GWS Oath

[Moxlotus]

By popular (or at least JDizzle) demand, here is the GWS Oath thread on TMD.  Not sure why we haven't posted a thread yet.  Probably because I was waiting for Endress to post it but apparently he is a lazy piece of shit, so whatever.

The SCG Version:

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Sensei's Divining Top

Enchantments
4 Oath Of Druids

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Crop Rotation
4 Force Of Will
4 Impulse
4 Mana Leak
1 Vampiric Tutor

Legendary Creatures
1 Akroma, Angel Of Wrath
1 Spirit Of The Night

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Imperial Seal
1 Time Walk

Basic Lands
2 Island

Lands
2 City Of Brass
1 Flooded Strand
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland

Sideboard:
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Triskelion
2 Choke
3 Ground Seal
3 Annul
3 Oxidize
1 Tinker

Differences from GenCon:
-4 Chalice
+4 Leak
-1 Rushing River
+1 Crop Rotation
-1 Mystical Tutor
+1 Imperial Tutor
-3 TFK
+1 Impulse
+2 Sensei top

Explanations for those changes:
We anticipated lots of Stax and Dragon.  Chalice isn't too hot against either and found Leak to be better.  Unfortunately for us, we ran into fast combo all day and had a combined total of like 0-7 against storm/belcher-including Mat's loss to Steve in the top 8.

We cut Rushing River because we didn't fear Meddling Mage or Chalice.  We figured Fish would be pretty dead and that the Stax variants would resemble Roland Changs-aka-no Chalice.  We were wrong, but it wasn't an issue.  It would not be hard to put back a bounce spell.  Crop Rotation is absolutely amazing though-don't cut that card.

We tried Imperial Seal over Mystical and we are going back.  Too many times we wanted to upkeep Mystical for Time Walk for the win.

Since we cut Chalices, we cut TFK.  In its place we put Impulse #4 and 2 Tops.  Cutting Chalice was a metagame call, but if we play it again (probably will) we aren't putting TFKs back in.  Sensei's Divining Top is one of the best cards in the deck.  The card is like a glorious rainbow.  I foresee 2 in the deck for a very long time.  As of right now, Chalices are back in the deck and the Leaks have been cut.

The sideboard changed a bit, replacing some other artifact hate with Annul to give extra help against Dragon.

This deck uses "Everything is a Time Walk" very effectively.  Duress, wastelands, forces all slow your opponent down a turn while you try to find Oath.  It is important to note that if you play this deck like Meandeck Oath or Steve's Chalice Oath you will lose.  Think of the deck as fish with a faster kill.  All the deck wants to do is to find Oath and play it.  Until you do that, you want to disrupt your opponent as much as possible.  Game 1 Oath is the beatdown in pretty much every matchup.

It is important to note that the maindeck is highly adaptable and we have figured there are about 10 cards that can be exchanged.  However, I think we have found a happy balance between search and disruption/protection.  If you notice how I listed the changes, we replaced disruption for other disruption and search for other search.

Mana Drain does not belong in this deck at all.  The deck can't sit back and not do stuff on turn 2.  Plus, finding 2 untapped blue mana is very hard and you should be doing other things like wasting their land or using Top.  Also, Oath can't do broken stuff with Drain mana, so it strikes down a key reason that many decks use Drain for.  Intuition/AK is about as good in this deck as George Lucas is at writing dialogue.  Impulse are infinitely better.  Intuition/AK costs 5 mana to draw 3 cards.  Impulse costs 2 mana to look at 4 cards.  I'd rather look at cards than draw them because drawing into guys sucks.  I've held back Ancestral for fear of drawing guys before (like when I've used all my Brainstorms or something).  Intuition also says "give target player 3 mana during his or her next main phase."

The sideboard:
The sideboard is also very adaptable and about the only 6 cards that ever stay the same are 3 Oxidizes, Tinker, Trike and DSC.  The other cards can be cut depending on the metagame and how you have built the maindeck.  I will say it is very hard to sideboard and even after 9 months of testing, the team cannot come to a set consensus on how to board against the mirror or against Stax.  Different theories push different priorities to the top and different paths to accomplish these paths.

