My Oath - Recent Success with "Mono-blue" Remix Oath

[Harlequin]

Oath Remix "Swimming upstream" -- Jeff Carpenter

Oath has come a LONG way from where it was when Forbidden Orchard was printed.  Steming from the heavy control Meandeck Oath and branching into every piece of the color pie (salvager oath, rector/tendrils oath etc).    Now it is hard to find an oath deck that does not run black.  And why not run black? You get pro-active control and more tutors than you can shake a stick at.  But with the release of Rav, I found a card that was too good pass up, and it caused me to go against the grain and return to a “mono-blue� oath.  This could be used as a primer, esp if your new to oath.  But all in all, this is just a summary of what I have found tried and true over the past x months since the release of Rav. 
I have had a fair amount of success with this deck, the greatest of which was a seat on the top 16 at Waterbury 8 (9th after swiss). 
The focus of the deck is supreme consistency, and superior reactive control.  The deck runs a high amount of deck filtering and only can afford tutors when the win is ensured.  Rather than post an “final� deck list, I’ll post a few options so you can tailor the oath to your play preference.  So here goes:

CORE DECK -- 55 Cards:
Mana - 22 cards ( 19 lands, 8 total fetchable lands )
4 Forbidden Orchard
2 Polluted delta
2 Flooded strand
6 Islands
2 Tropical island
1 lotus
1 mox sapphire
1 lotus petal
2 wastelands
1 stripmine

Control magic - 14
4 Force of will
4 Mana Drain
4 Muddle the mixture   <-- Key card
2 Misdirrection

Draw / Filter - 10
4 Brainstorm
3 Impulse
2 Latnam's legacy
1 Ancestral recal

Winners! - 9
4 Oath of Druids
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Razia, Boros Archangel
2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Time walk (you'll see why this is in this section)

FUN CARDS ----- Pick 5 cards from this list
2 - 3  Annul
1 - 2  Echoing truth
1 - 2  Rushing river
1        Fact or Fiction
1 - 2  Deep Analysis
1 - 2  Life from the loam
3rd    Misdirrection
1       Crop rotation
1 ....  extra creature off the side.
Personal MVPs:
2 Annul
1 Echoing truth
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Deep analysis - or - Life from the loam.  ... i just cant choose =/   
=================================
Sideboard (ill list my most recent sideboard then other cards you could try)
    this is my standard side vrs a fishy meta. basically a non-combo meta.
1 Ancient Hydra
1 Pristine Angle
1 Irridecent Angle
3 Rushing Rivers <-- must have at least 2
3 Blue Elemental Blast
3 Energy Flux
1 Null Rod
2 Vedalken Shackles
Other SB hotties ---
any of the cards listed above in the "fun card section"
   ... esp life from the loam and/or annul (if you dont have them main)
Back to Basics
Stiffle
Pithing Needle
verdant touch* (going oldschool)
Tormod's Crypt


