Tweaking solid Oath deck

[healo]

Hi there,

Im about to build an Oath deck on budget that could survive in current Vintage metagame.. So here is a decklist Ive come up with:

Spells(38):
4 Oath of Druids
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Hellkite Overlord

4 Force of Will
4 Negate
4 Duress
2 Daze
1 Wipe Away
1 Echoing Truth

4 Impulse
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

1 Pernicious Deed
1 Scroll Rack
4 Chalice of the Void

Lands(22):
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground River
2 Tropical Island
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland

As for Akroma and Hellkite, here Im pretty sure that the creature choice is not the biggest issue of current Oath decks. So the 2 turn clock seems pretty much ok. The problem of negate paired up with duress is considerable, but I found Pernicious Deed somewhat solving this. I also like the idea that if something goes wrong, you still have some sort of reset leaving one part of your combo on the table (Forbidden Orchard). Deed is also very nice for saving yourself from spirit tokens. On the same purpose Im involving both Echoing Truth and Wipe Away – let you stay calm when Chalice at 2 hits the board. I even sometimes go for Chalice at 2 by myself. I used to play Misdirection, but I replaced it with Wipe Away as I found myself too often searching for bounce spell and not having enough blue cards for Misdirection. Im not sure about Merchant Scroll, but its still tutor replacing itself. Oh, and that Undiscovered Paradise is purely personal preference - I can imagine it could be replaced by some basic land. I know, that the lack of Moxes, Recall, Time Walk is notable - but I also think, that Chalice at 0 is incredibly strong play that can win match by itself. This deck is built for 15 proxie enviroment and still for reasoneable price. That is for cards explanation..

Now, on the play – I have really problems with U/W Fish decks. I would like someone to explain me, how its basicly played. Because I think I miss some basics of this match up. Also, if someone is willing to give me advices on all other match ups, I would appriciate that.
Thank you.

[Doomsday]

What are the 15 proxies that you have?  If there are any left over, you need Underground Seas instead of Underground Rivers ASAP.

[healo]

What are the 15 proxies that you have?  If there are any left over, you need Underground Seas instead of Underground Rivers ASAP.

Oh yes - my bad.. Those are of course Underground Seas..15 Proxy are: 3 Underground Seas, 2 Tropical Island, 4 Polluted Delta, 4 Force of Will and 2 Wasteland.. 

[healo]

Well, finally I decided to go for power - so after all, the updated deck looks like this:

Spells(43):
4 Oath of Druids
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Hellkite Overlord

4 Force of Will
4 Negate
4 Duress
1 Echoing Truth

4 Impulse
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Intuition
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl

1 Scroll Rack
4 Chalice of the Void

Lands(17):
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Polluted Delta
3 Underground River
1 Tropical Island
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Island
1 Strip Mine
2 Wasteland

Im really not sure with that Intuition, there is a lot of options.. Thirst for Knowledge, Fact or Fiction, Wipe Away (Better than ET?), and much more.. I took Intuition because it is instant tutor for card you need and will get instantly. It finds Oath, Orchard, Chlaice, Duress, Force, etc.. Any sugestion ?? Im currently testing this configuration against control Tezz and I can tell the deck is doing really good. Im not sure about sideboard. Probably some Oxidize, Annul, Arcane Laboratory, Empyrial Archangel, maybe some null rod ?

[jaeppel]

i think intuition should be a rebuild.  gets over chalice as 2, beats stax, kills inkwell, and cantrips with unspent counterspell mana.

also, what do you think about adding tinker/robot, cutting akroma for something like platz or sphinx and sliding in tinker in place of an inferior card (tinker has lots of inferior cards).  Tink gives you a fifth oath, and a path to victory that ignores oaths conditions, should something like a gargadon get in the way of oath.

just some thoughts, it looks like a pretty standard oath deck once you added the power.  without the power its still playable, just not busted.  orchard, mox, oath is great, but it just doesnt happen all the time.  land, duress, chalice, go, orchard, oath, go is still a solid start. 

