Oath targets

[John Cox]

I can't seem to find a consensus on what the ideal oath target is in a control build. I've been playing around with a rune-scarred demon/griselbrand split but there should be something more optimal.
Control oath looks like its well positioned in the current meta so I thought I would start a thread to discuss the best targets. Most people are using rune-scarred demons and or griselbrand, -or emrakul/blightsteel/progenitus. With laboratory maniac getting a mention.
So what should control oath use? -Griselbrand as combo does? Is it meta dependent? Does the variant ("show and tell" etc.) play a role?

[brianpk80]

I use 2 Auriok Salvagers and a Sphinx of the Steel Wind (which enables maindeck Tinker).  I prefer Griselbrand to Rune-Scarred Demon if I ran either as both demons generally function as means to an end where that end is comboing out w. Vault/Key.  It's been easier for me to simply Oath up the end game itself, Auriok with a loaded yard, while abusing Sphinx to control the disruptive "fair" matches.   While the Bomberman is less glamorous than Griselbrand, the trade-off is that he's an easily hardcastable Oath target that doesn't require Show and Tell so there is a lower frequency of inoperable cards in hand with the set-up.  

[Samoht]

Griselbrand x2 unless you're Brian Kelly.

[hashswag]

I've run Griselbrand, Lab Maniac and 3 Ingot Chewers at the same time in a tournament. Worked like a charm.

[xouman]

The 3 chewers were maindeck??? I find really interesting playing them in the sb, but maindecking them seems risky, since most of the time you prefer a griselbrand (you only prefer a chewer when there are cages in play)

[hashswag]

The 3 chewers were maindeck??? I find really interesting playing them in the sb, but maindecking them seems risky, since most of the time you prefer a griselbrand (you only prefer a chewer when there are cages in play)

Haha I'm not that crazy. I had 2 Griselbrands main and 1 Lab Maniac + 3 Chewers sideboard. This was playing Steve's Burning Long deck in a room full of shops decks running Metamorph/Duplicant (to kill Griselbrand) and Trike (to kill Lab Maniac).

Basically the plan was to drop an Oath and keep Oathing up Ingot Chewers. If they had a cage, it's fine to draw the Chewer. If they didn't have a cage, I'd pick off any super dangerous creatures (Wurmcoil, Trike, etc), but otherwise I'd hit something that isn't a creature and leave the body around to trade with Lodestone and friends (picking it off with the trigger puts you ahead on creatures and stops you Oathing). Griselbrand can be a storm wincon if you can get rid of spheres, but generally he's there for the big lifelink body (since you basically have to let the 1/1 Spirits hit you), occasional mass-drawing (answers stack up in your hand if your Chewers are keeping you ahead) and occasional face-beating. All the damage your Chewers (and the freedom that comes with destroying spheres with them) cause means you end up with a bunch of ways to protect Lab Maniac when you oath up the rest of your library.

The only thing Cage really does against it is stop you playing Griselbrand. Even sitting there tutoring up 3 Chewers, 1 Lab Maniac and a useless Griselbrand is very strong against shops.

[evouga]

Control oath looks like its well positioned in the current meta

I'm not sure about that. In my testing I've found that Oath is weak against UR Pyromancer-based control decks. These decks have more control elements than the Oath deck and have inevitability if you cannot run out *and* activate an early Oath. Too often once you're finally able to tutor up Gristelbrand, you're facing down an active Jace and a swarm of Pyromancer tokens.

The matchup was more even pre-Treasure Cruise, but Khans has really given the Pyromancer decks the leg up.

[YamiKuriboh]

When I think of Oath the first thing that comes to mine is a strategy to hose creature decks as a lot of creatureless blue decks put Oaths in the sb to do this. With the rising popularity of creature decks, particularly delver, I don't think it's that bad a statement to say Oath should be well positioned now.

[TheWhiteDragon]

When I think of Oath the first thing that comes to mine is a strategy to hose creature decks as a lot of creatureless blue decks put Oaths in the sb to do this. With the rising popularity of creature decks, particularly delver, I don't think it's that bad a statement to say Oath should be well positioned now.

This.

[JarofFortune]

When I think of Oath the first thing that comes to mine is a strategy to hose creature decks as a lot of creatureless blue decks put Oaths in the sb to do this. With the rising popularity of creature decks, particularly delver, I don't think it's that bad a statement to say Oath should be well positioned now.

This.

There's one problem with this. Delver is favored against Oath if they have enough hate in the board, despite being a creature deck. If they can crush your initial onslaught, they will outdraw you by a lot over the course of the game. If you somehow create an Oath deck that can keep parity with Delver in terms of card selection, things might change.

A transformational Oath Sideboard could potentially catch some Delver players by surprise, especially if you are a Combo-Control deck and they board incorrectly.

[evouga]

When I think of Oath the first thing that comes to mine is a strategy to hose creature decks as a lot of creatureless blue decks put Oaths in the sb to do this. With the rising popularity of creature decks, particularly delver, I don't think it's that bad a statement to say Oath should be well positioned now.

I have played over 100 games of Oath vs Delver and I can say with confidence that Delver -- more specifically, the recent builds of Delver that don't run Delver of Secrets -- is favored in the matchup.

"Cruise Delver" is not an essentially creature-based deck. When piloted correctly against Oath, it is a strong control deck with a combo finish that happens to involve a creature.

[jamestosetti]

I never considered Oath to be a difficult match even when using Delver. They must outplay you in some way, or you must play into the trap. I use two Griselbrands, but I am also running a heavy counter package, which includes three Spell Pierce.

[timmorri]

Through testing, 3 Griselbrand is correct.  Also, I run an Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite out of the board.  It deals with Dredge, Delver, WW, Affinity, Goblins, Merfolk (depending on how many lords they have out), Mentor, and Pyromancer.