GENERAL PLAY:
The main goal of the deck is not speed (although brokenness is possible).  It is consistently resolving an oath on turn 4, 5 or 6.  This is done by useing more "4 ofs" and alot more deck filtering cards coupled with a very stable counter magic base.  The deck is 90% reactionary.  If your opponent has open mana, you generally are going to wait on playing spells.  Your deck can afford this.  Your spells must all go to good use, because as you notice you only have a few cards that actually gain card advantage.  brainstorm is 1 for 1, impulse is 1 for 1, even lat-nam's legacy is technically 2 for 2.  Only AR & some of your fun cards will net you a positive hand size.  So you must be aware of this.   This is good in a way, this means you will very rarely have cards you don’t want in hand.  you have 6 outlets to put creatures from your hand into your deck (can I get a w00t for lat-nam's).  Also remember that brainstorm is a tool in your deck, you cant waste them either.  Generally you'll want a clear shuffle effect when you decide to brainstorm.
MUDDLE FTW!:
Muddle the mixture is a great card for oath.  If provides the exact advantage you need, at any time you need it.  Early game it is your anti-broken card.  I’m not going to insult you with a list of instants and sorceries played in type 1.  Late game, if your deck is not giving you the love, it’s a tutor for oath.  But most of all its protection for your win.  Ideally you have 4 mana in play, then 1 muddle, 1 mana, and 1 oath in hand when you attempt to resolve an oath.  If they counter, you cast muddle and win the "slow" way.  If they cannot counter, next turn you can muddle into time walk and deal 18 in before your opponents next turn.  Keep in mind that if you run 2 blessing then you can almost always shuffle your time walk back and mute it again!  If your post-oath resolution and you have 2 angels starring up at you from your hand, you can muddle for lat-nam and send one packin'.  I would say, of all the muddles that see play, they are used as a counterspell 4 out of 5 times or more.  When I do get the opportunity to transmute, it is about 2 out of 3 times for time walk.  I would say I average more than 1 time walk per round in a tournament, easily.  Essentially it combines mana leak's and intuition’s slot in the deck into one trump card.  Remember that transmuting can only be done at sorcery speed, which is why I think so many T1 players are turned off by it.  My response to that is: you get drain mana when you can play sorceries, so remember to mute off your drain mana.
MOX + MANA LEAK ?
There is a very good reason to run moxen and mana leak together in any control deck.  It gives you a more secure first turn, I don't deny this.  If you want to take the deck that direction, that’s your choice.  Personally I like the stability and consistence of basic islands for my choice of mana. You’ll notice the only artifact mana I run can tap for blue.  I'm much more interested in first turn drain / muddle than a first turn oath.  And with so much artifact hate running the board now, its crazy to run moxen if you don’t absolutely need to.  By cutting the moxen you also loose mana leak, which is sad, but ultimately a different deck.  (on the flip side, if you cut moxen then cards like counterspell and muddle become even more potent than mana leak... mana leak cant even search for time walk     ).
WTFOMFGPWNED:
A quick word on silver bullets, and a how the deck handles them…
- Meddling Mage (naming oath):  This is the main reason I have one echoing truth main-deck.  Basically mute the muddle into echoing truth and drop the O-bomb.  It may take you some time to get enough mana together to do this, and alone the mage is a 10 turn clock… so sometimes a really early mage with daze backup might loose you the game.  Also you have Rushing Rivers on the side
- Karakas: This card is also no fun.  Basically pray you find your wasteland before you die.  Muddling for impulse can get you some impressive digs in this type of dire situation.  No great SB tech for this one. It rarely is actually played, but you might drop some extra wastelands on the side if you expect to see it.
And the winner, the BANE of this deck, the card that you just never want to see is…
- Chalice of the Void with 2 counters on it.   Game 1 chalice for 2 = GG.  That’s why I choose to have main deck annuls.  I will say, if you expect to see a lot of shop decks that run chalice, you might consider going with rushing rivers on the main.  That is also why I like to have 3 on the side if I can afford the space. Despite chalice’s presence in the metagame, I still stand by echoing truth on the main.  Mainly because when you need to top deck a bounce spell (for meddling mage, or DSC, or basically any major game winning threat) you can muddle into echoing truth.

A Word on Disruptablity / Mana Base:
I really like the basic Islands.  I just simply cannot justify running non-basics / off color moxen in a world where the board is chalk-full of gorilla shawman, null rods, chalice for 0, wasteland (with crucible OR Life from the loam), or even cards like blood moon, price of progress, sundering titan, and back to basics.  The only card that can disrupt your mana is choke… That’s basically it.  So it’s one card, vrs a long list of mana disruption cards where at least one get played in nearly every deck.  Also choke is not even a total lock out, because you do have forbidden orchard … And your main win only costs TWO mana.  This plays into the core concept of the deck which is: Consistency.  All too often you’ll over here a discussion of how a player lost his match, and every once and while you’ll hear “mana screwed� come up.  If you really look back at games where you got “mana screwed� you have to remember if you worked 8 artifact mana into your deck.  when your opp went first turn mox monkey and you drew mox-mox-crypt, that doesn’t mean your deck didn’t give you mana, it means that your deck gave you the wrong mana.  My deck runs islands and fetch lands as the base mana, so it is very reliable on what “type� of mana it will give you.

   I think for now I’m going to stop with the primer and open it up to questions / comments / criticism.  If I’m feeling ambitious, I’ll write up my standard sideboardings for the top decks.

