[Deck Discussion] Oolong Tea

[Stupid_Newb]

Oolong Tea

The Decklist

Combo: (11)
4 x Oath of Druids
2 x Darksteel Colossus
4 x Death Wish
1 x Burning Wish

Broken: (10)
1 x Yawgmoth’s Bargain
1 x Necropotence
1 x Time Walk
1 x Memory Jar
1 x Timetwister
1 x Ancestral Recall
1 x Wheel of Fortune
1 x Time Spiral
1 x Fastbond
1 x Mind’s Desire

Draw & Tutor: (6)
1 x Tinker
1 x Demonic Tutor
1 x Demonic Consultation
1 x Mystical Tutor
2 x Brainstorm

Kill: (1)
1 x Tendrils of Agony

Manabase: (32)
4 x City of Brass
4 x Gemstone Mine
4 x Forbidden Orchard
4 x Dark Ritual
1 x Library of Alexandria
1 x Tolarian Academy
7 x SoLoMoxen
1 x Chrome Mox
1 x Mox Diamond
1 x Grim Monolith
1 x Mana Crypt
1 x Mana Vault
1 x Lotus Petal
1 x Lion’s Eye Diamond

Sideboard: (15)
1 x Yawgmoth’s Will
1 x Balance
1 x Tendrils of Agony
2 x Darksteel Colossus
4 x City of Solitude
4 x Oxidize
2 x Tormod’s Crypt

The Concepts

The deck is inspired by one card – Forbidden Orchard. If you don’t know what it does, you don’t deserve to know. Hopefully cast a Oath of Druids turn one, find a Darksteel Colossus turn two, and mill most of your deck into your graveyard. From there, cast a Death Wish (or even better, Burning Wish) for a Will, and go ahead and flashback most of your library that’s in your graveyard.

Seems crazy? Yeah, that’s what I thought too. After tweaking the decklist a bit, I came up with the one above, and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. In my first goldfishes:

2 turn one kills
3 turn two kills
4 turn three kills
1 turn four or after kill

Definitely not bad. Not only does it combo out on those turns, but because of my goldfishing, I didn’t take into account for the quick Darksteel Colossus.

Card Choices

Colossus – I choose to run two Darksteel Colossuses because in testing, if I opened up my hand with the lone Colossus, I would’ve wasted five card slots on that game, and I would have to rely only on the Combo aspect of the deck.

Fastbond- In a lot of games, I’m going to have a lot of land in the graveyard, via Oath, so flashing back those lands can be the deciding factor of a game. Not only that, but it also can make for an addition 1-2 mana in the opening stages of a game.

Time Spiral – I don’t care, I love this card. I played with it back in Urza’s Block, and it’s just a blast. You get out an Academy and cast the Spiral, then you’ve just increased your chance of winning by about 75%.

Mox Diamond and Chrome Mox – This is one of the biggest drawback of the deck – no ESG. To compensate for the loss, I’m forced to run these two. In testing, they’ve been working just fine.

The Matchups (General)

The matchups are the sole reason for this deck’s priority over some of the other Combo decks:

Prison: Possibly the best reason to play this deck. If they drop a Trinisphere early, go with the Oath route. If they don’t have an early Prison piece, go with the Combo route. If they drop a Chalice for one, go into Turbo-Moxen mode and find yourself an Oath. Chalice for 0 should be easy to work around, even if you’re trying to Combo out.

Control: The matchups here will vary quite a bit. 4C Control is a reasonably good matchup because both ways to win aren’t terribly hard, considering you could win either of the ways. SmmenenBlue gets a bit tougher, considering you’ve got to watch out for Chalices and more Control.

Aggro: Simply the easiest matchup you’ll face. Either win plan is extremely easy and undisrupted. Not too much more can be said about this.

Aggro-Control: If you’re able to get an Oath past, the game’s easy. GAT will be afraid to drop a Dryad and Fish will have already dropped something. And if you’re lucky, Comboing out isn’t terribly hard either. Null Rod is probably the biggest obstacle faced by Aggro-Control, but in a lot of decks it isn’t even run.

