LUPOATH
3 Oath of Druids
2 Gaeas Blessing
3 Exploration
3 Mulch
1 Regrowth
1 Crop Rotation
2 Naturalize
4 Brainstorm
1 Timewalk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Powder Keg
1 Black Lotus
1 Morphling
1 Spike Feeder
1 Spike Weaver
4 Wasteland
1 Stripmine
4 Rashidan Port
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Tropical Island
2 Windswept Heath
1 Polluted Delta
4 Mishras Factory
4 Petrified Field
2 Deserted Temple
1 Yav Coast
1 Celaphid Coliseum
SB:
3 Arcane Lab
3 Null Rod
1 Oath of Druids
2 Tormods Crypt
2 Bottle Gnomes
2 Naturalize
2 Spreading Algae
Here is the current version of a deck that I have been building for a little over a year now. My job and other non-magic responsibilities have kept me from doing any serious play testing outside of my friend’s kitchen, but I keep up on my reading and have a solid grasp of all the major archetypes around, both the contents and the play style associated with them.
The major motivation for this deck was an article I read a while back (I think it was on Star City, but do not quote me on it) calling mulch the green fact or fiction. Now, this is a horribly incorrect statement, the only way that these cards are alike is that they can both trigger a Gaea’s blessing. The article aside, one of my associated bet me that I could not make a real deck using that card; I took the bet and set to work. The original versions of the deck were nothing like what you see above, I actually posted on BD a few times only to have Oscar think so little of the deck that he moved it to the casual players board off the serious one (I still remember that
. I do not know if I can really blame him all that much, I was trying to use Jalum tome and a bunch of green silver bullets.
Onto the deck, the key to the decks power is its hunger for mana and its ability to be very efficient with its land, if there comes a time where you are not tapping out every turn; there is a good chance that you are not doing something right. The deck loves motion, your hands should always be moving, shuffling, oathing, mulching, recurring. The deck is all about action, now, onto the cards:
Oath of druids: This was somewhat of a late addition, but once I played with it, I knew immediately that it had to be a core part of the deck, the addition of brainstorm has allowed me to go down to three, but for a long time I was packing a full compliment of Oath’s. Aside from its obvious ability to single handedly shut down most creature based strategies, the oath serves another very important function in the deck that many people (including myself) over look, that when oath triggers gaeas blessing, it goes on the stack and there is a window to sac a petrified field to bring back any land in your graveyard, essentially meaning that it lets you grab your strip mine before it gets reshuffled.
Gaea’s Blessing: The most action packed card in the deck, the synergy with oath/mulch is obvious and it allows for recursion of all the interesting land that your opponents will have to read as you use them. Easily one of the keys to the decks power.
Exploration: In earlier versions of the deck this card was far more important and at one time there were 4 explorations plus a fastbond, but with the addition of blue and the finesse that it added to the deck, there is not as much a need to use the brute force of this card and overwhelm your opponent with mishra’s and wastelands. That is not to say that this card is not important, there are very few cards in the deck are more pleasant to see in your opening draw than an exploration, it gives you the tempo that you need to get a jump on your opponent, it is equally devastating again all three major deck types (aggro, control, combo), as it gives you a chance to use a wasteland and continue your mana development at the same time. The real power of exploration though comes when you are in your end game and finally get your strip mine (a wasteland will do just as well if playing against a deck of nonbasics) and have the power destroy 3-4 of your opponents land in the same turn. Without an exploration, the petrified fields will REALLY slow you down, almost to the point where the loss of tempo will not be worth the extra early wasteland and you are better off just using it for mana.
Mulch: Where it all began, the card in this deck is usually an Ancestral as you will usually hit three lands with it. The addition of brainstorm to the deck has very much increased the power of the much as it lets you set up for a good one by allowing you to leave either a blessing or land on top of your library to hit with the mulch. The nice part about this is that many people will not know how good the card is in the deck and will usually let the first one through without a counter, be warned after they see you pick up three cards, they will be looking to stop you from casting it again.
Regrowth: Duhhhhh, its restricted, its green, it held a spot in keeper for many many years, more explanation is not necessary.
Crop rotation: Again, its restricted for a reason (fine so they restricted it because of academy, which has nothing to do with this deck, but still…) works as a shuffle effect for brainstorm, gets you strip mine/factory/LOA, pretty much does lets you get whatever you need. I know there is card disadvantage, but when you do play it, it should get you something will easily compensate. Use it conservatively, when I have observed others using my deck, this is one of the biggest mistakes that I have seen, people crop rotating too early and sacking lands that they should not. Do not hesitate to sit on this card until it is good and ready to swing the game for you.
Naturalize: Not added to the deck until the addition of brainstorm, as there are too many matches where it was just a dead card. As a small side note I greatly applaud R&D for putting this card out, green needed it and I think it is a great addition to the game. The function is obvious; I usually hold them as long as I can just in case a Blood Moon or B2B rears its ugly head as they can really ruin your day.
