U/G Oath - A metagame deck

[Zherbus]

I would want the Tutors, Balance, and Swords if I hadn't the power to back it up personally. The flexability just helps make up for the loss of speed.

I cut Cunning Wish from my build, btw. Just not good enough with only 2 colors.

I would, if insistant on unpowered U/G Oath:
-5 LoMoxen

-1 Walk
-1 Ancestral
-4 Impulse
-2 Leak

+2 Island
+1 Wooded Foothill
+2 Mishra's Factory (all in all, this keeps your colored sources stable and helps you make up for lost speed)

+3 Counterspell (Not much colorless mana to make Leak worth it)
+1 Teferi's Response (protects Factories and draws cards - helps make up for a lack of Ancestral)
+4 Brainstorm (I may switch to these in the powered versions after seeing what they do in keeper with those fetchlands.)


Here is the list I am working from currently:
Counters (12)
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Mana Leak
2 Misdirection
Engine (6)
4 Oath of Druids
2 Gaea's Blessing
Creatures (3)
1 Spike Weaver
1 Spike Feeder
1 Morphling
Search/Draw (10)
4 Impulse
2 Sylvan Library
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Merchant Scroll
Utility (4)
1 Regrowth
1 Time Walk
2 Powder Keg
Mana (25)
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
4 Tropical Island
3 Wooded Foothill
1 Forest
8 Island
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
SB: 1 Woodripper
SB: 3 Naturalize
SB: 1 Morphling
SB: 4 Ophidian
SB: 1 Ravenous Balroth
SB: 1 Teferi's Response
SB: 1 Misdirection
SB: 3 Back to Basics

[Acolytec]

Well the reason that oath was thrown out at the time was because the environment was mostly control oriented right after the fall of fact or fiction.  Now that the environment has reverted back to control hate critter based decks and higher concentrations of combo, it is very viable to run oath.  Oath can hold its own against control, but it certainly isnt a deck that is going to come home with anything better than 50 percent against a control field.

The sucklands also bridge the necessary gap in the oath manabase.  Coasts are fine until you dont have enough things to throw drain mana into.  The first thing i thought of when i saw the sucklands were that they allow oath to work again without fear of nearly killing yourself every game.

[PsychoCid]

Just a note, but:

Sucklands = Depletion Lands
Fetchlands = Sacrifice to find one of two types
Saclands = CIPT, can tap + sac for 2 mana

[Acolytec]

I just remember fetchlands being the name given to those thingys from Mirage? That would come into play tapped and sac to find a swamp or island (bad river).  

So fetchland is what the new lands form onslaught are being called?  (suck- denoted the sucking of all of the land out of your deck- saw it on mtg news which was why I thought it was that).

[S0F3N]

I play a powerless u/g oath deck in an enviornment black heavy and I always have trouble with the monster known as Nantanku Shade, he rips me a new one!  It is hard to combat him even if I have an oath out, even hypnos hurt too b/c they harm my counter arrsenal, I am just curious what you board in vs mono black, and in particular what do you do against shades.  Most of these decks are no sui, they run a low creature count, 8-12, hypies, shades, and it varies, some do negators, and they survive on disks for clearing, and necro/phyrexrian arena for cards.  I have actually debated to side out my oaths for possibly propagandas.  I just want to hear your input.

[Tron]

Ravenous Baloth has helped in those matches. That plus the  weaver tokens on it, make a very effective wall against Sui black. The hyppies, well hopefully you will Oath into a Morphling. But when countering, hyppies should be a primary concern.

[BigChuck]

You had a tough matchup verse Sui? Really? I find that somewhat hard to believe. That is a pretty good matchup for oath, usually. The main strategy is basically resolve oath. From there, you get life, fogs, and win conditions. Usually, once I hit the weaver, I'd move the tokens from the feeder to it, and just oath up the feeder again, theoretically providing infinite fogs. You should be able to win with that.

Honestly, if you are doing that bad, you might just be playing it wrong.

[Tron]

I would have to agree with Big C. In my matches against suicide, as soon as oath hit the table, it was a losing game for the sui player.

[S0F3N]

Well the problem i run into is the lone shade, i cant oath both feeder ands  weaver and neither are big enough to kill him, not even th mighty superman, i think he has met his cryptonite, sorry had to do it   Granted that I am not the greatest oath players, I think I can hold my own even with an unpowered deck, it is just all the disruption that hurt too, i never seem to get the greatest of draws vs the deck.  So what do you do against the lone shade?

[Tron]

Powder Keg. That deals with the small 'ittle buggers.

[S0F3N]

That is also very true, my old deck didnt run any b/c I didnt have any, but I just bought 4 off ebay and I am going to run 2 or 3 maindeck, I run intuition so i might run 3 as a panic button, and put the rest on board.  Is baloth worth boarding in for a feeder?  I think i would rather have the feeder's counters to bounce, but I'd like to hear some more input.

[Tron]

I just like having the big fat beefy, beast on my side of the table to stare down Negators early on. But then again I have not tried feeders in the sui match yet.

