Oath

[Bastian]

Well, now that I feel that I've went as far as I could with WW I'm ready to dedicate myself to a new deck. I decided to try control this time, and since one of my favourite cards ever is Oath of Druids, the choice seemed obvious.

Oath seems a solid choice since the metagame as shifted from control towards aggro and aggro control decks.

Oath.dec

creatures
        1 Visara The Dreadful
        1 Crater Hellion
        1 Ravenous Baloth

counters
        4 Force of Will
        4 Mana Drain
        1 Misdirection

search/tutoring
        1 Mystical Tutor
        1 Merchant Scroll
        3 Cunning Wish
        3 Impulse
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Fact or Fiction
        1 Time Walk
        1 Ancestral Recall
        4 Brainstorm

removal/oath engine
        4 Oath of Druids
        2 Pernicious Deed
        2 Gaea's Blessing

mana
        1 Mox Emerald
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Black Lotus
        4 Polluted Delta
        4 Underground Sea
        4 Tropical Island
        1 Bayou
        1 Library of Alexandria
        6 Island

SB:  3 Duress
SB:  1 Naturalize
SB:  2 Energy Flux
SB:  2 Smother
SB:  2 Morphling
SB:  1 Misdirection
SB:  1 Mind Twist
SB:  1 Vampiric Tutor
SB:  1 Gush
SB:  1 Skeletal Scrying


I'm not expecting as much keeper as before, hence not picking up Morphling for the maindeck. My problem is that even though I haven't been seeing as much keeper as of lately, keeper is still a reality. And one that packs Swords to Plowshares!

With no superman maindeck my threats can be easily removed from the game and I'm left with nothing.

I thought about using manlands but they're too small against tubbies and they're wasteland bait.
I thought about packing a lonely morphling in the deck instead of the hellion, but what if I end up oathing it up instead of something I need? A 3/3 that needs quite some mana to activate isn't exactly good when your opponent is throwing 4/4s and 5/3s at a greater speed than you're oathing your creatures.

I was thinking about pernicious deeds. They do eat your moxes and will kill your oaths, but they're a fast way to deal with TNT. They'll wipe their board clean. I'm not quite sure yet if its overkill, but they feel ok.. On the other hand having a Crater Hellion that can be oathed up will wipe out the TNT player of his/her creatures. Visara can block and kill, and the same can be said for the Baloth which can block and be sacked for life.

The SB seems pretty obvious. I picked Energy Flux as an alternative to deed vs stax. When your permanents are beeing tapped/sacked the flux allows you to keep oath (although it will kill your moxes) and will not be as mana intensive as the deed is, in the Stax matchup.

Resuming:
-what should I pack maindeck in case my creatures get plowed? Morphling or manlands? (both?)

-is pernicious deed overkill? so far it has been ok vs TNT matches. If I get it before Oath it gain me time.

-should I replace Impulses for something else?\n\n

[Fever]

Ok, first off, replace Visara with Avatar of Woe. It has the same ability, but it swings for six instead of five.

Next, i think the Deeds are great, and two is probably the right number. Who cares if you wipe out your own Moxen if you take all their stuff with it? Obviously, i wouldnt blow this with an Oath on the table unless i was desperate.

Three Cunning Wish seems like a lot for this deck, you cant fetch StP or REB, which are its major targets normally. I think you could easily cut one for another mana, which i recommend.

You would probably be better off with 4 Impulse/3 Brainstorm in this deck, since you are trying to find Oath asap.

Lastly, about the counter base, i would like to see something like this: 4 Drain, 4 FoW, 2 MisD/Duress. Whether Duress or Misdirection gets the call really depends on your metagame, but i would lean towards Misdirection considering your creatures are vulnerable to removal.

[Bastian]

I spent so much time with another deck *cof cof*... That I decided to take your advice on the changes to make. I'm not going to clog up the threat with another decklist. The deck is pretty much the same with the following changes:

-1 Brainstorm
-1 Cunning Wish
-1 Misdirection

+2 Duress
+1 Impulse

At first I thought about using a couple of misdirections maindeck instead of the duresses. But what would I misdirect Swords to Plowshares to if I was playing against keeper? Chances are that the opponent wouldn't have any creature in play so I'm taking my chances with Duress instead.

