Top Four at ELD with Oath

[The Atog Lord]

Rich Shay
Team Reflection
ELD Black Lotus: Top 4 Split
48 Participants

Going into this, Oath had been performing quite well. I'd won or split three tournaments of the four I've entered with it, so there was no doubt about what to play. For the maindeck, the only change we made was increasing the number of Underground Seas and Djinns. The Seas reflect the added black count in the sideboard. The increased Djinns reflected the fact that both Mike and Chris have lost games to running too low on cards from Oathing and then having Krosan Reclamation countered.

I tested Steve's idea of replacing the Pearl with a Lotus Petal, but each time I drew the Petal I wished that it were a Pearl. The deck has plenty of use for colorless mana, and does not want to be tossing away card advantage for speed. In addition, I've noticed several builds cutting a Ponder. I'm still quite happy playing a full set myself.

// Lands
    1 Island
    2 Polluted Delta
    3 Flooded Strand
    4 Forbidden Orchard
    2 Tropical Island
    1 Volcanic Island
    3 Underground Sea

// Creatures
    3 Tidespout Tyrant

// Spells
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Black Lotus
    4  Oath of Druids
    1 Fastbond
    1  Krosan Reclamation
    1 Ancestral Recall
    4  Brainstorm
    4  Force of Will
    1  Brain Freeze
    1  Chain of Vapor
    4  Gush
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    2  Thoughtseize
    3  Merchant Scroll
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Time Walk
    4 Ponder
    1 Yawgmoth's Will
    1 Duress

The primary objective of the sideboard is to beat Flash, which I expected in large numbers. We skimped a bit on removal for creatures and artifacts to make sufficient room.

// Sideboard
SB: 2 Red Elemental Blast
SB: 1 Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1  Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Spawning Pit
SB: 4  Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 3 Duress
SB: 1  Rebuild

Mike, Chris, and I drove up to Still Point Comics. 48 people showed up, and it was another well-run event. The store was spacious and well-lit. ELD and Meg baked cake for everyone, and the Black Lotus proxies are ELD's finest yet.

Round 1: Micah with Flash
Game 1: Micah was kind enough to let me borrow a deck from him for the GP Vintage tournament. We sit down and comment on how we are so often paired in the first two rounds. I win game one after Micah fizzles due to having combo pieces in his hand.
Game 2: We both Mulligan and I get out two Leylines. I Thoughtseize, he Brainstorms. He gets Merchant Scroll for Ancestral, and I do too. We hit a stalemate for  a while until he hardcasts ESG. I explode with Yawgmoth's Will and 44 Goblin tokens.

Round 2: Craig Dupre with GAT
Game 1: Craig plays, and Mulligans to four cards. He doesn't do anything while I Brainfreeze his deck out.
Game 2: Craig opens with Lotus and three cantrips. I lead with a Tormod's Crypt. Craig Gushes and plays a Dryad. He then Forces my Oath and my Fastbond. However, my second Oath sticks the next turn, and my Djinn ends the game.

Round 3: Jason with ELD Mana Ichorid
Game 1: Jason Mulligans and has Bazaar. I frantically search for combo pieces while getting killed by Zombie tokens.
Game 2: I resolve a first-turn Oath, and Jason puts a 1/1 blue flier into play. I then get a larger blue flier into play and win off him.
Game 3: Jason has a couple of early Careful Studies, but I have an early Ancestral. The turn before it looks like Jason would win, I cast Timewalk and then Yawgmoth's Will for the win.

Round 4: Sean Lind with Wizard Fish
Game 1: Sean is a good player that I met at the Grand Prix. We had a close match there, and another here. He has Stifles and Dazes and Meddling Mages to disrupt my game plan. Sean Mulligans and then hits my Ancestral with a Force, pitching his Timewalk. He casts Demonic Tutor, and I cast Oath. Sean has an Ancestral of his own, but is unable to stop Oath from winning the game after sending my first Djinn out to pasture.
Game 2: He Thoughtseizes me, and I Ponder. I get 12 Goblin tokens into play after Sean tapped out to play Bob, and he can't recover before he's overwhelmed by small men.

Round 5: ID

Round 6: Scott with Mono Red Workshop
Game 1: Scott and I are forced to play it out since I was paired down and a draw does not guarantee that he makes it in. I resolve Oath and get down an Orchard with little resistance.
Game 2: Scott opens with a Chalice at Two. I open with 8 Goblin tokens.

