (obviously generalization.  I realize that gifts has merchant scroll etc...  However, the point of the draw is to also ensure a strong defense aka counters as well as sufficient mana which should be hurt by the lack of draw power as well as chalice)

The second way a player can play with an active Chains is to use their draw spells as a means of card quality control.  This becomes especially problematic because the opponent must choose between getting the cards that will help them win (either resources or win components like gifts) or getting cards that will disrupt my plan.  This tactic becomes even more precarious since a lot of the draw spells (like brainstorm or tfk) will generate massive disadvantage leaving the opponent with the choice of exhausting their limited resources upon stopping me (to which i should recover faster than they) or trying to win.  If they go for the win, I should be able to stop them simply because a single tyrant should delay them long enough that they can't "win" until another turn.  At which point the second tyrant comes out and crushes their board.

Essentially, the deck has two main plans... either win quickly with turn 1-2 oath or to turn the round into a tempo black hole in which the opponent is worse off than me.  Bad analogy from "without a paddle" but still works... (you can't outrun a bear.  I don't have to outrun a bear I only have to outrun you) which seems to be the focus of this particular deck.