What kind of deamon for a Oath Deck?

[kozokus]

Hi!

I know this is an old question, but necromancy-thread is not my taste and times have changed.

I am trying tu rebuild my old Oath deck and when the choice of the oath target comes, i miserably fail to see the advantage of running griselbrand over Runescarred demon. As a reminder, the combo with RSD is :

-oath RSD,
fetch time walk, draw, play timewalk
pass

-oath RSD
fetch something to replay TW (noxious revival) swing with the 1st demon

-repeat

SO, When comparing to GB,
-You dont give your opponent another turn (which is huge in vintage)
-you dont care beeing jaced, swordtoplowsared, bounced, etc
-you dont care about your life total (i dont know you but for my part when i oath i already took a lot of dammage from many things, spirit tokens, delver, talia, golems, etc, preventing you to draw 7 twice or even once)
-you just cant loose when you oath wich can be different with GB depending on what you draw.

The only way to fizzle is to flip noxious, yawgmoth and timewalk and let memory journey in the library. (which can happen but is unlikely)

In fact, draw7 (lands/mox/irrevelant things) leave me cold when i can have a recursible time walk and win on the spot (provided your opponent didnt draw an absurd set of counterspells during the "oath waiting turn")

So, did i miss something? What is the point of running Griselbrand? "Draw7 is great in vintage" seems not an acceptable answer compared to demonic tutor every turn. No one can survive a guy that makes demonic tutor for three turns. :p

Thanks in advance!


here is the decklist for curious people, pretty standard.

5 moxes
1 black lotus
1 lotus petal
1 solring
4 Forbidden orchard
2 underground sea
2 tropical island
2 island
5 fetches

3 Runescarred Demons

1 time walk
1 yawgmoth will
1 noxious revival
1 momory journey
1 demonic tutor
1 vampiric tutor

4 fow
3 manadrain
3 mentalmisstep
1 misdirection
3 thoughseize

1 ancestral recall
1 brainstorm
1 jace
3 prordain

1 abrupt decay
1 echoing truth

4 oath of druidz
1 time vault
1 voltaic key


Kozo.

[Wagner]

Some disadvantages to your version.

Vulnerable to graveyard hate. If there is a Leyline in play, you might not be able to combo at all.
Vulnarable to Spheres, as you might lack the mana to Time Walk (unlikely, but with a Null Rod in play and Wastes, 3-4 mana is not a given)
Time Walk can still get countered. Sometimes the opp will draw counters after Oath is in play.
You run more more cards that are not great with no Oath in play.

Not saying the Demon version isn't good, but I don't see it as better in every way possible.

[kozokus]

I do agree with your arguments (except for the graveyard one, siding graveyad hate against oath seems weak, you still have to deal with a big deamon that just tutored a manadrain)
they are quite valid and point the weaknesses of a combo version of oath.

Do you think they outweight the problems i exposed on the griselbrand version?
I am a bit hesitant on the question, the current meta seems hard to GB with plenty of answers in sideboards.

Kozo.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Rune-Scarred Demon is more subtle, whereas Griselbrand is just a sledgehammer.  The problem with Demon is that the combo is disruptable, either through countermagic, graveyard hate, sphere effects, or just your own bad luck--maybe you pitched Walk to Force, or you put Revival, YawgWill, and Time Walk in your graveyard before hitting a Demon.  I had a fairly clean setup in my build, but things still go bad every once in a while.  On the plus side, either way you still get a 6/6 flier AND a tutor effect, so if you're not getting Walk, you can still get Will, or half of Key/Vault, or Mana Drain, or Ancestral, or whatever.

However, Griselbrand gives you a 7/7, which may be a faster clock, AND it has lifelink.  Weenie decks can be problematic with Rune-Scarred Demon, where you may have to hold one or both back to block, and may have issues with their disruption.  If they have Swords to Plowshares, you may be in for some trouble.

Griselbrand's lifelink means they really can't attack into it, and you can safely attack without worrying about taking too much damage.  The draw 7 for  7 life ability means you can usually draw 14 cards, which is likely to end the game for your opponent, since you can probably find either Time Walk or enough fast mana and tutors/combo pieces to set up Key/Vault.

[NosferatuStuff]

Think that demons in general are weak oath targets right now.  That suddenly Hangerback is making multiple flying tokens to chump block fat flying demons.  I've had multiple games where taking 4 turns in a row weren't enough to muscle through these flying menaces. 

[dangerlinto]

Griselbrand essentially protects itself, given that you can use it's ability  (for example : notion thief or pithing needle stopping it from drawing into the inevitable removal someone will try on it).

As Gunsligna said, Lifelink on a 7/7 body is not inconsequential to board states where the opponent has a horde of tokens.

[Aaron Patten]

Think that demons in general are weak oath targets right now.  That suddenly Hangerback is making multiple flying tokens to chump block fat flying demons.  I've had multiple games where taking 4 turns in a row weren't enough to muscle through these flying menaces. 