Combo: Basically it comes down to who has the better hand, better skill, and better luck. Since this deck doesn’t run any disruption, you’re already at a disadvantage against TPS and other decks that run Duress or FoW. But the main question is who can Combo out faster.

Sideboard

Yawgmoth’s Will and Tendrils are the two given cards. Wishing for a Will is the whole purpose of the deck. Balance is another Wish target I use mainly as a last-ditch effort in any situations where I’m down big. City of Solitude is my Control hoser, seeing as though I can’t run Xantid Swarm without messing up the Oath engine. The other two Colossus’s will usually go in against Aggro, in which case I’ll just focus on the Oath portion of the deck. Tormod’s Crypt is my simple graveyard hate, and Oxidize is my Artifact hate. For the most part, the board is fairly simple.


Well that’s the crazy combo deck of Oolong Tea. If anyone would like specific testing results from certain matchups, just give me a shout and I’ll see what I can do.

Note on the deck's name: I originally called it Oath Long, but I just thought Oolong sounded stupider.

EDIT: Spelling.

[Team-Judgement]

First of all, its seems kind of hard to resolve an oath when you got no disruption or counter backup. You sure have alot of 'threats' in the draw 7, but because you dont play a real combo deck they arent as good as they normally are, so opponents really dont loose to a draw7 spell.

But if i where you, i would simply remove all creatures, and go combo with oath>krosan reclamation>yawgmoths will. Then you can also remove some of the wishes which will make room for more disruption and brainstorm nr. 3 and 4

Like you write yourself, this deck is going to have a tough fight against any combo deck. Since this isnt a real 'tendrils' deck, but more a 2-kind-of-combo deck, it will be near impossible to fight against the speed of real storm based combo decks/belcher/dragon and also the disruption they play.

And 2 collousos is enough, you dont need more post SB

/Rasmus Roar

[Moxlotus]

Is it really worth it to take Deathlong, remove protection (duress) and search(brainstorm) to add in cards that take 4 turns to win (cast oath, activate, 2 attacks)?  YOu are now playing a combo deck that runs ZERO disruption.

[ELD]

Not to come across as harsh, but I think the time you spent typing your post would have been better spent actually playing the deck.  10 goldfishes is of no value.  10 games vs the top 10 archtypes might be of some vaule.  I'm really not going to encourage anyone to spend anymore time on this concept though, as I don't believe it is of any value.

[CaptainPlanet.dec]

Right now in the Newbie forums I'm working on Pentecost.dec, a similar idea. I Oath into a Eternal Witness, return Will, play artifact mana, Grim Monolith, Power Artifact, Cunning Wish for Kaverack's Tourch. It's more control orientated however, with 4 Mana Drain, 4 Force of Will, and 3 Cabal Therapy so I can cycle Eternal Witnesses. Check it out.

[BreathWeapon]

This deck couldn't possibly be anymore "Win More." Setting up Yawgmoth's Will with an Active Oath is a joke. Why would you use 5 MD Wishes when you could Reclamation for Oath anyway?

What's next on the list, Rector Oath.Dec?

Actually resolving Oath should be more than enough to win the game, the question is a matter of the Win Condition and Draw Engine and that's pretty much it.

[herby]

Right now in the Newbie forums I'm working on Pentecost.dec, a similar idea. I Oath into a Eternal Witness, return Will, play artifact mana, Grim Monolith, Power Artifact, Cunning Wish for Kaverack's Tourch...

C. wish for kaervek's torch?

cheatar!

[CaptainPlanet.dec]

Right now in the Newbie forums I'm working on Pentecost.dec, a similar idea. I Oath into a Eternal Witness, return Will, play artifact mana, Grim Monolith, Power Artifact, Cunning Wish for Kaverack's Tourch...

C. wish for kaervek's torch?

cheatar!

Yes, I noticed it wasn't an instant after I changed the deck around. My friend kept on telling me to use it as the win, and I mean shouldn't you always grab you're win with a Wish?  

It's now Stroke of Genius. That's an instant. I'm positive it is. I think...