[Moxlotus]

This is the best version of a control oath deck I have seen.  That said-I don't like control Oath.  Why play a control oath when other decks such as CS and Gifts can control just as much, are less vulnerable to hate and are more broken?  Did you ever try an aggro-control version?  It also seems that you do nothing in the first few turns besides laying lands.  You can't go broken with turn 1/2 Oath as much without moxen, you can't go nuts with card drawing.  It seems as if you just sit there at first.

How are your matches against CS, Gifts, Stax, and Choke Oath?

[Harlequin]

you are 100% right about the opening turn.  Basically fetch land - go is my turn 1 play.  The really gets going on turn 2.  You have to have alot of patiences to play this version i suppose.  You never play a spell until you know they have nothing left to do.  You sit on open mana until the end of your opponents turn.  In fact, if my opp has 3 blue open, and i have 2 with impulse and muddle inhand - I wont cast impulse because I want to be sure I can muddle something like thirst for knowledge.  The deck is like I said 90% recactionary.  So if your opponent isnt playing spell, then niether are you.


Out of all the decks I have tested against, CS is the top deck i have not really tested.  But decks like CS are why I have 1 null rod on the side.  when you get to 2 mana, your just waiting to drain something for 3 and the discard a muddle, pay UU, and search your lib for null rod and put it in play.  With that and Hydra you ought to do fine.  Also The deck runs very little to no graveyard hate.  I've found that I dont really need it.  Just dont let them resolve graveyard loving cards.

Game 1 against Gifts is about 50/50.  You both play heavy countermagic with quick wins.  Basically it comes down to you need to use muddle for its primary purpose wich is countering instants and sorceries.  You need to not get out drawn.  Post side you side in 3 bebs to fight the rebs... this brings you to 16 to 18 counterspells (annul comes out if they are not playing vault or belcher).   Then its a matter of out controling them.

Stax is a simple match up, provided they don't drop an unexpected chalice for 2.  #1 they cant counter your oath anyway... so you can play it at will.  #2 they have a weak draw engine, this makes your hand full of juicey counterspells even more crippleing.   Post side you get even more savage when you side in 3 energy fluxes, and Beb's to replace your mis dirrections.  I generally go with Razia, Hydra, and Pristine against stax.  That way I dont need to fear dupelicant.

The Psudo-mirror.  This is where my stratigy is "questionable."  Depending on how well I think i can fool my opponent.  I might side out all my oaths, and all my creatures accept Irridecent and sometimes Pristine.  Then I just play "never let them resolve oath of druids"  You will have more counterspells than them, so just let the creatures they give you win the game for you.  Esp if they are sideing in cards like spawning pit.  The weaker angels are in, so incase ... some how ... I get a chance to oath, i dont just totally wiff, OR They are relatively easy to play esp if you drain a FOW or something akin.

[exit music]

Any expert on Oath will tell you that the deck's biggest downfall is the amount of "dead cards" that the deck runs. With this in mind, what do you think about cutting down on the amount of Oaths you use?

Since you are running so many tutors, and since you say that you almost never want to tap out early on in the game, it seems like you would be better off not to have Oath clogging up your hand until the turn you are ready to cast it.

I also think you're crazy for not running a MD Underground Sea... I would definitely cut 2 islands for 1 USea and 1 more Fetchland. Crop Rotation is also incredibly powerful, from my experience.

[Clown of Tresserhorn]

I absolutely love the inclusion of latnam's legacy. I personally hate muddle the mixture, but I guess it never hurts to test. 2 points:

1) I think you need to run moxen. Playing them means you can run cards like mana leak and have the potential for turn 1 oath (while also retaining the ability to play a longer game). They allow you to play multiple spells in a turn, meaning you can protect your oath the turn you cast it. You still can have a stable manabase by cutting unnecessary duals.

2) If you don't run moxen, there is NO reason why null rod shouldn't be in this deck. It's amazing.

Anyways, good job at Waterbury, and good job innovating oath!

-Bob

[Harlequin]

Null rod, how ever very useful... goes against the basic idea of being reactionary.
whenever you play spells first your letting your opponent make thier decisions given the most amount of information.  I'm not denying that you can play combo-oath with tutors and moxen comeing out your ears.  Im just saying that although that deck is faster, it has more inharent consitancy issues and more possibly threatening cards to your deck.  The core concept of this deck is to sidestep the current metagame by being un-dissruptable by common threats.

