what can fish do against oath?

[n00bie-T]

everyone can see the new rise of oath of druids(see http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=8335), thanks to forbidden orchard. now there's the downfall of fish (see gencon) and fish should really get a tool to beat oath but the question is what?? there are 2 versions of fish: u/r gay-red, u/r/g wtf/r tuned for mirror match. the decklists:

u/r gay-red:

4x spiketail hatchling
4x cloud of faeries
4x grim lavamancer
1x gorilla shaman

4x force of will
3x daze
4x curiosity
4x standstill
3x null rod
3x stifle
2x crucible of worlds
1x misdirection

4x volcanic island
4x wasteland
4x mishra's factory
3x polluted delta
1x flooded strand
1x wooded foothills
2x faerie conclave
2x island
1x strip mine
1x mountain

SB:
4x blue elemental blast
4x red elemental blast
4x fire/ice
3x sword of fire and ice

u/r/g wtf:

4x Grim Lavamancer
4x River Boa
4x Spiketail Hatchling
2x Call of the Herd
1x Gorilla Shaman

4x Brainstorm
4x Curisity
4x Force of Will
3x Null Rod
2x Fire/Ice
2x Oxidize
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Echoing Truth

4x Polluted Delta
2x Flooded Strand
4x Tropical Island
4x Volcanic Island
1x Island
1x Strip Mine
4x Wasteland
4x Mishra's Factory

SB:
2x REB
2x BEB
2x Naturalize
3x Artifact Mutation
1x Crucible
1x Fire/Ice
2x Sigil of Sleep
2x Maze of Ith

ok so what are the cards against oath of druids?

Maze of Ith:

ok so your oath resolves and you get a really big fatty on the table? great! now try attacking! it works but not very long if you don't got anything aainst wasteland/strip mine. even a crucible won't help you here.

echoing truth/unsummon/chain of vapor:

works really great. the moment the akroma/spirit of the night enters play you bounce them back to where they came from. oath decks don't have awnsers to that kind of removal if it resolves.

control magic:

why beat them if you can use them for own use? works nice if it resolves (but that's with all of the cards..) but is a little costy and won't stop the first 6 damage the turn akroma/spirit of the night comes into play.

the only problem with the colored spells who try to do anything about akroma/spirit of the night is that the moment you side these spells in they side akroma/sprit of the night out for pristine angel and iridescent angel, wich you cannot target with colored spells. so what we must do is stop the oath from triggering. not playing creatures is not a option cause that is where the orchard comes in the picture. so what else? destroying the oath before it triggers? there's an option:

naturalize:

only works in wtf/r but that is the stronger one of the 2 versions. thers's not much to say about this one other then it works and if oath keeps proving to be the strongest deck that it will replace oxidize in a lot of sideboards.

Viridian Zealot:

same s naturalize but it's a creature what is more fish-like.

decimate:

not a good choise for the only one who has creatures is you.

but why would you stop the triggering when you can make sure that your opponent does't want it to trigger? but how?

jester's cap:

most of the time your opponent won't side artifact removal in and most of the time he will only have 2 creatures to search for. the good old cap will remove those 2 creatures, saying i win!! ok it's kind of slow but it is by far the most effective way and also the funniest one.

the only other way to stop this deck is stopping oath is stopping the oath from being played at all. for this there are counters. but fish already plays the best counters you can find, but maybe not enough....

my conclusion: is you want to get a shot at beating oath with fish, try WTF for that is the version with the most removal for the oath.

any tips/comments?

[PipOC]

Sigil of Sleep is really fish's best answer to an oathed up fatty since it is impossible for most builds to hardcast them, if you get it on a lavamancer it's essentially gg for oath.

[Bulls on Parade]

Waterfront Bouncer isn't terrible against Oath, since it is a single card culmination of the Lavamancer/Sigil combination you're gunning for.

[jpmeyer]

Sigil of Sleep is really, really bad on every creature but Lavamancer, though.

[ruken]

Unfortunately, the best thing non-green Fish can do is bounce.  WTF with green can actually break enchantments, but the best anti-enchantment hedge (Ray of Revelation) is still out of its reach, leaving other fragile solutions such as dropping a Viridian Zealot before they find their Oath.  Siding in 6 Red Elemental Blast/Pyroblast and switching up the gameplan to focus on a slower control game while beating with free Spirits is probably the best thing to do, if out of character, as 6 Red Elemental Blast is more efficient than 6 Force of Will/Misdirection and should win a war provided mana doesn't become an issue.  I presume a few Bloodstained Mires and basic Mountains should pay off here.  

