Please help me with the Oath deck. (T1 in my area soon)

[Oathofdruids]

I have an unpowered, semi-budgeted, Oath deck for T1. And I need help with some mechanical problems.  I'd prefer it if it stay two colors (U/G).  The deck does suprisingly well in T1 powered fields (final 2 every time)... any help is appreciated.

Here is the deck:

2 Tropical Island
4 Flooded Strand
2 Forest
12 Island
4 Forbidden Orchard
--------------------------24 Land
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Spirit of the Night
--------------------------2 Creatures
4 Force of Will
3 Intuition
4 Counterspell
2 Misdirection (might switch for either stifle or Living Wish)
3 Naturalize (trust me, helps)
3 Mana Leak
4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Gaea's blessing (awsome)
1 Gush
-------------------------30 Spells
4 Oath of Druids
-------------------------4 Enchantment

Thank you for your time.

[everythingitouchdies]

Try doing a search for oath. There is a ton of good information out there that will help regardless, and is worth the read. You may find some stuff that helps you play this deck unpowered. It will help you out considerably if you know what else is going on in your vintage community... like how powered the rest of the field is.

Even though its mostly about powered decks, it would still be heavily beneficial to read the articles on SCG by some of the more experienced players. I went through trying to build dragon before I had power about a year and a half ago and it helped alot just to read, and eventually ask less but very specific questions. You will find that if you take the time and once you learn who has the most to say that you relate with that you can PM most users and they will get back to you with a reasonable amount of hospitality.

That is, except for my buddy JDizzle, he will just rant about his foils and avoid the awe inspiring power of my white bordered yawgmoth's will. But he only plays combo anyway and wouldnt be of much help with oath anyway.

Hope this helps.

EITD

[Luiggi]

I don't think the 2nd Gaea's Blessing is necessary, and you could probably fit a more useful card in that extra slot.

I'm also not sold on the Naturalizes, and I think something like Cunning Wish would be much much better, giving you more options.

Even if you're running an unpowered version, you should put in things like Sol Ring, Lotus Petal, Mox Diamond and maybe even Chrome Mox (not sure about this, though, since you lose a spell), since they help speed up your pricier spells. It sucks to not be able to play an Intuition before turn 3, for example, and these would help a lot with that.

Since you run so many lands it's very easy to throw 3-4 Wastelands and 1 Strip Mine in there, cutting things like 2 Forests (totally unnecessary, even in an unpowered Oath, trust me) and some Islands. I think 4 Tropicals would also be nice.

Here's a revised version:

4 Oath of Druids
1 Akroma
1 Spirit of the Night

4 Mana Leak
4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
2 Misdirection

4 Brainstorm
4 Accumulated Knowledge
3 Intuition
3 Cunning Wish
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Gush

1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond

1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tropical Island
6 Island

Some good Cunning Wish targets for the SB: Naturalize, Echoing Truth, Chain of Vapor and Fact or Fiction.

Hope this helps.

Luiggi

[Shade]

CWish is too slow for unpowered Oath, espcially one not running Drains.  Even with Drains, I found them to be too slow and clunky.

Gush is also counterproductive to the deck.  You don't want to put lands back in your hand, especially when unpowered.

The rest of the deck is pretty solid, but I can't stress enough...add Ancient Hydra to Akroma and Spirit MD.  You retain your speed but have a way of dealing with speed bumps such as Welder and Platz as well.  Worst case, you sac all the counters and do a whopping 1 less point of damage than you normally would, then you Oath up Akroma/Spirit the next turn and win anyway.  I seem to be the only advocate of this so far, but I'm confident it will eventually catch on.

[Khahan]

Shade, you are far from the only advocate of this.
I went into my last tournament running 3 creatures and am simply glad other people have found reason to agree. I think it makes the deck more consistent if you run up against aggro heavy metas.
And if you aren't in aggro heavy meta's, Hydra still has a lot of use as Shade pointed out.

Add the Hydra. He'll help out more than you can imagine.