[Hi-Val]

Why two blessings? it seems like one too much. I've never ever seen a reason to run more than one.

[Harlequin]

5 reasons to run two Gaea's blessings:
#1 its the only graveyard hate the deck runs.  (bye bye squee-squee-worldgorger)
#2 it means you dont have to shuffle it back if you draw into it, I only rarely waste lat-nams on a gaea's in hand (you can cast it, then cast the 2nd one if it comes up again)
#3 You REALLY REALLY want to shuffle timewalk back in your deck so you can muddle it ... again.
#4 It turns ancient hyrda into a fireball divided any way you choose every turn (beacause with blessing trigger on the stack you tap X mana, deal X-1 dmg to random stuff then have the hydra ping himself and go to the yard, so he gets shuffled for next turn).  Therefore getting around nucessences like ensnareing bridge or other wierd stuff.
#5 It has good synergy with cards like life from the loam and fact or fiction.  Again resetting your deck is very potent when your deck is designed for stabiltity and consistancy.

I often side out 1 or both against combo style decks where i know its going to be a short game.  I definatly side out one blessing whenever I'm siding in my other 2 angels (ie fish/aggro type decks). 

[+t]

Interesting build!

Firstly, I want to say that I have been playing an Oath deck with a fairly similar maindeck for sometime.  I'm paticularly happy that someone else decided to run Shackles.  I've been very pleased with it in testing.

Secondly, I'm curious about the number of mana sources you're running.  Twenty-two seems really low, especially with Black Lotus and Lotus Petal, and due to the fact that you simply can't mindlessly waste Brainstorms to find mana.  Since you seem to have alot of meta slots open, don't you think bumping the island count up to seven would help? 

[Whatever Works]

I dont like the inclussion of both brainstorm and Impulse... They have horrible synergy together... and brainstorm has bad synergy with alot of the deck, but seems almost neccessary as a creature dump unless you choose to run thirst...

This deck probably auto loses to a chalice for 2, but then again Oath doesnt have a late game anyway...

Cutting the # of Oaths is impossible... NEVER>... Turn 1 Oath is THE DECK... It Oath didnt go turn 1 Oath FoW backup it just wouldnt work at all...

4 Muddle seems a little bit over the top as well... Null rod always seems to be a stronger inclussion.

I beat a list almost exactly like this at the last beenie exchange, and I found it to be a bit slow... It ran lat nams legacy and everything so I am assuming your same person... I like the direction of the build, and keep it up... However, I am just not sure of the decks viability in the metagame...

Kyle L.

[Harlequin]

I 100% disagree that brainstorm and impulse have bad synergy.
If you have a creature in hand brainstorm in hand, but no shuffle effect, brainstorm is worthless.  If you have impulse its as good a shuffle effect... granted you get to look at less cards, but at least akroma isnt going to come back in two turns.
The petal was a recent addition, I have not really tested it as much as i would like.  It lets me have first turn drain a bit more, but at the expense of tightening an already tight mana base.  when it was an Island I was extremely happy with the mana base.  I will say this, i have had bad luck at the beenie exchange with mulligans.  I have told jer this before "all i need are some lands AND some cards to make the deck work"  It seems like i would draw a hand of 6 lands and a drain ... then mulligan to 0 lands.  I honestly think it was like lack of carring about a good shuffle.  Im not sure If I will stick with the petal or not (and/or add an extra land).  But when it was 20 lands and 2 artifacts it was pritty solid.

[Harlequin]

I also want to jump back to an earily comment about crop rotation.  If there are 2 cards that I absolutely love in the T1 enviroment its fastbond and cropration.... alas I felt that crop rotation was only marginally good for oath, Esp for this build.  You need green mana to cast both crop rotation and oath itself.  Now granted you can fetch for trop then turn it into an un-tapped orchard wich is good.  But its again thinking too much about speed.  If you clear your mind of you typical "Combo" oath, and think of the type of deck as what oldschool mono-blue used to be... just with a way way lower mana cost win that morphling.  You decimate your opponent's hopes and dreams by countering every spell they try and cast, then when they feal like quicking magic all together - you drop your win on the board.

