Root Maze Oath

[meadbert]

4 Forbidden Orchard
4 City Of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
4 Force Of Will
4 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain Of Vapor
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Oath Of Druids
4 Root Maze
1 Balance
4 Argivian Find
4 Enlightened Tutor
sideboard
1 Wasteland
2 Null Rod
1 Progenitus
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Planar Void
3 Choke

This is a list that my buddy Patrick Benson and I came up with.  As near as we can tell in testing, it is really good.
Basically the unrestriction of Enlightened Tutor was Key here.  We figured out that Enlightned Tutor is good either before you have Oath or after.
Before you have Oath you can Enlightened Tutor for Oath which is good.
After you have Oath you can Enlightned Tutor for Root Maze which can create a lock with Tyrant.
If you have Root Maze and a Tyrant then you can Enlighten Tutor for Mox Emerald and bounce your opponent's entire board.
Basically almost every possible situation Enlightened Tutor is good.
The main exception is if you have Oath and Root Maze, but no Orchard.  Then it cannot find Orchard.
Enlightened Tutor also makes Argivian Find better.  A previous annoying used to be getting stuck with Argivian Finds in hand early with nothing to target.
Enlightened Tutor finds that Oath which even if it is countered can be Found back.
In general we really like the main deck.

There are a few weaknesses.  One is Extirpate on Tyrant or Oath.  Extirpate pre board is rare, but it does happen frequently post board and it makes Intuition just terrible.  We have considered adding Oona, Queen of Fae, Platinum Angel or Triskelivus to have an infinite combo with Tyrant or an alternate and easily hardcastable win condition.  Progenitus is in the board to dodge Extirpate on Oath.  Our current play of hardcasting Tyrant in case of Oath's Extirpation and Oathing Progenitus in case Tyrant is Extirpated is decent, but may not be the best option.
The other possibility is to swap Intuitions for Impulses.  Impulse can be better many games with Root Maze slowing things down so we may be talked into that.  It seems like Intuition is most often pitched to Force, but ocationaly it tutors up Oath or Orchard or post board it finds Choke or Planar Void against Dredge.
The number of blue cards is about at a minimum thus boarding out Intuition is not an option.

Here is a sample game against Tez.  Oath is on the play, but Tez has a fairly nutty opening hand and further gets good draws.

Opening Hand Oath:
Forbidden Orchard
Merchant Scroll
Argivian Find
Gemstone Mine
Root Maze
Oath of Druid
Enlightened Tutor

Opening Hand Tez
Ponder
Black Lotus
Mox Ruby
Polluted Delta
Fact or Fiction
Tolarian Academy
Island

Turn 1 Oath:
Play Gemstone Mine
Play Root Maze

Turn 1 Tez:
Draw Thoughtseize
Play Black Lotus
Play Mox Ruby
Play Tolarian Academy

Turn 2 Oath:
EDIT:  Draw Oath of Druid.
Play Forbidden Orchard

Turn 2 Tez:
Draw Mana Crypt
Play Mana Crypt
Activate Tolarian Academy
Activate Black Lotus for Black
Play Thoughtseize taking Oath of Druids.
Play Fact or Fiction seeing:
Demonic Tutor
Brainstorm
-------------
Mox Jet
Echoing Truth
Voltaic Key
Keep Brainstorm and Demonic Tutor
Play Brainstorm seeing:
Tropical Island
Darksteel Colossus
Time Vault
-----------------
Put back Darksteel Colossus and Island on Top.
Play Demonic Tutor finding Yawgmoth's Will.
Play Polluted Delta.

Turn 3 Oath:
Draw Force of Will
Play Oath of Druids

Turn 3 Tez:
Draw Mana Drain
Play Time Vault
Play Tropical Island
Swing for 1.

