More Vintage Tech with Randy Buehler: Meandeck GiftsOath

[Ged]

I'm unsure what you mean. Krosan Reclamation is already in the MD if you are going by the list that Buehler played in the interview.

Regarding the second list (from Toad)...
...
2) Regrowth seems a bit odd...

I was talking about Toad's list (which seems stronger to me).

[Gabethebabe]

It is only going to be a matter of time now before Blood Moon starts showing up. Sacred Ground might be the bomb versus Workshop decks, but it doesn’t do jack versus Blood Moon. Plus, Blood Moon is an answer to the Crucible/Strip lock as well as a solid answer to shut down all these 5c mana bases. I can’t believe no one playing Control Slaver isn’t running this card maindecked right now. But as this trend continues I am sure it will show up. So I got to ask…

Last saturday in a Barcelona tourney (60+ players) a guy playing Slaver with 3 maindeck Shaman and 3 Blood Moon took home all the marbles. He kicked me out in the SF (I played a Gifts variant discussed in another thread), because he topdecked Shaman when he had to.

[doylehancock]

Just FYI: this was not released with the permission of the team. We didn't know that Randy would be shipping our list to SCG.

This means that you are on your own for any help on the deck and that the team won't be contributing to the discussion on the mechanics of the deck. Any information that we would provide will be in Matthieu's article, should he still write it.

Sorry to all meandeckers I wasnt aware you guys weren't ok with the list being published.  I hope that Matthieu does write the article because the deck has promises.

this is a meandeck deck whomever disagrees is flat wrong

[seer]

I agree this list appears to have more raw power than any previous Gifts list; however, I would not say it is strictly better. For one this list seems much more focused on wining with Colossus, which brings be to my first question for Randy.

How does this fair versus Control Slaver? They can weld out your DSC. In addition, they have a good chance of preventing you from resolving Will. I am saying this not because I have tested it or anything but because you have lost the ability to Merchant Scroll for counters and/or removal like Fire/Ice.

How does this fair against faster combo decks like Dragon or TPS? Before you could Scroll for an Echoing Truth against Dragon or a Force of Will versus TPS to prevent them from going off in the first couple of turns. Merchant Scroll was also another card that could be pitched to Force of Will if need be. Because of this it appears that you have lost some ability to fight these deck when you replaced the Merchant Scrolls with Oath of Druids. I know some people will say that you have added Duress, but nothing was really stopping you from doing that in the original build either, so that seems like a mute point.

It is only going to be a matter of time now before Blood Moon starts showing up. Sacred Ground might be the bomb versus Workshop decks, but it doesn’t do jack versus Blood Moon. Plus, Blood Moon is an answer to the Crucible/Strip lock as well as a solid answer to shut down all these 5c mana bases. I can’t believe no one playing Control Slaver isn’t running this card maindecked right now. But as this trend continues I am sure it will show up. So I got to ask…

How vulnerable is this deck to Blood Moon compared to the original version?

Last but not least, I have no problem with the Meandeck label on this deck, but you got to come up with something better than Gifts-Oath. How about MDGoat or something?

I played in the same tournament.

There is absolutely no slaver in our meta. There hasn't been for months.

[FiReiSFuN]

Thought I'd chip in my two cents about the 'Slaver matchup... there is a local touney for power coming up where I live and my playtest partners have been testing the hell out of this matchup.

It it a tough call on how to play the deck.  The CS player will undoubtedly try to be the control deck, which does not bode well for you per se.  Without a very strong starting hand (along the lines of Mox, Orchard, Oath, Land, Force, etc.) I've found it nearly suicide to drop Turn 1 Oath and then Oath up Colossus Turn 2.  This is primarily due to the fact that your Turn 1 Oath will likely get Forced (or worse, if you are going second, Forced with Drain backup), causing you to waste your counters and allow the CS player to go Goblin Welder.

I would advocate (as Smmenen does in his article on how to play Gifts Ungiven) to slow down the CS match 4 or 5 turns, and resolve Gifts Ungiven for the win while they are defenseless.  This may entail drawing out their counters and allowing them to tap out etc.

Playing the CS match aggressively, in my opinion, is too likely to degenerate the game state unfavourably for you.  I have tested sideboarding strategies such as siding out 4 Oath for 2 REB, 2 Pyroblast (which allows you to protect your Gifts).

