Gush Oath

[Aaron Patten]

Does anyone else do this anymore?  I have a decklist for a very old version that I used to play years ago.  Even underpowered it was competitive with fully powered flash decks before that set of restrictions.  I didn't get to do much testing with it back then due to limited local interest, but with the 2008 restrictions that interest was reduced to just me.  

The list I'm thinking of now is:

Artifacts
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl (I only own one mox so I'm playing 3 Mox Diamond and a Mox Opal in lou of proxies)
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt

Creatures
2 Eternal Witness
1 Tidespout Tyrant (Considdering taking this out to make the deck more immune to removal)

Enchantments
4 Oath of Druids
1 Fastbond

Instants
4 Force of Will
4 Spell Peirce
4 Gush
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall

Sorceries
3 Preordane
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
1 Tendrils of Agony

Planeswalkers
1 Jace, the Mindsculptor

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
3 Forbidden Orchard
3 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Library of Alexandria

Sideboard:
3 Wasteland
4 Stifle
3 Mana Drain
1 Strip Mine
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Terastodon
1 Balance

Back before brainstorm was restricted the interaction with brainstorm and oath was so key that I would often find my self returning brainstorm with witness so I'm trying to build the same deck without that dependance.  This is the list that I've come up with.  Thoughts?  Suggestions?  Comments?  related deck lists?

[Lemnear]

Aren't already some Gush&Oath threads out there on the board? Jesus......



So you want to play Gush with only 5 cards in the Deck what have the Island-subtype? You suggest to play only 14 lands and no basic lands in a Workshop-meta? Playing Mox Diamonds too? Really? Oh, pal......

Gush&Oath-Decks, pre- and post-Vintage-Apocalypse, are explored grounds so I doubt there's a reason to discuss the same topic from the start.

[Aaron Patten]

Haven't had much trouble finding islands but I was considdering playing a basic Island.  Probly a good call.  The mox diamonds are in just because I don't currently have the other moxen but at a proxy tournament i'd imagine they'd come out for the four that I listed in the original post, Emerald, Pearl, Ruby, and Jet.  Also with the gush's they help mana fix and Gush insures there are always land in hand to pitch for them.  The deck started out iwth 3 Drains main and it had good synergy with the diamonds since it can be a turn 1 sapphire + Island into Drain.  But this is all beside the points since I'm only playing them for a lack of real moxen.  Just think of the deck as having Pearl, Jet, Ruby, and Emerald.  

Maybe you could link me to the most recent thread regarding Gush Oath.  I only found one recent one and it was Tyrant Oath.  

Edit: After seeing how ridiculously good Workshop has become post 2008 I am now running -1 Preordane -1 Eternal Witness +1 Hurkyl's recall +1 Nature's Claim.  Who's idea was it to eliminate the interactive nature of vintage and replace it with MUD prison vs. obviously inferior strategies that people only play for lack of a sufficient funding to afford MUD anyways?  What a terrible idea.  

[Smmenen]

Why would you run Lim-Dul's Vault over a 4th Preordain? 

[Aaron Patten]

Lim-Dul's Vault is almost guaranteed to get me any card.  Preordain, while it doesn't cost me card advantage, could easily run me into more card draw and I might lose a turn just doing that and not actually playing any threats.  I find that with gush in the deck it's relatively easy to set up a really explossive top five on end step and then untap into a really strong turn.  (Hopefully making up for the 2 mana and 1 card I spent to get there).  There's a balance between card draw and tutor effects and that is the reason for 2 LDV 3 Preordane which I have tentatively changed to 2 LDV 2 Preordane.  Do u disagree?