[exit music]

Cutting the # of Oaths is impossible... NEVER>... Turn 1 Oath is THE DECK... It (If) Oath didnt go turn 1 Oath w/ FoW backup, it just wouldnt work at all...

Kyle L.

GENERAL PLAY:
The main goal of the deck is not speed.  It is consistently resolving an oath on turn 4, 5 or 6

Kyle, for the most part I totally agree with you and I would personally never run less than 4 Oaths in a deck that strictly relies on using Oath to win. However, I also wouldn't be playing with 4 Muddle the Mixture. If the goal of the deck is to not play Oath in the first 3 or 4 turns, and considering the fact that this version of the deck runs millions of tutors, yet not very much draw, getting unneeded Oaths stuck in your hand in the first few turns (while you are attempting to out-control your opponent) could be somewhat problematic. I'm not even saying cutting down to 3 oaths is a good idea, I was simply curious if it has ever been attempted in this type of build.

@ Harlequin re: Crop Rotation

I think you really have to consider how powerful it is to sacrifice a land with Crop Rotation in responce to a Wasteland or Strip Mine. Ask Vroman - he will tell you that Crop Rotation is one of the cards he hates to see most when cast in response to a Strip Mine.. It is a very powerful and versetile spell that can easily win you games. This, plus the fact that it puts one half of your combo into play at instant speed for 1 mana makes it an extremely efficient threat against lots of the environment... I really can't see why the "drawbacks" you listed (being too fast...??) as being significant enough to cut it. I don't think this deck can be considered optimal until Crop Rotation is added.

I definitely agree with Lotus Petal in the MD. I would add Mox Emerald, too, at the very least.

[Khahan]

The core of this deck is basically what I've been running for just under the past year. Its a modified Meandeck Oath and has generally done well. I took it to top 16 at SCG Richmond last year and have had a handful of top 8's with it in local mini tournaments.


I added Muddle the moment I saw it and have not looked back since. Not only does it fetch Oath and timewalk to set up the win, but it can easily protect the win as an extra counter vs annoying StPS.

In this list, I don't really see the benefit of LFTL as your lands get put back into your deck. I maindeck 2 engineered explosives and they work great (also help keep the need for bounce out freeing up s/b slots).

Also, what is your mana drain sink?  It seems to me your are simply setting yourself up for mana burn.  Without the mana sinks, I actually prefer counterspell in this build. Its the same cost. Its a hard counter, but you don't burn yourself.

I will definitely have to try lat-nam's legacy.

[Harlequin]

I too have only tried life in theory... I always go back to the Deep analysis for tournies. For drain sinks you have FOF and you have Deep analysis.   Drain and Muddle work together nicely, granted you need basically 3 colored mana to do anything useful but you can sink 2 colorless into your transmuting as well.  But your right, I burn more than most other decks off drain mana.  But even though I may burn for 3 off a FOW drain, That still means 2 of my 1U spells only cost me U.  So I dont think the drains are a waste in the deck.

[ozimek]

If you clear your mind of you typical "Combo" oath, and think of the type of deck as what oldschool mono-blue used to be... just with a way way lower mana cost win that morphling.  You decimate your opponent's hopes and dreams by countering every spell they try and cast, then when they feal like quicking magic all together - you drop your win on the board.

How do you hope to accomplish this without a solid draw engine? (Like Phid in MonoU or Curiosity / Ninja in fish.) I imagine you would often run out of cards, especially with the high number of pitch counters (4 FoW + 2-3 Misd). A random Fact or Fiction and a Deep Anal or two doesn't make up a solid draw engine IMO.

The advantage of Oath as a win condition is its cheap casting cost which results in SPEED. As I see it, you have constructed a deck, that actively tries to make this advantage insignificant by dragging out the game in a war of attrition on counter spells. As I already said, I wouldn't wager on you to win this war against the control decks to beat. On top of the lacking draw engine, you are running a lot of cards, that won't help you stay on top of the control battle. (Angels, Blessing, Oath etc.)  You would be better off playing a win condition that makes sense when you are trying to make it for the late game. Gifts for instance.