you should look into running nullrod if you want to skip the power

[healo]

i think intuition should be a rebuild.  gets over chalice as 2, beats stax, kills inkwell, and cantrips with unspent counterspell mana.

also, what do you think about adding tinker/robot, cutting akroma for something like platz or sphinx and sliding in tinker in place of an inferior card (tinker has lots of inferior cards).  Tink gives you a fifth oath, and a path to victory that ignores oaths conditions, should something like a gargadon get in the way of oath.

just some thoughts, it looks like a pretty standard oath deck once you added the power.  without the power its still playable, just not busted.  orchard, mox, oath is great, but it just doesnt happen all the time.  land, duress, chalice, go, orchard, oath, go is still a solid start.  

you should look into running nullrod if you want to skip the power

First, thank you for your thoughts and answers..

I added Intuition to improve my chance of having a key card in my hand, or on the table at the moment. When I have Orchard I go for Oath. When I have Oath, then go for Orchard. If I have both I will go for Force, etc.. Its quite difficult to say if its better to go for your combo and protect it, or go for some hate card, that will hurt your opponent. But given fact, that Oath is not the fastest killer out there, you might be right with Rebuild as it is very strong against most current decks and can also help you to deal with chalice at 2, etc..

Adding Tinker/robot is very common. And for good reason, it is very flexible to have an aditional win condition - the probelm here is, that if everything goes right - you will be turn slower with DSC probably - appearing second. Hellkite on its own can do it sometimes, but its not likely to happen. The question is now - go for fastest kill possible ? Or have a backup plan, that will save your ass.. I would like to see some statistic of Oath being able to get Oath and kill compared to scenarios, when game stalls and tinker/robot saves the day..

As for Cutting Akroma for platz, sphinx - Well, that is less relevant I would say. Platz is very nice, but I still think Empyrial Archangel could be better here.

I will probably try Rebuild out and see what happens, what it gives me and go from there..

[MirariKnight]

Empyrial is better than than Platinum but it can't be Tinkered out. Sphinx is the way to go if you want a Tinker guy though. I tried Platinum Oath and it's so bad in this environment. Everyone has a way to kill it and your kill is SO slow. Also if you're going with a Tinker guy, I would switch Hellkite for Progenitus, as you're losing the clock by dropping Akroma anyway.

My only other suggestion is Life from the Loam. It's amazing with Strip/Waste/Intuition etc. Also Undiscovered Paradise should probably be another basic of at least a Tropical Island, or, if you're running Loam, Gemstone Mine maybe?

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

i think intuition should be a rebuild.  gets over chalice as 2, beats stax, kills inkwell, and cantrips with unspent counterspell mana.

also, what do you think about adding tinker/robot, cutting akroma for something like platz or sphinx and sliding in tinker in place of an inferior card (tinker has lots of inferior cards).  Tink gives you a fifth oath, and a path to victory that ignores oaths conditions, should something like a gargadon get in the way of oath.

just some thoughts, it looks like a pretty standard oath deck once you added the power.  without the power its still playable, just not busted.  orchard, mox, oath is great, but it just doesnt happen all the time.  land, duress, chalice, go, orchard, oath, go is still a solid start. 

you should look into running nullrod if you want to skip the power

This guy is right; rebuild is much more solid a use of deck space than intuition is. Last event I played i one two games because I was able to rebuild to get rid of DSC and use my moxen to reset my cotv's with negate back up, The other to disrupt key/vault. Intuition isn't a very good call because if u cast it to retrieve 3x oath, or 2x tutor+ oath, you’re likely to get your oath toasted via krosan grip(people will be playing bug fish and they will be sb this card), and losing oath and 2x tutors or 3x oath is really bad for you.

Obviously intuition plus loam main is a classic oath card choice, I've played it in different meta's and liked it a lot, just remember that blessing makes this card not very good, and scroll rack on its own is still really solid, I probably wouldn't play intuition loam. I did play a top and crucible main and had success with that, but I’d test it again before committing to those slots in an event again.