Here are the changes I made to the SB:

SB:  1 Ebony Charm
SB:  1 Duress
SB:  1 Diabolic Edict
SB:  1 Naturalize
SB:  2 Energy Flux
SB:  2 Smother
SB:  2 Morphling
SB:  1 Misdirection
SB:  1 Mind Twist
SB:  1 Vampiric Tutor
SB:  1 Gush
SB:  1 Skeletal Scrying

Adding another mana source means that I have to go up to 61 cards, which i don't want to... If you have any more ideas, keep them coming.

Now that the SB has -2 Duress and a couple of more instants-ebony charm and edict- it would make sense adding that third wish maindeck, but I'm testing the deck with four impulses. Depending on the results I'll trade the fourth Impulse and put back a third wish.

Thanks for the help \n\n

[Grand Inquisitor]

first, i like the mana base for the most part.  i've run oath with 20 sources (emerald alice conversion) and rarely had to mulligan.  i'm not sure about the lone bayou, but if you are using md duress, i guess they fit.  since you're already fighting a losing battle against control, i'd try to fit in at least 2 strips to take out LoA.

i think 4 brainstorms is the right call.  there's nothing worse than getting the creature you need stuck in your hand.  you have 7 shuffle effects, so you should be fine getting rid of it.  also, sylvan library would help in this respect, and add a draw spell (which you're desperate for, with only FoF and ancestral md).

as far as the creature base, i like the hellion and baloth, but isn't visara redundant as creature control?  shouldn't the hellion take out everything short of dreadnought and tog?  perhaps akroma as a finisher instead?  also, if you're really worried about tnt, why not woodripper, or at least weaver, if you're looking for something with more general utility.  i would adjust your sideboard to accomodate more creatures and focus less on the cunning wish.

overall it looks like a solid build, but oath doesn't have good matchups against tog, keeper, or trix, some of the better decks.  can you explain whats in your metagame a little more specifically?

[Bastian]

I've been mostly facing tog decks and tnt along with a plethora of sligh. Combo is rare and keeper even more. I took into my hands Oath since no one was playing it and to try it out vs the new metagame.

The deck has been undergoing many changes lately, since to put in the cards I want I have to make it 61 cards, which I don't want to, while trying to make the mana base remain stable at the same time.

Avatar of Woe/Visara, besides being better vs TNT, are also better vs psychatog. Tap then and pop goes the tog! Also, besides the possibility of packing edicts in the side, I haven't yet seen hulk smash use anything to fight my creatures, since it's mostly geared to fight weenies (smother, ghastly demise...)

I'm going to further playtest it for a while before posting the next decklist.\n\n

[Wayfarer]

I just wondered what your gameplan is vs. Psychatog.

If they do not drop Tog before they have either Time Walk or Cunning Wish it would be quite hard for them to lose. Your own pressure beeing minimum.

The fact that they do not have any good removal for your creatures seem irrelevant, or am I missing something?

[Bastian]

The deck is fairly recent and it hasn't been winning much. I said it looked like a good choice in a metagame that turned to aggro decks and I'm fond of oath. So, i'd like to give it a run and try to make it as viable as possible...

The deck has been proving itself fairly disapointing. Both tnt and psychatog have been proving faster than the oath deck can deal with them...

Changes that have been made so far...

Avatar of Woe CAN be blocked by artifact creatures and doesn't fly. I don't need to tell you that at least THAT card is going to be replaced in the deck.

Since I'm not thinking about hard casting the creature I'm thinking about actually using Akroma. At least it can attack, block and kill an opposing creature. The problem is that it can't kill tog before it attacks nor can it destroy creatures that won't attack.

I'm thinking about changing the creature base to the old 2 weavers with something more to attack while keeping a weaver lock.

[Wayfarer]

Quote (Bastian @ July 10 2003,22:31)Since I'm not thinking about hard casting the creature I'm thinking about actually using Akroma. At least it can attack, block and kill an opposing creature. The problem is that it can't kill tog before it attacks nor can it destroy creatures that won't attack.

Oath isn't a very good card vs. Atogs anyway. Weaver is about the best you can get and even then you won't have a way to win on the table.

Now I don't want to sound negative but I don't think that a deck relying only on Oath of Druids as a win condition + creature control will handle Psycatog very good.