Turn 4 Oath:
Oath up Tyrant
Enlightened Tutor for Mox Emerald bouncing Academy.
Draw Mox Emerald.
Play Mox Emerald Bouncing Mana Crypt.
Play Argivian Find (sacking Gemstone Mine)getting Mox Ruby, bouncing Time Vault.
EOT Tez Fetches Underground Sea

Turn 4 Tez:
Draw Sensei's Diving Top
Play Tolarian Academy.
Play Mana Crypt
Play Tropical Island
Play Time Vault.
Swing for 2.

Turn 5 Oath:
Oath up Tyrant #2.
Bounce Tez's board.
Swing for 5.

From Here Tez is locked out.

That is a fairly normal game for this Oath deck.  Basically the only restricted card in the opening hand or even randomly drawn that game was Merchant Scroll which was never cast and was only useful for pitching to Force of Will.

Meanwhile Tez opened wth 5 restricted cards including Academy(with multiple artifacts), Lotus and Fact or Fiction.
Then Facted into 3 more (Brainstorm, Jet, Demonic) and then Brainstormed into Vault.

The are a lot of directions to go with the sideboard.  I am very confident that Planar Void is correct, although Pat thinks we should run 4 Leylines + 1 Planar Void.
Basically with how few answers folks run to Planar Void in Dredge these days it is just too good.  If your opponent only runs 4 Chain of Vapors and 2 Emerald Charms you will crush him.

Pyrostatic Pillar is a bit slow against Long.  Because of that and the synergy this deck has with Chalice of the Void we have considered inserting Chalice in the board.  Also, Tyrant deals with Leviathan poorly and Chalice is another annoying for Tinker->Leviathan to deal with.

We love the Chokes and want Wasteland for Stax and Dredge.
Ideally we would like 3 Rods so they could be Intuitioned for.  We tried adding them to the main but ran out of room.  Basically if added to the main this turns into a different deck with Ancient Tombs instead of Moxen.

With the 5 color Mana Base, Intuitions and Oaths, Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation are both options.  Ancient Grudge in particular is good right now.
We just could not squeeze room and were not sure what to board out.

[RecklessEmbermage]

I've never seen this before. It looks awesome.

Though null rod and tombs would be cute, I don't think the tombs would be worth it. It seems like the deck prefers root maze turn one, and running the whole mox package makes both root maze and null rod turn one fairly easy. If you shut off half your mana in subsequent turns, it is of little consequence, since you're normally going to need less than your opponent. Null rods in the main makes sense in a tezz-heavy meta.

That said, chalice does too, and it has better synergy. It's best on the play though, and could possibly earn a few sideboard slots?

Seal of cleansing gives you another out to artifacts and opposing leylines (how much of a problem is leyline?)

Intuition seems sluggish. Even though it has synergy with argivian find (they look really nice, by the way), impulse sure looks better.

Wouldn't windfall be good here?

12 5c lands seems a bit much. 9-10 should do it.

Don't you want to add the fourth waste to the maindeck?

I like your friends suggestion of 4 leyline and 1 tutorable planar void. Not the least because of the antisynergy you get with planar void. Leyline saves you mana to root maze or wasteland turn one-two.

I'd run atleast one maindeck choke. It must be silly strong in this deck and it's easy to find it.

Wouldn't root maze --> oath --> back to basics be game-win against most decks? You could even bounce btb at end of turn.

[covetousrat]

Awesome deck btw. How about adding Key+Vault+Sensei into the deck. You ran so many tutors in the form of Enlightened TUtor, INtuition etc and most of all the Argivian Find which works wonders with intuition. Iv been adding Key Vault into every deck i play even in TPS lol.

[Wise]

I like the idea, root maze has always been one of my favorate cards, and oath is currently the pet deck I am playing, but here are my questions


how is this faster then traditional oath, or even newer Enlightend oath builds?

It seems like it would need to win alot faster since your only running 4 counter spells that I can see

Intuition seems like a reall weak card here, especially without AK  its no a very effective draw engine & its a terrible tutor unless you can spare the extra 3 mana, but Oath in my opinion is a fast combo, get the oath on the board ASAP and follow up with control so long as the oath is in play..