[Aaron Patten]

This list plays similar to the one I had back in pre-2008 Vintage:
Land 19:
4 Forbidden Orchard
2 Polluted Delta
2 Wasteland
2 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical ISland
1 Tundra
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Academy Ruins
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria

Creatures 2:
2 Eternal Witness

Instants 16:
4 Force of Will
3 Gush
3 Mental Misstep
1 Spellpierce
1 Echoing Truth
1 Brainstorm
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recal

Sorceries 8:
2 Gitaxian Probe
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Time Walk

Artifacts 8:
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Diamond

Enchantments 5:
4 Oath of Druids
1 Fastbond

Planeswalkers 2:
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

This list plays similar to the one I had back in pre-2008 Vintage:
Land 19:
4 Forbidden Orchard
2 Polluted Delta
2 Wasteland
2 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical ISland
1 Tundra
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Academy Ruins
1 Strip Mine
1 Library of Alexandria

Creatures 2:
2 Eternal Witness

Instants 16:
4 Force of Will
3 Gush
3 Mental Misstep
1 Spellpierce
1 Echoing Truth
1 Brainstorm
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Ancestral Recal

Sorceries 8:
2 Gitaxian Probe
2 Cabal Therapy
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Time Walk

Artifacts 8:
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Diamond

Enchantments 5:
4 Oath of Druids
1 Fastbond

Planeswalkers 2:
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

I'm just going to let you know right now wastes and orchard is a nonbo with gush, you even have Tolarian, an easy gush cut as is, without gull moxen. you might try cutting the wastes and Tolarian entirely and trimming an orchard while looking heavily at swan song if you are really wanting to play gush. No idea if it'll work though.

Also, the printing of f storm makes witness packages not so hot. If you are going for the witness vault pieces plan, its just worse at finding them than the 7/7. The 2/1 is also worse at stabilizing.

[Aaron Patten]

Yeah, I cut wastes, strip, academy ruins and reduced orchards.  I don't think swan song is quite good enough vs dredge and shop.  I'm not 100% sure what you mean about witness and fluster storm unless you're thinking about the cabal therapy storm count.  flusterstorm is just good against anything trying to cast instants and sorceries but unless you cast witness then play the sorc/inst you get with it all in the same turn then it seems like it's really all the same.  The reason I like witness is that it still does something when cage is down and I expect workshops to have that main or at the very least 4 post side for their bad dredge matchup.  Was messing around with snapcasters instead of witness but they lose to cage also; though the blue to pitch to force is nice.  Also, Bow of Nylea has a neat graveyard recursion ability; too bad it's other abilities are totally irrelevant in this format.  I don't have much of a playerbase around here other than cockatrice and gccg to play against since everyone I knew quit with the restriction of brainstorm.  I can only think of one new Vintage player I've met since then.  Ultimately I really appreciate the input!

[Random Noob]

Tidespout Tyrant is pretty solid with Gush and especially Eternal Witness. Once you have infinite mana with Tyrant (bouncing Moxen) you can, when you have found the green one with Witness, bounce her again and again, and play all cards in your grave, and maybe kill your Opponent with Ancestral Recalling him.

I wouldn't cut him.

[Aaron Patten]

I definitely miss that interaction.  My thoughts taking it out were that it was kind of overkill and I might not need it to win.  Thus without it I wouldn't have that one dead draw to worry about and could play one more control element to make sure oath and will stick.  

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

Tidespout Tyrant is pretty solid with Gush and especially Eternal Witness. Once you have infinite mana with Tyrant (bouncing Moxen) you can, when you have found the green one with Witness, bounce her again and again, and play all cards in your grave, and maybe kill your Opponent with Ancestral Recalling him.

I wouldn't cut him.

I've played a lot of tyrant oath and gush in my day. Its simply out classed by other options right now for raw power reasons. The same goes for witness x 10. For every Xmas land scenario with tyrant into 2/1 you can be pretty unhappy if the reverse happens. Most of the time your just going to get more options from RSD than witness anyways. If you insist on playing tyrant, RSD gets you walk completing your combo and then is replayed to find brain-freeze when complete. RSD has a direct line to winning whereas witness gets you random card from yard in some scenarios, and can get bolted in response to tyrant trigger. That doesn't seem bad to me.

