Oath

[merkaba]

(18)
3 mana drain
4 force of will
3 counterspell
2 misderection
2 mana leak
1 fact or fiction
2 impulse
1 stroke

(8)
3 oath of druids
2 gaea's blessing
1 regrowth
1 hollistic wisdom
1 sylvan library

(2)
1 stp
1 balance

(4)
1 demonic tutor
1 mind twist
1 vampiric tutor
1 diabolic edict

(3)
1 morphling
1 shivan hellkite
1 spike feeder

(25)
4 tundra
4 tropical island
4 volcanic island
4 underground sea
4 strip club
4 city of brass
1 Gemstone

Sb: unknown except redblasts, of course.

Any help appreciated.

[hippie tourach]

I consider 3 Oaths to be the optimal numer--4 is even good in some metagames.

Teferi's Response is not really necessary--it's best used to protect Mishra's Factories--in your case it will be dead too often.

Don't run Regrowth and Hollistic--just choose one.  And I wouldn't bother with Grove at all, since it's 2 splashed colors.  Enlightened Tutor doesn't do much but get Oath--it would be better if it simply was an Oath, so you can avoid card disadvantage.

Other than that... Flood Plain is not a great land choice, and splashing red simply for sideboard against Keeper is unwise.  If you fear it that much, run U/G (which is more consistent anyway) and maindeck some B2B.

[PsychoCid]

If it were Keeper, you would only run one of Regrowth or Wisdom.  Outrecurring Keeper is part of what allows you to whoop it.

Note that Keeper runs 4 Mana Drains and well over 8 sinks.  You run 4 Drains and about 3 sinks.  This is highly unhealthy :/

3 Oaths is optimal for the maindeck unless dealing with an incredibly aggro-tilted metagame.

Response is highly unnecessary, avoid unless using manlands.

To make it easy, here's a list of things you don't need:
So many UU counters
Merchant Scroll
Teferi's Response
Sterling Grove
Enlightened Tutor
StP (Depends on metagame)
Powder Keg
Zorb (Most likely, anyway)
Vampiric Tutor (Also depends)

And here's a list of things you can definitely use:
Power (Duh )
Another Misdirection
Another Oath
Impulses
More Counters overall
Stroke of Genius

Also, you might want to consider Shivan Hellkite over Spike Weaver in a more aggro-heavy environment.  It kills weenies, it blocks Morphling, and if ever need be it gives you a way to kill the opponent without attacking.  Can sideboard Crater Hellion vs. SuiBlack and Weaver vs. Keeper/Stompy/Mono-U/etc.  Especially with Weaver in, I suggest you keep the Feeder.

This isn't a decklist you can conform to, due to its reliance on power, but it was what I tweaked over time.  It looks almost as bad as ICT, I'll admit (okay, maybe I'm being a bit too hard on myself), but it works.  Explanations will be given where deemed necessary:

//NAME: PsychOath
// Counters (13)
        3 Counterspell
        4 Force of Will
        2 Mana Drain  (Not enough sinks)
        2 Mana Leak  (Work well with moxen in the early turns)
        2 Misdirection
// Card Advantage, Etc. (15)
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Balance
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Fact or Fiction
        2 Gaea's Blessing
        1 Holistic Wisdom
        2 Impulse  (No room for more)
        1 Merchant Scroll
        1 Mind Twist
        3 Oath of Druids
        1 Regrowth
        1 Stroke of Genius
        1 Sylvan Library
        1 Time Walk
// Creatures (3)
        1 Morphling
        1 Shivan Hellkite  (Explained above)
        1 Spike Feeder
// Artifacts (7)
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Sol Ring
// Land (20)
        4 City of Brass
        1 Gemstone Mine  (Needed another 5c land, not Paradise)
        1 Library of Alexandria
        1 Strip Mine
        4 Tropical Island
        2 Underground Sea
        1 Undiscovered Paradise
        3 Volcanic Island
        3 Wasteland
SB:  1 Aura Fracture
SB:  1 Circle of Protection: Red
SB:  2 Control Magic  (Occasionally need spot removal)
SB:  1 Crater Hellion
SB:  2 Hydroblast
SB:  1 Oath of Druids
SB:  1 Powder Keg
SB:  4 Red Elemental Blast
SB:  1 Spike Weaver
SB:  1 Woodripper  (Good vs. Stacker/MaskNought)

You'll notice the lack of any mirage tutors or anything of the sort, as I wanted to avoid card disadvantage.  Oath kills aggro, and the decks ability to outdraw, outcounter, and outrecur is what kills control.  Mass counterage takes out combo, of course.  Matchups I fear include MaskNought and SuiBlack w/Null Rods.  Each get tons easier after sideboarding.