I think Impulse > Intuition is a much more solid choice, it provides you with the same amount of card advantage, still pitches to force & is an instant, but the best part is it is only 2 to cast, with my oath build I cut Thirst For Knowledge because I found I dident cast it enough because of its 3 mana casting cost.


Have you considered Crop-rotation? I have found this to be a GREAT addition to oath, it acts like Forbidden Orchard 5 & 6, it protects against wasteland (by croping the tageted land) and can pull up a strip mine/wasteland against dredge first game, or even against other decks in good situations,

I have been thinking about The Tidespout combo more lately aswell, root maze never crossed my mind, though it seems solid, I think 4 might be really overkill, its pretty completely usless in multiples i would think...


my changes from first glance would be


-4 intuition
-1 Root maze
-1 Argivian find


+4 Impulse
+2 Crop Rotation


I am not convinced the Finds are that great, but with out blessing, they seem like it could be an interesting draw!


I am looking forward to seeing your testing results, and will thinking of my own tirant build now that you got my gears turning!

[vroman]

If you have Root Maze and a Tyrant then you can Enlighten Tutor for Mox Emerald and bounce your opponent's entire board.

explain

[Kotch]

Life from the Loam could be nice as a 1-of. Intuition on LotL and Strip Mine would be an awesome possibility. Or a single Crucible of Worlds to be tutored with your 7 tutors.

[Sextiger]

If you have Root Maze and a Tyrant then you can Enlighten Tutor for Mox Emerald and bounce your opponent's entire board.

explain

Edit: Kinda curious on this one as well.....

[Harlequin]

I would say, at least the idea is to tutor bouncng root maze.  Get emerald.
Play emerald bouncing another mox (get mana, 1 mox in hand)
Play a spell +1 bounce
Play mox +1 bounce
Play root maze +1 bounce

That gives you 3 lands/mox to thier hand, ending with rootmaze in play.  For MOST decks that's pretty crippling / game winning.  But If you're against Myr Retriver Combo and they have infinte Myr's in play - this play won't cut the mustard.


This is the one I can't figgure out:

Turn 2 Tez:
Activate Black Lotus for Black
Play Thoughtseize taking Oath of Druids.

Turn 3 Oath:
Draw Force of Will
Play Oath of Druids

To me this shows the inharent weakness in an Oath deck, especially a Tyrant deck...  sporting a huge amount of non-blue cards.  You can't recoup or protect your hand.  If that Merchant Scroll was another tutor or find, this hand would be nearly unplayable.

Its an interesting idea, but as other's have said - I would think that if you're going to run tyrant and X tutors for artifacts - rootmaze would be at the very very bottom of my list of cards to run.  I would focus the deck on "what can I do with infinite mana and tutors" and run Tinker, Memory Jar, TV-Key, and maybe even Pillar of Alar (that "wins" with almost any color combo of moxen).  


Also, Let's say that root maze wasn't in play... but you had 1 castable instant in hand (or with flashback - like flash of insight).  That whole crazy yawg set up would be a whole lot of failure... just because tyrant is so powerful.  They yawg and go nuts, pack thier hand with 8 playable counters - play timevault, play key, activate timewalk targeting key ~ and you cast your instant boucning timevualt in response.  Now they have to pass the turn, where you can undo any damage they have done.  You don't have to resolve another spell this entire game, so long as you have 1 castable instant every turn to trump whatever plan they have in store.  root maze is virtually irrelevant in this transaction... if anything it sorta screwed you because you couldn't drop the Oath on turn 2.

[meadbert]

If you have Root Maze and a Tyrant then you can Enlighten Tutor for Mox Emerald and bounce your opponent's entire board.

explain

I mistyped.  You need 2 Tyrants.
You can then play Emerald bouncing Root Maze + Opponent's permanent.
Then play Root Maze bouncing Emerald + Opponent's Permanent.

