ICBM Oath: the control plan

[Tha Gunslinga]

Between the Chalices and Null Rods hitting the board, the lands dropping fairly quickly, and me playing out everything else I can, LoA would be almost unusable in most situations.  I can't see running it, but it would be interesting in a more controlling version.  ICBM Oath is like a cross between GWS Oath (fast oath) and Meandeck Oath (slow Oath).

As far as Rack and Ruin vs Shattering Spree, when playing against Stax it's extremely difficult to keep ANY red mana in play, much less multiple sources.  Spree is also a sorcery.  Rack is infinitely better, and I would probably play Shattering Pulse over the Spree, which isn't saying much.

[Evenpence]

@ Everyone who directed a comment or question towards me:

In my Meta, Oath is enormously overbounding.  Therefore, I usually SB up to six cards with two MD Duplicants to combat it.  Oath is hard-pressed to win against a 4 Maze/4 Duplicant plan.  My opponents are actually very good, several of them consistently winning power.

As for Karakas vs. Maze, Karakas is much better against Oath, no question, but Maze is better against the other decks in the field, which makes it a better SB slot.  If you want a card specifically designed to beat Oath, go with Jester's Cap.  This card does almost nothing against the rest of the meta, and flat-out wins against Oath.

I think that answers everything.

[Pyromaniac]

@ Everyone who directed a comment or question towards me:

In my Meta, Oath is enormously overbounding.  Therefore, I usually SB up to six cards with two MD Duplicants to combat it.  Oath is hard-pressed to win against a 4 Maze/4 Duplicant plan.  My opponents are actually very good, several of them consistently winning power.

As for Karakas vs. Maze, Karakas is much better against Oath, no question, but Maze is better against the other decks in the field, which makes it a better SB slot.  If you want a card specifically designed to beat Oath, go with Jester's Cap.  This card does almost nothing against the rest of the meta, and flat-out wins against Oath.

I think that answers everything.

Sort of off topic, but: How does Cap NOT win (or just about win at least) vs a deck like Storm or Gifts? Maybe I'm not seeing something here, but those decks don't exactly run a lot of win conditions, so Cap is good vs them as well, I'd assume.

[Tha Gunslinga]

1.  They might, you know, have a win condition IN HAND.
2.  Pithing Needle.
3.  They might win before you get a Cap active.
4.  They might have more than three win conditions.  I know some storm decks sb extra tendrils, and it's totally possible for either TPS or Gifts to have something like this in the deck, pre- or post-board:
2 Tendrils
1 Tinker
1 Colossus
1 Burning Wish
and maybe even more.
5.  These decks often run 4 Dark Confidant SB.

[benthetenor]

4.  They might have more than three win conditions.  I know some storm decks sb extra tendrils, and it's totally possible for either TPS or Gifts to have something like this in the deck, pre- or post-board:
2 Tendrils
1 Tinker
1 Colossus
1 Burning Wish
and maybe even more.

Five spaces devoted to win conditions? I hope I play against Gifts with this configuration every match ever.

[Tha Gunslinga]

OK, Mr. Smartass, if they expect Jester's Caps, and they have more win conditions on the board, why WOULDN'T they bring them in?  That's what I do in Oath--bring in two more dudes so I can't lose to Cap.

[Hydra]

I second boarding up to 4 win conditions if I suspect Cap.  I don't like the idea of my opponent having a card that reads "I win when this resolves/gets welded in".

[benthetenor]

OK, Mr. Smartass, if they expect Jester's Caps, and they have more win conditions on the board, why WOULDN'T they bring them in?  That's what I do in Oath--bring in two more dudes so I can't lose to Cap.

5 slots for win conditions is a lot. I'd bring in Pithing Needles. That way if they don't get to Jester's Cap, you're not drawing into 4 dead cards. Besides, what happens if they have the Welders to Cap twice? All that space that you wasted didn't solve the problem even remotely. Pithing Needle buys you the time to win.

Besides, it looks like you're already running Null Rod so Jester's Cap is probably less of a concern than normal.

I'd rather make the deck more streamlined and efficient than less so, but I guess it's your call.

[Evenpence]

There's no room to side in Cap against Gifts.  I tried it, and it worked about 1 out of every 3 games.  It usually says 'game over' when it's activated, however.  Null Rod dis-synergy is the reason that I don't board them in against Gifts.  Against Oath, there's no Null Rod conflicts, as I board Rods out.

I honestly thought this would be common sense.