What don't we have?  Angels in the board.  They aren't needed to dodge creature hate.  Trikes dodge creature hate by shooting and are more useful in other matches.  Pristine is absolutely terrible because you need instants to make it good.  I clung to Iridescent for a long time before I realized it really wasn't necessary.  We don't have Flux in the board because we don't find ourselves getting 3 mana against Stax too often.  I'd rather have Oxidizes to hit stuff turn 1. 

The matchups:
Stax:
The deck's biggest fear is Stax so we have about 5 anti artifact cards + Tinker-DSC.  Stax has a really hard time dealing with a turn 1-2 HUGE D00D, so it is worth the risk of Oathing him into a Welder.  Bring in whatever amount of artifact hate is in the board.  If they run Welder+Tangle Wire it can be a huge pain, so hope to race it.  Oxidizes get around Chalice for 2 and if they have Chalice at 1 and 2...well good for them for drawing THE FING NUTZ.  We are currently testing Needle in the board.  Preliminary testing brings it in against Uba Stax, but not 5 color versions.  However I must heavily emphasize that preliminary testing means we talked about it on the message boards and it seems like a good idea.  We haven't done much testing against Uba Stax yet-however since Vroman appears to be the most savage player ever with the deck we need to start.

Control Slaver:
As long as they don't have Caps maindeck (you dirty Team Ogre players ), the match is really good.  Play the aggro and assault them with Duress and Waste.  Try to play Oaths with protection, but sometimes you just gotta go for it.  Top is absolutely savage in this matchup.  Post board, Ground Seal/Pithing Needles and Chokes shit in their cereal hard.  Sideboarding the HUGE MEN changes depending on their deck.  A basic idea is to have the trio of Akroma, Trike, Trike.  This gives you a win condition and 2/3 of chance to hit a Trike to shoot Welders that may be ready to put a Dupe into play.  If you see cap, keep Spirit in-I won 2 matches at the GenCon Prelims against turn 2-4 Caps because I put 4 guys in.

Gifts:
The match is favorable, but remember they can go more broken than you can.  However, Duress is really really good and Choke is spiked anal dildo if you can set it up properly.  A lot of what I said about Control Slaver applies to Gifts.  The guy situation is usually 2 HUGE MEN that have a power of 6 and can fly.  Side in Chokes and Duress/Chalice (if for some reason they're not maindeck).

Dragon:
Concede and go get some Wendy's.  McDonald's will cause you to lose 10 IQ points and coffee will result in me bitching about the smell of coffee for about 9 hours.  Just stick with Wendy's.
Well, that is how it used to be.  If you have Chalices maindeck that's probably how it will be.  If you have Leaks you have a better game.  Post side is also better than it used to be if you are packing Annul in addition to Seal/Pithing Needle.  This match sucks because your cards are reactive, but they still have inevibility.  Best strategy is to not get paired against this.

Storm combo and Belcher:
Hope you are playing Chalices.  The match is unfavorable, but you still have 4 FoWs, 4 Chalices, 4 Duress, and 5 Strips.  Post board gives Oxidizes and (possibly) Needle for Belcher.  Countering Lotus and Rituals can be key depending on the state of the game.  No real strategy exists for playing against fast combo except do your best to disrupt them and hope they're not named "Stephen Menendian" or "Justin Droba".

The Mirror:
Much dispute as to how to board properly.  However, if there are any Trikes left in your board game 2 you need to castrate yourself and play Type 2.  Also there should not be more than 1 Oath left in the deck.  So many games have been won off my opponent's Oaths it is ridiculous.  3 cards matter in this match-Orchard, Waste, and Tinker.  That's it.  Use your search and tutors to find these cards.  Life of the Loam seems like a good SB option, but it really isn't that good.  Duress may be switched out for Oxidize if you are on the draw and depending on your opponent's deck.  Chokes come in if you can see you are not playing the GWS Oath mirror.  DSC comes in if you need to win quick.  The ideal way to win is to recur 2 Trikes with blessing.  You should not be playing Oath before you have established Orchard superiority, and once you get the Trike engine going it is impossible for them to ever get to Oath. 

Fish:
Their strategy involves creatures.  You should win.  Bring in tinker-DSC, Trike or two and oxidizes.  Unless their build is Oathhate.dec and your hand sucks flaccid penis you should almost always win.