Assuming you have a mox you can tutor up jet and then tutor up every card in your deck. That sounds much better than witness. it's better in many scenarios, if not all.

[mulder]

[/quote]

I've played a lot of tyrant oath and gush in my day. Its simply out classed by other options right now for raw power reasons. The same goes for witness x 10. For every Xmas land scenario with tyrant into 2/1 you can be pretty unhappy if the reverse happens. Most of the time your just going to get more options from RSD than witness anyways. If you insist on playing tyrant, RSD gets you walk completing your combo and then is replayed to find brain-freeze when complete. RSD has a direct line to winning whereas witness gets you random card from yard in some scenarios, and can get bolted in response to tyrant trigger. That doesn't seem bad to me.

Assuming you have a mox you can tutor up jet and then tutor up every card in your deck. That sounds much better than witness. it's better in many scenarios, if not all.
[/quote]

Am I the only one who has no clue what RSD is?

[H]

Am I the only one who has no clue what RSD is?

Rune-Scarred Demon.

[Aaron Patten]

I've been remembering more about the pre-2008 version of the deck lately.  As an addendum to my prior answer to Stephen's question, the reason for the Lim-Dul's Vault was that I could use it to find Fastbond and almost assuredly also have either a gush in the same 5 or a tutor plus a draw spell to get the engine going in spite.  The worst case would have been fastbond witness and a gush in the yard for witness to recur which is obviously not ideal but could lead to drawing the other card you wanted from the 5 off vault in order to get the engine started.  Also, Oathing into witness had the purpose of recurring time walk and if on your first oath activation you don't hit time walk then you need to bin a tutor spell to go get it.  Lim-Dul's Vault had the advantage of being one of the few tutors that is an instant and could be cast on upkeep, after being returned by Witness, to get Time Walk.  It's also blue and can therefore pitch to Force of Will if you're not confident in your ability to recover from the card disadvantage after resolving that tutor (though that is an unlikely scenario in a gush deck).  This was in the days of 4 brainstorm so there were more powerful draw spells available than what are presently and it might be that LDV is no longer viable because of that.  These are the individual situations that made up the previously mentioned reason for keeping Lim-Dul's Vault in, though I didn't remember that at the time I posted the list.  I only remembered that it was amazing in the list and I thought at the time it should never be cut.  

I think the real thing I want to accomplish with oath is to use it in a deck that is not completely dependant on it to win and doesn't play any undesirable spells in order to make Oath work (except Orchard which is terrible but necessary).  Maybe I should start another thread and call it "Skinny Oath" or something to denote the lack of fat or at least the desire to trim down the fat.  Playing blue creatures gives the advantage of being able to pitch your dead draws to force and playing artifact creatures allows you to play Tinker so the blue artifact creatures such as Sphinx of the Steel Wind appeal to me for those reasons.  I believe that oath's mechanic is so strong on it's own that it should be possible to sacrifice some of the explosive qualities of the deck in order to gain a more consistent outcome.  The reason I like to combine it with gush is that gush plays well with low cmc threats in that it finds them without making them unplayable through it's drawback.  

Witness has formerly made the deck very immune to the disruption that was available against oath in 2008 since it could recur a dead oath or countered tutor and ensure you resolve oath.  Typical curves included turn1 cabal therapy, turn 2 oath, turn 3 witness returning oath and sacrificing to recur cabal therapy, turn 4 oath with 2 mana up.

Anyone have ideas they feel like posting for "Skinny Oath"?

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

If you want to cut the fat from a gush oath list and stream line it, I think you are just looking at a gush list.

[TheWhiteDragon]

If you want to cut the fat from a gush oath list and stream line it, I think you are just looking at a gush list.

If you want to cut the fat from oath or gush lists, or any deck for that matter, I think you're just looking at Workshops.

If you MUST run suboptimal, non-artifact cards, I'd suggest going with a straight control/oath list with B-wish, and Tinker/S&T in the sb.  Then again, I think there already is a deck like that.  hmm.