Also I have tested the surprise plan of siding out 4 Gifts, 1 Colossus, 1 Tinker, and 1 Burning Wish for 2 REB, 2 Pyroblast, 1 Tendrils of Agony, and 2 Pithing Needle (to name Tormod's Crypt, which they will undoubtedly board in; or to answer an early Welder/Shaman).  You force through a Turn 1 or 2 Oath, and if you have one or two counter backup, you dump your library next turn and Tendrils for the win.

More information as I test further.  Thanks Meandeck for my favourite version of Gifts so far.

[rbuehler]

Answering assorted questions ...

Regrowth is awesome. In this deck it's a very powerful spell to draw *and* it's an amazing Gifts target. I would never cut it from any Gifts deck with access to green mana.

I agree that a better name for this deck probably exists. I called it "Hybrids, Baby, Hybrids" since that is how Toad pitched it initially, but I was also glad that either Ted or Andy added "Meandeck" to the title since for me the whole point of that interview was to give them props.

In theory, the Slaver matchup seems to me to be favorable because you have the same basic control skeleton, but you have threats whereas they have answers. Threats are better than answers in general when playing Magic. Unless the 'Slaver deck can punish you for junking up your manabase, the Gifts-Oath hybrid is just more powerful. That said, I do think Blood Moon would be a beating against this deck. Blood Moon has the drawbacks of being counter-able and blast-able, but a deck running both Blood Moon and permission (like Control Slaver can) can both force down a Blood Moon and also defend it. Someone asked how much more vulnerable this is than previous builds I have played ... extremely. 'Slaver and classic Meandeck Gifts only run 4-6 islands, but the big difference is they can fetch them out consistently. This hybrid build has to fetch out whatever duals match the spells you draw. Sure you could squeeze a third island in, maybe, but that isn't goign to let you fetch them out on turns 1, 2, and 3.

Note that against combo a similar thing happens ... you have fewer answers and more threats so you are on the hook to play more aggressively on average, but you still have plenty of control elements so what you really have to do is listen to whatever your draw is telling you to do this game.

I agree that the deck doesn't *require* white mana, but at the same time I think it is correct to run that Tundra. Not only do you get to board Sacred Ground, which is really powerful, but you also get to sideboard Balance. There is no better creature control spell than Balance and I felt a lot more secure knowing it was only one Burning Wish away. Plus, as I argued before, this deck just isn't built to fetch out Islands on the first few turns like Meandeck Gifts can. Once you put 3 x Duress and 3-4 colors in your maindeck who are you kidding? You just *are* vulnerable to Wasteland. You can add a whole color with just one dual land so you should.

Meanwhile I remain chagrinned that I might have upset the members of Team Meandeck. I have tremendous respect for them and would never have agreed to do this interview if I thought they would feel it was on balance bad for them.

Randy

[rakso]

Randy:

I prefer "Meandeck GOat" myself. Heh.

Seriously, I was in fact concerned about Blood Moon. You can probably smash an aggro-control deck packing Wasteland, but I'm worried about Control Slaver boarding Blood Moon. As stated, they have Welder against Tinker, counters against the combo setup, and Blood Moon.

I assume you still consider it worth it?


Fireisfun:

I was confused myself why Brian DeMars said Gifts would take an aggro role. I'd explain it by saying that Gifts inevitably wins when it hits its mana threshold (assuming you shut down the Welder against Slaver).

[xrizzo]

but I already see a lot of room for improvement.

Care to share?

The obvious stuff:

2 Strand
2 Delta
[Stronger than 4 strand]

1 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
[Well known improvement on gift pile possibilities]

4 Forbidden Orchard
[With colossus kill, you want 4 ways to give creatures.  A wasteland allows them to oath]

Sideboard:
Darkblast
[Since Welder hoses the colossus win so bad, this is a great post board gifts target]

Any other updates would be personal preference (as were adding Yawgmoth's Will, Krosan Reclamation, and Duress to Oath) and thus I won't get into details... 
Consider:

Main:
27 mana sources
More 5c lands
1 Thirst / Scrying

Side:
Timetwister
Darkblast
3rd Pithing Needle
Rebuild over Hurkyl's
Pyroclasm

[Wollblad]

I can understand why Meandeck didn't want this deck list released yet. It has the worlds most crappy mana base and the whole deck seems a bit unfinished. But the deck list is released, so there is no use not to discuss it and I wish for Meandeck to join the discussion. It is a very interesting and fun deck and I have no problem giving Meandeck the credit.