I must stress that neither the maindeck nor the sideboard is ever set.  About 20 of the 75 cards can swap slots or be cut entirely.  Play the deck as fish with good win condition.  Eric Becker took 10th (I think) at SCG Syracuse with this thing.  I got 10th at SCG Chicago-July and 3rd at the Prelims at GenCon (beating Chang, but losing after Bob Yu completely savaged me with topdecked Will).  Some emo kid named Mat Endress got 3rd at GenCon and 5th at SCG Chicago-October.  At each of these tournaments I only 2 or 3 of use played the deck.  The deck is definitely playable, but like all decks constantly needs to be evolving.

Comments/concerns/lolzyourdeckisacompletepileofdiseasedorangutanshit are welcome

[Komatteru]

That's interesting about Imperial Seal.  When I first saw the list, I thought that was one of the high points of the deck.  Since your goal is to locate an Orchard and an Oath, Seal sounded like it would be really good, since it finds both of those cards, and Mystical Tutor finds neither.  I am surprised that it didn't prove good enough for you.

Now, here's something I randomly discovered just yesterday.  A friend of mine wanted to play Seal, but didn't have enough proxies to cover it (and I wasn't willing to loan out more than 3 pieces of power from my deck), so I suggested Lim-Dul's Vault.  In the short tournament, he said it was amazing.  Did you try that out and find it to be just not good enough as well?  The double color does seem kinda stiff, but given the manabase, it might be easy enough to cast reliable.  It does get all the cards you want it to, but it could be a bit painful when it comes to loss of life (you might lose up to 8 with it to find Time Walk).

Elaborate on Crop Rotation. I love this card, but I suspect there's a lot more to it than just finding Orchard or Strip Mine.  Are you using it in part to protect from opposing Wastelands?

I really like this version of Oath.  I think it's the best version currently out there.  It's hard to argue with its results, but I really like the elegance and simple approach you guys have taken.  Put plainly, all it wants to do is find and resolve Oath, and I like how this does that.  Chalice might be missed, but I never cared much for TfK.  I always thought it was a bad card in any deck that's not Slaver.

[Moxlotus]

You are right about Crop Rotation.  I forgot about that play.  It is really good to stop opposing strips.  This card is simply uncuttable.

LD Vault-to be honest we haven't thought of that.  It is definitely worth testing.  It finds oath and/or Orchard for 2 mana.  However, the casting cost may be rough since the best time to cast impulse is turn 1 off land and random mox.  Its definitely worth trying.

Seal was just weak.  Casting it mainphase just sucked in general.  Half the time when I cast it, by my next turn I wish I had gotten something different.  A single wasteland or lock component can completely fuck you up if you are banking on keeping the board state the same.  Mystical is there just kinda hanging out until we find something better.  It gets Tinker post board and upkeep finds Duress, Ancestral, or Time Walk.  Indirectly, it can also find Orchard by searching out Crop Rotation.  I was very disappointed especially since we all thought the card would be amazing.

In our current test build the Chalices are back in. 

[vroman]

mystical tutor for duress? that seems like a seriously subpar play. I highly question m-tutor in oath at all.

crop rotation is awesome. I HATE wasting a land that gets cropped in response.

[Moxlotus]

Mystical can find Duress or FoW if you are going to try to play a bomb against control.  It's not great, but it's not terrible.

[And11]

Our builds have a lot of similarities and I'd like to explain the very few differences.

1x Akroma
1x Razia (Basically a coin toss, but I like blocking fishies/killing Juggernauts and you guys like trampling over Pentavites.)
4x Oath
1x Blessing

4x Chalice
4x Duress
4x FoW
1x Rushing River (You will rather take a random gameloss to a Meddling Mage and I love to have answers for everything pre-board. This _might_ get the cut for Imperial Seal if I ever get one of those darn things.)