Obviously if you can switch Undiscovered Paradise for fetch land #5 go for it, but I might just go with island #2. Sol ring is another good card that can go in this slot. Most oath variants don't play it, but it's a format staple (you'll want one eventually anyways down the line) that set's you up for things like: turn two oath with negate back up. I've been running it and liking it.
Right now wipe away is really bad, I wouldn't bother with it.
You mentioned FOF, having 2x fatties and blessing in your deck allows for some possibilities for your opponents to make some really bad piles for you, I wouldn’t run it, TFK is usually really solid allowing you to pitch chaliced out moxen
As for your dudes, akroma/hellkite main is correct; no one will argue with or fault you for doing that. SB you have one option as I see it, 2x empyreal archangel. You can’t stp it, you can’t rebuild it, and it’s good against goyf’s, ETW, and inky. Not to mention easily hard castable. Last event I played oath I must have hard casted this guy 4 times. Once against tezz uber late game with the bored locked up and our hands depleted and then like 3 times against james in the mirror.
Progenitus + sphinx, I’ve played it, I’ve top 8’d with it, and wouldn’t do it again without 4x tfk, you can’t nearly as reliably get off the 2 activation kill without tfk and the angels are better at fending off fish with a clock. Progenitus+ hellkite isn’t much better
If you’re really set on inkwell run it with a tinker(this is good against bug fish) and angel, but don’t be surprised if that rebuild everyone is maining/sbing for inkwell comes in to deal with your chalices and hits your inkwell as a bonus
Oxidize is great in the sb, I try to run 3 most of the time, because cotv @2 counters cotv@1, and any shop player in their right mind is going to cotv@2 before 1 against oath.

I really like balance in my sb against anything running goyf’s or bobs, it wrath’s, It blows up lands, it mind twists, it does it all, and your already running 6 white sources main deck!

[MirariKnight]

I side Balance when I play Oath too, it's pretty gamebreaking. Anything with Bobs/dudes will have trouble with it, especially since you can play Balance off an Orchard, making your fatty stay alive if he's in play. If you can Balance and keep an Orchard and another mana source, you're golden.

[healo]

Big thanks to everyone for sharing your opinions I really Appriciate it.

Yesterday I played 9 games with this set up against Mono U Control Tezz.. The result was 5:4 for Tezz and I found myself being in a really good shape. Man, this deck is so powerful, but also pretty difficult. Especially in term of mulligens. I cant stress enough how important it is to set Chalice of the Void early on for 0 and than go immediately for 1.. I even caught myself trying to prefer Chalices over Oath since I got timed out right before I can kill him next turn.. If he went for DSC, Inkwell or some other nasty thing I was still ok, cos I can deal with em pretty easily, or just have a faster kill.. I also won 2-3 games thanks to duress. Its pretty weird since this deck isnt meant to be played like control. But you know, its Tezz Im playing against.. Next week I will be testing this deck against whole the feild.. I would also like to discuss the sideboard and some other things as Im going actually to build this deck for real..

Btw, what do you guys think about Yawgmoth's Will ?

Thanks again.

[honestabe]

regrowth for the most part is bettere than yawgs will in Oath

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

I'd really look into playing against both a urb or ub varient of tezz, they're much more comon in the field right now.
Yawg's will shouldn't be played in an oath varient like this, you'll find it to be too mana intensive with your prison elements.
I've tested regrowth a few times, give it a shot and see if you like it your self. I usualy cut it for something blue.
your uber standard run of the mill sb will start with:
2x empyrial archangel
3x oxidize
a large amount of varied ichorid hate
1x pithing needle
1x hurkyl's or rebuild
some metagame cards
consider things like krosan grip, balance, pyroclasm (usualy worse than balance, but u can only run 1x balance), and trinisphere.

thats a pretty adverage boring list of cards, don't be afraid to get wacky with it and explore 5 color options, your running 6 osurces for all colors maindeck!

[MirariKnight]

Ancient Grudge is my favorite artifact destruction for Oath (you flash it back in response to the Blessing trigger so it's a lot easier to find)