On the little I have had a chance to test the deck there is specially one issue. Regrowth, or rather the vast amount of graveyard manipulation gives me problem in the beginning of duels. As described earlier here Regrowth can be a totally broken card. On the other hand, the deck has a tendency to draw crappy opening hands. Hands of the type, Oath, Gifts, Regrowth, mox, land, land, FoW where none of the lands are Orchard or fetch. Strong cards and you can Force once, but you have no gas whatsoever. Decks like Dragon, Tog, TPS and often also Stax just ignores Oath as a threat, you have no good target for Regrowth and must hope to topdeck mana to play Gifts. One remedy is to cut Regrowth to make room for spells like Merchant Scroll or perhaps Sensei's Divining Top.

A Merchant Scroll would also have the positive effect that you could gifts for things like Scroll, Gifts, FoF and Brainstorm without the need of green mana which would be necessary if you instead had a Regrowth in place of the Scroll.

EDIT: I like the name MDGoat or perhaps Mean Goat Deck 

[rakso]

EDIT: I like the name MDGoat or perhaps Mean Goat Deck 

The ayes have it.

I dub thee... GOAT.

[doylehancock]

these are the changes I have made so far
-1 tundra
+1 forbidden orchard

-1 regrowth
+1 echoing truth

-2 flooded strand
+2 polluted delta

I like the echoing truth because its a main deck answer for a lot of things.  Again this mana base still worries the shit out of me.  I want more basics but realize I cant do it because of the change in the maindeck cards

I miss merchant scroll alot.  It feels way more aggro then meandeck gifts and sometimes that can be a bad thing.  I love duress over misdirection.

I also wonder if vamp tutor is better then mystical (since you can go get oath)

[Disburden]

these are the changes I have made so far
-1 tundra
+1 forbidden orchard

-1 regrowth
+1 echoing truth

-2 flooded strand
+2 polluted delta

I like the echoing truth because its a main deck answer for a lot of things.  Again this mana base still worries the shit out of me.  I want more basics but realize I cant do it because of the change in the maindeck cards

I miss merchant scroll alot.  It feels way more aggro then meandeck gifts and sometimes that can be a bad thing.  I love duress over misdirection.

I also wonder if vamp tutor is better then mystical (since you can go get oath)

I really don't get the disliking of Regrowth at all. This card does so much for you I can't consider it anything less of a mistake to cut it, especially for an Echoing Truth.  Like I said in an earlier post, you get bombs back, if you get it in hand you can mill your deck and just combo out with Tendrils, and you can reuse drains if need be. I find this confusing.

[rakso]

The comment of removing Regrowth has some sense in the sense that Regrowth is a dead card very early, and it's off-color, too.

Otherwise, you just have to remember Ancestral-Regrowth-Ancestral.

[doylehancock]

with this deck if they force threw a blood moon you have no answer this is why I am liking echoing truth.

or if they force threw a welder you can truth it back to their hand so you get the extra attack

truth is great i think its a must in this deck

any ideas on the mana base?

[cssamerican]

with this deck if they force threw a blood moon you have no answer this is why I am liking echoing truth.

or if they force threw a welder you can truth it back to their hand so you get the extra attack

truth is great i think its a must in this deck

any ideas on the mana base?

This is one weakness with this version (MDGoat) compared to the original (MDGifts). You don't have the tutors to get the bounce as reliably; therefore, it isn't as effective to run a singleton bounce card in the main. It's just going seem somewhat random, besides its not going to really matter in most games. But because of this you are more prone to losing to a silver bullet style strategy, such as Chalice of the Void, Blood Moon, or something of that nature. However, in return you gain the ability to win faster, which means your opponent has less time to affect the outcome of the match. The way i see it, you are giving up some flexibility to gain reliable power. This always pays off in scrubby metagames. It probably pays off 75% in developed/diverse metagames. However, when people start adjusting the metagame to beat you, or you become the recipient of splash damage, you then become much more vulnerable. So, as long as you don't think those silver bullets are going to be everywhere then this appears to be the superior way of building the deck.