That about covers everything, I think.  Good luck

[Zherbus]

One thing you really need to get over, as Cid kinda mentioned, is that you aren't playing keeper...its Oath

[merkaba]

so how does:

-1 weaver
-1 zorb
-1 response
-1 sterling grove
-1 merchant scroll
-1 mana drain
-1 enlightned tutor
-1 powder keg

+ 1 misderection
+ 2 impulse
+ 1 oath
+ 1 shivan hellkite
+ 1 stroke
+ 2 mana leak

how's the new mana base (above)? So all of the green recursion is ok? or no? Should I run mana leak without moxes?
And, can someone post a U/G version for reference.

[hippie tourach]

WARNING: Don't run Shivan Hellkite without Brainstorm!

I wouldn't run it at all... maybe Crater Hellion in a very aggro metagame, but I leave that SB.  If you do run it, though, you need Brainstorms to put it back in the library.

I've never had a particular problem with Mana Drain--Holistic and Spikes are good sinks if needed, and I don't bother running off-color moxen, so Mana Leaks aren't good for me.

Repeat: Red is not worth running in Oath.  It adds nothing to maindeck and the SB Pyroblasts are not worth the mana base screw.  If you run more than 2 color Oath (which I wouldn't do because of the loss of B2B), keep it to 4 colors and leave red out.

For your mana base, Gemstone Mine should be Undiscovered Paradise, and if I interpret "4 Strip Club" to mean "4 Strip Mine," you should know it's restricted.  More likely you just mean 1 Strip Mine 3 Wastelands, in which case that's fine.

Replace those excess duals with Islands so you don't get screwed by nonbasic hosers.

[FeverDog]

I really think that you should go two colors, you wont have access to as many toys but your mana base will improve greatly. Ug is more consistent and allows you to run B2B in the side which should give you an edge vs keeper. If you do wanna run Black in addition i understand but i would stay away from White and Red, they are really not needed in this deck. White gives you mostly anti-aggro cards which you shouldnt need if you are playing Oath and Red gives you sb cards only(mainly REBs) which arent worth it unless you play at NG or some other mystical place where 75% of the field is Keeper decks.

[PsychoCid]

Having worked on this for some time, I can tell you that Hellkite is not for aggro-only environments.  I'm sure you'd want Hellion or anything else, there.  Hellkite is best where aggro is around more than expected in a normal fully powered t1 environment (meaning what is usually mostly control).  It may not be the best thing against control, it may not be the best thing against aggro (but, damn it does well) but what makes it good overall is that it doesn't suck against either, whereas all of the other choices will be strong against one and :/ against the other.  Because of the fact that you only run Hellkite in this situation, you don't 'need' Brainstorm, as it's incredibly rare that you run into situations where you would really really need to be able to Oath it up.  Once in a while it happens, sure, but not enough to warrant wasting extra slots.  Plus, Brainstorm itself sort of wants even more slots, as t1 Oath doesn't Oath as much as 1.x Oath does, so you'd want to shove in all the tutoring you can, for more shuffling effects.

The entire reason you rarely see 2 color oath anymore is that U/g just doesn't work so well without the other three FoF's.  SapphireBlue was just as dependant on them as BBS was.  Hence Acolytec dropping the deck.  Holistic Wisdom was the answer to this, though it's still not as strong as just having the other FoFs (duh).  The original build we tried involved multiple Wisdoms and things like Intuition and evolved from there.  It was discovered that, with the lack of drawing, more power was needed.   Introducing: the other colors of magic (and oddly enough, green wasn't any of the ones left out =P).  (Side note:  Because of the sheer power of the cards from other colors, the splashes were actually originally added to Acoly's SapphBlue long before it was necessary.)

Black was added for the obvious power with its standard toys.  Mind Twist and Demonic Tutor are naturals.  Abyss and Edict weren't needed due to the nature of the deck, and Will was left out because Holistic Wisdom filled that spot.