Amusingly, Spirit tokens are free Curiosity targets effectively without summoning sickness.  The mana difference between casting a creature + sticking Curiosity on it and not casting a creature and sticking Curiosity on it is huge.

Should Zealot see play?  His ability to handle problem artifacts and enchantments is reassuring, if not extraordinarily efficient.

I feel like Crucible is a less valuable play against Oath than against other decks.  Given Oath's absurdly low mana requirements in order to go lethal, your opponent is always within a heartbeat away from forcing an Oath through no matter what his mana situation is.

The problem with people's approach to solving the Oath challenge is that generally are trying to figure out how to deal with the fatness once it comes down.  To wit, things like Maze of Ith and Control Magic are like trying to apply a tourniquet to an axe wound.  They'll help, but why not try to get out of the way of the axe in the first place?

Oh, and Fish will never resolve a Jester's Cap.  Ever.

[SpencerForHire]

Well maybe, just maybe, since the main problem that all the fishy decks have is Oath at the moment.  Against an oath deck you could side in:
3x Suq' Ata Firewalker
3x Sigil of Sleep

Unfortunately that's half of your SB, the question is, is it worth doing?

[WildWillieWonderboy]

Last I checked Oath runs brainstorm, which puts stuff in hand on top of the library to come back into play after being bounced. This seems like a job for Rootwater Thief.

[SpencerForHire]

The problem with any creature based solution that involves stopping them before they oath, is that your creatures have summoning sickness, so if you play your creature solution, they'll just oath and your solution just became their engine.

[WildWillieWonderboy]

yeah, but fish has stifle, force and daze to stop an early oath. Not to mention that you have no chance of winning without playing creatures anyway.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

Simplify is a cheap answer to oath for WTF builds; it's probably better than naturalize in this matchup.  Not sure what else you could side it for, however .

I think that the best plan is to focus on the oath rather than the creatures.  They can always change what creatures they run and the oath engine is the real problem; the creatures are merely the result of them oathing, and happen to own fish horribly.

Cap is by far the worst idea ever.

If you do happen to take care of the oath for a while, you will probably win by beating them down with not only your own creatures and man lands but with free spirits .

Edit:

Sigil of Sleep is really, really bad on every creature but Lavamancer, though.

Works well on boa.

[JACO]

Last I checked Oath runs brainstorm, which puts stuff in hand on top of the library to come back into play after being bounced. This seems like a job for Rootwater Thief.

You are the most on the money here. I've been playing 3x Rootwater Thief in my main deck for quite some time, as well as 2x Stifle, and it does a decent job of combating Oath.

If you really want to tweak your decks to beat Oath, play 3-4 Rootwater Thief (replacing Cloud of Faeries, which is bar far the weakest creature in the deck, and doesn't scare anybody) and 2-3 Annuls main deck. Annul is playable against pretty much every deck out there, and helps to shore up Fish's weakest matchups (Oath and Workshop decks).

[dicemanx]

I really like the Annul plan - maybe even all 4 MD should be considered. The Thief seems a tad bit slow to me. If green can be splashed, then perhaps Elvist Lyrist (all 4 MD) can be considered to slip in under the radar 1st turn.

Quite honestly though, I hope that Fish doesn't find a viable solution to Oath so that we have a bit of a break from Null Rod up here in Toronto .

[yespuhyren]

Maze of Ith:

ok so your oath resolves and you get a really big fatty on the table? great! now try attacking! it works but not very long if you don't got anything against wasteland/strip mine. even a crucible won't help you here.

Although this statement makes some sense, if you are talking about a card that you only board in for this matchup, I think that this card is excellent.  Although it is weak against a wasteland/strip mine, the oath decks only run

2x wasteland
1x strip mine

and

0x crucible of world...

so the point really is, if you resolve a crucible you should be in great shape, as they can get rid of a land maximum three times (excluding them reshuffling the deck with blessing), and that is IF they draw the wasteland in their deck.