Cut the Intuition/AK engine. W/out the drains or other power to accelerate it, its simply too slow.  You need 5 mana on a single turn to pull it off effectively. That's though when you are trying to keep mana open for counters. And if that Ak draw turns up the Oath you've been digging for, you more than likely need to wait another turn to cast it anyway.

If I make specific card suggestions, I'd simply ending up steering you into nearly the exact build I play. While I don't think there's anything wrong with it, I don't want to feel like I'm whoring it out on everybody.

So what I'm going to do is this:
Support the suggestion to add 1 Ancient Hydra (-1 gush)

Suggest you drop the following:
-4 AK
-3 Cunning Wish
-3 Intuition


Think about keeping 2 reshuffle effects. Either add a krosan reclamation or a second gaea's blessing.

Play around with the following cards to fill the 10 slots you now have open:

Serum Visions
Pithing Needle
Stifle
Annul
Null Rod (you'll do what..shut down a whole 3 cards in your deck?)
Impulse (not my favorite, but it does give decent deck manipulation)
Sensei's Divining Top -  a very solid choice

I've found the better unpowered Oath builds focus more on control and deck manipulation and less on fast combo and heavy card draw. 

[Shade]

Shade, you are far from the only advocate of this.
I went into my last tournament running 3 creatures and am simply glad other people have found reason to agree. I think it makes the deck more consistent if you run up against aggro heavy metas.
And if you aren't in aggro heavy meta's, Hydra still has a lot of use as Shade pointed out.

Add the Hydra. He'll help out more than you can imagine.

Cut the Intuition/AK engine. W/out the drains or other power to accelerate it, its simply too slow.  You need 5 mana on a single turn to pull it off effectively. That's though when you are trying to keep mana open for counters. And if that Ak draw turns up the Oath you've been digging for, you more than likely need to wait another turn to cast it anyway.

If I make specific card suggestions, I'd simply ending up steering you into nearly the exact build I play. While I don't think there's anything wrong with it, I don't want to feel like I'm whoring it out on everybody.

So what I'm going to do is this:
Support the suggestion to add 1 Ancient Hydra (-1 gush)

Suggest you drop the following:
-4 AK
-3 Cunning Wish
-3 Intuition


Think about keeping 2 reshuffle effects. Either add a krosan reclamation or a second gaea's blessing.

Play around with the following cards to fill the 10 slots you now have open:

Serum Visions
Pithing Needle
Stifle
Annul
Null Rod (you'll do what..shut down a whole 3 cards in your deck?)
Impulse (not my favorite, but it does give decent deck manipulation)
Sensei's Divining Top -  a very solid choice

I've found the better unpowered Oath builds focus more on control and deck manipulation and less on fast combo and heavy card draw. 

Intuition, on its own, is still a very good card.  It's basically a blue Demonic Tutor.  In the example given, if you're looking for Oath, why Intuition for AK and hope the Oath turns up?  Just Intuition for Oath and go to town.

If you consider Top/Needle (and, I admit, I haven't playtested Top; it just looks weird to me), you could go with Thirst for Knowledges as your draw engine.  A single Fact or Fiction may not be too bad either.  Beyond that, I'd look at Impulse.

1 Gaea's Blessing
4 Oath of Druids

1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Ancient Hydra
1 Spirit of the Night

4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge

4 Counterspell
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak

3 Pithing Needle
3 Sensei's Divining Top

2 Flooded Strand
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Island
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
2 Polluted Delta
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

SIDEBOARD:
3 Arcane Laboratory
3 Ground Seal
1 Iridescent Angel
2 Misdirection
1 Platinum Angel
1 Pristine Angel
3 Rack and Ruin
1 Twincast

If you don't want to run Volcanics for a red splash, go with 2 more Islands/Tropicals and run Energy Flux.

[Khahan]

Intuition, on its own, is still a very good card.  It's basically a blue Demonic Tutor.  In the example given, if you're looking for Oath, why Intuition for AK and hope the Oath turns up?  Just Intuition for Oath and go to town.

Obviously (ok, maybe not obviously since I said -3 intuition), I didn't mean to cut intuition. Anybody who knows me (which is really only 1 person on this site) knows that I love Intuition in Oath. I simply brainfarted there.
Yes, keep the intuitions. However, still cut the AK's.