My only big concerns would be any version of Stax that contains Welders and Chalice of the Void and/or Sphere of Resistance. It seems to me like a resolved Welder and CotV for 0 and/or SoR would be basically a lock out. This means in games two and three you might have to board in some solution to this, and I am not sure how that will go over since you are likely going to have to board in Sacred Gound as well to protect your mana base. Also as I mentioned earlier, Control Slaver with maindeck Blood Moons would seem to be problematic for all the reasons stated previously. All that being said, you improve a considerable amount of match-ups while weaking yourself only to a small number of focused strategies. Kudos to team Meandeck for a pretty cool deck.

[yespuhyren]

Why would you possibly run

4x Strand

over

2x Delta
2x Strand

There is no benefit to either, but 2/2 is just safer than 4/0.  There are no basic plains, so it makes no difference if you run deltas

[billyh]

How about the following change:

-1 Darksteel Colossus
+1 PyriteSpellbomb

-1 Volcanic Island
+1 Forbidden Orchard

-1 Tinker
+1 Salvagers

Consider some cases:
You resolve the Oath of Druids trigger
With Dark Steel Colossus, you have 3 turns to win.  First turn summoning sick, + 2 attacks.  Sometimes you win just by emptying your deck into your graveyard, but that's the same with Salvagers.

With Salvagers, you might win this turn.  Say, around than 50% of the time.  If the lotus goes into the graveyard you can get arbitrarily large amounts of mana, and use it to do some pretty sick things.  If you can trigger Oath again, you almost assuredly win if you can resolve Krosan Reclamation to avoid decking yourself.

Consider the gifts stack:
DSC version:
tinker, time walk, recoup, y. will

There are lots of different cases, but some of them require at least 7 mana to win "this" turn.

Salvagers version
Salvagers, burning wish, recoup, Lotus

Assuming they have no counters, no matter what combination of cards they give you, you need only 6 mana next turn to win.  If they give you wish and recoup, you wish for Reanimate from the sideboard and bring back salvagers, salvage lotus, get a lot of mana, and then recoup gifts to get pyrite spellbomb for the win.

Yes, you do lose the naked Tinker for Colossus on turn 2.  On the other hand, Salvagers in hand is a lot better than DSC in hand.

You are more vulnerable to pithing needle.  But you are much less vulnerable to Goblin Welder, who is played way more than the needle.  You are less vulnerable to Gorilla Shaman, because you don't need Tinker-food.

[cssamerican]

You are more vulnerable to pithing needle.  But you are much less vulnerable to Goblin Welder, who is played way more than the needle.  You are less vulnerable to Gorilla Shaman, because you don't need Tinker-food.

Now you roll over and die to CotV for 0, SoR, or Null Rod. So, I don't think that is the way to go. Also, If you play a mox and you opponent has a Shaman in play it doesn't matter because after the mox resolves you get priority. It isn't until you cast Tinker and sac the mox as part of the cost do you pass priority to your opponent. At this point there is no mox to be eaten and you have an 11/11.

[Marton]

With Dark Steel Colossus, you have 3 turns to win.  First turn summoning sick, + 2 attacks.

darksteel colossus is good because it shores up the otherwise bad matchups for a more traditional gifts combo deck. Having 2 opposite kill mechanism makes it that much harder to hate out the deck, and allows you to adapt your game plan accordingly so that you pick the best kills vs your opponent.

you also missed out that you can win the turn *after* your colossus hits play. you put your library in your graveyard, then use your krosan reclamation your yawgmoth's will, and proceed to play your entire deck, giving you an 'instant' kill. Against, I will stress the point that you only have to do the safest kill amongst the 2 depending on the game, but you can switch from one to the other with ease.

With Salvagers, you might win this turn.  Say, around than 50% of the time.  If the lotus goes into the graveyard you can get arbitrarily large amounts of mana, and use it to do some pretty sick things.  If you can trigger Oath again, you almost assuredly win if you can resolve Krosan Reclamation to avoid decking yourself.

But you fail to realize that the entire point of running darksteel colossus was to have a different kill than a combo kill. It is purely intentional. You are just rehashing the same idea, and adding arguably not much to the deck by trying to use the salvagers kill rather than the combo kill.

Assuming they have no counters, no matter what combination of cards they give you, you need only 6 mana next turn to win.  If they give you wish and recoup, you wish for Reanimate from the sideboard and bring back salvagers, salvage lotus, get a lot of mana, and then recoup gifts to get pyrite spellbomb for the win.