As for the win conditions in hand, the ideal play is to let them brainstorm before oath, have a welder out, bazaar away a cap, weld it back in, and activate it, removing the angels from the game.  NOBODY expects Jester's Cap.

[AngryPheldagrif]

NOBODY expects Jester's Cap.

I'm pretty sure they expect it now.

Anyways, I don't mean to necro a 2 week-old topic, but I'd like to get some more discussion going on the deck in a post-Richmond environment featuring less 5cStax and a lot more CS. While the lone ICBM'er playing the deck went something like 8-4-X over both days of Richmond, he recently split a Lotus at GP Madison and T4ed a mox tournament last week. While the maindeck remains virtually unchanged, the sideboard is quite drastically different:
2 Pithing Needle
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Tinker
1 Pristine Angel
3 Mystic Remora OR 3 Massacre
2 Disrupt
3-4 Energy Flux
1-2 Duress

The main weakness of the deck is the random UW Fish that pops up packing infinite StPs, Stormscapes, etc. While the multi-Jester's Cap UbaStax can be annoying, Null Rod and Pithing Needle (as well as the 4 creature plan) help enormously, and Cap is usually a lot easier to deal with than 5cStax packing Swords, Seal, Ray of Revelation, etc.

[M.Solymossy]

If I were to play our build of oath, I'd maindeck Needle over Null rod. My team all seems to disagree, but when decks like CS can weld out your null rod when you oath, or just drop a duplicant and rain on your parade (as in BullShlaver), I think in many matches, Pithing needle is more valuable.

Chalice for 1 after pithing needle on voidmage apprentice = gg against UW fish.
pithing needle on welder is much more important than null rod versus slaver, when BS runs duplicant (and some traditional lists of CS run dupe too)
Pithing needle on Bazaar/Welder is more important than null rod versus ubastax.  Wait, don't they normally run Null rod? You can still pithing needle their threatening artifacts like Cap, if they play Evenpences 'inovative' 3 card different Vroman.dec. The deck can just go welder + bazaar and drop a duplicant.
Against combo, you still have chalice. and a full backup of control.  The needles get sided out.
5Color Stax, you needle their welder/wasteland/seal of cleansing and say GG
Dragon:  you hit bazaar (2004 called.  They're wondering why I mentioned this deck).
In the oath mirror, I learned that if you can manage to waste one of their orchards, you're down 1 waste (our list runs 2) and they're down 1 orchard.  The advantages of naming Wasteland is HUGE.  you still have 4 orchards, they have 4 wastes which cant hit yours, and you're in good shape if an oath isn't already on board.   

just what I think

[roberts91rom]

@13NoVa: Maindeck null rod is much better against most of any field. In addition, you can't always be sure what to drop needle for, and sometimes you don't get an untap step before a dangerous ability becomes active. I understand welder as a concern, but MD needle is not the option, especially when slaver is running to 2-3welders. Every serious deck runs moxen and lotus, needle allows them more mana in order to slow them down at an insignificant level, especially without the rest of your SB tech. I know you have chalice, but thats going back to having chalice, in hand, turn 1, on the play, and they dont have a FoW/don't care due to MD bounce/hate.

ICBM seems to be better overall in most metagames, due to the heavy control element. The reason slaver is so good, is
The powerfull control coupled with brokeness. Oath is a pretty broken card, and ICBM packs more control than slaver. The only thing holding oath back from the T8's slaver is making is the easy to hate game plan. IMO if dissension brings out some new oath tech just like ravnica brought combo some new tech and shittorid, then oath can break free again. (U/G simic ftw)

On a similar note, has anyone ever tried running something like plated slagwurm in the anti-fish slot? StP and stormscape can be bitches and completely shut down oath if not dealt with. Let's face it, u can't always have needle in hand or chalice@1 turn 1, and they should run counters and mage for those threats. (I don't really consider any fish other than AT LEAST running U/W a fish deck) 8/8 is a decent body, and fish can't chump forever. I realise though, that the lack of "Akroma's abilities" make it a less appealing option.

PS: I don't claim to be an oath expert, I'm just using logic. I also don't play slaver, I just feel that ICBM oath has a similar gameplan, which is to stall into brokeness, but with the chance of quick brokeness.

[Kevin Folinus]

Adding extra win conditions to protect against Jester's Cap is probably a better idea then playing Null Rods. The goal of Oath is to win in the first few turns. Having games go late is the worst thing possible for Oath. I haven't tested it because Stax is usually a bye. (This post is assuming your playing the aggro build because it is the better one.)