This is the one I can't figgure out:

Turn 2 Tez:
Activate Black Lotus for Black
Play Thoughtseize taking Oath of Druids.

Turn 3 Oath:
Draw Force of Will
Play Oath of Druids

To me this shows the inharent weakness in an Oath deck, especially a Tyrant deck...  sporting a huge amount of non-blue cards.  You can't recoup or protect your hand.  If that Merchant Scroll was another tutor or find, this hand would be nearly unplayable.

Its an interesting idea, but as other's have said - I would think that if you're going to run tyrant and X tutors for artifacts - rootmaze would be at the very very bottom of my list of cards to run.  I would focus the deck on "what can I do with infinite mana and tutors" and run Tinker, Memory Jar, TV-Key, and maybe even Pillar of Alar (that "wins" with almost any color combo of moxen). 


Also, Let's say that root maze wasn't in play... but you had 1 castable instant in hand (or with flashback - like flash of insight).  That whole crazy yawg set up would be a whole lot of failure... just because tyrant is so powerful.  They yawg and go nuts, pack thier hand with 8 playable counters - play timevault, play key, activate timewalk targeting key ~ and you cast your instant boucning timevualt in response.  Now they have to pass the turn, where you can undo any damage they have done.  You don't have to resolve another spell this entire game, so long as you have 1 castable instant every turn to trump whatever plan they have in store.  root maze is virtually irrelevant in this transaction... if anything it sorta screwed you because you couldn't drop the Oath on turn 2.

That was my fault.  I left out the turn 2 draw for Oath which was a second Oath of Druids.  Even if that card had not been Oath or if Oath had been forced to skip its draw it would not have mattered because it still would have just Argivian Finded back the first Oath on turn 2 and played Oath on turn 3 anyway.
There is the question of whether I should have had Tez Thoughtseize an Oath when there were two in hand.  I thought on that for a while but figured with Fact and Ponder on the way that turn and since Tez had seen 0 Forces so far there was like a 50% chance of seeing Force later that turn.
The idea would have been to hope that Oath did not use Find on turn 2 and then Forced Oath on turn 3 delaying it till turn 4 and winning first.
I think that was Tez's best shot.  The bigger question is whether Echoing Truth was the card to keep on the Fact split.  It would not have mattered in this case because Oath ripped Force, but it could have had a huge delaying effect.

Regarding the effectiveness of Root Maze.  Root Maze is what won this game.  If I showed you that opening hand for Tez and told you your opponent would play Oath and only assemble their Orchard/Oath combo on turn 3 you would declare it an easy win.  Instead Root Maze severely disrupted everything Tez wanted to do.

Despite Tez's insane hand Oath really had this in the bag.  It resolved Oath with Argivian Find and Enlightened Tutor in hand so Forces could have only bought a turn for Tez.  Also Oath finished the game with Force in hand.

The bigger problem for Tez is what if they TInker Leviathan.

In that case I really like the idea of Vault/Key.  With so many tutors you assemble the combo easily.
Also with infinite turns you can play 2 Tyrants, swing and then bounce the one that is blocked (by playing Argivian Find or any other instant.)
Then you can repeat this till you win.  I like that it dodges Extirpate on Oath + Orchard and Leviathan.

[Harlequin]

Opening Hand Oath:
Forbidden Orchard
Merchant Scroll
Argivian Find
Gemstone Mine
Root Maze
Flash of Insight
Oath of Druid
Enlightened Tutor

Tez opening hand:
Ponder
Black Lotus
Mox Ruby
Polluted Delta
Fact or Fiction
Tolarian Academy
Island


Turn 1 Oath:
Play Gemstone Mine - go


Turn 1 Tezz:
Draw Thoughtseize
Play Delta
Crack Delta -> Sea -> Duress: Take Oath
Play Lotus, Ruby (in prep for EOT FOF)
EOT: Oath casts Etutor-> Oath


Turn 2 Oath:
Draw Oath
Play Forbidden Orchard, Play Oath
Tez FOF's In response
Revealing: Mana Crypt, DT, BS, Jet, Etruth
I'd put DT and Etruth together hoping he doesn't have 2nd land drop.  SO
DT, Etruth | BS, Jet, Crypt [where Tezz has in hand: Tolarian, Ponder, Island]
This is a tough call on piles:
-  With the 2 pile, you get to bounce Oath and ponder with DT next turn.
-  With the 3 pile, you get to see 7 cards next turn and will still have tons of mana.  But you have to answer oath, so lets say they take the 2 pile.