[Bastian]

You're not... I aknowledge it was a poor choice. I spent so much time playing WW that I wanted to change to something else. Something NOT usually played and Oath presented itself as a solid a choice. The deck IS consistent. Just not as much as I'd expect it to be. Still, I'm going to see how much I can further tune it:)

[MarkPharaoh]

The format as it stands right now is extremely fast and unless you get a turn2 Oath to resolve, you will have a very hard time stabilizing the board.  I do think you need some manlands in this deck, either Treetop or Factories not as a liable win condition but to hold off TnT until you find a Oath, Deed or Flux.

Avatar/Visara:  Avatar is better for a few reasons:  it's harder to Deed away.  I still see some Tog builds running Deed SB and i've been seeing BG Void and PT Funk variants online lately.  ok, Avatar doesn't fly but it can race Superman and Superman alone cannot kill it, whereas Visara can die to Superman if your opponent has enough mana on the board to do so.  Why exactly would you want to attack with Visara/Avatar if your opponent still has fatties on the board?

Your build is really counter light, and from what i've seen when my friend plays Oath, he can have the advantage on the control player simply because of his massive countermagic.  I am not a huge fan of Wish if you cannot Wish for REB and Swords so I would cut the 3 Wishes and probably add a Misdirection and 2 Mana Leaks if you are having a lot of problems against other control decks.

I would definately run 4 Brainstorm/3 Impulse in this deck over your current 3/4 configuration.  I would like the 3/4 config if I were running the standard Weaver/Feeder/Morphling setup simply because they are all castable if you draw them.  With Visara/Crater/Baloth you can only really cast the Baloth so you need that 4th Storm to throw back Crater or Visara if you draw them.  Also, I love going eot Storm, upk Oath into Blessing and then Crater, it's so svg  .  If you bring this into a metagame with control but not many Workshops you can easily drop some Deeds and/or Impulses for more Leaks and another Mis-D or two which will greatly help the control matchup.

Overall, it's a pretty good deck for it's archtype but I wouldn't want to bring it to a high quality tournament where majority of the field will be running Trix/Keeper/Hulk, in this day of age, this is more the type of deck to bring to a scrubby enviroment and simply smash face all day  

[PsychoCid]

All the supposed Oath players out there, Bastian, and you, an aggro player are the first to come up with a build that isn't just a suboptimal version of someone elses.  Kudos to you.

Duress is freaking god in the current meta.  As much as I always preferred a minimum of 12 counters in Oath (which help it to play more like Mono Blue on steroids and less like narrow-minded Keeper), 2 Duress 4 Drain 4 FoW sounds just peachy, here.

Visara/Avatar are nothing to Hulk.  There are just too many ways to get around it.  Tog players just shouldn't lose to this unless they totally screw up, and if they are that bad, you should be able to beat them, anyhow.  Spike Weaver is really the best thing you can do against a Tog on the board.

That being the case, Spike Feeder beats out Baloth no contest, because fueling Weaver is a game winner.  Baloth can go in the sideboard for the secondary life gain spot.

Deeds are the reason I find this build of Oath tolerable.  Without them, you're better off playing white than black.

Crater Hellion is a nice board nuker but not amazing.  VS. TnT it might as well be a fog unless they overextended.  If you feel it's nuts in your environment, go for it.  Otherwise, I'd relegate it to the sideboard for Suicide and whatnot.

Especially with these improvements, Brainstorm is less and less necessary.  Impulse finds your key cards (Oath, Deed, draw) quickly and efficiently.  If we have room, 2 Brainstorm on top of 4 Impulse is a beautiful thing.

Moxen are lovely for casting things like Oath and Impulse asap, but now that Deed is in the mix there is greater need to keep these to a minimum.  Without those, you don't want to load up on things like Wishes, which want a lot of acceleration.  I'm thinking 2 is alright, since there's plenty of neat utility you'll want to be using...but I may end up with 3 anyways because there are so many reasons to want to have one in hand.

You still need a good kill and even if Morphling no longer easily beats out everything on the field, he's still your best bet.  This will clear a sideboard slot, as well.

Without Balance, there's nothing to Mystical for that you couldn't have just Merchant Scrolled for.  No need for this blatant card disadvantage, now.

Sylvan is definitely a beaut.  Regrowth is nifty and I prefer to run it on top of the Blessings, but we'll see if we have room.

When you don't run a lot of basics and you don't have white/red for Moon/b2b removal, you have to have some sort of solution.  A BEB to be able to Wish for against Blood Moon is dandy (you have enough Islands to reliably do that).  You'll just have to play conservatively against Back to Basics and try to keep one green mana free so that you can Wish for Naturalize.