Top 8: Outlaw with Flash
I'm not looking forward to this match. The last time I faced Outlaw with a Flash deck, I ended up getting Poisoned to death. To remind me of this, Outlaw laid his sweatshirt on the table next to us -- the sweatshirt with "Outlaw > Rich Shay" printed on the back.
Game one did much to reinforce his belief. He opens with a Ponder, and I Thoughtseize. His hand is Flash, Vamp, Pact of Negation, and Hulk. His board is a Sea. I opt to take the Hulk, thinking that he can't Merchant Scroll for it. I then Force his Vampiric Tutor. However, Outlaw draws Island followed by Summoner's Pact, and that's the game.
Game 2: Outlaw Mulligans to 5 cards. We have a counter war over my Duress, and his hand turns out to contain three creature cards. I have plenty of time to win this one.
Game 3: Outlaw plays an early Xantid Swarm, which I choose not to Force. I'm casting Cantrip after Cantrip, while Outlaw is doing little in the way of anything. Eventually, I play Yawgmoth's Will with double Counter backup, and Tendrils Outlaw for lethal.

We agree on a split in the top four, each getting $280.

Props:
ELD and Meg for running another great event.
Chris and Mike for a fun day of hanging out.
Micah for letting me borrow a deck at the Grand Prix, since I haven't had the chance to Prop him for that yet.
Still Point Comics for being a good place to spend the day.
Mike for driving.

Slops:
My GPS for taking us in large circles throughout Fall River.
Papa John's Pizza.
My drafting abilities, for being deficient. Sorry I 0-2'd that draft, Nefarious.

[Hatchman]

Deleted post, Im starting a thread about this in community forums. 

Is there anyone left in america that can beat Rich Shay at magic?

[ErkBek]

wow seeing that prize split, did 5-8th get 800$ in prizes or did eld just make a huge profit?

Top 4 got $280 each. That seems very generous to me.

[Smmenen]

Congrats Rich.   I like your list and sb.

On the question of Petal v. Pearl, I think its important to note that the bulk of my reasons had to do with post board games.   Pearl might be better in game 1s, but when you have opening hands that have G/R/U/and B spells like Reb, Extirpate, etc., the premium on colors goes up, I think.   I've been playing this deck alot and I've never wished that Petal was Pearl, for what its worth.

[StarOrc]

Rich,
Congrats on your finish. How was the transformational sideboard vs Flash? Did you consider Spell Snare instead of Duress?


Star

[JanValentine00]

Rich, congrats on the finish. 

Deleted post, Im starting a thread about this in community forums. 

Is there anyone left in america that can beat Rich Shay at magic?

Rodney Hannigan?

[The Atog Lord]

Thanks for the comments.

Yes, Rodney can clearly beat me. He wrecked me with back-to-back Turn One Fastbond-Gush-Wins at Waterbury Day II. Then he beat me for Top Four in the Legacy event last weekend.

As for the decklist:
I've tried to reduce the red count and increase the black count. Doing so lead me to reduce the REB count, but it also let me have a more consistent color base. This, in part, reduces the importance of Petal. That said, I certainly wouldn't say that running a Petal is wrong.

Corey, I don't like Spell Snare against Flash. In fact, I don't even want to be countering their lethal Flash. That's a fine way to go about losing to a well-placed Pact of Negation. Pact means that the Flash player is going to win counterwars when Flash is on the stack. That's why I have 6 Duresses post-board, plus Leylines, and Tormod's against the Reveillark builds. All of these combined with a fast clock of my own help prevent the lethal Flash from coming onto the Stack in the first place. This, I've found, is the best way to combat Flash decks. So, no, I don't much like Spell Snare. I'd rather be hitting their Brainstorms than their Flashes with my REBs.

[micahmbg]

Congrats Rich!  I'm glad to see the third Tyrant worked for you.

Thanks for beating me again in rd 1, I love loser's brackets LOL

Someday I'll get you! Oh and I can PROMISE I won't ever cast ancestral into flash again...I felt stupid playing that deck

-Micah

[JewLightning]

Congratulations Rich!

I must say three Tyrants scares me because I see them in my hand enough as it is, but this list seems very solid and I can't wait to play test with the deck. Your sideboard had a lot of graveyard hate and I was wondering what you sided out against Ichorid and Flash? Thanks.

Brennen

[Smmenen]

Rich:

What did you cut for the third Tyrant?

Also, the ICBM list that I saw that cut Ponder did so only to make room for a fourth thoughtseize.  Since Flash is such an important matchup that you have dedicated so many sb resources to - don't you think that a fourth Duress/Thoughtseize effect might be worth it?   It seems to me that winning game one against flash is important.   