Recoup only allows to replay sorceries. Gifts ungiven is an instant. Additionally, your suggestion ends up adding conditional cards: pyrite spellbomb and auriok salvager. Auriok salvagers is junk if you don't have the lotus (and importantly: the white mana to return it the first time). Additionally, it's total junk if your opponent has one of the many listed hates (chalice, null rod, sphere, needle, etc.). Then there's pyrite spellbomb, which isn't blue and isn't really improving your gameplan.

Darksteel colossus is good because it is hard to hate out. The only 2 good hates against it are swords to plowshares and bounce. Swords to plowshares isn't that great at hating it simply because it gives you 11 life, which might represent 1-2 turn; more than enough to set-up your combo. And bounce, well, it is good, but only for so long; every brainstorm you draw might turn into a darksteel colossus if you have an active oath. Or alternatively, you can just forego the colossus kill and go for the combo.

[doylehancock]

Why would you possibly run

4x Strand

over

2x Delta
2x Strand

There is no benefit to either, but 2/2 is just safer than 4/0.  There are no basic plains, so it makes no difference if you run deltas

it does with gifts

[yespuhyren]

How so.  I am not being sarcastic, I actually don't see it.  I figure if you are running gifts, its just another way to go for lands, as you can search for the delta AND the strand if needed.  Would you mind expanding on how it makes a difference please?

[PemsAura]

How so.  I am not being sarcastic, I actually don't see it.  I figure if you are running gifts, its just another way to go for lands, as you can search for the delta AND the strand if needed.  Would you mind expanding on how it makes a difference please?

Thats exactly the point you can search for both. Thats also the reason other gifts lists run snow-covered islands. Another good reason for running both aside from gifts is pithing needle. If your opponent piths out your deltas OR your strands you still have half of your fetches rather then if you ran 4 of one fetch the opponent could hit all of them with one needle and leave you unable to get the colors you needed.
~Nate

[doylehancock]

How so.  I am not being sarcastic, I actually don't see it.  I figure if you are running gifts, its just another way to go for lands, as you can search for the delta AND the strand if needed.  Would you mind expanding on how it makes a difference please?

Thats exactly the point you can search for both. Thats also the reason other gifts lists run snow-covered islands. Another good reason for running both aside from gifts is pithing needle. If your opponent piths out your deltas OR your strands you still have half of your fetches rather then if you ran 4 of one fetch the opponent could hit all of them with one needle and leave you unable to get the colors you needed.
~Nate

thank you


What is everyone thoughts on the mana base?

What are you most frequent gift targets?

[rakso]

How so.  I am not being sarcastic, I actually don't see it.  I figure if you are running gifts, its just another way to go for lands, as you can search for the delta AND the strand if needed.  Would you mind expanding on how it makes a difference please?

It makes a very big difference. Imagine yourself under Null Rod or some other situation where you simply just want two more basic Islands to shore up your mana.

[FiReiSFuN]

The manabase to me really isn't that suspect, yes you are vulnerable to decks packing Wasteland, but that is what the SB Sacred Grounds are for.  Even if you cut White altogether (likely turning the MD Tundra into another Forbidden Orchard), I don't see the manabase as being totally inflexible.  I was thinking of cutting the MD Tundra for another Island, but that is weak in my opinion, as you are not likely to ever want to fetch out an Island on your opening turn.  You will likely either have a Duress or Oath to play, and lacking Jet or Emerald respectively (or in Oath's case, further lacking Forbidden Orchard), you will be forced in either case to go for a dual land and attempt to play around the Wasteland(s) that your opponent may present.

Most frequent Gifts targets?  That depends on the matchup and if I have a resolved Oath on the table.  No Oath?  It's likely that I'm going to go for YawgWin/Recoup/Tinker/Time Walk, and try to win on the spot.  This changes slightly, however, when I'm playing a matchup where they have resolved a Goblin Welder.  If I have an Oath resolved (and I haven't Oathed yet, say I just played it and passed the turn), I'll Gifts EOT for YawgWin/Burning Wish/Recoup/Regrowth, then Oath during my upkeep hoping that enough spills into the graveyard, before I hit DSC, to allow me to YawgWin/Burning Wish/Tendrils for the win.  Regrowth in this case is great, because any split of the Gifts allows you to play YawgWin for 5 mana at the most, potentially freeing 1-2 colored mana, which could be crucial.  Note that all I tried to do there was use Gifts to let me access YawgWin and the only other business spell for that path of victory, Burning Wish.  Another case where Regrowth is king is if I have Time Walk in my hand.  In that case an EOT Gifts for YawgWin/Recoup/Tinker/Regrowth lets me win for less mana.

