U/G Oath

[freakish777]

I don't understand why people would want to run Mishra's Factory.  Is Oathing up something big not good enough?

I've tried factories as an alternate win condition in case Oath can't force it's way through.  Unfortunately like you said, it makes the mana-base weaker, which means B2B destroys your deck entirely...

It's kind of counter productive, because you end up switching in an alternate win condition in order to beat control decks, and wind up shooting yourself in the foot should you ever run into back to basics.

[effang]

well, i guess the whole point is to look at what kind of matchup problems oath has. considering that oath has strong game against aggro, aggro control, etc. and has weak game against mono blue and keeperesque, then that is what the deck should be designed against. i forgot the matchups when i spoke before about the factories, instead we should be focusing on control and combo.

[mr.dark]

Excactly, what we need to do is focusing on the Control and Combo matchup. We can disrupt combo quite easly with the help of CoV and Rod.
Besides that my version had 12 counters aginst combo, this matchup should be a steal, but need to be tested thought.

Control needs testing, but it shouldnt be that hard.

Mickey DP

Please try to add more content to your posts; this is very redundant. -Dr. Sylvan[/color]

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

Ok, so I'm still playing cognivore, as with wish, it's simply amazing. Game 1 vs. fish is really easy, as oathing up a cog will win you the game. Not to mention, you are running basics. For now, I'm still sticking with U/G oath, as I really like the basics lands and the ability to run back to basics. Plus, intuition is my tutor. Losing will hurts, but hey, if you oathed once, oyu'll likely win.

This deck is about 50/50 vs. control. As far as I'm concerned, Tog is the hardest matchup. Duress is a huge bomb for them, and they have the quickest kill method. CS is pretty even, as you run more counters and just as good (if not better) draw. The deck isn't really hosed by a slaver activation, as there isn't much to do (cept cast wish or intuition). You don't lose as badly as tog. Monoblue should have a rough time vs. you, as chalice 1 only shuts off 6 cards in your deck (sol ring, ancestral, brainstorm). You still run 12 counters and a much better draw. Not to mention, their draw engine is a creature. Still though, watch out, as monoblue does run powder keg, and it does run a shitload of counters. As for 4cc, the matchup is in their favor game 1 (seeing as how you run 1 cognivore and they run 2-3 StP and 2-3 Wish). Games 2 and 3 should be a slaughter. Bring in morplings and back to basics and watch them cry.

As far as combo goes, the matchup is in our favor, but not overwhelmingly so. Dragon can still power out xantids (and animates for xantids), and deathlong can still duress and play 2 threats in a turn. Generally though, it should be in Oath's favor.

As far as aggro goes, you win. period. you now have wish---->berserk to totally annihilate aggro. just make sure to save a counter for the duplicant or welder and you'll be fine.



Finally, I do like the idea of a splash, but honestly, with crucibles, back to basics and blood moons running amok, I'd rather just have the more stable manabase. If i were to splash a color, I'd def. spalsh black. you get will, demonic, duress, and DEED. Deed is so broken in oath. Oath up a big threat, then clear the board of pesky blockers. It solves so many random threats. Ranging from platinum angel to welder. Plus, it's a pain in the ass for dragon to play around. Here's a list I'd play if black was a consideration:


4 Oath
2 Darksteel Colossus
1 Gaea's Blessing

4 FoW
4 Mana Drain
3 Duress

2 Pernicious Deed

4 AK
2 Intuiton
4 Brainstorm
1 Will
1 Demonic
1 Ancestral
1 Walk

4 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 LoA
7 SoLoMoxen
2 Islands


In this version, I cut cognivore, as you can no longer wish for stuff, and I added blessing, as it works MUCH better with collosus and AKs. 6 fetches stays, as they get you the color you need, and brainstorm is VERY important, as there is a chance of drawing into a DC. I personally prefer the U/G version, but I can see how the black splash is warranted in some metagames.

-Bob


EDIT: I'm a dumbass and forgot recall/walk in the list, it's late...so sure me...I'd probably also try to make room for tinker/mystical if I played 3 colors and with DC.

[Wollblad]

First of all, I havn't been able to read the whole post, but I jump in rather abrupt. I'm sorry if some things I bring up here has already been delt with.

