The Druids of Winter, A letter from Windfall

[forests failed you]

This is the Oath list I started working on about three weeks ago, and passed along to both Paul Nicolo and Mark Biller.

Mark made top 16 with an unrefined list of the deck in Va.  And recently made top eight with the deck at a Mox Ruby tournament in Michigan.

Paul Nicolo also made top eight with an earlier build of the deck in Ohio a few weeks ago.

Yes, you heard correctly.  Former Vintage World Champ Mark Biller has been flopping cards again.  Wonders never cease.

A letter from Mark BIller addressing the final modifications he had made to my list before he played it last sunday in Michigan.




Brian --

I was sleeping the other day, and I woke up and randomly thought of a card that doesn't see a lot of play, but I also thought that there was hardly ever a time when I'd be sad to see the card in my Oath hand.  See, we vintage spell slingers have access to many spells, and sometimes we just can't find the one we need in time.  The secret is organization.  We want 20 Brainstorms in Oath, but since we can only run four, I thought... would running one copy of Scroll Rack be good?  I have yet to see where it would suck.  It's actually pretty strong with Fetchlands, and the ability to endlessly put the monsters and/or Blessing from your hand on top of your library is nothing to scoff at.  How many times do we say, "If I only had Brainstorm, I'd be winning right now"?

After running our Roanoke list, I realized that the deck wants a maindeck major threat (Colossus), another way to answer Chalice x=2, a different draw engine, and a way to find Chain of Vapor when it is required.  With that information in mind, I present to you the deck I'd like to play on Sunday.

4 Oath of Druids
2 Cimic Sky Swallower
1 Darksteel Colossus
(7)
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Misdirection
(11)
4 Brainstorm
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Chalice of the Void
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Scroll Rack
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Crucible of Worlds
(18)
5 Moxes
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
(8)
4 Forbidden Orchard
2 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
3 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
(16)

Sideboard
1 Ancient Grudge
3 Oxidize
1 Crucible of Worlds
2 Tormod's Crypt
1 Gaea's Blessing
2 Red Elemental Blast
3 Sphere of Resistance
2 Triskelion
(15)

Before I delve into this, yes, I'm playing Chalice, and yes, I'm running all the busted accel.  Yeah, the mana base still sucks.  =)

The Oath Engine is pretty much the same, but I swapped one Cimic for one Colossus.  He allows you to end the game sooner, stops opposing Colossus from being such a problem, and also helps you race.  The slow 6/6s aren't always fast enough to race a large army of men and/or burn spells.  The Tinker also gets around Chalice x=2 and Meddling Mage naming Oath.  Most likely, they won't be able to deal with him more than once in any given game, and many of the ways of dealing with him also deal with an opposing one (think Chain of Vapor or Echoing Truth).  Other than the smaller power, Sky Swallower is the nuts, and I like him over any of the other idiots.

The counter base remains the same.  At first, I was tempted toward Leaks, but the addition of the artifacts led me toward Drain.  That and Mana Drain is simply busted.

For the rest of the deck, the AK/Intuition is out, and the Stifles are out.  I will miss the Stifles, but having Mystical and Tinker is probably better in the majority of the matchups.  We also gain Thirsts (only three, because there is no room for four and because I don't think we need four) and the Scroll Rack.  All of this digging and searching should provide the missing link, and losing Stifle is a small price to pay.

Chain of Vapor still seems the best bounce spell.  Rushing River is okay, but not great.  I realize that Chain + Colossus is not a combo, since the opponent can bounce it back at us, but if we have a colossus beating down, we probably don't need to remove Mage or Chalice.  Chances are, we can just win, and the drawback of Chain won't even come into play.

Why so much artifact mana?  Because it's good.  We now have more ways to drop turn 1 Oaths (Mana Crypt) and earlier, more effective Thirsts.  Not to mention, Tinker, Crucible, and Scroll Rack are all mana sinks.  Once Chalice is in play, no matter who has it, the additional artifacts are thrown back with Scroll Rack, Brainstorm, or Thirsts.  Plus, as we both know, Sky Swallowers are fairly easy to hardcast, and the mana accelerants make it all the easier to randomly drop them, making even small Mana Drains very useful.

I think this list does several things at once.  There is a better draw/search engine, a stronger threat base, and an overall improvement in the quality of Mana Drain.

As far as the sideboard goes, it has remained pretty close to the original build.  But, with Colossus and Tinker in the main deck, we have room for another Sphere to beat up on Combo (we need it to make up for the loss of Stifle), and more artifact removal in Oxidize.  In fact, I am tempted to go straight U/G to help against lock decks, but I don't want to weaken my game against Gifts and other blue control decks.  Red Blast is too good to remove from the arsenal.  Ancient Grudge was good, but I found it wasn't able to answer the damn Chalice x=2, and Oxidize would have actually been better in almost every situation.  I can still see running 1 Grudge to flash back after an Oath, but reshuffling Oxidize and having that 1 mana answer is more useful to us.  We just want to get the opposing shit out of the way, play Oath, and start swinging with idiots.  The Trike plan stays because it's very useful.  It's so techy to kill Xantid Swarms and Welders.