If you are going to Intuition, why not pull up 3 Oath of Druids and be done with it?

Or if you have Oath, pull up 3 Forbidden Orchards?

Cut the AK's.

[Yawgmoths_Dummy]

I think you could drop Gush for Mystical Tutor. Tutor will allow you access to Intuition faster, and will also allow you to find answers as needed. Two Naturalize should be sufficient, and one Blessing has never been a problem.

Lotus Petal or Mox Diamond would really help to power out first turn Petal/ Diamond- Orchard Oaths, and would allow second turn Intuitions. Sol Ring wouldn't hurt either.

Including a third creature is a good idea, and Oath players are coming around to Ancient Hydra. I have personally been testing Triskelion, as he's is good to dump Mana Drain mana, and requires no colored mana to cast, and does roughly the same thing as Hydra.

I've also been playing Crop Rotation with some sucess. Early, it is a, "must counter" spell, and late it will get Strip/ Waste, but it's still in testing, as sometimes it is a dead draw.

everythingitouchdies is correct, do a search on Oath and you will see a ton of great information, especially the Mean Deck builds.

And yes Ben, your white border Yawg Will and Academy are amazing. 

[Shade]

Intuition, on its own, is still a very good card.  It's basically a blue Demonic Tutor.  In the example given, if you're looking for Oath, why Intuition for AK and hope the Oath turns up?  Just Intuition for Oath and go to town.

Obviously (ok, maybe not obviously since I said -3 intuition), I didn't mean to cut intuition. Anybody who knows me (which is really only 1 person on this site) knows that I love Intuition in Oath. I simply brainfarted there.
Yes, keep the intuitions. However, still cut the AK's.

If you are going to Intuition, why not pull up 3 Oath of Druids and be done with it?

Or if you have Oath, pull up 3 Forbidden Orchards?

Cut the AK's.

The only thing I'm concerned about is, is there enough card drawing power w/o the AKs?  Otherwise, I've been looking at possibly dropping the AKs from my own build, along with the Impulses.  I just tested the Tops but didn't like them.  They don't do enough for my liking, and multiples are pretty much worthless.

Here's my current build, btw:

1 Gaea's Blessing
4 Oath of Druids

1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Ancient Hydra
1 Spirit of the Night

4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
2 Impulse
4 Intuition

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak

2 Pithing Needle

2 Flooded Strand
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Island
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
2 Polluted Delta
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

SIDEBOARD:
3 Arcane Laboratory
3 Ground Seal
1 Iridescent Angel
2 Misdirection
1 Platinum Angel
1 Pristine Angel
3 Rack and Ruin
1 Twincast

I'm starting to lean towards a Chalice Oath build with Thirsts instead of AKs, something along the lines of this:

1 Gaea's Blessing
4 Oath of Druids

1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Ancient Hydra
1 Spirit of the Night

4 Brainstorm
3 Intuition
3 Thirst for Knowledge

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak

3 Chalice of the Void
3 Pithing Needle

2 Flooded Strand
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Island
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
2 Polluted Delta
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

SIDEBOARD:
3 Arcane Laboratory
3 Ground Seal
1 Iridescent Angel
2 Misdirection
1 Platinum Angel
1 Pristine Angel
3 Rack and Ruin
1 Twincast

I would love to replace AK as my draw engine, but am not sure what's better to run in it's place.  Regardless, I love 3-4 Intuitions in the deck.

[oldbsturgeon]

you could try the waay slow serum visions, like khahan did at SCG, but their sorcery speed makes for some bad times. however without drains, thirst isnt much of an option either. try them out though i believe khahan was even considering removing them from the maindeck.

[Shade]

you could try the waay slow serum visions, like khahan did at SCG, but their sorcery speed makes for some bad times. however without drains, thirst isnt much of an option either. try them out though i believe khahan was even considering removing them from the maindeck.

Tried 'em, and they sucked.

I guess I'll just have to stick with AK for now.  Nothing else I've tried has been any better.

[49 Cents]

I would love to replace AK as my draw engine, but am not sure what's better to run in it's place.  Regardless, I love 3-4 Intuitions in the deck.