[Hydra]

Adding extra win conditions to protect against Jester's Cap is probably a better idea then playing Null Rods. The goal of Oath is to win in the first few turns. Having games go late is the worst thing possible for Oath. I haven't tested it because Stax is usually a bye. (This post is assuming your playing the aggro build because it is the better one.)

Me likey blanket statements about one deck being "superior" to another when both versions have proven track records.  Null Rods aren't in the deck to protect against Cap (although that is a nice side effect), they're in the deck to slow down combo and other combo-control decks down so you can take advantage of your "slow" combo.  I'm of the opinion that Null Rod is the superior disruption tool in the main deck, although I also am very fond of Needle in any deck that can reasonably support it.

Needle may be superior against U/W Fish, but unless that particular deck is a large part of your meta I don't think it's enough to steer you towards playing Needle.  Welders in CS with a Dup also can be very annoying, but with the amount of control you pack you should be able to put up a solid fight to keep their TFKs from dumping Dup in the yard long enough to win.

[AngryPheldagrif]

Needle versus Rod in the metagame slot has been discussed and tested to death. In 99% of metagames Rod is better. UW Fish and UbaStax are the only matchups where Needle is superior, and even then its very minor. Versus Slaver, Rod is a hundred times better. Welder is not the threat. For one thing I have Chalice for 1 which takes Welders and protects itself from Shaman. Null Rod neutralizes Welder because it neutralizes the threatening things that Slaver could Weld in. That they can get rid of it when you Oath is irrelevant. By the time you're Oathing you're probably going to win anyways. All this doesn't even touch on Rod's most important aspect. It shuts down their mana development, letting you maul them with Strip effects and your own counters.

As for Plated Slagwurm, it's nice, but can be chumped indefinitely. You have Pristine Angel, who does the same thing except effectively has Vigilance as well as a nice evasion.

Null Rod versus extra win conditions is irrelevant. Extra creatures are on the board and Rods are maindeck.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Needle and Slagwurm are worthless vs Fish, and here's why:
Once Oath gets active vs Fish, you're home free 99% of the time.  The reason ICBM Oath dies to UW Fish is that they can usually disrupt you enough to get a Meddling Mage down, and then just beat you to death.  Failing that, they can always stall with Stormscape Apprentice and Plow your creatures.  The deck just has SO MUCH damn hate to it.  I mean, they have as much maindeck hate towards Oath as we have towards storm combo.  It's not pretty.

[roberts91rom]

Failing that, they can always stall with Stormscape Apprentice and Plow your creatures. 

Plated Slagwurm (Mana cost irrelevant, but it's 4GGG[easier to cast than WWW or WWRR if Oath becomes removed and countered.])
Creature - Wurm
Ability - You're not touching this bitch with bounce, stormscape, StP, Duplicant, Maze of Ith, etc.
Oracle Text: Plated Slagwurm can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.

Note: Not bad as stax sb either considering all they can chump with is welder/monkey.

[Hydra]

Failing that, they can always stall with Stormscape Apprentice and Plow your creatures.

Plated Slagwurm (Mana cost irrelevant, but it's 4GGG[easier to cast than WWW or WWRR if Oath becomes removed and countered.])
Creature - Wurm
Ability - You're not touching this bitch with bounce, stormscape, StP, Duplicant, Maze of Ith, etc.
Oracle Text: Plated Slagwurm can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.

Note: Not bad as stax sb either considering all they can chump with is welder/monkey.

Pristine Angel does essentially the same thing, isn't particularly hard to hard cast if you really need to, can't be touched by anything AND flies over chump blockers.  Your own Orchard gives your opponent chump blockers, you have to remember that.  If you don't, you might be letting them Oath instead of you.

[AngryPheldagrif]

Failing that, they can always stall with Stormscape Apprentice and Plow your creatures.

Plated Slagwurm (Mana cost irrelevant, but it's 4GGG[easier to cast than WWW or WWRR if Oath becomes removed and countered.])
Creature - Wurm
Ability - You're not touching this bitch with bounce, stormscape, StP, Duplicant, Maze of Ith, etc.
Oracle Text: Plated Slagwurm can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.

Note: Not bad as stax sb either considering all they can chump with is welder/monkey.

All they have to do is throw Orchard tokens in front of this all day until they either reduce you to zero via other sources. Since they can throw all their guys in front of it, you have to keep giving them tokens unless you want them Oathing for themselves. Having them bring up a Karn or Sundering Titan is not really what you want.

