Oath of ghouls reformed

[policehq]

With that average Converted Mana Cost, a Dark Confidant in play is much better than a combination of Oath of Ghouls and Street Wraith. And an Oath of Ghouls + Dark Confidant without Street Wraith will let you re-use creatures that are actually useful, such as Children of Korlis, Glen Elendra Archmage, Ronom Unicorn, or whatever else you found.

[Guli]

I find it difficult to believe that there isn't a white creature with either a sac or cycle ability that would mitigate the life loss of the streetwraith draw engine.  Were I to use that engine I would look for such a card.

Children of Korlis is mentioned in this thread.

[nineisnoone]

With that average Converted Mana Cost, a Dark Confidant in play is much better than a combination of Oath of Ghouls and Street Wraith. And an Oath of Ghouls + Dark Confidant without Street Wraith will let you re-use creatures that are actually useful, such as Children of Korlis, Glen Elendra Archmage, Ronom Unicorn, or whatever else you found.

Not to mention Confidant alone is miles away better than Street Wraith alone.  You need 3 turns of Oath to make a 2 card combination strictly worse than Night's Whisper. 

[Kholdestare]

My observations are that Street Wraith is a clear must have. There are 2 reasons why:

1. It does combo with Oath of Ghouls (while not being a great combo, it is a welcome synergy which becomes huge during the late game)
2. It allows to play with less mana

I feel the second point here is the more important one. Guli already noted, there is a problem with space.
Indeed i found it to be the major problem. You really need to get through your deck as fast as possible to
find your relevant hate and get going. With earlier versions of the deck I was often mana flooded, or fizzled when a key spell (e.g. oath, confidant) was countered. So I figured that threat density had to be raised.

Another card came to my mind, that would allow me to cut back on mana - Sage of Epityr.
Furthermore he combos nicely with Street Wraith and Oath of Ghouls.

I played a UB version several times on MWS and got beaten over and over again by aggro decks (RG Beatz, Goblins etc.)
Then I switched to white. Jotun Grunt, StP and Children of Korlis are imo key to these matchups.

Here's my current list.

Creatures [20]
4x Dark Confidant
4x Children of Korlis
4x Sage of Epityr
4x Street Wraith
4x Jotun Grunt

Disruption [11]
4x Duress
4x Cabal Therapy
3x Null Rod

Removal [3]
3x Swords to Plowshares

Stuff [3]
1x Ancestral
1x Time Walk
1x Demonic Tutor

Combo [4]
4x Oath of Ghouls

Mana [19]
1x Mox Sapphire
1x Mox Jet
1x Mox Pearl
1x Black Lotus

4x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire
3x Scrubland
2x Underground Sea
1x Tundra
1x Swamp

1x Strip Mine
2x Wasteland

Sideboard [15]
4x Faerie Macabre
4x Yixlid Jailer
1x Swords to Plowshares
3x Ronom Unicorn
3x Kataki, War's Wage

[Guli]

I am impressed, you took out Cursecatchers and moved Macabre to side and i still like your version. To name a few things i liked:

Cabal therapy instead of Force.
Sage is good with confidant as well, also children, both your 1 drops will help in low life/confidant situations
The grunts and Streets should take care of grave control/oath

Still I think your mana denial is a lot weaker with only 3 strip effects, no curse and no stifles. Your mana base is also more vulnerable with only 1 basic land and 19 sources. I realize you are running streets but that won't cut it EVERY game.

How would you feel about playing with cursecatcher and +1 Rod, +2 Wasteland? That is 7 slots. You don't really need demonic in this deck. I agree he is strong and can get a lot good stuff (recall, walk, strip, confidant, cabal, ...) but you also have lots of 4 off's. I also feel like you can create room by cutting 1 land because you are adding 2 (wasteland). You can also probably play with the number of cabal here. I like Sage but I think if it really comes down to it, cursecatcher is stronger. You can always try 3xcurse 3xchildren 3x sage to make oath more flexible.

These are my suggestions.

Guli

[Dr.KnowMaD]

I find it difficult to believe that there isn't a white creature with either a sac or cycle ability that would mitigate the life loss of the streetwraith draw engine.  Were I to use that engine I would look for such a card.

Ghost-lit Redeemer, if your into that sort of thing it could be ok.  Too bad it doesn't cycle though.

[Guli]

Let's keep it real please. We all know that is simply BAD.

In fact why would I want to implement a 'gain life' strategy in a vintage deck? I am paying life to draw more cards, that is the prize you pay.

You could try Children of course, but primarily because he buys a turn against tendrils. The synergy with oath and confidant/street is a bonus but not a reason to play him.

[Guli]

Thing is you NEED the null ROD in this deck. I can't see another way to compete. And I think Curse is the natural pick next to null rod in T1. I worked with Oath of Ghouls in the past and when I saw curse I knew there was serious potential.
I am starting to believe that without full acceleration (you could go with full but then you have to accept the dys synergy with ROD and I rather dont want to do that personally) dark rituals are an interesting alternative.

You do not want to drop confidants in a black based creature deck. That is a very bad call. I took the idea into consideration but I never promoted it. So back to reality.

You want Confidants, curses, macabres, streets AND a clock. Is this possible? I am wondering with the non counter-able grave hate you could go less control. Y Will becomes dead in their hand. All kinds of bazaar ideas are all hard to pull of with Oat/Macabre. Intuition with regrowth effects, gifts and the likes become almost useless. The macabre looks innocent on paper but in fact he does much more. He stops welders, strip locks, tarms, grunts,...

I strongly believe that Curse/Macabre/Confdiant is the way to go. What you do from there is your own imagination and creativity. I picked Null Rod because he is extremely strong right now. I also added wastelands/strip to give more mana denial. What you can also do is add more acceleration and draw. TFK doesn't sound bad with Oath and more acceleration. Also intuition ideas sound interesting with Oath. But if I go for Cursecatcher I stay consequent and build in more mana denial to make curse stronger in the long run. I am sure there are other routes.

4 Oath of Ghouls
4 Dark Confidant
4 Faerie Macabre
4 Cursecatcher

The problem with streets? You want to run Force of Will, at least try it. And with 4x Force and 4x Streets you will reveal them with confidant and lose 5 life. Add in the streets -2 life and you will have a problem. Perhaps 2x streets is OK (if you really want him) because he will be nice if you see him but you do not need multiples. Also don't forget macabre is also 3cc. These things add up. Caution is advised.

Is it possible to combine confidants with streets without dying? I am sure it is but you will need a big clock to do it and that is why I suggest to play dreads and tutors.


EDIT*

The problem with streets? You want to run Force of Will, at least try it.

You could try 4x Daze instead of Force of Will

[Kholdestare]

Regarding Faerie Macabre:

I too feel this does a lot of things that you want to be done. As Guli stated already.
However it is plain dead in some matchups and inferior in others, which are for example Oath, shops, fish and aggrovariants.
Therefore I moved it to the side.

I do see the merits in Guli's mana denial strategy, however I found myself not being able to really stop my opponents from casting their relevant spells. That is mostly because of the lack of a serious clock (e.g. dreadnoughts).

It might be right to go the dreadnought route. But everytime I do that, I find myself cutting Oath of Gouls from the list. Maybe it is not yet the time for the black Oath and we have to keep waiting for another creature to appear that will push Oath of Ghouls over the edge of playability.

I'll continue testing for a while and see where it will lead me.

To be continued...