Turn 2 Tezz:
Draw Key
Play Tolarian (3 mana onboard UR(B/U))
Tap ruby to play Key putting them at UU(B/U)
They have burned thier land drop, they have DT for Timevualt and key, but can't activate it this turn.  They could also bounce your Oath AND ponder in prep for next turn.  They can't hit lotus OR mana crypt off ponder so its not possible to win this turn off ponder even if he were to live the dream.
I guess ponder with a blue floating off tolarian: Trop, DSC, Timevault.  
Grab the vault, and stack trop for your next turn's draw (with DSC 2nd from top).  Etruth.  Pass.

Turn 3 Oath:
draw force,
Replay Oath. (killing gemstone)

Turn 3 Tezz:
Draw Trop, play it.  You have Ruby, Key, Tolarian, Trop, UG.  Not enough to DT for force AND with this turn, so Tezz go's Balls-in assuming you would have forced the Etruth if you had it (which you would have, but your ripped like a pro).
Play Timevault.  Oath Forces pitching Merchant scroll, and counters it.  
DT for Yawg. Pass

Turn 4 Oath:
Oath up Tidespout.  
Let just for fun, say you draw a moxen for turn  
Play mox bouncing orchard - floating a white.  
Replay Orchard, play Find bouncing your Mox, finding Mox.
Infinite colorless, Tap your new orchard for blue -> Flash of Insight for infinite cards.  Stack your deck, and draw recall.
Recall to draw the Sapphire, Tidespout, and Yawg you stacked there.
Play sapphire for infintie blue, play tyrant, bounce thier board.
Yawg with infinite colorless and blue mana.
Superwin the game!

Even if you don't draw the "Nuts" here.  You still can royally screw over his Yawg.

You just need to leave 2 mana open.  Even if he thoughtsiezes you first - Flash of Insight has flashback!!! so you can still play it at instant speed to decimate his plans of winning via Timevault combo.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Innovative and this deck looks miserable to play against when it's doing its thing; nice work.

My question is what I always ask when considering Oath: what about when it doesn't work?

Oath traditionally has cards that are awful topdecks and have little synergy on their own.  Usually this is solved by filtering or mana denial that slows down the game until Oath can set up.  This deck has lots of tutoring, but little draw or filter.  It looks like if you don't have orchard (you've got plenty of tutors for oath) it's really easy to get behind on draw and then not be able to win counter wars.  Is this worse/better than typical builds in this respect?  Am I just missing the 'feel' of the deck?

[meadbert]

Innovative and this deck looks miserable to play against when it's doing its thing; nice work.

My question is what I always ask when considering Oath: what about when it doesn't work?

Oath traditionally has cards that are awful topdecks and have little synergy on their own.  Usually this is solved by filtering or mana denial that slows down the game until Oath can set up.  This deck has lots of tutoring, but little draw or filter.  It looks like if you don't have orchard (you've got plenty of tutors for oath) it's really easy to get behind on draw and then not be able to win counter wars.  Is this worse/better than typical builds in this respect?  Am I just missing the 'feel' of the deck?

Without Intuitions the Orchard problem is more substantial.  Basically sitting around with Oath and Root Maze out but no draw engine and no Orchard is just asking to lose.  With 4 Orchards, Demonic/Imp/Vamp and 4 Intuitions there are a lot of ways to find Orchard.
This is one reason why Intuition is in there even though it is frequently used to pitch to Force.