Red brought the wonder of Shivan Hellkite (as previously explained) and the ever potent counter-weapon of REB, as well as Crater Hellion in the side, which greatly helped against SuiBlack w/Rods.

At this point, there were no basics, and therefor it would have been stupid not to add white for Balance and sideboarded Aura Fracture, plus replacing a Hydroblast with a CoP:R.

Thus far, given that you have so much more countering and recursion, and with Impulse more/better card advantage/quality, the loss of b2b as an edge against Keeper hasn't been felt.  Oath may be Oath and therefor want to eat up creatures, but Keeper is one of my easiest matchups.

I think that about covers everything, eh

[FeverDog]

I stand corrected.

[Rico Suave]

Quote (PsychoCid @ June 21 2002,02:00)the loss of b2b as an edge against Keeper hasn't been felt.

Hasn't been felt?  

As far as not feeling the effects of B2B against Keeper, the many cards gained do make up for it, but I feel it only equals out after all is said and done.  

It is more stable and consistent against not only aggro, but control as well.  A timely Wasteland can still mana-screw multi-color Oath as badly as Keeper.  That is a lot more of a factor than you give it credit.

Now, you mentioned that mono-black decks oftentimes give you a hard time.  I like U/G so much because it handles that match-up so well.  It has tons of basics to avoid Wastelands, it has Oath for those pesky critters, and still retains lots of card-drawing.

Granted, the multi-color Oath is more flexible and able to handle more things that hit the board.  I still believe that the Oath you listed and U/G are both equally strong against Keeper, but U/G has an edge against other things which multi-color doesn't have.

[PsychoCid]

You'll notice that I was speaking specifically about b2b in and of itself, not the total affects of having the keeper-sort of manabase, rather than plenty of basics.  I have not missed b2b, plain and simple.

At this point, I no longer fear SuiBlack w/Rods so much.  That was from a time when I ran two less land and didn't have Hellion to help in the latter games.  As of now, it's not so bad at all, and thus I much prefer having the extra power to not having the extra small weakness.  Being that Oath and counters are cheap, having a land or two wasted out from under you is no longer a precurser to death so much as merely something you plan for...though, yes, just as much as Keeper, you CAN get screwed, but the thing is that you also CAN recover

At any rate, yes, U/g has advantages.  But the biggest disadvantage is that, frankly, it sucks w/o 3 more FoFs.  Even if the advantages were greater, U/g will remain at a lower tier, at the least, because of controllable factors.

[hippie tourach]

You don't need red to run Hellion.  Brainstorm, perhaps, but that's a natural slot in UG Oath anyway.

Now, you say UG sucks because it has only 1 FoF, in other words, it doesn't have enough drawing.  Then what do black, white, and red add in that area?  Black adds one tutor (possibly two) that can get card drawing, and the other colors add no drawing.  It doesn't seem to me like 5-color Oath solves that problem very well.

Shivan Hellkite is simply a poor choice for an Oath creature.  It cannot kill itself (without 10 mana), and it cannot be cast from your hand (without 7).  Oath should run utility creatures that can self-destruct, rather than a creature which quite possibly could end up slowing you down, either in hand or in play.  Even Triskelion would be better.

Quote you have so much more countering and recursion

I don't see how adding tertiary colors enables you to add countering...  I don't see the additional recursion, either--it's all green.

[PsychoCid]

Well, thank you for a) not paying attention and b) showing you don't know that true t1 Oath works differently than 1.x Oath, which is because the average metagames are different, not necessarily the decks themselves.  If your t1 environment is basically 1.x with Hymns and Dark Ritual, that's not my problem =P

The other colors don't add drawing, they add POWER to make up for the drawing.  So 5-color Oath solves that problem fine.

No, you don't need red to run Hellion.  You do need red to run REBs, which, although not necessary for survival, are a good idea.  Hellion w/o red requires Brainstorms, though, which require more tutorage for shuffling, which is all a complete and total waste of slots, in t1.  Type 1 Oath does not sit there and cycle through it's creatures forever like 1.x Oath does.  t1 Oath finds the key creature and whoops ass with it.  Or, in some cases, you find the equilizer and then only wait to find the advantage giver.  If you need Hellkite to kill itself, you are either wasting time or playing an inferior deck build for the format, if not both.

