Oath of Druids - Is it the New Goblin Welder?

[Smmenen]

Over the last month, there have been myriad Oath lists posted.  Traditional control builds like Cog, DSC, and Meandeck.  Additionally, there has been combo versions with Eternal Witness and Prison verrions with Yosei.

Is Oath of Druids the next Goblin Welder?  That is - will Oath produce 3-5 viable archetypes over the next few months?  I beleive so.  What will those decks look like and do you agree?

[Tristal]

How on earth do Myojin combo with Oath?  Is this some kind of joke?

[Smmenen]

Someone posted an Oath list with the creature that when it dies, tap 5 permanents - it used Diamond Valley to sacrifice the creature.  Is that Myojjin?

The point remains - will there be many different Oath decks?

[Vegeta2711]

Well I guess theoretically it's not hard, just slow. You oath up 2 of the white guys to die and then shuffle them back up. Or who knows, that's my guess though. EDIT: Or Diamond Valley. xD Ignore mer.

Outside of being a control deck, I doubt it'll spawn any effective offspring.

[Tristal]

Oh.  No, those are the Dragon Spirit Legends - you're referring to Yosei, the Morning Star.

I think it's a given new Oath decks will spring up - there's too much controversy regarding them right now.  The first thing people are going to discover is that almost any other build of Oath will beat the current template.  The build that won SCG2 was great because the mirror wasn't very expected, but there are a thousand tools to help win this mirror and Mono-Blue Oath really just doesn't abuse them as well as it'll evolve to.

[Smmenen]

Yeah - it's Yosei.  That's the one I'm referring to.

In Extended, Oath of Druids was creating many different decks.

I think we will see some TurboLand Oaths (ala Turbo Zvi).  One of my favorite Oath decks from that era was Kibler's Oath of Beasts.  The Yosei build reminds me of that.  

My teammate Kevin Cron designed an absolutely bizaare Oath list that used Witness in a different way than Forsythes and there are many options for Control Oaths.

[Tristal]

Witness/Oath really just reminds me of Pat Chapin's old Hermit Druid/YawgWin deck.  Is the Oath engine any less fragile than Hermit Druid?

[Smmenen]

It's far more stable.  Oath is an Enchantment.  Enchantments are the most difficult permanent to remove.

[MIZEnhauer]

I really like Oath of Druids but i don't think its a Goblin Welder.  It may be able to spawn many decks but eventually there will be so much hate that Oath will barely be able to survive.  Plus Goblin Welder is so good against all the Artifact decks in addition to being very good in its own deck.  So i think Oath will be good for a time but i think that time will pass.

[Smmenen]

The same could EASILY be said of Goblin Welder.

Think for a moment how much AWESOME artifact hate there is:

Energy Flux, Rack and Ruin, Oxidize, Naturalize, Ground Seal, Lava Dart, the list goes on and on.  This isn't theory, it's reality.

Nonetheless, Welder decks exist becuase they only need one activation.  The very same could be said of Oath!

[MIZEnhauer]

Stephen I may seem kinda of flip floppy but that statement really got me thinking.  If Welder can survive through that much hate than Oath can.  You have restored my faith in Oath with a single statement.  So with that in mind i believe Oath has a real chance.

[Luskan]

If there is a fast way for Oath to win a mirror match, then yes it'll become the next Goblin Welder (or, in a sense, Mishra's Workshop).  But if the Oath vs Oath matches keep going to time in the swiss rounds it'll hate itself out.  It'll be interesting to see what shows up at SCG III.

[Revvik]

I'm wondering at this point what actually wins the Oath mirror.  Right now my best guess is Orchard superiority - whoever can manipulate the creature count via Forbidden Orchard with an Oath of Druids out wins the game (which sounds boring as hell, truthfully).

Another possibility would be creature selection in the board, but at this point it looks like "Meandeck Oath" has a pretty hard-to-touch arsenal.

I'd say this deck will be incredibly hard to "hate out" - beating it may actually come down to play skill, like Wizards intended 10 years ago  

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

Whenever a new card / card interaction comes out, or a B/R change, it will always spawn inovation in many different archtypes built around the same combo.  

What will these archtypes be? We won't readly know without some time.  Maybe another card interaction with Oath will be discovered, or maybe the next CHK expansion might yield something interesting.

We tried building some kind of "combo" slaver with workshops.

we then tried
- cunning wish tech
- brainstorms
- memnarch and trinisphere
- A mono brown "MUD" type version

- control slaver
- control slaver + or - a color
- meandeck titan

With some time and elbow grease, something interesting will come around.