[lightning edit]: Pristine Angel and what Hydra said.

[Milton]

I've been playing a more combo-ish version of Oath for six months now and I have come to a few conclusions for all Oath decks.  I won't get into an argument about control v. combo oath at this point but I will post some of the things I have found.

1) You MUST play 1 Echoing Truth maindeck.  Rushing River is extremely inferior.  Echoing Truth allows you to kill off an opponents spirit token army.  That alone warrants its inclusion.  It is also less expensive, and Oath has a pretty wonky mana base, especially if you are running Null Rod maindeck.  Three mana for Rushing River can be difficult. 

2) Crop Rotation is overrated.  Just my opinion, but I almost always found it to be dead.

3) Misdirection is extremely good right now.  I'm currently running three.  I find it to be superior to Duress in many ways.  It also allows for more sideboard flexibility also.

That's all.

[sa17dk]

Misdirection is useful/useless depending on your meta.

As for Echoing Truth vs Rushing River, I'd like to use Echoing Truth as well, but then how would you get rid of a Chalice for 2?

[Tha Gunslinga]

Echoing Truth is shit, and I have no interest in anything else you might say about Oath based on your suggestion of a horrible, unplayable card as something that you "MUST include." 

EDIT - Feel free to say/think that Echoing Truth is shit (and it may well be), but dismissing the rest of what he says about Oath because of that can be extremely short-sighted.  Anyway, next time, just post only why you think his suggestion/card choice is shit, instead of going the next step.  If you have no interest in his posts about Oath, great.  Ignore them.  No need to be an ass about it. - Dante

Rushing River is THE best bounce spell for Oath.  It shines in the mirror, it shines vs Stax, it shines vs Dragon, it shines against anything.  Chalice for 2 is what you AUTO-LOSE to.  Rushing River dodges it.  Echoing Truth does bounce tokens, but if you're losing to your tokens, you either suck or are playing the deck totally wrong, or you're just having hideously bad luck.

[sa17dk]

Echoing Truth is shit, and I have no interest in anything else you might say about Oath based on your suggestion of a horrible, unplayable card as something that you "MUST include."  Rushing River is THE best bounce spell for Oath.  It shines in the mirror, it shines vs Stax, it shines vs Dragon, it shines against anything.  Chalice for 2 is what you AUTO-LOSE to.  Rushing River dodges it.  Echoing Truth does bounce tokens, but if you're losing to your tokens, you either suck or are playing the deck totally wrong, or you're just having hideously bad luck.

Haha he just said what I tried to say, except in a more badass way. EDIT - There is nothing "badass" about it, just stupid.  - Dante

Crop Rotation tricks are really nice in dodging Wasteland and other fetching Orchard tricks, but has anyone tested any other cards in this slot?

[AngryPheldagrif]

Echoing Truth is shit, and I have no interest in anything else you might say about Oath based on your suggestion of a horrible, unplayable card as something that you "MUST include."  Rushing River is THE best bounce spell for Oath.  It shines in the mirror, it shines vs Stax, it shines vs Dragon, it shines against anything.  Chalice for 2 is what you AUTO-LOSE to.  Rushing River dodges it.  Echoing Truth does bounce tokens, but if you're losing to your tokens, you either suck or are playing the deck totally wrong, or you're just having hideously bad luck.

Haha he just said what I tried to say, except in a more badass way.

Crop Rotation tricks are really nice in dodging Wasteland and other fetching Orchard tricks, but has anyone tested any other cards in this slot?

Crop Rotation fits the nice niche where it can grab the all important Orchard or the ever devastating Waste/Strip. The only other thing we had in the slot was the third Wasteland, which I used to prefer.

[Milton]

Echoing Truth is shit, and I have no interest in anything else you might say about Oath based on your suggestion of a horrible, unplayable card as something that you "MUST include." 

EDIT - Feel free to say/think that Echoing Truth is shit (and it may well be), but dismissing the rest of what he says about Oath because of that can be extremely short-sighted.  Anyway, next time, just post only why you think his suggestion/card choice is shit, instead of going the next step.  If you have no interest in his posts about Oath, great.  Ignore them.  No need to be an ass about it. - Dante

Rushing River is THE best bounce spell for Oath.  It shines in the mirror, it shines vs Stax, it shines vs Dragon, it shines against anything.  Chalice for 2 is what you AUTO-LOSE to.  Rushing River dodges it.  Echoing Truth does bounce tokens, but if you're losing to your tokens, you either suck or are playing the deck totally wrong, or you're just having hideously bad luck.