4x Brainstorm
4x TfK (In your list, you have exactly 5 cards that your control-playing opponent should consider counting. I find it very important to have more cards, that should be considered countered. Otherwise, It'd be too easy for your opponent to just counter your 4x Oath's and win the game from there.)
1x Ancestral
1x Demonic
1x Vampiric
1x Mystical
1x Crop Rotation
1x Time Walk

5x Strips
7x soLoMoxen (Sol Ring might not belong in this deck, but I've been very pleased with it so far.)
5x fetch
2x Underground Sea
1x Tropical
1x Volcanic
1x Island
4x Orchard

sb: 15
3x REB/Pyroblast (Really helps vs. Drain-based decks and to get Tinker to resolve post-board in the mirror.)
3x Spawning Pit (Mirror tech, in case they'll be playing the Oath route.)
4x Oxidize (I hate Stax.)
2x RnR (I'll board these in against a lot, since I hate Spawning Pit/Claws, Vial, Factories and Jitte.)
1x Tinker (Tinker->DSC is a nice tool vs. Meddling Mage and the mirror.)
1x Darksteel Colossus
1x Spirit of the Night (Actually, I'm not sure we even need this by now. Maybe vs. Control Slaver and its' Pentavites? )

My friend just won a Mana Drain with my deck, which I got my inspiration for by you guys. So thanks for some awesome deckbuilding and keep up the good work!

[magus888]

I know this is very nitpicky, but why not run 2 Strand and 2 Delta? It seems a better metagame call with all the Needles floating around. (Especially if their in your own board)

[Moxlotus]

I know this is very nitpicky, but why not run 2 Strand and 2 Delta? It seems a better metagame call with all the Needles floating around. (Especially if their in your own board)

1 reason-Mat didn't have a 2/2 configuration of foily fetches.

Cutting Impulses is a huge mistake.  TFK costs 3 mana.  Also, who cares if there are only 5 cards in the deck they want to counter?  Between my Duress, wastelands, and own forces it will be hard for them to be playing multiple counters the turn you lay down Oath.  They have 8 counters, I have 8-12 protection and 4 Oaths.  TFK is also insanely worse than Impulse against Stax, Dragon, and combo.  And if you have down an Oath, but are searching for an Orchard, Impulse is less likely to be countered and if it is-its only giving away 2 mana instead of 3.  Also, Top is amazing and should be played.  Top may be the best card in the deck.  Oath has problems when it just can't find what it wants to draw and Top smooths that problem over.  Good control players will counter top because the card is a pseudo BS each turn with so many shuffle effects and Impulses.

We have found that Chokes are much better against drain.dec than REB is, but feel free to add REBs if you want.  I don't like sitting with cards in hand waiting to do something.

Not having Trikes in the board is a serious mistake.  They are insane against Slaver and they are the reason Mat and I have a combined total of losing 2 Oath mirrors in the last 8 months.  And Spawning Pit is terrible since your opponent should be bringing in Oxidizes anyways.  And if they are playing all 4 Oaths still you should win because their deck will have more dead cards (the Oaths) than you.  I'm assuming you see 0 Dragon since you have nothing to board against it, but if you don't see any then you don't need it.

[Sean Ryan]

Thanks for the mini-primmer.  I have been following your success with Oath for awhile now and I agree that this is the best direction to take Oath.

Did you see the Oath list that won the Dutch championships?  He ran Null Rod and Muddle the Mixture.  I'm not sure about maindecking MMixture, but I think Null Rod is exactly what Oath wants...looking more and more like Fish on steroids.

  I realize you can no longer run the new SDTop tech, but do a cost benefit analysis and I think Null Rod Wins out.  However good Top is, it's still a search component which you have alot of already, whereas NRod is devastating to so many decks and can single handidly stop Will.  In a certain sense, by cutting Chalice you opened up the door for a more powerful hoser in Null Rod.

I would really like to hear peoples reactions to Null Rod in this type of OAth Strategy

Thanks
Sean

[Flux]

Jester's Cap main?  Why didn't I think of that...oh wait I did!  My list has always had some odd choices (mindtwist?), but I think with Oath becoming more popular, then I have to run the cap main.  If I didn't have a fetish for goblin welders and mana drains then I would play Oath, the deck is so good, not as good as legacy slivers...Anyway, I hope to see some of you GWS (what the hell does it stand for) players soon, i got some new control slaver tech for you to bitch about.