Back in the old days of Keeper, I took CF's Oath-Keeper and developed it further. Of course the deck run black as well. The trick was to run only one Gaea's Blessing and abuse Yawgmoth's Will and Holistic Wisdom. The latter was absurd, specially with Ancestral and Accumulated Knowledge. Resolv Holistic, and you'll win the control matchup. With 4 Forbidden Orchard, I don't see the big deal of not splashing Yawgmoth's Will and Demonic Tutor. Perhaps also a single Underground Sea. Anyhow, it won't alter the mana base much, but the power och those two cards is what the deck needs to win over control. You will still have 5 lands (one fetchable), one mox and Lotus to give black mana. Control Slaver manage to have only two Underground Sea and run Will and Demonic, so why wouldn't it work here?

I can see your consern of Goblin Welders, but it is not guarantee for a Cognivore to kill in one strike, so I would suggest a creature base of one Darksteel Colossus and one Ancient Hydra to deal with this problem. Or if you don't like the shuffling ability of Colossus, why not a Sundering Titan? The Hydra isn't too bad if you don't want it, just ping some tokens and/or your opponent and then Oath again to get your Colossus/Titan or whatever creature you want to use. Morhpling isn't that bad if you don't have to pay for him.

EDIT: Clowns last answere wasn't there when I wrote this!

[mr.dark]

So which creatures would we choose to run?
So far the options is:

- Cognivore
- Darksteel Colossus
- Sundering Titan
- Morphling
- Spike Weaver
- Spike Feeder

I think that most of us agrees that the old Weaver/Feeder/Morphling version is the wrong direction for the deck, they are simply not worth it.
Some people are for the Cognivore, some more likes the Collossus.
The question so far seems if we really think its worth running Blessing or not. The Problem with the Cognivore is that it can killed by Stp, Reb, Crypt and any other artifact hate. Also it can be chumped by stupid small fliers.

The Collosus obvious problem is that its really weak to one of the most common creatures, Goblin Welder.

Sundering Titan seems Nice, at least as a Sideboard plan.
The fact that Sundering Titan both is big and help destroying your opponents mana base (which he desperatly needs in his search for answers)  is quite apelling. The problem just is that we cant rely only on the Titan as it is far too easy to kill (and weld in and out).

Mickey DP

[Covetous]

In some playtesting vs. mono-U, I have found that one problem is when they bite the bullet and drop chalice=2.  Yes, it stops a lot of their deck, but it completely annihilates your deck.  If they can counter your wish w/ FoW, or if they have chalice =1 and chalice =2 you are toast...Unless you run some MD board sweepers, like Deed or Engineered E (This is better than Keg due to Xcc).  Also, in playing vs. mono-U, I agree that B2B makes you cry if you play 3-color.  So, I am going to try straight UG with at least 2 MD engineered E.

[mr.dark]

Chalice is also one of the reason that Cunning Wish would be good as it could just get you a Oxidize.

Mickey DP

[Conan_barberarn]

I think that welder is a creature that has to be answerd and I therefore don't like the cogni or the DSC that much. The risk with welder is either to be slaved inf or that htey will severly tangle you up so your creature gets useless. Instead I recommend Triskelion as it is a fairly good beatstick and can even be hardcasted if necessary. Trisk can handle almost any creature except for a DSC but even that shouldn't be impossible, especially if you can activate multiple oaths. To use Trisk means you have to use blessing witch is often a dead card but I figure its woth it.

/ Gustav

[Josvandoesburg]

I'm trying to build an Oath version as well, because the Orchard seems like a great addition.
I'd personally go with 1 Colossus and 1 Morphling maindeck and perhaps 2 Trisks for SB against Welders etc.
Cognivore isn't worth a slot since it relies on the graveyard too much.
Morphling and Colossus are simply more reliable.

[Team-Judgement]

I think the DSC is absolutely the best of all.... cogs can just get blocked by the small 1/1 flyers that fish play, and because you dont play Blessing when you play cognivore, you will deckrun quite fast.

Welder is NO problem, since when you mill out a collousos and get a blessing you mill your graveyard back so they cant change collousos and a random mox placed there.

Target player shuffles up to three target cards from his or her graveyard into his or her library.Draw a card. If Gaea’s Blessing is put into your graveyard from your library, shuffle your graveyard into your library.

He can of course weld collousos away in response to blessings trigger(it does trigger.... i think) But your cunning wishes(which you should really play atleast a couple of)can fecht you answers to both chalice, and welder.

My own version is U/G/r, but when you play black instead of red you have 3/4 duress, and 4 forces to battle his chalice's

/Rasmus Roar

[dromar]

He can of course weld collousos away in response to blessings trigger(it does trigger.... i think) But your cunning wishes(which you should really play atleast a couple of)can fecht you answers to both chalice, and welder.