I've been around here a long time.  I haven't been posting much for the past year, but I have to say this is the first time in a long time I've been disrespected like that.  Your rather rude tone aside, I'll try to answer your specific concerns as politely as possible.

Your "Challice for 2 kills you" argument is valid, but your logic is somewhat flawed.  Challice for 2 does own Oath in every way.  So does Medling Mage naming Oath or a couple of Stormscape Appretices or even a good first turn Crucible.  Protecting against these threats is, as always, a metagame call.  Speaking of metagame calls...

We don't have very many Chalices up here anymore, so diversification of spell casting cost isn't a big deal.  If Challices were prevelant I would include both a Rushing River AND a Echoing Truth in my Oath deck.  Misdirection, for me, ISN'T a metagame call.  I find it to be extremely useful right now.  I am not alone in this, by the way.  Misdirection is starting to get trendy lately.  I find it to be a great way to help get an early Oath into play against an opponents counter wall.  If you haven't noticed, counterspells are back in fashion, while Challice seems to be out a favor right now.  Looking at recent results, such as Richmond, indicates as much.  Even your most recent tournament at Bluefrog seems to show that in your meta down in Milwauikee Challices are out of fashion. 

So, while the "Challice for 2 kills you" argument is valid, the increasingly limited play of Challice would lead me to use my sideboard as a way to deal with that specific threat, instead of using a maindeck slot on the more expensive Rushing River.

Also, I would argue that if you have been playing Oath for a long time and you haven't EVER died to your own tokens, then you are by far the luckiest or best player ever the deck knows.  Sometimes your tokens kill you.  It's part of the deck.  I prefer to have the Echoing Truth as an insurance measure to kill threats that I KNOW will be presented against me (tokens), rather than the more expensive Rushing River to diversify against a threat that I MIGHT see (Challice). 

[Gekoratel]

As a GWS Oath player I would say that in my testing Rushing River has been far more useful than Echoing Truth.  In a lot of matches they perform the same function returning DSC or WGD but in other matches they have their advantages and disadvantages.  I try to weigh these pros and cons and then run which spell in that slot that I think is more powerful.

Echoing Truth
Pros
- 1 mana less than Rushing River
- Has the ability to bounce multiple permanents (if same type)
Cons
- Chalice @2
- Bouncing more than 1 permanent is very situational and doesn't arise as often

Rushing River
Pros
- Will always be able to bounce 2 permanents
- Deals with Chalice @2
- Can sac a land that is being targeted by Waste/Strip for less loss of board position
Cons
- 1 mana more than Echoing Truth
- Will never return more than 2 permanents

I think if you look at all of the pros and cons it is easy to see that Rushing River is the stronger choice for Oath because Chalice@2 is very bad for the deck which is relevant against any Workshop deck.  The other bonus of always bouncing 2 permanents is huge in the mirror match.  If your playing in a metagame that has 0 Workshop decks and 0 Oath decks than I could understand running Echoing Truth over Rushing River otherwise I think it is incorrect.

Note that all of my knowledge is from playing GWS Oath so getting beatdown by spirits may be a more relevant problem for ICBM Oath.

[Mantis]

The author(s) of this thread said it theirselfs, ICBM is a more control based Oath in which the 2U (+land) that Rushing River costs is not really that bad. Rushing River basically is more of a gamebreaking spell which can completely turn a match around. Bouncing a Smokestack and a Crucible is just so much better than bouncing just one of the lock components. Not to mention the Oath mirror, when being behind Rushing River really shines, as it can bounce both opposing Angels back and probably even grab you one of your Angels or just beat with your 3+ spirit tokens.

Chalice at two really hurts, we all know that and having NO way to remove that is just bad. Oxidize would be the perfect answer for stopping Chalice at 2 before you get locked up and never reach 3 mana including a Volcanic Island.

One thing I would like to point out; running TfK, Rushing River and R&R along with Null Rod, do you ever find yourself in either position of not being able to cast one of your 3C spells because you lack the mana or not being able to play Null Rod because you will not reach the 3 mana to cast your draw spells the next turn? It seems like running this configuration is disynergetic.

[AngryPheldagrif]

The author(s) of this thread said it theirselfs, ICBM is a more control based Oath in which the 2U (+land) that Rushing River costs is not really that bad. Rushing River basically is more of a gamebreaking spell which can completely turn a match around. Bouncing a Smokestack and a Crucible is just so much better than bouncing just one of the lock components. Not to mention the Oath mirror, when being behind Rushing River really shines, as it can bounce both opposing Angels back and probably even grab you one of your Angels or just beat with your 3+ spirit tokens.