There are several options to use instead of Intuition.  Here is a short summary:
Thirst:  Little synergy with deck that neither wants Instant Speed draw spells no has many artifacts to pitch.  If Chalice were added this would make more sense.
Impulse:  Fair strong and possibly a better solution, but it neither gains card advantage, nor gets rid of bad cards in hand like Thirst nor is guarenteed to tutor up the card you want like Thirst.
Compulsive Research:  Better than Thirst.  Do not care that it is sorcery speed.  Pitching lands is usually ideal, particularly with Root Maze out.
Lat-Nam's Legacy:  Can get rid of Tyrants in hand.
Lim-Dual's Vault:  A tutor that could get both Oath and Orchard or at least 1 and is less vulnerable to Extirpate.  I have not tested this, but wonder if it is better.
Mana Drain:  Helps hardcast Tyrant, but makes it tougher to find Orchard.

[silvernail]

There is also unrestricted crop rotation.

[meadbert]

There is also unrestricted crop rotation.

Crop Rotation does not really work.
The 12 Rainbow lands are already low enough that you would mostly use it for getting Orchard.  Unfortunately this opens you up to just losing to Force of Will.
Crop Rotation has severe dissynergy with Root Maze since your new land comes into play tapped.
Finally Crop Rotation is not blue thus it cannot pitch to Force.

[Harlequin]

Regarding the effectiveness of Root Maze.  Root Maze is what won this game.  If I showed you that opening hand for Tez and told you your opponent would play Oath and only assemble their Orchard/Oath combo on turn 3 you would declare it an easy win.  Instead Root Maze severely disrupted everything Tez wanted to do.

I don't think this is true.  Given the exact same circumstance you explained, with the Oath player not drawing the 2nd oath and also not having root maze.  Oath still comes out on top.  (as outlined in my Reply #9).  

I think root maze hurt you equally in this game.  It prevented more -mana- out of tezz, but it in both cases, it delayed everything that was cast by 1 turn., for BOTH players.  So the 4 mana vrs the 1 mana was enough to make delaying FOF equal to delaying your Oath.  If it were virtually any card I think oath still ends up on top here, because Tezz is simply unable to find Force of will or Manadrain.  And if Tezz burns the lotus on FOF then he doesn't have enough mana to race anyone.

I think the power of Tidespout is more about bouncing your own cards, including your own lands.  Root Maze just doesn't seem to be doing "one sided" damage here.  It hurts your combo -more- than it hurts thiers (I mean if you want to get down to nickels and dimes, Timevault already comes into play tapped!).  
And actually Gemstone, means you would have had to draw mana OR oath in turn 2 to pull it out, because you can't cast rootmaze, oath, find, and oath again off 1 gemstone. 
This is just me really venting my frustration with every oath deck I've tested or seen in the past few months.  It just has a hard time putting all the peices together.  Small things like Gemstone Mine make small cracks in the surface of this deck.  And they are eventually enough to cause actual structural issues.

[Wise]

There is also unrestricted crop rotation.

Crop Rotation does not really work.
The 12 Rainbow lands are already low enough that you would mostly use it for getting Orchard.  Unfortunately this opens you up to just losing to Force of Will.
Crop Rotation has severe dissynergy with Root Maze since your new land comes into play tapped.
Finally Crop Rotation is not blue thus it cannot pitch to Force.

I found crop rotation to be great, you logic with it being countered is the same as oath, since this deck runs no hand disruption & only 4 counter spells the chances of having your oath countered are much just the same,

also I am starting to agree with Harlyquinn about root maze hurting you as much as your opponent

also your logic with root maze being poor with crop rotaion because the hand comes into play taped, its no difference then you drawing it and playing it for your turn it is still going to come into play taped


should you consider running 1 cunning wish SB for a brainfreeze or XDraw spell?

[meadbert]

If Oath is countered then I do not lose a rainbow land.