Even though Oath BLEW OUT the SCG tourney, Im going to hold my "whole opinion" until I see some other results and give it some time.

[CaptainPlanet.dec]

About a month ago I posted an Oath/Witness deck and it got flammed untill I was basically forced to change the whole deck.

Now Smemmenen is saying someone on the team is playing a Oath/Witness deck.

Why is everything I do wrong, and everything they do right?

I'm going to go cry.

On topic, do you think we could see some example deck lists?

[Smmenen]

That's up to Kevin.  PM Cha1n5.

[Gabethebabe]

Steve, sometimes you make me laugh. I remember you said after the initial successes of Workshop Slaver that Memnarch was the best things that happened to Vintage this year (or something like that). So, where is he now? This time you say Oath is the new Goblin Welder. Yeah right. Let´s see.

Claws of Gix

Artifact
, Sacrifice a permanent: You gain 1 life.

That will be my anti-Oath tech in TPS for this saturday. Someone else thought of this card already? This kills Oath like Tormod´s kills Dragon, only it is not a one time shot and can be applied in all decks that are not creature based (mainly combo, but also the mirror, decks with manlands can use it as well, even Prison decks could run it)

I think the Oath hype will die out as soon as people start preparing. 4CC turns 5CC and adds Green for Ray of Revelation, Claws of Gix everywhere, Gilded Drake, Waterfront Bouncer, Elvish Lyrist. Oath will need to adapt and run Damping Matrix or something. Leading to less consistent builds.

At the moment Meandeck has full bragging rights with their excellent performance and well designed build of Oath and can continue to suck  eachother dicks for a while and abuse other teams etc. They caught everyone with their pants down. But I think we will just have a new viable archetype, not a dominating one. This also I hope because we all have the same opinion about the mirror.

We´ll see.

[injectilio]

I disagree with the notion that Oath is easy to hate for the max hate that 4cc could bring is most likely around 3 and will probably end up being 2 cards post board. With 4cc's 8 counters verses Oath's 14, 4cc will effectively have less answers than Oath's answers for hate. Also, the draw engine in modern 4cc, while having a stronger card quality engine and a good high end card quantity engine can't match the speed of Oath's card quantity engine coupled with the aforementioned answer difference; the match up is my no means a write off in favor of 4cc. Also, the likely hood of green coming back in 4cc for a sideboard card seems to me extremely unlikely.

As for the hate listed: 2 of them have summoning sickness which fall into the "who goes first" category and Claws goes into decks that want to "just win" as opposed to answer threats that they don't especially care about. Gilded Drake is a very good answer for something like Fish but Oath's ability to out counter Fish comes into play when it comes time to resolve it.

[JACO]

Over the last month, there have been myriad Oath lists posted.  Traditional control builds like Cognivore, DSC, and MeanDeck.  Additionally, there has been combo versions with Eternal Witness and Prison verrions with Yosei.

Is Oath of Druids the next Goblin Welder?  That is - will Oath produce 3-5 viable archetypes over the next few months?  I believe so.  What will those decks look like and do you agree?

I can't say what they will all look like, as everyone is working on them independently it seems. But what I can say is that for like the 4th time in history, I actually completely agree with Steve about this.

Hidden Orchard + Oath is an enabler, kind of like Thirst for Knowledge + Goblin Welder. It is so easy to abuse, the cards are cheap and easy to come by, and there are a few different directions you can go with the deck.

Gaby, sure there will be hate, just as there is for Dragon or other successful decks when they first storm onto the Vintage scene. But the fact is, it's just a solid core, and if you're going to dilute the speed and power of TPS with something like Claws of Gix (which is pretty good tech, I must say; ) ), then Oath will at least be able to keep up.

[Timewalker]

If Oath becomes a popular deck, then 4CC will have to find space in its SB for Aura Fracture. Once 4CC forces it through... it's pretty much game for the oath player, plus cranial extraction is another great Board card vs Oath. :lol:

[effang]

I think CE will have the same influence on oath as it does on welder.decs.  Not much at all.  By the time you can reliably cast CE, if oath is playing the beat down, then there will already be a oath on the board, and you're screwed.  The fact that CE costs 4 and oath 2, means quite a lot.

Oath isn't tog, it isn't multicolor, and it is very definately like welder, very possible to put out on the first turn.

[Bastian]

What's CE?!?!

[Anders Noer]

What's CE?!?!

Cranial Extraction.
I don't know why this was brought up though?