Oath lists should start With Dragonlord Dromoka in this Thirsty meta and then go from there. 

[kozokus]

Why would dromoka be a better oath target in a TFK environement?
Ok she (is a girl) can't be countered, big deal. Otherwise she does'nt add anything to the board against a control deck. No draw7, no tutor, nor "dontcastspellswithevencosts".
Note that she doesn't cut counterspells on opponent's turn ,thoses who really matters.

[vaughnbros]

Why would dromoka be a better oath target in a TFK environement?
Ok she (is a girl) can't be countered, big deal. Otherwise she does'nt add anything to the board against a control deck. No draw7, no tutor, nor "dontcastspellswithevencosts".
Note that she doesn't cut counterspells on opponent's turn ,thoses who really matters.

All of your spells can now resolve freely.  If you don't think that's valuable then I guess she isn't a good choice for you.

This spell resolution issue is the reason that Griselbrand is so much better than runescarred.  With the latter you get 1 spell if countered your combo is completely broken.  With Griselbrand you get piles of cards.

Id try out the world champion deck before discounting all of its choices.

[Chubby Rain]

Why would dromoka be a better oath target in a TFK environement?
Ok she (is a girl) can't be countered, big deal. Otherwise she does'nt add anything to the board against a control deck. No draw7, no tutor, nor "dontcastspellswithevencosts".
Note that she doesn't cut counterspells on opponent's turn ,thoses who really matters.

Being castable and uncounterable is a big deal, though primarily in the Delver and Landstill matchups. As far as not stopping counterspells on the opponent's turn, that is generally a goal of Greg Fenton's Control Oath. Brian Kelly's build is more combo-oriented so Oathing into a Dromoka provides you with a window of opportunity to set up the Bomberman combo or Dig into a Time Walk to activate Oath a second time and get there.

The reasons Griselbrand had fallen out of favor were the unreliability of getting it into play (it is much harder to cast and Containment Priest interfered with both Oath and Show and Tell) and that Workshop decks had adapted to beat Oath into Griselbrand (by not focusing on stopping Oath of Druids itself but by removing Griselbrand from play via Karakas, Duplicant, Metamorph and Sphering the Oath player out of casting their drawn cards).

Rune Scarred Demon has fallen out of favor because Oathing into it does not as reliably win the game. The creature itself is less imposing in a race compared to its lifelinking ilk and the tutor targets are less powerful than they were previously - Will gets hit by graveyard hate, Time Walk gets hit by Flusterstorm and Pyroblast,  Time Vault gets hit by Dack Fayden and Ancient Grudge.

In my opinion, I do not believe the "old Oath" lists to be great choices for the current Vintage metagame. I would recommend adapting Brian's list as it has proven itself competitive against Delver and Shops, plus it is capable of running Pyroblast and Grudge which are excellent cards against Thirst for Knowledge.

[mmcgeach]

Gha.  The huge reason Griselbrand is better than RSD is that you only need one Griselbrand to win.  That means you can win off Show and Tell into Griselbrand.  Show and Tell into RSD doesn't really do much for you cause you have to assemble Oath + Orchard to repeatedly get RSDs into play off the time walks you tutor up.  RSD oath was the best oath build before grafdigger's cage got printed.  After Grafdigger's cage, Show and Tell was a much better plan B, and that necessitated a move to Griselbrand.

The RSD plan is a lot more subtle and versatile than it might look.  You can frequently tutor up something kind of clever to solve whatever situation you're facing.  But, that assumes you've assembled Oath + Orchard, and they don't have grafdigger's cage / containment priest.  RSD works pretty well in transformational Oath sideboards, where your opponent isn't expecting it.

Now the best plan B is to just cast your oath targets.  So, for example, mana draining into a RSD is a lot more reasonable than trying to hardcast griselbrand somehow.  But maybe hardcasting salvagers and Dromoka is even better?

[Chubby Rain]

Now the best plan B is to just cast your oath targets.  So, for example, mana draining into a RSD is a lot more reasonable than trying to hardcast griselbrand somehow.  But maybe hardcasting salvagers and Dromoka is even better?

It was the best performing Oath deck by far at champs 

[Prospector]

I've had several games where I've just sidestepped having to deal with the cage/priest and won by hard casting Dromoka and swinging for a few turns.  Cannot be countered is a thing.

[kozokus]

   It was the best performing Oath deck by far at champs   

Yeah but 2-3 top8 doesnt make a deck good. I am sure the pilot had a bigger part in the triumph of the deck. Even if the dragon was an akroma i am sure he would have won ^^
After all, most of the time all that matters is resolving oath.

However

But maybe hardcasting salvagers and Dromoka is even better?

I see the strenght of your arguments, i think i just loved the gameplan of the tutor and it is outdated now. Sad.

Ill give a try to the new beasts.

Thanks

Kozo