Flux

[Whatever Works]

I know this is very nitpicky, but why not run 2 Strand and 2 Delta? It seems a better metagame call with all the Needles floating around. (Especially if their in your own board)

1 reason-Mat didn't have a 2/2 configuration of foily fetches.

That is a horrible reason. I love foils and I have done this before, but if I was to post the deck online I would at least post the optimal version. Thats like not running ancestral in the deck because you dont own it (or because you proxied it).

I played against this exact list played by Rich Meyst at the beenie exchange tournement. I liked the deck and it looked consistent, and I guess I was playing the decks bad matchup in Belcher. My only impressions of the deck were that while watching it being played the deck couldnt maintain large hand sizes, and often went into topdeck mode (which isnt as horrible with sensei's top).

I also like annul over mana leak in my metagame. However, I understand the justification to want to have counters that make sure Oath resolves. In which case its probably the play. Though I am not sure why its better then counterspell when it comes to protecting oath. It can be cast first turn yes, but later in the game when your casting oath (if it goes that far) counterspell just seems to be the stronger call.

Overall, I like the deck. None of the changes are exactly groundbreaking, but they are affective and appear to be well thought out when it comes to helping the deck maintain synergy.

[Machinus]

I also like annul over mana leak in my metagame. However, I understand the justification to want to have counters that make sure Oath resolves. In which case its probably the play. Though I am not sure why its better then counterspell when it comes to protecting oath. It can be cast first turn yes, but later in the game when your casting oath (if it goes that far) counterspell just seems to be the stronger call.

It's a lot harder to cast Counterspell in a deck with 5 strips and 4 off color moxes. Mana Leak comes online earlier and can be cast more frequently with only one blue up.

[PucktheCat]

Could the deck support Sacred Ground in the SB?  Have you tried it?  Seems good against Stax.

Leo

[Moxlotus]

Could the deck support Sacred Ground in the SB?  Have you tried it?  Seems good against Stax.

Leo

Bringing in enchantments against Stax would be terrible.  Why bring in enchantments when the cards they are in are anti-enchantment?

[Lost In Admiration]

Sup doods?!?

There's been a lot of hate on Mystical Tutor.  Here's a off-the-top-of-my-head list of why it's better than Imperial Seal:

1) Fetching out Islands is really important against any deck with Wastes.   If you have to get a black source at sorcery speed, that land is getting lol pwned.

2) It improves the goldfish.  Mystical for Time Walk is probably the most common tutor effect in this deck. 

3) With Crop Rotation in the deck, Mystical can find Demonic Tutor to get Oath or the beforementioned to get Orchard.  I'll give you guys that it sucks to do that instead of Imperial Seal, but the point is that it is similar in function.

@ Muddle the Mixture

Sorcery speed seemed too bad for us in testing.  I always wanted a Mana Leak or an Impulse instead.

[PucktheCat]

Moxlotus:  You are right with the 5c matchup.  I guess I am more concerned with Uba Stax, but that is just because of where I live.

Leo

[Lost In Admiration]

You didn't understand what Lost in Admiration meant.

Mystical is blue, Seal is black. If you're fetching lands, you'd rather fetch an Island than Undergorund Sea because the Sea can get wasted.

Thanks.


One quick note:  Since Control Slaver sees a lot less play than it used to, I switched over to Razia and I think Phil agrees with me.  The ability has mattered all of once in testing but Trample hasn't at all.

[Lumpy_Dee]

longtime reader, first time writer. just wanted to add my 0.02. i think null rod would help alot against stax, which seems to be this decks hardest match up, but i realize does little to help against other matchups. perhaps 2-3 in th SB? anywho congratulations on designing a great deck that makes me think about ditching my pet U/B fish build.

[Moxlotus]

Shutting down your own mana against stax is about as anti-tech as you can get.  We really want every mana source we can against Stax.

[pyr0ma5ta]

Off-topic and not productive:
What does GWS stand for?

TMD rules are here: http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=18027
Verbal warning for spam.
-Jacob

[Sean Ryan]

Shutting down your own mana against stax is about as anti-tech as you can get. We really want every mana source we can against Stax.

True.  In the Stax matchup you generally don't want Null Rod and will Brainstorm it away.  However, it shines against anything that abuses Will, Drains, or Rituals.  IMO Null Rod is exactly what OAth wants.  In your words Oath is, "fish with a faster kill."