Quote you have so much more countering and recursion

^Than Keeper, not than 2c Oath.  I'll admit that section was poorly worded as a whole, but the basics of it are that since you have the same tools Keeper has plus more countering plus more/better draw plus more recursion, b2b is not something you need to depend on to win, nor is it anything you sit there going "Gee, that'd be somewhat helpful right now" for.

Anything else?

[Shade]

W00t!  My first post!

Anyway, hee's what I'm running for a powerless Oath nowadays.

WHITE
1 Balance
1 Dismantling Blow
1 Swords to Plowshares

BLUE
1 Braingeyser
1 Fact or Fiction
4 Force of Will
4 Impulse
4 Mana Drain
1 Misdirection
1 Morphling
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Stroke of Genius

BLACK
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mind Twist
1 Vampiric Tutor

GREEN
2 Gaea's Blessing
4 Oath of Druids
1 Spike Feeder
1 Spike Weaver
1 Sylvan Library

ARTIFACT
1 Powder Keg
1 Sol Ring

LAND
4 City of Brass
1 Library of Alexandria
2 Mishra's Factory
1 Strip Mine
4 Tropical Island
4 Tundra
4 Underground Sea
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Wasteland

The lone Keg and Swords are actually pretty nice.  

Without power, the Impulses speed the deck up quite a bit, and allow me to slide by with a couple fewer mana sources.  

4 Oaths are a must for me.  One Oath against aggro is game, though it's difficult to topple a good, powered control deck.

[Rico Suave]

Quote (PsychoCid @ June 21 2002,16:24)You'll notice that I was speaking specifically about b2b in and of itself, not the total affects of having the keeper-sort of manabase, rather than plenty of basics.  I have not missed b2b, plain and simple.

I don't rely much on b2b to win, but I do rely heavily on the mana-base.  That is what I miss when going from 2 to 4-5 colors.  I do have lots of non-basic hate in my environment, and maybe that's a large portion of why I prefer UG.  Whatever, if I want to play something along the lines of your Oath deck, I'll just play "Keeper" with more recursion.

I need to dig up my UG decklist sometime, but basically instead of neat tricks it has more counters (yea, I know) and more search to find the blue brokenness.

[merkaba]

U/G would be something like:

4 oath
2 blessing
1 sylvan
1 regrowth
1 hollistic wisdom

4 force of will
4 mana drain
4 counterspell
2 mana leak
3 misderection
1 fact or fiction
1 stroke
1 braingeyser
4 impulse
1 morphling
1 teferi's response

4 tropical island
10 island
5 forest
4 strip club
2 mishra's factory

???

[PsychoCid]

Something like that, yeah.  Unless metagaming, 3 Oaths is enough maindeck.  SapphireOath ran only 4 Trop 4 Yavimaya Coast for green mana (plus Emerald and Lotus, obviously), but SapphOath played like BBS, not like Oath.  What makes my deck so different is that like I still prefer to play like BBS (minus b2b, plus power of other colors ), and just use Oath some to help clean up the corners \n\n

[Rico Suave]

Here's what I use:

4 Tropical Island
11 Island
1 UP
3 Forest
4 Strips
4 Sapphire/Emerald/Lotus/Sol

4 Mana Drain
4 FoW
2 Counterspell
2 Back to Basics
4 Brainstorm
1 FoF
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk
1 Stroke
1 Morph
1 Mis-D
2 M. Scroll

3 Oath
2 Blessing
1 Regrowth
1 Weaver
1 Feeder
1 Sylvan

I really love the Hellkite, but due to lack of R...

Anyhow, I prefer this kind of approach over adding many colors.  It still plays much like BBS did, but unlike yours it only has a splash for Oath, not everything.

[prodomoi]

Mr. Suave: What's your SB look like? Do you bring in 2 BtB vs Keeper?

I noticed that you play 4 Strips + 2 BtB maindeck. It seems like overkill. Perhaps 2 Strips + 2 BtB will solidify your manabase.

I've been fooling around with UG Oath recently (every time I played my 5C version, I always thought to myself, "Why aren't I playing Keeper?"). I really like being able to solidfy my manabase (and playing 4 BtB!.

[Rico Suave]

Quote (prodomoi @ June 26 2002,03:25)I've been fooling around with UG Oath recently (every time I played my 5C version, I always thought to myself, "Why aren't I playing Keeper?"). I really like being able to solidfy my manabase (and playing 4 BtB!.