Maybe you could run 4 Impulse? They dig 4 cards searching for Orchard/Oath/Counter?

And why the Red splash? You play non-powered, so I think mana-stability seems better then the ability to play R&R..
And maybe counterspell is better then Leak without Moxes, but ofcourse, you play 5 strips.. Test it I'll say.

Greetz,

Hugo

[Khahan]

you could try the waay slow serum visions, like khahan did at SCG, but their sorcery speed makes for some bad times. however without drains, thirst isnt much of an option either. try them out though i believe khahan was even considering removing them from the maindeck.

Tried 'em, and they sucked.

I guess I'll just have to stick with AK for now.  Nothing else I've tried has been any better.

I wouldn't go so far as to say SV sucked.  However, OldB is right. I am messing with a few builds w/out serum visions.  And I didn't replace them with draw, either. I put control elements in those slots.  Playtesting is just getting mixed results. However, I always felt the SV were better than AK.  Most Oath builds I've seen seem to have this 4 slot problem for replacing AK (unless they are running mana drains for the intuition/ak engine).  The answer is out there somewhere.

[Shade]

you could try the waay slow serum visions, like khahan did at SCG, but their sorcery speed makes for some bad times. however without drains, thirst isnt much of an option either. try them out though i believe khahan was even considering removing them from the maindeck.

Tried 'em, and they sucked.

I guess I'll just have to stick with AK for now.  Nothing else I've tried has been any better.

I wouldn't go so far as to say SV sucked.  However, OldB is right. I am messing with a few builds w/out serum visions.  And I didn't replace them with draw, either. I put control elements in those slots.  Playtesting is just getting mixed results. However, I always felt the SV were better than AK.  Most Oath builds I've seen seem to have this 4 slot problem for replacing AK (unless they are running mana drains for the intuition/ak engine).  The answer is out there somewhere.

How about Opt?  It's instant speed.

[Hidden-Leaf]

It seems like normal oath, witch is a decent deck. I suggest Oath Salvagers, you can get the decklist almost anywhere. Dan Emmons won the beanie exchange playing it, and whooped my butt pretty good, I was playing typical Dragon. Congrats to Dan and good luck building ur deck.

[zulander]

why not run black in the deck? it gives you access to demonic tutor, duress, vampiric tutor, skeletel scrying, and lim dul, which i think is over looked a lot in the deck. ooooh, i think ima go and test it out know, uber secret tech!

[PieterW]

I wouldn't run black because of mana base issues

Also, perhaps some mana acceleration can come in handy (mox diamond and chrome mox?)

Fact of ficiton is a good draw engine, perhaps you can cut a naturalize for it?

Also: cut the forests, replace them with islands, tropicals or fetchlands. forests aren't necessary

[Shade]

I have not been too pleased with AK, Impulse, MisD, or Twincast.  Not that they haven't been useful, but I feel like the deck could be stronger with Chalices and TfKs instead.  Thoughts?

1 Gaea's Blessing
4 Oath of Druids

1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Ancient Hydra
1 Spirit of the Night

4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
4 Thirst for Knowledge

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak

4 Chalice of the Void

2 Flooded Strand
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Island
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
2 Polluted Delta
1 Sol Ring
1 Strip Mine
2 Tropical Island
2 Volcanic Island
4 Wasteland

SIDEBOARD:
3 Arcane Laboratory
3 Ground Seal
1 Iridescent Angel
3 Pithing Needle
1 Platinum Angel
1 Pristine Angel
3 Rack and Ruin

[Yawgmoths_Dummy]

I agree that the Chalice-TFK build  may be the best in the format right now, as it looks like the Meta may be shifting back to heavy control, with the resurgence of Fish. I think 3/4cC is going to make a comeback and TFK helps keep up with the draw power of Skeletal Scrying, and you should be able to keep up with their counterspells.

How is Pithing Needle working out? I tried them and didn't think they made enough difference to include them. I traded them for REB's.

Also, how do you deal with a first turn Workshop, Mox, Chalice set at 2? Or 3Sphere?

All in all a solid build tho'.