Oath + Orchard is really strong. It will just randomly win games. This makes it strong enough to be a contender for a long time to come. Even if people start playing Claws Of Gix/Goblin Bombardment/Whatever in the boards. Hate can be hated as well.

It will certainly be interesting to watch which new archetypes Oath/Orchard will spawn.

[Thug]

Cranial Extraction...

And it's stays a 4cc sorcery, have fun resolving that.
Add that it doesn't stop the deck from winning, just from winning fast, and you see why it is a poor card.

Oath isn't the new Goblin Welder yet, and I doubt it will ever compare to it, since I don't think Oath will bring forward many (really) different archetypes. I do think Aoth is as powerful as Welder, if not better.

Koen

[skecreatoR]

It requires 8 slots though, it is based on a enchantment that gets creature into play cheaper.

This is exactly like mask, except that mask just two slots less (Creatures). As  mask didn't win games the same turn, neither will a 6/X flyer.

I think people will have success with this deck as long as the metagame in down in tempo, which it won't be forever. Mask was hated out, so will oath be.

The entire thing is not whether it is easy to remove oath or disable its ability - it is about how easy it is to remove a creature.

--Jacob

[Thug]

It requires 8 slots though, it is based on a enchantment that gets creature into play cheaper.

This is exactly like mask, except that mask just two slots less (Creatures). As mask didn't win games the same turn, neither will a 6/X flyer.

I think people will have success with this deck as long as the metagame in down in tempo, which it won't be forever. Mask was hated out, so will oath be.

The entire thing is not whether it is easy to remove oath or disable its ability - it is about how easy it is to remove a creature.

--Jacob

I'm sorry but it fails almost any comparision to Mask + Nought:

- Oath does not take up 8 slots, it takes up 4, the other 4 are lands that produce mana of any colour with a little drawback.
- Oath doesn't need Orchard to work, since some people do play creatures.
- Oath doesn't care about a single creature destruction spell, since it will just Oath up another critter.
- Oath and it's creatures don't get hit by artifact hate.

And did I miss something, was Mask hated out?

Koen

[bebe]

Actually, you missed nothing. I play blue Mask. It is a viable deck that uses an Oath sideboard. I have revamped it so that I can bring in my Oath sideboard much more effectively with Orchards and beat the Oath mirror as well.
Oath can be hated out but so can any deck. It still is quite stable and there is a reason Oath is not allowed in other formats.
As for Meandeck's Oath - a decent build that can be improved upon. But much credit shpould go to a team that manages to place FOUR decks in the top eight! Only jealousy could prevent someone from gioving them their dues in choosing a great meta choice and using the proper creature base for the environment. This is like the old GAT days. These decks are a serious threat and time will tell whether or not Oath is in line for restriction. I am quite sure double Yosei lists will appear as it seems quite strong as well.
So how many StPs are we about to see? This is going to create some collateral damage to other decks as well - Dragon, aggro, Mask, et all.
The next few months should be quite entertaining.

[MisterShark]

It requires 8 slots though, it is based on a enchantment that gets creature into play cheaper.

This is exactly like mask, except that mask just two slots less (Creatures).
--Jacob

I'm sorry but it fails almost any comparision to Mask + Nought:

- Oath does not take up 8 slots, it takes up 4, the other 4 are lands that produce mana of any colour with a little drawback.
- Oath doesn't need Orchard to work, since some people do play creatures.
- Oath doesn't care about a single creature destruction spell, since it will just Oath up another critter.
- Oath and it's creatures don't get hit by artifact hate.

And did I miss something, was Mask hated out?

Koen

@Koen
one more point:
- Oath automatically and reliably puts your win condition into play.  There's no "now I have a Mask in play, I've just gotta go tutor up (and then pay 1 mana for) a Dreadnought now.  Whu-what...Overload my Mask in response to Tutor....F**K!!"  

[Anders Noer]

Whu-what...Overload my Mask in response to Tutor....F**K!!"  

Vedalken Orrery is tech when battling Mask-Nought, I hear. Overload is a sorcery  :lol:

Nevermind. you got your point across and I agree.

[kill doug]

I had the idea of put 1 or maybe 2 togs in an oath deck with no blessings.

Positives
+ Frees up card space in deck for yawgmoths will, wishes and regrowth
+ Most likely a win the turn after you oath
+[b] Absoulty broken yawgs will plays[/b][/u]
The down side

-very vulnerable to swords (but what oath deck isn't)
-need to have a wish, regrowth, yawgmoths will to win
- most likely need a main deck beserk