 What is your logic behind running Chalice and not Null Rod? 

What is your opinion on the winning Dutch list?  http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/index.php?topic=25291.0

Thanks
Sean

[nataz]

It's ironic,
a year or two ago, and people would have called you crazy for saying how bad null rod is in the fish (or in our case fish-esq) v. stax match-up. Now, we can't wait to board them out.

3 reasons why chalice is better then null rod.

1) beats null rod by two fair turns by essentially costing zero manas, allowing you to disrupt AND play a spell first/second turn.

2) can be set to numbers other then zero to counter spells. I know there have been plenty of times that I have set chalice for 1 in order to avoid either REB/Pyro, STP, or Welder post oath. Chalice for 2 post oath = no E-truth, and Chalice for 3 = no rushing river, the most commonly played bounce spells. True, its conditional, but if you play smart chalice for 1 can be a really sweet tool, and with your actual combo only costing a 2cc spell and a land, the opportunity comes up more often then you would think. . 

3) actually counters moxen, making it harder to tinker/abuse tol academy.

[Vander]

Hi!

Null Rod is THE gamewinner against TPS and Gifts as these decks are mana hungry while packing only 14-16 land. I played this Oath variant in Iserlohn to a second place finish last weekend expecting many TPS and Gifts:

SHIBBY Muddle Oath
// Lands
1 Strip Mine
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Wasteland
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Island

// Creatures
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Razia, Boros Archangel

// Spells
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
4 Oath of Druids
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Null Rod
1 Time Walk
2 Duress
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
2 Muddle the Mixture
2 Mana Leak
1 Rebuild
1 Echoing Truth

// Sideboard
SB: 2 Null Rod
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 1 Woodripper
SB: 2 Claws of Gix
SB: 2 Darkblast
SB: 3 Energy Flux
SB: 3 Pithing Needle

Postboard it has 11 counters, 4 Duress and 3 Null Rods which are all great against a field of combo and control. I lost only one match, that was against Gifts where I drew nothing and he drew everything. The worst matchup this deck has is Staxx, but we put some work in it after the tournament and the new list looks like this:
MD:
-1 Tropical
+1 Tundra

SB:
-3 Flux
-1 Darkblast
-1 Pithing Needle
-2 Claws of Gix
+3 Sacred Ground
+2 Rack and Ruin
+2 Spawning Pits

This works fine against both 5c-Staxx and Uba-Staxx...

To sum it up, as testing and tournament results say, this deck beats TPS, Gifts, Slaver, Fish constantly and it does not lose against Staxx 70% of the games anymore. If Staxx has the god draw then you lose, but otherwise you got good chances of gaining control.

Muddle the Mixture is a great addition for this deck, while gaining control against combo and control it functions as a counterspell whereas in the late game you can fetch what you need, be it Walk, bounce, Oath, Rod, Hardcounter.

I don't know if this deck works in every Meta, as we have only sanctioned tournaments over here, so no proxies, but I liked it a lot and I had only 2 not fully powered opponents in 7 rounds.

Greets
Vander

[Moxlotus]

Chalice costs 0 mana.  And even after the first turn it is a free permanent to sac.  I don't want to waste 2 mana playing Null Rod against Stax-I'd rather be using Top or Impulse to find my Oath before they stack me out.

The list we had that cut Chalice still had a favorable matchup against Control Slaver and a slightly favorable match against Gifts.  Since either one would improve the matchup more, we went with which helped the most in the Stax matchup.  Besides, Top is the best card in the deck against Drain.dec

And against combo it seems I die too quickly against them to play Rod. 

[Vander]

The combodeck to beat here is TPS and I played Chalice Oath for quite a while and it constantly loses to a well played TPS. In Paris I had Chalice for zero, Chalice for one AND Arcane Laboratory and still lost to TPS. ^^ The Null Rod version instead wins preboard about 60% of the matches and postboard at least 70% which is quite good in a field with lots of TPS like Iserlohn and Germany in general. I know that you face much more fast combodecks like Belcher and Grimlong in the US but I am and was always the opinion that these decks are inferior to TPS.