Tutoring up Oath with one of your conditional counter spells is cute, and if you insist on going down this route, cutting down the number of Oaths makes sense. However I believe that the basic concept of using Oath in a pure control deck is just flawed for the stated reasons.

@ Latnam's legacy:
Nice way to get rid of Angels and other dead cards in your hand, but in the early and mid-game it will cost you tempo and possibly force you to lower your counter-parades. In a more aggressive oath build with full moxen and Chalice, Thirst for Knowledge fills this role very nicely and often gives card advantage, but that has already been discussed in the GWS Oath thread.

The way you described how you play the deck sounds a lot like how I believe Gifts should be played, so could you please try to explain how your deck is better at this than Gifts.dec?

/Jan

[Harlequin]

Beating Gifts is never "easy" like some other decks. But ultimately it in testing it always seems that the gift win comes up "a day late and a dollar short"

Gifts generally needs about 2 lands in play, and some artifact mana to start to go live, and start to win the game. OR it needs a nice meaty drain and 2 to 3 other mana sources.�

Knowing that oath is inherently weak at getting card advantage you need to, as you said, win the war of attrition. that was a very accurate way of describing it. That is why I am always counting cards, and trying to guess what my opponent's cards are. Being able to work out "if he had X in hand last turn, then he would not have done Y last turn, and there is a P% chance that he top decked X."

In general gifts doesnt run a major card drawing engin (say as fish does), It however has fantastic card advantage cards and many ways to find its draw/card advantage peices in the way of tutors. Typicall Gifts runs 3-4 Gifts, plus ancestral, plus 1-2 other draw cards like library or fof or even skelletal scrying. Then it definately has LESS control magic.� Typically 4 force 4 drain. Wich means at any given time, it it will have 1 to 2 counterspells in hand. Where typically with my deck I have at least 2-3 in hand of wich 2 are playable on turn 2. Muddle goes into full on counterspell mode, It becomes the tutor-slayer. Annul gives me more wiggle room in letting a gifts resolve (becasue I can annul the lotus I put in thier hand), post side BEB has the same effect against Recoup. If it is an artifact heavy gifts, in that it has belcher/vault as it's win, I often side out 1 or 2 missdirrections if I think the annuls are going to better.

Ultimately thier win sits on the edge of a knife once they attempt to win, and when they resolve gifts you have good insight on what it is going to take for them to win.� Against decks running 8 counterspells gifts can ward off any threat. My win is similar in that it can be disrupted in a single card, but it requires little to no setup. Where gifts IS defined by it's setup. As long as I have one of my "4-of" lands, and one of my "4-of" enchantments ... I have a major win condition at my disposal, I just need to not alow gifts to resolve it's setup cards.

As for deck density (as i've heard JD describe it on other thread: the ratio of business cards to the deck at any given moment in gamestate)... It is true that I run 2 unplayable creatures, and 2 Blessings. But i beg to differ that oath is a dead card after you have one in hand. Haveing Oath, Oath - is nearly as good as having Oath, Muddle/Drain. It means you can still drop an oath if your opponent has one counterspell. ok so that +4 to my "dead card" count. Plus my 22 mana = 26 "non-threating" cards. Now gifts has Collosus +1, and typically 2 meta-slots that don't effect me because it is devoted to artifact destruction, or small creature destruction (ei R&R, mox monkey, darkblast). Or If they don't have that meta-slot then they are running Flame/vault wich could be considered that iether piece is dead without the other. So lets call it 3 + 25 mana so we're looking at 28 "non-threating" cards. Each running 4-5 fetchlands, and I have 3 wastes to thier 1 acad ... So I think all things considered If we're talking topdeck mode, My deck has at least as good of a game, if not better.

In summary my deck has a slightly more controling turn 2 to 3... a slightly easier win condition / threat of win, A slightly lower mana curve, and a slightly better "lets all topdeck!" game. The only thing I Do not have, is "brokenness" factor working for me. Add all those slight advantages and I would say i have about a 55/45 to 50/50 match up against gifts.

Paragraphs should be separated with line breaks, to make posts readable. I also fixed the "." that was showing up--preview your post if you're c/p'ing it from a word document.
-Jacob