I think it'll look something like this....

VS STAX
-3 Chalice, -2 Sky Swallower, -3 Misdirection
+1 Gaea's Blessing, +2 Trike, +3 Oxidize, +1 Grudge, +1 Crucible
I honestly don't know how Stax can win anymore... lol.

VS ICHORID
-3 Chalice, -2 Sky Swallower, -1 Misdirection
+2 Crypt, +2 Trike, +1 Blessing, +1 Crucible
MisD will probably be garbage here, but having the 2 is better than anything else we're taking out.  The Crucible comes in because its' better than MisD and it helps with the Bazaar nonsense.  I think with Crypt and Trike, they're gonna have a tough time winning.

VS SLAVER
-1 Colossus, -1 Sky Swallower, -1 Crucible
+2 Trike, +1 Blessing
Maybe we need to cut Mystical and a Chain for Red Blasts?  I haven't decided yet.  Please get back to me on this matchup's plan...

VS OATH
-3 Oath of Druids, -2 Sky Swallower
+1 Crucible, +2 Trike, +2 Red Blast
Here, we're just looking to play a bad control deck against a worse control deck.  We just want to Drain into a threat and win, and the way we do that is mana superiority + card advantage.  Alternatively, we can just randomly Scroll Rack Colossus on top of the deck, then Tinker the Scroll Rack into Colossus =)

VS GIFTS
-1 Mystical Tutor, -1 Sol Ring
+2 Red Blast
Do we want to find a way to board in Sphere of Resistance in this matchup?  Seems to me like we just want to counter Gifts and win before they do because our threats are so much cheaper.  Sphere looks good on paper because it stalls them even longer.

VS LONG
These matchups depend greatly on Xantid Swarm.  I'll probably switch from Sky Swallowers to Trikes every time, just in case.  There's no reason to lose to Swarm if Trike + Colossus can still win it for us.  Is Red Blast even good?  lol...  Obviously, Crucible isn't that strong here, and we want to bring in the 3 Spheres of Resistance (what a beating).  Ultimately, we want to have Chalice, Sphere, and Oath in play, and counter what they do to get out from under it.  That's why I might want Red Blast, to stop the Rebuilds.

VS FISH
Put Fishy on!  I said PLEASE!  PUT FISHY ON!
-2 Sky Swallower, -3 Chalice
+2 Trike, +1 Blessing, +2 Red Blast
Kill their idiots, win the game.  Sound about right?  We could also find room for the second Crucible, perhaps by cutting a Mana Drain.

VS DRAGON
-2 Sky Swallower, -3 Chalice
+2 Trike, +1 Blessing, +2 Tormod's Crypt
Remove Xantids, Remove the graveyard, win the game.  Crucible might also want to come in to deal with Bazaar.  I almost want to keep Chalice in because I know how important Dragon's Moxes are.  But, Crypt is probably a better card to have in any case.

I think I touched on everything.  I work tonight 430-close, so I should be out sometime between midnight and 1am.  Perhaps we can meet up at some point?  I'd like to talk to you about Magic before the tourney starts tomorrow.

Cheers!
     ~Windfall

[wethepeople]

As soon as I read this list, I put it up on MWS. I have tested several times today versus Fish and Gifts, for some reason, i got two of each but not much else (once versus ICBM Oath, also).

When playing Fish, I came across the problem of SSS being a little too slow. However, I still managed to win each of the games, they were very close. My opponent soon revealed their hand showing one or two Swords to Plowshares each time. So I was glad that I chose to stick with SSS.

Akroma and Razia seem like a great Oath-Creature Base to me, but in a Fish heavy environment (take MWS all today for example), they proved to be better.

I was able to win via Tinker into DSC twice today, once versus Gifts and another against a UWB Fish deck packing four maindeck Swords to Plowshares. I won both of those games after Misdirecting a STP into an opposing Bob, so it all worked out nicely.

One game where I Oathed into DSC it quickly got Plowed out, but next turn I still managed to bring in a Simic Sky Swallower.

The Gifts matchup for some reason was great g2. I took the sideboard instructions you posted for that matchup and did very well. Only once out of four Gifts matchups did I lose due to being Combo'd out before SSS could finish him off. This particular game however involved my first Oath getting countered g1, and after a few more turns of him setting up, I finally resolved an Oath of Druids.