Similar to all Gifts decks, what you go for is entirely dependent on what your opponent can do about it.  I would simply advocate (especially with regards to the Control Slaver matchup) that you ENSURE that what you get from the Gifts will allow you to win on the spot.

I'll now delve into somewhat greater detail about the Control Slaver matchup, as I previously posted that I would.

The CS matchup, simply put, MUST be played with you in the Control role.  This is never more true for Gifts than when it is hybridized with Oath.  Brian Demars' article seems to imply that the CS player expects Gifts to come out aggressively and with both guns blazing.  I would say that this is a risky proposition for Meandeck Gifts, and almost suicide for GiftsOath.  Smmenen did a fantastic job of describing the MDG/CS matchup in an article for StarCity (from which I learned an immense amount), so I will try to focus solely on the GiftsOath/CS match.

There are two important considerations in this matchup, in my opinion, and they are: 1) When and if to play Oath; and 2) What gameplan will ensure you the win.  That is, I am suggesting that to play a naked Oath amounts to suicide, and to play a naked Gifts is an equally suicidal proposition.  This idea is not new and it isn't mine.  Smmenen's article tells you to play against CS conservatively and turn your game on a dime.  I agree.  The problem is, my testing has simply told me that playing Oath of Druids, and Oathing early, is not conducive to turning on a dime at all.  In fact, it is likely to destabilize your board and hand position, and gives a fair edge to the CS player.  The reasoning is obvious, and it is this:  even if you can stop Welder from hitting the board, a resolved and activated Oath for you, and a resolved 'Slaver for them = you lose.  You are potentially likely to expend some countermagic protecting DSC from being bounced, which gives the CS player a window to play/activate Slaver, and Oath during your upkeep to empty your library and draw you dead.  This seems to be common sense again, however, I'll expand simply by saying that a blind 'Slaver activation does not potentially cripple you IF YOU HAVEN'T OATHED YET.  The CS player simply has too many threats that you must deal with (in the Demars article, Shamans, Welders, Thirst, and Slaver catch my eye in this category) for you to Oath without having first resolved a Gifts Ungiven.

To summarize the longwinded paragraph previous:  unless my opening hand is along the lines of Mox, Orchard, Oath, Land, Force, Force, Mana Drain (ie, a good amount of counter backup for DSC), I'm NOT going to Oath UNTIL I can resolve an EOT Gifts for Time Walk/YawgWin/Recoup/Regrowth, or Walk/Burning Wish/Recoup/Regrowth, and win the turn I Oath.

I don't particularly like Randy's plan of Oathing again after DSC is out in this matchup either.  The odds of the CS player being able to stop the KroRec from resolving is too great for me to risk losing the game over it, and the odds of them being able to deal with the DSC that I've already Oathed up are pretty great for me to do it blindly without the Gifts setup first.

Ideally then, the CS matchup plays out with you seizing the control role early, countering their most important threats, and preventing them from reaching 10 mana.  As Smmenen points out, 10 mana allows them to play Slaver, have it get countered, and Weld it back to activate it.  It is unlikely that you will be able to stop them from resolving one of their 4 Welders before they reach 10 mana, and as a result you must play to win the game around the 5th or 6th turn.  If you have been engaging the CS player by counterwarring over the first few turns, it is likely that you can sneak an Oath into play.  However, I must stress that you CANNOT OATH until you have set up your win with Gifts.  To do so otherwise is to ask for the CS player to interfere with the DSC plan.  Especially In this matchup, I view Oath as Tinkers 2-5.  That is, a resolved Oath allows you to leave Tinker out of any Gifts Ungiven you resolve, potentially (but not always) allowing you to sub in Regrowth.  This allows you to Gifts EOT for either Time Walk/YawgWin/Recoup/Regrowth, or Walk/Burning Wish/Recoup/Regrowth, Oath during your upkeep for DSC, and deny the CS player another turn with double TimeWalkery.