Yeah, it triggers. Oath finishes resolving, Blessing triggers, welder responds.

I think waiting until you have a cunning wish to stifle/fire/ice the welder with isn't the best way to deal with a welder. But welder is very popular right now, so this deck shouldn't really be considered unless welder isn't a big problem like it seems to be when DSC is used. So I'm thinking, either find a better creature (which is hard), or, maybe don't play artifacts other than DSC. Losing the mox and lotus would suck, but I don't see how it could be worse than having welder own your game plan. Are the artifacts really necessary? The other options are not playing DSC, or playing an abundance (as in, 4 slots or more) of welder hate. I guess that could work.

[Machinus]

First of all, Blessing provides awesome protection against welding.
Second, WHY ARE THERE ARTIFACTS IN YOUR GRAVEYARD?

In some areas, I can imagine cognivore being as good as DSC. But there is no way that it is better against a mixed, unknown, or high powered metagame.

[EDIT: Yes, I realize that oathing will expose your colossus for a moment if you have moxen in the yard. If you are playing an unpowered version of Oath, and there ARE welders in your area, take out the sol ring. Clearly, if you are playing power, you need to play smart. You don't have to activate the oath, and you have the advantage in terms of dealing with opposing welders. Deed, fire/ice, oathing while the welder has summoning sickness, whatever - you CAN play around welders. This marginal vulnerability of DSC is not important compared to the many ways that it is superior to any other win condition,]

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

As for monoblue, chalice for 2 really isn't that hot. Not only do they lose their counters, but they also lose powder keg. if they keep in chalice 2nd or third game, simply bring in morphling. As far as the creature base goes, I'll say it like this: play whatever creature that suites your metagame the best. I play cognivore cause NOBODY plays removal and everyone plays welders. Once you figure out what creature you wanna run, then accomadate your deck accordingly. If you run cog, run reclamation and wish, if you run DSC, run blessing and splash for deed. Seriously now, lets stop talking about the win condition, it's all dependent on your metagame. Also, as far as other win conditions go, they all suck, except for maybe trisk, which can block armies and also kill himself if need be. You should be running Cognivore. The argument that it gets blocked by 1/1 fliers doesn't hold ground. The only competitive deck out there that runs small fliers is fish, and they only run 8 fliers (not counting conclave). If you oath up a cognivore, you all of a sudden jack any tempo fish had. Now, they're on the defensive. All you have to do is find wish, or wait till they run out of 1/1 dudes. Also, you can always oath twice, mill yourself, then reclaim a walk, will, recall, and wish for the win.

-Bob

[Bulls on Parade]

Second, WHY ARE THERE ARTIFACTS IN YOUR GRAVEYARD?

Activating Oath'll do that to ya.

I've been testing Oath. A lot. Right now I feel like it's a really, really solid deck and I plan to run with it for a while. I'm not going to post my list just yet, but it's VERY different from your's, CoT, and quite frankly I don't see how you're getting the results you're posting with that one- I mean, I know you mentioned it as a bad matchup, but I don't think that list can touch Tog.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

I've been testing Oath. A lot. Right now I feel like it's a really, really solid deck and I plan to run with it for a while. I'm not going to post my list just yet, but it's VERY different from your's, CoT, and quite frankly I don't see how you're getting the results you're posting with that one- I mean, I know you mentioned it as a bad matchup, but I don't think that list can touch Tog.

Tog is a pretty hard matchup, but it's winnable. It's a headache of a matchup because of the ak engines. I can't see how your deck is different than mine. I assume your either running multiple colors and a different draw engine, probably thirst for knowledge. I prefer Intuition/ak as intuition can act as a tutor.

Also, can you be more specific as to why you can't see my decklist putting up solid results? I posted GENERAL results from testing (my U/G version). I merely said it was pretty even with control (with some harder than others), beats aggro, and is slightly favorable vs. combo. If you disagree, I'm all ears.

-Bob

[BreathWeapon]

I think it's also important to Note that your Oath will continue to trigger every turn when sitting across from a Welder. I've played several games where the two have stalemated each other, and I gained a free Mox, Rod or Crucible every turn (Depending on my build, ofcourse).

It's more important to think of the Oath->DSC Welder interaction in a positive light. Oath effectively shuts down 1 Welder and generates 1 Free Mana Source a Turn. This will buy you enough time to find Cunning Wish for an answer, and it keeps Smokestack at bay. It's also possible that you will reveal DSC before you reveal a Mox, given enough Activations. The Oath/Blessing/DSC Combo is self sufficient in breaking the Welder lock, it's only a matter of time.