I think that the maze is a very strong card in the matchup

[Cthulhu]

Although this statement makes some sense, if you are talking about a card that you only board in for this matchup, I think that this card is excellent.  Although it is weak against a wasteland/strip mine, the oath decks only run

2x wasteland
1x strip mine

and

0x crucible of world...

I think the first part of this will change as has been pointed out by JP and Co.

Because the orchard is so important in the oath mirror - and with a sucessful build out there, the oath mirrior is a very real possiblity - the number of wates will increase to 5 to allow oath decks to win the orchard wars.

This has the splash effect of weaking maze of ith as a solution.

[absolute]

Fish has useful tools that may be able to help it defeat oath, and keep it at bay for time enough to win the battle. With the rise of big creatures, and the innevitable protection from red (which somewhat hinders the plan to use lavamancer) that can hose cards maindecked in fish, answers have to be in the form of blue and green cards (and artifacts   ). Some cards that could be considered would be:

Guilded Drake- It helps against oath and can be used against tog if it happens to be a overwhelming force at tournaments in your area.

Goblin Bombardment/ Altar of Dementia- Both can be used to hault the orchards as an instant win condition, while altar fits in either deck and bombardment only fits in wtf/r.

Rootwater Thief- The almost obvious solution to oath, but it fails in its plan nearly every game it plays against the deck for one main reason: Oath was already resolved.

Stifle- An all around usefull card that can take advantage of oath by stopping at least one activation.

Naturalize- A good answer to oath, and it is viable vs. any workshop varient. At the very least it can get rid of a mox.

Annul- Perhaps the cheapest answer to oath, if they aren't more counter backed up than you....

Meekstone- An old card, and possibly bad answer, but it ensures that if they can't get rid of it with the spirit/akroma combo, they probably won't win.

[abisashi]

Meekstone- An old card, and possibly bad answer, but it ensures that if they can't get rid of it with the spirit/akroma combo, they probably won't win.

Akroma doesn't tap to attack

Goblin Bombardment/ Altar of Dementia

This also applies to Meekstone - Meandeck Oath could get away without running any non-counter answers because no one was expecting them. I'd expect oath decks to run cunning wishes (maybe 3, so they can intuition for them?) in the future, or some other answer.

Even if they don't, you still have to play creatures to win, so they can just oath off those. Running these also lowers your threat count.


Decks with access to Green and White can run Ray of Revelation, which is strong against oath. At the very least, it's a good sideboard card for Tog (who can intuition for it) and 4CC. But you don't have access to white.

[absolute]

Even if they don't, you still have to play creatures to win, so they can just oath off those. Running these also lowers your threat count.

No you don't. You have manlands. I also believe that oath will run maindeck wishes for answers to focused threats, but those answers must resolve, and only so many wish's can be used for targeting.

Also on meekstone- I said it was a bad answer, and now I stand by it more than ever.  :lol:

[Gaea]

Ina U/R Fish build you can put bouncers and/or gilded drake to win against oath.dec, i think sigil of sleep is a good choice only if we got a lavamancer or suqata because most oath run flying creatures, against wich waterfront bouncer + gilded is a better choice

[Bronx]

What happens when they side in Iridescent Angel and Pristine Angel and all of the hate just mentioned is worth nothing?

[n00bie-T]

still the biggest problem is the pristine/iridescent angel they will side in for you cannot target them. what is there to do against them?? and yeah if you want to play sigil of sleep, play them on lavamancer/ tim wannabe's/river boa cuase else it will only work against a spirit of the night. by the way there's a good oath article here.

o jeah the cap was a joke of course.

[BlueRedGaey]

So what are we gonna do to deal with oath. Are we acctally so scared of it we are going to maindeck some of the anti oath cards or is this all going into the sb. In my opinion Gilded Drake MB is good in almost any machup. At the worst you will end up with a welder or a juggernaut. The sigal would work ok but if it isnt on a Grim lavamancer it doesnt do anything because they DTWA(dont tap when attacking). Also we can run bounce mb because bounce is never a bad thing to have anyways and sense they are G/U they have no way of casting Akroma/SOTN when it is in hand so the brainstorm it to the top of their deck where a rootwater theif can hit it if we try that md/sb. I think it is a very bad idea to take out cloud of faries as mentioned earlier because they are a 1/1 drop that lets you play another 2 casting creature that turn. It also allows you to go fariy fairy standstill. We can consider taking out the spiketail because against oath everything is so cheap it is prettey easy to have that 1 extra mana and they will ofter drop oath before we ever see a turn and unless we drop a mox we cant play the hatchling turn 1 anyways. What would a list look like with trying to get this new tech in?