[TracerBullet]

I do hope that everybody else around here realizes what a fucking beating Crater Hellion is in the current metagame...as a matter of fact, I can't think of a single deck outside of Mask and possibly Grow that it doesn't majorly hose...

[PsychoCid]

Ravenous Baloth is not sided in FOR Spike Feeder, but rather: in addition to.  Against decks like (traditional/Ankh) Sligh, Weaver is not so amazing.  Though he isn't horrid, he can often be bolted in time to prevent even one Fog.  Baloth, on the other hand, requires twice as many bolts to kill, and still ups your life by 4.  Quite a beating against Sligh.

Powder Keg on top of the Oath engine (and failing anything else, counters) should be more than enough to deal with things like Nantuko Shade.  You can always branch out into other colors for Edicts or StPs, if you for some reason are in dire need of the spot removal :|

[S0F3N]

I think you are right about the kegs, I didnt have them and testing them I have found they solve my problems.  About the baloth, I was refering to the sui match up where I dont even think they should be boarded in and if they were boarded in I assumed it would be in place of the feeder, Sligh is completly different and I agree with you.  I am going to post my cureent deck list and I am sure I am going to get a lot of responses on it, and I look forward to them, some I will take and others wont work b/c my deck works in my metagame.

4 Force of Will
4 Misdirection
4 Counterspell(lack 4 mana drains-deck would diff with them)
3 Oath of Druids
1 Sol Ring
2 Gaea's Blessing
2 Powder Keg
1 Morphling
1 Spike Feeder
1 Spike Weaver
4 Accumalated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
3 Intuition
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Miri's Guile
2 Poluted Delta
2 undecided-Keg/Oath(dont have 4)/zorb/impulse/waste(non basics not big near me, b2b sb)/LoA(working on getting it)/Capsize?
10 Island
4 Flooded Strand
4 Tropical Island
1 Forest
1 Strip Mine

I know 4 missdirections seems like over kill, but it works for me, stops early disruption or brokenness, hymn, sinks, ancestral, stroke/brain.  All your input is appreciated on what an unpowered u/g oath deck should look like.

This belongs in its own thread, as it is significantly different from the build which is to be discussed here.  Suggestions or comments are one thing, but posting a decklist for critique is entirely different.  Don't do it.  As for problems with your deck, look for other Oath threads where I've explained five jillion times why AK is not optimal, among other things.\n\n

[Lupo]

I do not know if anybody has thought or posted about this all ready, but one card in Legions strikes me as a near death nell for blessing based oath recursion:

Withered Wretch

BB
2/2
1: Remove Target Card in a graveyard from the game

Am I the only one who sees this as a problem for Oath decks?

Assuming that I am not, has anyone found a solution yet?

[TracerBullet]

Other cards (think Crypt and Planar Void) create potentially larger problems for Oath, and yet, it's still a very viable archetype.  This card, like the others, is simply a matter of removing the problem before it becomes a problem.  It either gets countered or Keg'd or, worst case scenario, bounced.

[Lupo]

I do not agree.

The reason that the Wretch poses a larger problem is that an agressive black deck can and will play them standard without having to worry about it as a 2/2 for 2 is an acceptable card even without the ability.  If it wanted to use void or crypt, it would have o detract from the agressiveness of the deck, this however does not.  It reminds me very much of Gorilla Shaman, there is little reason not to play it.

[Zherbus]

1) Oath has survived through the use of graveyard hate before, and it will continue to do so.

Luckily, Oath uses Blue as its support color, so countering such bombs are a definite possibility.

2) This creature needs to be chosen over obviously better creatures such as Nantuko Shade, Hypnotic Specter, Phyrexian Negator, and the like.

This means if chosing a 2/2 creature over something better is done, the deck will be less effective against the other decks it faces.

3) How often does someone metagame against Oath?

Honestly, this deck (mine anyways) is a reaction to a specific metagame. Sapphire Oath sort of appears quietly through the battling of Gro. vs. TnT vs. Zoo vs. whatever. It shows up, steals games from decks that least expect it, then once the metagame shifts again it disappears. Very ninja, if I do say so.

Also, I declare Suicide Black near dead. It has a tough time with the new fetchlands to be able to disrupt early enough. It can't deal with turn 1 Juggernauts very well. It also has a hard time dealing with Misdirections without the aid of Duress. believe me, I would love to see Suicide have its place in the current roster of top type 1 decks, but right now its just a bad time for it.

Nether Void might be able to abuse this, but I think its overall effect is minimal. When attacking Oath, it already does well with Dystopia, Factories, and the occasional Tormods Crypt.

[Project5]

Wether or not it's that big a problem, here's one solution.

If you do see Withered Wretch played against you out of Suicide, remember that when it becomes legal, so does Akroma. It has been my experience that if you side her in, Oath her out, and if you can counter the Edicts thrown your way, you probably won't need to Oath again that game.

This also holds true if you encounter a Sligh player who has boarded graveyard hate, but then you need to watch for them hoarding burn to toss at you directly.

If you go this route, you may want to check that your brainstorm count is high enough so that you can get Akroma back into your library if you draw her.

--Ben