I really disagree with playing less than 4 Colors in Oath. You have 4 Golden Lands at your disposal, use them. Mindtwist, Yawgmoth's Will, Demonic Tutor and Balance win games. I'm managing all 5 Colors, my only MD White Card is Balance, and I'm loving it.

Intuition->AK->Deep Analysis is not the way to go with this deck. HULK is coming back, their Win Condition is superior, heads up, and playing the "Mirror" Draw Engine is more trouble than it's worth. Instead, use Skeletal Scrying. The Loss of Life is Negligible vs Aggro, your playing Oaths. You can also cast Scrying in Response to Oath's Activation and before Gaea's Blessings Trigger to remove any Moxen from the GY to circumvent Welder's "Soft Lock."

Stop trying to Abuse B2B, go play Mono-U if you want to play with Islands. The card is more trouble than it's worth and Twist, Will, Demonic and Balance are MORE than fair replacements against Control.

Cognivore, IMO, is terrible. Having access to Tinker as an additional BOMB more than justifies DSC as the Primary Win Condition, despite any difficulties that may or may not exist with Welder. It's just a Goblin, get over it.

[Zelc]

The problem with running the four-color build is that you'll be insanely vulnerable to all of the non-basic hate out there right now.  Personally, I think that three colors is the absolute maximum this deck can play and not scoop outright to Crucible/Blood Moon/Back to Basics.

[freakish777]

instead we should be focusing on control and combo.

Use Platinum Angel in the Board against combo if you feel you need a better match-up against it.

It leaves them with only a handful of options, and little time with which to search for them.  With Platinum, you should have a pretty good combination of Oaths, Null Rods (provided you run these, I think 2 or 3 is a decent number if you main deck them), Counters, and Wastelands in hand to hose their game plan.  Look out for H. Recall and Oxidize though, coming from the SB.

Control will be the hardest match-up due to your deck's dependancy on Oath, hence the necessity to explore alternate win conditions if you have some quality control builds running about in your meta, or just run something entirely different.  Again, Mono-U will slaughter you, almost now matter how you slice it.  The Mono-U player doesn't even have to be good to have favorable chances, only really have to grasp the basic premise of your deck.

On another note, workshop aggro can pose a problem as well.  If they drop trinisphere on turn one, you had better have Force of Will, or Wasteland.  Even if they don't, their Juggernauts aren't necessarily going to be easy to out-race provided you're not guarenteed to get Oath in your top 8 or 9 cards.  You may want to consider running a loan board sweeper in the main deck (Balance) and ways to find it at ease (Tutors, Impulse, Brainstorm + Fetches), or a way to deal with Juggernauts and other fat in the sideboard.  Again, Platinum Angel could work here... but there lies a problem in the fact that they're likely running Welder.  Another option is sideboaring extra Oxidizes (probably a good idea), or Razormane Masticore to do double duty against their Fat (first strike + take down a Juggernaut during your turn, not as good an idea).  Another possibility is Lightning Bolt, however this should be ruled out because it requires a splash of color (though this gives you access to Red Elemental Blast), and it's relatively useless against everything else other than Goblin Welder.

Personally I think white should be splashed for a loan main deck Balance, and a number of Swords to Plowshares dependant on what you think you'll run up against.  Oxidize in the board should give you better chances against combo and workshop aggro as well, and possibly even control in a mana denial scheme or a way to get rid of Chalice of the Void set for 2 if they haven't set another for one as well.

[Machinus]

What about switching to red to have access to REB to help against control, and run burning wish to have access to balance and tinker?

[Rico Suave]

Control will be the hardest match-up due to your deck's dependancy on Oath, hence the necessity to explore alternate win conditions if you have some quality control builds running about in your meta, or just run something entirely different.  Again, Mono-U will slaughter you, almost now matter how you slice it.  The Mono-U player doesn't even have to be good to have favorable chances, only really have to grasp the basic premise of your deck.

You'll have to explain this further.  You see, the only issue Oath had before was that it'd never activate against control but now that issue is gone.

[timmy]

I think one of the strongest cards against control might be chains of mephistopheles.  Sure it shuts down your brainstorms, but as long as you run impulse over ak/intuition.  It could help the control matchup at ton.  