Brainstorm: These have been the most recent addition and in my opinion give the deck what it needs to be discussed and posted on this forum. The synergy that it has with so many of the cards in this deck is blatant; I am actually kicking myself for not seeing the blatant need for them sooner. They do it all, they dig for what you need and they get rid of what you don’t. The storm has been included in every oath based deck that has ever achieved notoriety, and this one (aside from the notoriety) is no different. They are so valuable that I expended the effort to find 4 foil ones from MM (no easy task).
Ancestral, Timewalk, Mystical Tutor, Black Lotus: See Regrowth
Powder Keg: The smart mans card. The kegs are really there to eat your opponent’s moxes. They often are and can be used to stop an early creature rush, or if playing keeper or something similar, can be used to kill a morphling in a bind, but be careful when you pop that first counter on it, there is no looking back then and if you are in a position to live to the mid/late game, you will be much better off killing your opponents moxes then there ½ casting cost critter.
Morphling, Spike Feeder, Spike Weaver: The traditional Oath posse makes its expected appearance again here, I had been running two feeders and a morphling for a long time, but I gained a true appreciation for the weaver in the last extended season as I was a champion of Oath of druids and he saved me many a time.
Now comes the real meat and potatoes of the deck, the land. It makes up a solid 50% of your deck as to keep your mulches profitable and it your primary route to victory. Land can not be countered and that is the real secret to the deck, most decks will have some way of controlling mana (all good type one decks have some way to do it), what makes this special is that you have a diversified array of threats all coming from your lands, and an opponent packing little more than a few wastelands will not be able to stop everything that your lands will be able to throw at it, and they will probably make an error in the way they use them as there will have such a choice as to what to nullify, that there is a good chance that they will make the wrong decision.
The main idea of the deck is to control your opponent’s mana. Use your lands to deny them theirs. There are many tricks to do above and given that I am already on 4 pages, I can’t go into them all. The ports, wastes, and strip are your main tools for keeping your opponent very bored during their main phase. The fields and temples give you opportunities to re use them; the factory provides kill and defense, with the sac lands getting you your G/U sources while providing you a shuffle effect for brainstorm. The sac lands should be played as they are in keeper, don’t sac them until you absolutely must, they are not there to thin the deck. The Coliseum is the newest addition to the deck; it was added as a replacement for the one Tefiri’s response that I was running. I could not afford to leave one blue and one colorless open to sit on the response, so it had to go, and given that threshold is a joke to achieve, this should be useful, as well as upping the land proportion for mulch.
The board is open, as I said, I have never used this deck much outside of the kitchen table, so I can not speak as to the sideboard all that much, so do not take it as a well tuned one (unlike the deck)
Now for some talk on match ups.
Keeper: Theoretically the collection of the most powerful 60 cards out there (75 now that it uses wishes). The match against keeper is always a fight, but the big variable in the match is whether or not the keeper player has access to a tefiri’s response, if they do, you can pretty much pack’em up and move onto the next came, the 4 for 1 it provides (kill my card, save yours, plus draw 2) is often too much to overcome. I do not know what Wizards was thinking when they made this blue and costed it the way that they did. If it had to be made at all, I would have made it 2 green, blue does not deserve this. Aside from that you can do pretty well here, the mana control will really hurt them and your best bet is try and lock down on a specific color, blue would be nice but it is not likely, so you can choose a supporting color based on the situation. Your goal should be to get through one card drawing spell, one mulch or one maximized brainstorm should usually give you enough threats to take over the game. Their two biggest threats against you are mind twist and balance, as it is very difficult to play in fear of both. I have found it best to just commit to the board and dump your hand and if they catch you with a balance, you at least know they will have no morphling and no hand.
Sligh/Sui Black – Get an early oath/keg win the game, don’t and things become much more complicated and if you hope to win, you had better be a great player and make the most of all your resources. Their biggest advantage is their use of primarily basic lands, which will render your wastelands useless. The perk is that they do not run many, so if you can recur strip mine a few times it should be crippling.
Combo – Here is a BIG problem with the deck. You lose. Last time I was at NG NY I had the deck and Mike P absolutely annihilated me with a power artifact Monolith deck. I thought that I had some decent draws; he won both games with no land on the table, as he was able to get one use out of his lands before I could take them away, and that was enough. I got housed. I have been putting a lot of thought into the board as far as ways to stop the combo menace and the arcane lab seems to be a perfect solution, as a combo deck will be very hard pressed to win with one of those on the table.
TnT: Now this deck is interesting. I have only played against it about 5 times as we have not bothered to toss one together for the house, but the few games I have played, I dominated, looking at it, it seems like a good matchup for you, they must play out creatures, which will let your oath run wild and they also are very vulnerable to mana disruption and powder keg (keg for one is often devastating). I would like to play this one more to see if my results were a just a series of good draws or if TnT is truly a very good match up for me.
Dragon or Mask: I simply have no idea as I have never played against them or put much thought into them.
So that is about it, my brain child in just 5 short pages. I have tried a few times to get some discussion going about the deck, but I have had little success. Hopefully this time will be different and we can generate some good feedback.
Michael Lupo