And that's why I like U/G.  Every time I would rather play Keeper.

SB:
2 B2B
-lots of anti-black stuff, because they're everywhere around here (I think I had like 3 Composts or something)
-Illusion/Reality, because Cursed Scrolls are annoying and I can fetch it through Merchant Scroll
-anti-enchantment stuff  because the deck has no maindeck removal for it
-I don't remember the rest of it, and it changes a lot anyway

The Strips are for the Mishra's Factories that show up enough to warrant it.  Also, B2B isn't a game-winner by itself.  Wastes can also strip key mana which can then allow for B2B to hit the board and stay.  Also, my opponent can still leave their mana untapped.

[Razor]

Has anyone else tried any of the following cards in UG Sapphire Oath?

Ancient Hydra - 'shooty shooty' it can self-destruct and operates on colourless (unlike Crater Hellion)

True Believer SB- versus Combo do we really need any help other than maindeck counters?

Questing Phelddagrif
Color= Multi  Type= Creature - Phelddagrif  Cost= 1GWU PS®  
Text (PS): 4/4. ; : ~this~ gets +1/+1 until end of turn. Target opponent puts a 1/1 green Hippo creature token into play. ; : ~this~ gains protection from black and from red until end of turn. Target opponent gains 2 life. ; : ~this~ gains flying until end of turn. Target opponent may draw a card.
-He gives the opponent critters which promotes oathing out our tech, has evasion, and pumps....

Spike Feeder - do we need him in the maindeck? or even in the SB?  S.Weaver is superior maindeck and isn't Ravenous  Baloth better, too?  Feeder only seems good versus burn.dec

Greater Good - might rawk with Akroma and phat friends

Accumulated Knowledge - in resp. to a triggered Blessing it can net a whack of cards cheaply

Siding Funeral Pyre or Verdant Touch to trigger Oath.  Cunning Wishable, too.

I think fully-powered versions benefit from use of all 5 moxen to get first turn access to Mana Leak and Oath and brokenness with Timetwister (Regrowth/Blessing).

Also, here is the way I see the general matchups fro Sapphire Oath:
Vs. Combo: Win because it can out counter Combo
Vs. Control: 50/50'ish
Vs. Aggro: Win because our critters are fatter

Are extra Sylvan Libraries good SB tech to improve the Control matchup?  Or am I better off siding 4 'Phids in lieu of the Oaths?

Brainstorms vs. Impulse - I like 'em both.  Brainstorms were always better in Oath I thought because they can topdeck drawn creatures for Oathing.  Since fetchies got printed Brainstorms are even tastier.

Here is my latest version:
//Name: Sapphire Oath UG v.1.0
//July27, 2003
//Ray Mitchell
//ray@webinmotion.net
//
//Cards: 61
//
//Deck Composition:
//Blue=23
//Green=9
//Artifacts=7
//Land=22
//
//Combo: 10
4 Oath of Druids
2 Gaea's Blessing
2 Brainstorm
1 Morphling
1 Spike Weaver
//
// Disruption: 16
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak
2 Misdirection
2 Cunning Wish
//
//Draw: 6
1 Sylvan Library
1 Regrowth
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Fact or Fiction
//Mana: 29
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Strip Mine
2 Wasteland
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
4 Yavimaya Coast
2 Treetop Village
2 Island
1 Forest
1 Undiscovered Paradise
//
//Sideboard: 15 [wishable]
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Verdant Touch
1 Capsize
2 Blue Elemental Blast
2 Naturalize
1 Brainstorm
1 Misdirection
1 Teferi’s Response
1 Bind
1 Stifle
2 Sylvan Library
1 Woodripper
//
//Considerations:
0 Impulse
0 Ancient Hydra
0 Mystical Tutor
0 Questing Phelddagrif
0 Swords to Plowshares
0 Balance
0 Meddling Mage
0 Ancestor’s Chosen
0 Powder Keg
0 Spike Feeder
0 Merchant Scroll
0 Accumulated Knowledge
0 Funeral Pyre
0 Ebony Charm
0 Red Elemental Blast
0 Triskelion
0 Greater Good
0 Akroma,
0 Phantom Nishoba SB
0 Ravenous Baloth SB
0 Ophidians SB
//end\n\n