[Nehptis]

RD 1 game 2 you win with Ywill --> Storm.  Oath is not even a factor.
RD 3 game 3 you win with Ywill --> I'm assuming into Storm?  Oath is again not a factor.
RD 4 game 2 you win with Storm.  Oath is not even a factor.
RD 6 game 2 you win with Storm.  Oath is not even a factor.
T8 Game 3 you win with Ywill --> Storm.  Oath is not even a factor.

It seems that SBing in some hate against an opponent combined with a Warrens/Tendrils win condition is all that is needed in Games 2 & 3 when playing with Oath.

[The Atog Lord]

Excellent comments.

For the third Djinn, I cut Flash of Insight. Both Flash and Djinn are only good, for the most part, after a resolved Oath trigger. Therefore, cutting a Flash of Insight for a Djinn doesn't much increase the number of dead cards in the deck overall. I realize that a Flash of Insight can cycle, but I've found myself pitching it to Force of Will far more often than casting it from hand.

As for the Ponder vs Thoughtseize number. There's nothing wrong with cutting a Ponder for Thoughtseize, but I'd rather have the Ponder. In fact, when I tried a build of Oath that did not involve Ponder, it didn't work nearly as well. Even when I'm sideboarding against Flash, and I'm bringing in around 12 cards, I leave the full set of Ponders in. I sometimes do cut a Ponder against Stax, but I like the card against Flash.

Nehptis, that is quite observant. The more hate for Oath the opponent has, the better the Storm plan becomes. And yes, being able to switch roles from an "Oath" deck into a "Storm" deck is part of why I think Tyrant Oath is such a great deck.

[Suicideking]

Even when I'm sideboarding against Flash, and I'm bringing in around 12 cards, I leave the full set of Ponders in. I sometimes do cut a Ponder against Stax, but I like the card against Flash.

would you mind quickly going over your sideboarding strategy against flash.  One of the problems i always had with oath was in matchups where you want that many cards, you just gut your deck and dilute your ability to win.  Obviously for you, that wasn't the case so im a little curious as to what your strategy was.

[wox2]

Congrats Rich. Very good deck to play. 1st game plan is really much different from 2nd game plan vs Flash and some long decks.

[ELD]

Congrats Rich.  That was as tough a room as you'll find anywhere, and you had some difficult match ups too.  I agree on that in Mox Pearl is a stronger card than Lotus Petal.  Oath should be resilient, and 2x 0cc artifacts are necessary to go infinite.

[TrueUVGP]

Hey its Sean,
Your compliment of me is highly undeserved, and I thank you very much for that.
Quick question, with the Meta moving in the direction it is do you think the EEs in my board, might be better off as a fourth spell snare and perhaps an additional duress effect? Or is four snare in the board a bit too focussed?
My list is in the main ELD post, let me know if you get a chance to mull over it.
Thanks again
-Sean

[The Atog Lord]

On the matter of sideboarding an Oath deck against Flash.

I've posted this countless times about other matches, and it applies here as well. There is no one correct way to sideboard for the match. Rather, the proper way to sideboard against Flash is a function of how you expect the opponent to sideboard, as well as how both you and your opponent play the match. Because Flash is so linear, in this particular match the former is far more significant than the latter in determining how to sideboard.

Dan Carp has posted that Gush Storm is strong against Flash. He is very correct, and one strategy is to remove some or all of the Oath engine for control cards and Storm cards. If one assumes that the opponent does not sideboard at all, then this is a very strong strategy.

However, Flash opponents are infamous for using their sideboards. Because of this, the strategy of the Oath player must be adjusted and modified. Scouting and advanced knowledge both help. If you know that your opponent is going to be bringing in Xantid Swarm against you, for instance, leaving in Oath elements makes more sense, and Red Blasts become worse. Likewise, if you expect the opponent to be bringing in Tarmogoyfs, Oaths are better; if Platinum Angels, then you need to reconfigure your boarding plan once again.

Because of this, there is no specific "How To Sideboard" cookbook for the matchup. It comes down to a rocks-paper-scissors game. But one specific piece of advice that I'll mention is this. I don't bring in Tormod's Crypt for the second game unless I know that my Oath opponent is sticking with the Rev-Flash kill. Tormod's Crypt, unlike Duress and REB, is useful only against that one strategy.

Whereas, the best card against Flash by far is Leyline of the Void. It stops Flash. No matter how many counters they have. Although there isn't one single way to sideboard against Flash, I believe that a full set of this amazing card should come in for Game Two every time. You don't need to mulligan aggressively into them. It's fine to keep a good hand without a Leyline. But Leyline how shown itself in my fairly extensive testing to be the best possible card in your sideboard for the match.

Sean: Please see my PM.