There is no reason to be running land that does not produce blue OR have a utility effect.  Fetchlands can get blue duals.  Either run a basic land or a City of Brass/Undiscovered Paradise (which also helps vs. b2b).

Library of Alexandria can be questioned.  Please note that Oath is not like Keeper.  7 cards for Keeper is what Keeper wants.  Oath's standard 6 cards.  Where's the 7th?  ON THE BOARD.  It IS Oath.  You have a lot more permanents, so while Library can still crack control games, don't consider it an immovable staple.

//No!
2 Duress
4 FoW
4 Mana Drain
//Mine, Mine, Mine
4 Impulse
2 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Sylvan Library
3 Cunning Wish
2 Gaea's Blessing
4 Oath of Druids
//Lions, Tigers, and Bears--Oh My!
1 Morphling
1 Feeder
1 Weaver
//KaBOOM!
2 Pernicious Deed
//Dirt
5 SoLoMoxen
3 Strip/Waste
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta/Flooded Strand
1 City of Brass/Undiscovered Paradise
4 Island

Do whatever suits you with your sideboard, but add 1 BEB to your list of Wishable goodness.

I don't know that you want Gush AND Scrying--and I'd choose Scrying first.

You probably want somewhat of a high Naturalize count.  They're good.

In addition to the 2nd Morphling, a 2nd Weaver vs. TnT and Tog and whatnot is good, and a Baloth (in place of 2nd Feeder) vs. things with lots of fast damage.\n\n

[Pimpz0r]

Cid said exactly what I was going to; Spike Weaver is probably one of your greatest tools against the heavily aggro oriented trends we've been seeing.

[PsychoCid]

It's just true.

Btw, I'd like to point out...

Quote
i think 4 brainstorms is the right call.  there's nothing worse than getting the creature you need stuck in your hand.

...that that is pretty much hard evidence that one is not any sort of an accomplished Oath player.  A creature in hand is nothing unless in opening hand, in which case it's still not reason enough on its own to throw the hand back.  Unless you've chosen your creature base poorly (as in you can't cast them reliably), effects that put them from your hand back on top of your library is just icing on the cake.

[Bastian]

Well, so far I came to the conclusion that my original creature base sucks. Big time. Avatar of Woe can be easily blocked by tubbies and Visara wasn’t much better (although she flies).

Crater Hellion was far from being as good as i expected. Since none of my creatures were castable I also tested Akroma. Conclusion: in oath ALWAYS be sure you can cast whatever creatures you pack.
I then thought of the classic weaver, feeder, threat creature base. The problem is that the feeder wasn’t much more useful than a baloth in that slot and vs psychatog it was a dead card, so I replaced it with another weaver, assuring that vs certain matches I can get a weaver after the first one dies (because if a weaver dies then what good is it to get a feeder if I can’t put my counters on the weaver?)
If all my creatures were not hard castable I would be packing 4 brainstorms. As it is I can give up on the fourth brainstorm for something else – Sylvan Library.

Mystical Tutor really doesn’t make much sense when not using some powerful sorceries or instants like it happens in keeper which has Yawgmoth’s will and Balance besides the other stapples.

On the SB Gush felt like a good idea, acting as a free card drawer and at the same time protecting my lands. Skeletal Scrying on the other hand I don’t know how well it will fit in oath, since it relies on cards in the graveyard and as soon as oath hits it will start recycling it.

I decided to start meddling with white in the mix. I could have replaced black with white, but I didn’t want to drop duress or the deeds so I ended up with a 4-color deck.

White allows me to use Swords to Plowshares which isn’t as narrow as smother or edict are, Aura Fracture and Balance, which is far cheaper than Pernicious Deed. I have to spend at least seven mana and a whole turn to activate.

With Mind Twist and Balance main I added Mystical Tutor. I was going to use Enlightened Tutor main but using it just to get a deed or an oath when you already can wish for vampiric tutor didn’t turn out a good idea. Instead I decided to use a single Living Wish which I’m testing.