Chalice at two really hurts, we all know that and having NO way to remove that is just bad. Oxidize would be the perfect answer for stopping Chalice at 2 before you get locked up and never reach 3 mana including a Volcanic Island.

One thing I would like to point out; running TfK, Rushing River and R&R along with Null Rod, do you ever find yourself in either position of not being able to cast one of your 3C spells because you lack the mana or not being able to play Null Rod because you will not reach the 3 mana to cast your draw spells the next turn? It seems like running this configuration is disynergetic.

If you look at my post midway up this page, I posted our new sideboard that no longer features Rack and Ruin. TfK plus Null Rod rarely trips over itself since TfK is cast either end-of-turn or off Drain mana, the latter being a good reason we can randomly cast a bunch of the stuff.

Rushing River is a single copy of a single card that you can tutor for pretty easily. It's pretty much never dead, whether it's bouncing a couple of threats or whatnot. It's main purpose is to rid yourself of the dreaded Chalice for 2. Since Stax plays no counters and you have two 1-mana tutors, this is not the hardest thing in the world to accomplish. Since Echoing Truth can never fulfill the Chalice-breaking role, there is no reason to include it. If you've given your opponents too many Orchard tokens before you can find the Oath, there's a good chance you're not going to win anyways.

[Whatever Works]

If a deck is Tier 1 and no one plays it, does it still make a splash?
                                                                             -Ben Carp

ummm... No...

However, I actually like this decklist. And would go as far to say that this is perhaps one of the better oath lists I have tested up to this point. It can give alot of control decks a huge problem, and has combined the irritations of oath with an affective draw engine.

I am not sure if its tier 1, but its definetly a playable deck that should be prepared for before every tournement.

Kyle L.

[Mantis]

A couple more questions:
Regarding Wasteland; why do you only play 2? I say by no means 2 is not the correct number, in fact it might very well be the correct number, but I would like to hear why you chose to run only 2 while traditional Oath builds usually run 4. Most of your spells have a lot of colorless mana in their CC. However, I do notice that Wasteland is getting weaker and weaker, but they can seriously help in Stax and Oath mirror matches.

Did you actually test Oxidize or dismissed it on forehand? You switched from R&R to Energy Flux which seems a nice improvement, but Energy Flux still cost 3 mana. I'm going to try to explain how Oxidize would be better than Energy Flux versus Stax. When you reach 3 mana, how CAN you lose to Stax? You have plenty of mana to counter, tutor, play your Oath etc. If you don't reach the 3 mana, Stax is going to decimate you. When running Oxidize you only need to have 2 mana which makes such a HUGE difference. Let's make a list of their cards that might get you into problems:

Stax component   Energy Flux      

Smokestack               Opponent can maintain their Smokestack and it’s going to be very difficult to reach 3 mana.

Cruc/Strip NullRod   Good luck getting 3 mana.

Jester’s Cap   If they get 5 mana, you are dead. With Oxidize they need 8 mana.

Chalice for 2   If they get 2 lands on the table your only hope is Rushing River. Oxidize deals with it quite effectively.

Chalice@2 + Chalice@1   I guess Energy Flux is in fact better here.

Random fat.   Oxidize.

Goblin Welder   Welder gets around Energy Flux. You can get around Welder when they tap it, and destroy their artifact.


The only valid point I can come up why Energy Flux would be better means multiple threats, but if you are still able to obtain 3 mana under an Energy Flux then really, why not just play Oath? Oh yea, and Energy Flux pitches to Force, but you guys already said you would side FoW out or something. Which I think is a really obscure decision, certainly hope you don’t do that on the draw. I wouldn’t want to pitch my best card in the matchup to Force anyway, so I don't know if that argument counts.

You can't put down your own Chalice at one anymore, which is disadvantegous when playing against 5C Stax, but I guess siding out Chalices to Stax or putting down the Chalice at 0 would be a proper tradeoff. I would not really care about siding out the Chalices in the Stax matchup to be honest, considering their 1 c cards don't really hurt you. Their Welders are nowhere near as strong the Uba Stax Welders, as they don't play Bazaar. In the Uba Stax match I don't really think Chalice at one is really relevant. You just stop their Welders, so you don't have to dig for your Orchard anymore, nice trade!

That's it,
Mantis