When I played against ICBM Oath that one game I was very lucky because I got the lead on number of Spirit Tokens. I happened to get out two Forbidden Orchards when my opponent had just one, so I was the one who got to Oath each turn. He had to leave for some reason so I did not get to test post-board, which I look forward to.

Feedback confronting Scroll Rack:

It worked out great for me. Several times I was able to toss out unecessary cards and simply shuffle them away with one of the many fetchlands. I certainly like the card in the deck. On numerous occasions after I had resolved Rack I considered running two in my list, but I still decided not to.

One last piece of mini-tech I would like to speak of is Crucible of Worlds. It also proved very well for me each time I got it into my hand because it allowed me to return Wasted lands in the Fish matchup, and control the game abuse the Wasteland/Cruci lock versus BOTH Gifts and Fish.

If I were to play the deck in an actual tournament, I would have to cut the Mana Drains for Mana Leaks simply for Budget reasons. I hate to have to change around such a great deck, but a playset of Drains is something I just can't get a hold of. If I do so, do you have any suggestions on how to alter the list so it can still be viable without the access to Drain mana?

I understand that this feedback isnt terrific due to the fact I have not tested that much at all, but I will respond after more testing, and so far I am proud to say that I like the list a whole lot, I feel that it is very strong.

[MarkPharaoh]

Wow, this deck is off the wall, and although I have so many questions about it I have to try it out before making any comments.  Hearing the word Scroll Rack took me back to the old DracoXplosion from Extended and I really hope having it and removing Rods will work.

[eXistenZe]

So many one ofs and no tutors?
How can you survive with no hasted creatures MBded? Is your meta so fished?

[wethepeople]

Trike definitely has been getting the job done when it comes to Ichorid. Good call.

I had a friend of mine who is a very consistent Ichorid player test with me for five games straight. I won nearly every game. We chose to have two sets of best 2/3, with sideboard. Game 1 he beat me, then I boarded in Trike, Crypts, and Cradles (as suggested) and I won each of the following games.

On our second round I managed to win game one Oathing into DSC, then Simic Sky Swallower the following turn. Game two consisted of me getting a turn one Oath, then bringing in two Trikes and pinging all his shit.  :lol:

I really like this build. I stayed home "sick" today and since there was almost nothing else I had to do, I decided to test this here Oath of Druids deck just about all day long.

[Windfall]

Wow, I'm glad that you're having success with the deck.

I think that not winning that tourney made me hate Oath, but I think there are some things that can be fixed.  In all honest, I think testing different builds are the only way to figure out where to go.

For example, Chalice might be better as Engineered Explosives (yeah, three of them), Mana Drains may be better as Duresses and some of the other stuff like Crucible might be better as black tutors.  Unfortunately, up at CMU, I have no good way of playing or testing any of this, especially at tournament level.

So many one ofs and no tutors?
How can you survive with no hasted creatures MBded? Is your meta so fished?

Agree, tutors would be the nut high.  I'll have to test a black build next and see what I think.  I lost way too many games because I just couldn't find Oath, despite the drawing and searching that already exists.

And the lack of hasted creatures, I guess you just have to be a good player to know how to effectively race opposing creatures.  Knowing when not to attack, knowing when to oath again, etc - it's all valuable knowledge that mental math usually provides for you.  I agree, many games came down to the wire, but my bigger creatures almost always prevailed.  Once you switch to Triskelion in these matchups, it's no longer a race, it's a disaster for the opponent.

I'll continue to work with this deck.  I haven't given up yet - there are still many things to try and I'm hoping winter break will give me the opportunity to bash people with creatures.

[eXistenZe]

I may have a wrong vision about oath, but like tendrils (non TPS) time is always agains you. No matter the meta you're in, you want to win as fast as possible. If you play the long way role (aka control) you should have a very nice set of protection spells, wich you could improve.

Honestly, in my opinion SSS and DSC Mb in oath is a strong metagame option and not an all around version.

[TimDeluxeIt]

OOOO Baby this deck is the hot stuff, I think I will play it at the GWS Open (I mean Passtimes) this Sunday.

I may cut one CoV and a Waste for two Mishra's Factores.

[Harlequin]

Has Life from the loam been considered?  It seems like Loam+Scroll rack would be very synergistic.  Loam + Blessing + scroll rack gives good shuffles too. 

3 lands in yard, Loam in hand, Scrollrack untapped.
1G -- Cast loam: 0 lands in yard, 3 lands in hand rack untapped
1: -- activate scroll rack setting asside 3 lands, put three cards in hand (its a shame its not draw).
Pass the turn.
Next turn: 3 lands on top of deck, Loam in yard, scroll rack untapped.
Draw for turn, dredge 3 lands into yard and was risnse repeat...