Back to Root Maze:
Without Root Maze it is too easy for an opponent to play Mana Crypt, Ruby, Sea, Yawg, Lotus, Vault, Key, win.

In this case Oath might have had Force in time, but it would have needed that Force where as with Root Maze, Force was not needed.

[Harlequin]

Back to Root Maze:
Without Root Maze it is too easy for an opponent to play Mana Crypt, Ruby, Sea, Yawg, Lotus, Vault, Key, win.

In this case Oath might have had Force in time, but it would have needed that Force where as with Root Maze, Force was not needed.

I disagree on both points.  Firstly, even with root maze not in play, the earliest they could get to take infinite turns is AFTER the latest turn oath would have Tyrant in play.  So long as Oath has a playable instant - bam - yawg is wasted.  Also as I pointed out, if you happen to get lucky on a mox, then a card like fash of insight straight up wins the game, no question about it.  You end up being faster than thier "easy" win. 

I agree that it was integral that in this case, Oath ended up with Force of will.  But I think both of these decks hinge strongly on the glaring weakness that Tezz only found ONE piece of disruption, and it was thoughtsieze.  If they had Drain or Force in addition to the sieze, I think both of these lines of play fall appart.   

Also with some things tweaked slightly, Oath without playing root maze (with a slightly stronger card in its place) could have raced Tezz with a similar hand, if it was on the draw.  The root maze hand, especially when compared to that spesific Tezz plan HAD to go first in order to make any ground.

Its really difficult to use 1 game as the entire basis for deciding if a deck is viable or not.  And I think at this point, we are really just nit-picking each other.  But my biggest reservation about Maze is that, even in a game where you are making an attempt to showcase its power - it appears that it was more symetrical than beneficial.  And that is the danger of the card.  Is that it stumbles you as much, if not more, than them (especially if you plan on going with tyrant). 

Think about it this way.  If Tyrant read "Target permanent you don't control" I would consider it completely unplayable.  Root maze, at least how you have framed it, seems like you are focusing on the wrong part of why Tryrant is amazing.

[meadbert]

There are few details I would like to address.

First I agree that one game does not tell us much, but it is atleast a start.

Next, in your example you have Oath comboing out because they rip a Mox of the top.  That is a big assumption to make since there are not many moxen in the deck.
If that top deck is not a Mox, then the game is changed.

Second, I believe you had Tez pick the wrong hand of Fact.  If I am holding Academy, and one Fact pile contains Jet, Mana Crypt and Brainstorm, then that is almost surely what I take.  If Tez had kept that and Brainstormed into the same 3 cards you Pondered into (which included Time Vault) then they would have won on the spot with Vault/Key (assuming they did not die to their Mana Crypt first.)

Basically by swapping out Root Maze you take a game where Oath won with cards to spare and transform into a game where Oath might win if Tez plays poorly and Oath rips Mox off the top.  For this reason I believe that your example actually shows why Root Maze is so good.

As a said above, I agree that one game shows little so that does not mean that Flash of Insight does not belong.

To be fair, building a deck around Root Maze and then showing how Root Maze is better than Flash of Insight in that deck in one particular game is saying little.  If an Oath deck were built around Flash of Insight perhaps it would be better than this.  The reason I suspect that this is not the case is that while Root Maze is a bomb when you have not found Oath, Flash of Insight and Brain Freeze are far less useful and mostly serve to pitch to Force.

I would not mind expanding the scope of this thread to include Tyrant Oath in general.  How would you build Tyrant Oath today?  Would you run Argivian Find or Enlightened Tutor?

Also, something that I have not strongly considered is whether Root Maze and Flash of Insight can coexist.  Although you need one extra spell to get started (so you can bounce Root Maze), it does give more flexibility.  Furthermore the deck I posted is short Blue cards anyway.  I could definitely see swapping an Intuition for Flash of Insight and Intuition can always find the card while comboing out.  I am actually curious about both lines of creating a deck.