Conclusion?  While it may seem appealing to force through an early Oath, and use it to "Tinker up" DSC, to do so is simply too destabilizing to your gameplan in this matchup.  That gameplan, as I see it, is to present countermagic to the CS player for the first 4-5 turns, then, as Smmenen advocates in the MDG/CS matchup, "turn on a dime" and resolve your EOT Gifts for the win.  It would appear that GiftsOath vs. Slaver very much plays out as the MDG vs. Slaver match does, with the important difference of Oath allowing you to have a permanent Tinker on the board.

With all of that being said, I have a few SB strategies for this matchup that turn this entire plan on it's head, but those I'll save for another post.  I hope at least some of this is useful for those looking at what to get for a resolved Gifts, and how to properly play the CS matchup.  If any MeanDeckers or Randy want to criticize what I've said here, feel free.  I'm seeking out the perfect way to play this deck myself, and I always appreciate new approaches and advice.

Mark.

[rakso]

You may want to explicitly note that you can only Oath Colossus so you have to deal with their Welder before anything else, or Time Walk etc. will be pointless. Just to be clear.

[xrizzo]

you also missed out that you can win the turn *after* your colossus hits play. you put your library in your graveyard, then use your krosan reclamation your yawgmoth's will, and proceed to play your entire deck, giving you an 'instant' kill. Against, I will stress the point that you only have to do the safest kill amongst the 2 depending on the game, but you can switch from one to the other with ease.

If you want to go this direction, then you effectively waste a turn by oathing out the colossus in the first place! 

The deck is good because it is flexible - it can play oath for colossus, and win in 3 turns or it can play gifts combo and win after the 1st/2nd gifts.  The only reason to oath out the whole deck and krosan back yawg would be if your opponent can win the next turn.  Oathing to 0 cards is very risky, and it would suck to get ancestralled, or get your krosan countered and 'just lose'.  There is a reason this combo is not viable (exclusively).

[Dozer]

How vulnerable is this deck to Blood Moon compared to the original version?

Very, I guess. Blood Moon is certainly a problem. But what I don't get is why everybody is complaining about the mana base in general. Seriously, I don't understand it. Vulnerability to Wasteland is simply unavoidable and has been part of Vintage mana bases since 1997. Even with the advent of fetchlands and the higher number of basics, Wasteland always remained a threat, albeit a lessened one, but a threat nonetheless. Now, what Goat (which is my preferred name for the deck; you may tag "Meandeck" to that if you like) does is lower the number of Basics to an absolute minimum (Drain mana) and play powerful lands instead (Orchard). cssamerican mentioned that with Oath instead of tutors, Goat loses flexibility but gains power. For the mana base, Goat gains both flexibility *and* power.

The vulnerability Goat gains from relying on such a rainbow mana base is small compared to the punch the deck starts to pack. It doesn't matter if your opponent gets Wasteland online if you start "Orchard, Mox, Oath". If you have to play the long Gifts game, Goat will --like every other Gifts deck-- present Wasteland targets eventually. Only Goat will do so faster. However, chances are high that even while setting up the Gifts win through Wastelands, Goat drops a random Orchard and just wins. I could see Wasteland vulnerabilty being high against a classic 4cC-style control deck. But the dedicated Wasteland deck out there is Stax, and Stax does so many ugly things to your mana base that Wasteland is really only a side problem.

If there still were real control decks with Wastelands in the environment, I'd have a problem with the mana base. But there are not. And even then, the Oath plan might just be strong enough on its own to power through. Even Dwarven Miner wouldn't matter much, since you can just drop an Oath against him and win.

Blood Moon is another matter entirely. Missing tutors make bouncing or redblasting definitely more difficult than in MG.

Dozer

[rakso]

Wait... I would assert that the current Gifts mana base with at least 6 Islands and 5 fetches is very resilient to Wasteland.

[Dozer]

The current German Gifts builds are cutting down to 3-4 Islands (and sometimes even 4 Fetchlands in anticipation of Suppression Field). (Examples: Karlsruhe 3rd place, Iserlohn 2nd, Dortmund 6th.) The Brassman decks from SCG Richmond ran 5 Islands, but only 4 Fetchlands. Pure Meandeck Gifts is the only build I have recently seen that runs three duals only. What I am saying here is that the non-Oath Gifts builds are much less vulnerable to Wasteland than Goat, but have soft spots as well for an opponent who knows how to handle his Wastes. And the Goat deck seems strong enough to win through Wastelands, with power instead of resilience.

Dozer