Also I have seen some decks running sylvan library.  I believe that this deck should run mirri's guile over the library.  First you can drop it turn one and second it doesnt count as a card draw, so it doesnt trigger chains.  It sometimes hurts that you can't pay for another card but I have found it to be superior most of the time.

[effang]

So which creatures would we choose to run?
So far the options is:

not. The Problem with the Cognivore is that it can killed by Stp, Reb, Crypt and any other artifact hate. Also it can be chumped by stupid small fliers.

The Collosus obvious problem is that its really weak to one of the most common creatures, Goblin Welder.

Sundering Titan seems Nice, at least as a Sideboard plan.
The fact that Sundering Titan both is big and help destroying your opponents mana base (which he desperatly needs in his search for answers)  is quite apelling. The problem just is that we cant rely only on the Titan as it is far too easy to kill (and weld in and out).

Mickey DP

Two things, cog can't be hit by artifact hate. And secondly, using the Titan is a fun little game, he welds in welds out, lands go bye bye.

instead we should be focusing on control and combo.

Use Platinum Angel in the Board against combo if you feel you need a better match-up against it.

Personally I think white should be splashed for a loan main deck Balance, and a number of Swords to Plowshares dependant on what you think you'll run up against.  Oxidize in the board should give you better chances against combo and workshop aggro as well, and possibly even control in a mana denial scheme or a way to get rid of Chalice of the Void set for 2 if they haven't set another for one as well.

Plat Angel is definately not the way to go against combo. Against combo, you are not going to be trying to play out your orchard, you're trying to survive.  If you're trying to race him by putting out your orchard and oath, I'm pretty sure most of the time by the time oath activates, you'll be dead.  In general, oath will take at least 3 turns to activate, and by that time, you should have already lost.

Second, siding in STP and Balance really seems overkill.  As a combo deck, you really should have no problem against creatures, and the only use of STP would be against welders, a task the fire/ice performs admirably.  If you're not winning against workshop...well, don't worry, many, many decks die against first turn trinisphere, that's just how it works.  Hopefully you can last long enough to turn 3-4 to oath up something though.

If you are so scared of playing combo that you would oath in a Plat, you should just SB more REB as well as first turn Duress etc.

[Mana Duane]

I think that the question that needs to be addressed with this deck is why shouldn't i just play Tog instead? Oath has a kill condition that takes up at least 6 cards (4 oath, 1 creature, 1 reclamation/blessing) Tog's kill condition takes only 3 slots. Once tog hits the tables you normally win as fast as you could with a colossus or Cog. Crucially however you can actually hard cast the Togs so you don't need to go by some convoluted route via oath and orchard to kill. Having tested oath my impression was that i was better off playing tog.

James

[Team-Judgement]

With the Weldering in response to collousos you could add 1 krosan reclamation to shuffle the mox he target into your library so the DSC stays, then you shuffle the rest back with blessing

My Version 1.0

3 Intuition
4 Ak
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral
1 Time Walk
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Tinker
2 Cunning wish

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of will

4 Oath
2 DSC
2 Blessing
1 Krosan Reclamation(ultra anti welder tech)

4 Tropical
3 Volcanic
3 Fechtes
1 Loa
4 Island
3 Ochard
5 Moxen
1 Sol ring
1 Black lotus

SB

4 Reb
1 Naturalize
2 Oxi
1 Stifle
2 RaR
1 Fire/Ice
4 Call of the Herd

Call of the Herd gets around chalice for 2, and i think they are better than morphling. Racks and Oxi's are against Stax, and Ws Aggro, stifle and naturalize and fire/ice are wish targets...

Rebs are very needed to beat mono U, and great in control mirror. You simply beat aggro up so FTK's and fire/ice's are not needed. Mono U with ak can go be a problem but else it looks quite good

Im not sure wether to to have f.x sundering titan or other SB oath targets, but DSC seems invincible

[moses2k]

I think you also should consider Regrowth as a bomb in this deck.

Just oathing a big part of your library in your graveyard bringing and a big creature in game and recurring time walk or yawwill kicks ass.

Another maybe good card is Deep Analysis, cause ur playing oath and intuitions.

jm2c

moses

[Team-Judgement]

I dont think regrowth should be played in this deck, since you mill your whole graveyard back into the library quite often, it will allmost never have any effect

[mr.dark]

Effang i think you misunderstood the Sundering Titan issue.
True your oponnent will loose a lot of lands in the welding process, but if the Titan is our ONLY creature it dosn't really matter. The exception is if you plays Blessing, but at the given time we discussed which creatures should be the base of the deck, it was close to an agreement that it wasn't needed, now we may have to reevaluate that.