EDIT: What about ensnaring Bridge. We usually dont have to many cards in hand and DEFINATELY not 6 in hand almost ever unless you dont run cloud of faries

[jazzykat]

I am going to have to throw my vote in with the crowd who likes annul. It is infinitely annoying to counter a mox if nothing else.  It seems to me though that fish's hard match ups: workshop fat, and oath would both be helped by the annul plan.

On a side note they are rather hillarious against dragon as well, but depending on your build you probably pwn them already.

[Phele]

Annul would definately be a good choice. Me as running Wtf/r would exchange the CotH and Mox Monkey slots main with three Rootwater Thiefs, two Oxidizes with two Naturalizes, and put three suggested Annuls in the Sideboard and suddenly the build seem to have a few weapons against Oath. Playing three Moxen should compensate the speed problem.

[BlueRedGaey]

Two things to mention
1)What about ensnaring bridge. 5 cards in your hand and guess what, they cant attck
2)How can meekstone possibly help. Unless you run a way to tap their creatures it doesnt help because i am PRETTY sure both dont tap when that attack.

[absolute]

Two things to mention
1)What about ensnaring bridge. 5 cards in your hand and guess what, they cant attck
2)How can meekstone possibly help. Unless you run a way to tap their creatures it doesnt help because i am PRETTY sure both dont tap when that attack.

1. Possibly, but this answer is fairly expensive.
2. Already been established that it isn't usefull in the least.

[Pern]

Any two color deck can blow up the Oath with Engineered Explosives.

[Covetous]

EE isn't bad except that you run null rod.  However, rod's not that effective vs. oath so you would most likely want to side it out anyway.  Remember, of course, that most of your threats are 2cc, so you lose your side when you EE@2.  Extract is so much better than jester's crap because you run neither workshop nor welder.  Due to untargetable SB options, anything targeted sucks.  A large problem you have is that they run fully twice the countermagic that you do, so forcing through your answers will be that much harder.  Fish basically sucks vs. oath, period.  So, why run a deck with at least two horrible matchups that are very popular right now (oath, 5/3)?  Your man-lands are good game 1, but probably not sufficient to win.  Post-SB, they eat your manabase with B2B.  
In terms of overall effectivness, MD annul is probably best.  I also think that 4x extract in the SB is hilarious because it can own combo decks and oath alike.  The problem is that you need to draw 2 of them to actually have it work for you.

[MrZuccinniHead]

rootwater thief + control magic?

[everythingitouchdies]

The problem that fish may wish to consider addressing is solely a way to STOP OATH FROM HAPPENING. The reason behind this is that bounce will not get rid of the Oath SB creatures in any form. Also, Fish is supposed to be a TEMPO deck for the most part, and it would seem that outtempoing oath is the only way it is going to win.

Annul is a viable option. It may be the only great one. Every deck has to accept that it has some bad match ups, and with Oath being Uber popular following its recent victories in the hands of EXTREMELY SKILLED PLAYERS it may be the wrong call to choose fish as your deck for awhile.

EITD

[Nastaboi]

That was my WTF list there. I have changed -2 Oxidixe, -1 F/I to +2 Naturalize, +1 Echoing Truth maindeck and -1 Naturalize, +1 REB in side. That helped a little, and didn't affect my other matchups. Echoing Truth is very good overall versus Smokestacks and big greatures, and it gives you usually enough tempo to win it out. Bouncing an Oath before it triggers is usually a good play, because they will be tapped out then and you will have at least one turn more.

I tested Annul, but found it somehow lacking. If you have it, you cannot tap out, and Oath player will have more time to Intuition for AKs which Annul doesn't counter. With Naturalize, you can play your our game and if they lay Oath, you just blow it off next turn.

Oh, and if they go with Pristine Angel route, you can often damage race them. Right now I am considering whether to side out Null Rods or not, I think two should stay main so that you don't totally abandon your original game plan. This was how Fish won better decks at first place, remember? CotH is also under debate because Oath player will sometimes have shitloads of counters and draw but no Oath, and this is when two elephants out of one card is golden.