Oath.dec

1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Underground sea
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
3 Tundra
4 Moxes
1 Black Lotus

1 Morphling
2 Spike Weaver

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
2 Duress

3 Cunning Wish
3 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Sylvan Library

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll

2 Gaea’s Blessing
4 Oath of Druids

1 Living Wish
1 Mind Twist
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Balance
2 Swords to Plowshares

SB:
1 Morphling
1 Ravenous Baloth
1 Maze of Ith
1 Misdirection
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Ebony Charm
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Disenchant
1 Aura Fracture
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Energy Flux
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Vampiric Tutor

I would like to have been able to push a second living wish, but it I didn't found out what to take... so he

[Kheoinn]

Scrying is actually amazing. You can respond to the Blessing's trigger by casting it, and I believe you'll have a lot of extra cards to remove from your deck. It turns into deck thinning instead of graveyard thinning.

What are your reasons for Living Wish? Sligh is the only matchup in which I would want a life gainer in the maindeck, but I think that problem can be solved by getting easy wins in the second and third game via COP: Red and Spike Feeder/Ravenous Baloth. Fetching Morphling seems very useless.

Why Undiscovered Paradise over City of Brass?

Does anyone notice how close this is getting to Keeper? Not that thats a bad thing, but now we have to evaluate whether this has any advantages over traditional Keeper as well.

[doublej20]

Quote (Fever @ July 10 2003,10:47)Ok, first off, replace Visara with Avatar of Woe. It has the same ability, but it swings for six instead of five.

Visara is much better because it flies and is cheaper to cast in the rare instance that a Lotus or other black sources would possibly be on the table.

@Bastian: I was playing 4 and 5 color Oath for a while and can tell you that you will lose games to Sligh unless you are packing one the following: Spike Feeder, Ravenous Baloth, or Phantom Nishoba. I know the Nishoba might sound weird, but it is quite broken against Sligh, TnT, Mask, and many other aggro decks. My creature configuration was 1 Visara, 1 Spike Weaver, 1 Phantom Nishoba, and 1 Ravenous Baloth maindeck, and 1 Morphling and 1 Woodripper in the sideboard. Try it out; I'm pretty sure you'll be happy with the results.

EDIT: One more quick thing, just noticed this:

Quote i think 4 brainstorms is the right call.  there's nothing worse than getting the creature you need stuck in your hand.

Actually I've found that I'd much rather have 1 Scroll Rack and 3 Brainstorms, as Scroll Rack is reusable as the game goes on.

[Bastian]

Undiscovered Paradise is there because it can return to hand, be played again and tapped for mana even with Back to Basics in play. The same isn't possible with city.

Living Wish gives me an alternative victory route. And yes, this is getting extremely close to keeper and I'm just as close to abandon the deck... I proposed myself to play something completely different other than this, and keeper seems more reliable...

[Bastian]

Here's the deck so far...

       1 Phantom Nishoba
       2 Spike Weaver

       4 Force of Will
       4 Mana Drain
       2 Duress

       1 Sylvan Library
       1 Fact or Fiction
       1 Time Walk
       1 Ancestral Recall
       4 Brainstorm

       3 Cunning Wish
       1 Merchant Scroll
       1 Mystical Tutor
       1 Demonic Tutor

       4 Oath of Druids
       2 Gaea's Blessing

       1 Pernicious Deed
       1 Balance
       1 Mind Twist
       2 Swords to Plowshares

       1 Mox Saphire
       1 Mox Jet
       1 Mox Emerald
       1 Mox Pearl
       1 Black Lotus
       2 Island
       4 Polluted Delta
       4 Tropical Island
       3 Tundra
       3 Underground Sea
       1 Undiscovered Paradise
 
SB:
1 Morphling
1 Avatar of Woe
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Misdirection
1 Blue Elemental Blast
1 Ebony Charm
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Disenchant
1 Aura Fracture
2 Swords to Plowshares
2 Energy Flux
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Vampiric Tutor

The creature base is constantly changing. Morphling isn’t as good as before and it’s cleraly not the wisest choice in the current metagame. (then again, neither would be oath...)

White is a must. Swords are better than smother. Balance is better to have than deed #2 maindeck and it also allows me to splash for Aura Fracture (now that the deck’s more vulnerable to back to basics and blood moon). I managed to fit in the fourth brainstorm but I'm still thinking about scroll rack... If I ever pack scroll rack I'll take out a brainstorm. I dropped living wish due to the lack of targets for it in the SB.

I might try to put mind twist back in the SB along with an oath and try a couple of impulses, but so far that seems unecessary and the deck seems solid.  I’ll be testing it and then post the results and changes I made.