Mickey DP

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

I think that the question that needs to be addressed with this deck is why shouldn't i just play Tog instead? Oath has a kill condition that takes up at least 6 cards (4 oath, 1 creature, 1 reclamation/blessing) Tog's kill condition takes only 3 slots. Once tog hits the tables you normally win as fast as you could with a colossus or Cog. Crucially however you can actually hard cast the Togs so you don't need to go by some convoluted route via oath and orchard to kill. Having tested oath my impression was that i was better off playing tog.

Because tog loses to Control slaver and worskhop aggro. Oath is near-slaver proof.

As far as why titan is a shitty win condition: It has no evasion. A smart 5/3 player will simply block and use his welder to exhange creatures. if the workshop player has a creature and a welder, titan will almost NEVER get a hit in.

-Bob

[freakish777]

You'll have to explain this further.  You see, the only issue Oath had before was that it'd never activate against control but now that issue is gone.

I meant resolving an Oath can prove troublesome.  Against Control Slaver or 4cc it will be easier due to the fact that they have less than or the same number of counters as you have, giving you a decent chance to get Oath out.  Obviously, I've already said my thoughts on the Mono-U match-up.  I think control will be the hardest match-up considering they can provoke a counter war over Oath.  Against some control builds I think you will actually have winning chances (Control Slaver), but on the whole, I think you'll find that control (and prison) will be the hardest group of decks to beat.

Plat Angel is definately not the way to go against combo. Against combo, you are not going to be trying to play out your orchard, you're trying to survive. If you're trying to race him by putting out your orchard and oath, I'm pretty sure most of the time by the time oath activates, you'll be dead. In general, oath will take at least 3 turns to activate, and by that time, you should have already lost.

Second, siding in STP and Balance really seems overkill. As a combo deck, you really should have no problem against creatures, and the only use of STP would be against welders, a task the fire/ice performs admirably. If you're not winning against workshop...well, don't worry, many, many decks die against first turn trinisphere, that's just how it works. Hopefully you can last long enough to turn 3-4 to oath up something though.

If you are so scared of playing combo that you would oath in a Plat, you should just SB more REB as well as first turn Duress etc.

To address Platinum Angel:  No, you aren't going to race their first threats by trying to get Angel into play.  You are going to use your Counters, Null Rods, Chalices, and Wastelands to passify their first string of threats.  Getting Oath down to get a creature into play is necessary to win the game (unless you have Man lands).  My suggestion is that instead of Oathing up Colossus, bring up Platinum Angel instead.  Both decks have exhausted their resources, but I think that newer combo decks have more threats than you have answers.  This gives you a 'threat' that they can't ignore (they can ignore Colossus, he takes 3 turns to kill).  Splashing red and/or black weakens the mana base.  With the control elements in the Oath list provided at the moment, I think the combo match-up is in your favor to begin with.  I don't think it's necessary to weaken your mana base, and leave yourself vulnerable in other match-ups just to try and nail to coffin shut against combo.  I think it's far better to give yourself an additional marginal advantage against combo in the form of Platinum Angel which makes your activation of Oath relevant even when you don't have complete control over the combo deck (ie, they still have atleast one threat you can't answer, whether or not it will end the game immediately, or just get them a new hand to be played out next turn).

To address siding in StP and maindecking Balance:  While your deck has a combo in it, you play more like control.  You kill earliest on turn 4... (Turn one random mox + Orchard -> Oath, Turn two Colossus, 2 swings).  As such, FCG (even when they don't get food chain into play) can kill on turn 3, bad sligh can kill on the same turn (4), T1 Affinity can kill on turn three, Workshop Aggro can kill on the same turn (4, if not sooner), as well as a host of other decks.  Sure, you have counters, but they will out pace your counter with threats if you don't have some way to deal with their creatures once they are in play.  That's why I think main decking Balance at the very least should be considered.  Additionally, Balance allows for some random (very random) broken plays, such as playing out your hand, wasting your opponents only land in play, resolving Crucible off Lotus, and Balancing away their hand, while you are the only one left with resources, replaying you're lands from the graveyard.

The point is, you play much more like a control deck that has a lot of quick answers to their initial threats, and then attempts to beat down in the lull of their plans while they try to recoup (and in a lot of case of aggro-control, beats down before they have the chance the try and race).  The problem with doing this is that some aggro decks just don't have that break in the action, as they continue to push out more and more threats (specifically Aggro Workshop, Affinity, and FCG).