Against Gifts it is like 60:40 preboard and a lot better postboard. Slaver isn't that widely spread anymore as it seems that a lot of Slaverplayers are plaing Gifts now (which is the better deck imho).

Staxx is not impressed by Null Rod at all, there you are definetely right, but it gets boarded out in that matchup anyways. The boarding plan against 5c Staxx is -2 Duress, -2 Muddle, -1 Razia, -1 Thirst, -1 Null Rod, +3 Sacred Ground, +2 Rack and Ruin, +1 Darkblast, +1 Woodripper and against Uba Staxx the same with an additional -2 Thirst, +2 Pithing Needle. Staxx gives me hard times preboard, but postboard it looks much better for me.

Why should I replace a card in my deck that just wins matchups on its own? Perhaps we are just considering totally different metagames, but I really can say that Muddle Oath owns in metas full of TPS and Gifts and is definetely the better choice in that environment.

[tidal kraken]

Shutting down your own mana against stax is about as anti-tech as you can get. We really want every mana source we can against Stax.

What is your logic behind running Chalice and not Null Rod? 


Thanks
Sean

The deck wants to be able to cast oath as soon as humanly possible. Moxen allow it to be cast turn 1 off mox, orchard. Null rod costs the same to cast as oath, and slows you down by shutting off moxen. Also, chalice 0 is better against tinker (read:gifts) because unlike null rod, the moxen don't hit play, so they can't accumulate land and tinker out DSC.

[Sean Ryan]

There are trade offs involved with both Chalice and Null Rod.  Chalice is great in your opening grip on the play, and does a better job of stopping Tinker.  It is also better in the stax match but not great, just better.  However, Null Rod shuts off artifacts that are already in play and is not as situational.  IMO it does a better job of stopping Will than Chalice.   

Against fast combo Null Rod is golden.  You switch roles in this matchup and start out playing control instead of aggro.  Null Rod costs the same as Oath, so saying the casting cost is an issue is mute.  You simply play the Null Rod first turn instead of Oath and play the game out more defensivley.   

Moxlotus - Do you think it is neccessary to run TfK if you are using Chalice?  If not, perhaps you could cut 2 impulses, 1 Duress, and 1 Mana Leak to have access to all the disruptive elements.

Sean

[Moxlotus]

First our decks are completely different.  Your deck is much more controlling.  Our deck is fish.  We are the beatdown and can't sit around countering spells.  Your deck is much closer to Meandeck's Chalice Oath.

I feel that Mana Drain is a terrible card in Oath.  The deck simply cannot sit back and keep 2 blue open.  I almost never have 2  blue open, especially early since the second land I usually play is waste. There are better disruptive cards to have in Oath. 

I have found TPS to be a good match using 4 Duress, 4 Chalice, 4 Forces, and 0 Drain as my disruption.  Duress are brutal.  Chokes in the board also win the game.  Drains suck because they are reactive and sit there waiting to be Duress'd.

Null Rod makes Top terrible.  That enough is enough to not play the card.  Plus the fact that Chalice comes down earlier.  Shutting down our own mana itself sucks, but the fact that Rod makes Top unplayable completely invalidates any reason to run Rod.

We have Chalices in right now had don't have any TFKs.  There is no need.  Impulse digs deeper and Top is reusable and is cheaper. 

Once again I can't stress how good Top is.  Top is the best card in the deck besides the combo.  All versions of Oath should try to find ways to add 2 of these.  This card is the reason Oath can be consistant now. 

[And11]

I agree that Mana Drain shouldn't be played, as Oath is all about speed/cheap disruption. Sitting on UU playing Oath is like pissing your pants to stay warm (sounds way better in Danish ). If you like your Mana Drains so much, you should definately be playing another deck, which can capitalize more on Mana Drain and it's drained mana...

Moxlotus: You finally convinced me to try out the Top and I cut the lone Rushing River for one. I think you are right; pre-board it's acceptable to lose to a random Meddling Mage/Chalice @ 2, as long as you can bring in stuff from the board.

Thanks.

[Lost In Admiration]

Although it hasn't been mentioned, I think Chalice is really important over Null Rod postboard against dumb stuff like Swords to Plowshares.  Against Stax, the easiest wins consist of Chalice @1 and Tinker.