Oath deck: I need help!

[Harlequin]

... One real artifact threat for creatures is Triskelion, but it can provide only two hits. Also Pristine can block famous 7/10 guy, but if it already landed, your positions is in danger.

Welder + Duplicant is why I run Pristene.  If you don't see too much of that, than I could see: Akroma, Razia, Irridecent.  Being good for the maindeck.

[frontier]

In my local metagame so far I haven`t faced welder based decks. If there are some - they should be onpowered shopless, so because of this I prefer Iridiscent Angel. In other cases Pristine can be better.

Alternatively, switch to Fish, which runs better without power.

I suppose, power is usually for speeding up your deck. It is very important to various combo decks (including Oath).
There are some decks, which simply cannot run without moxen and Lotus - eg. two land belcher; welder also is significant weaker without them. Also it`s hard to create a perfect storm having no "free" mana in various storm-based decks.

[Harlequin]

Alternatively, switch to Fish, which runs better without power.

Fish beats powered decks, but does terrible vrs aggro.  As said before by others, stay away from fish unless you expect your pairings to be: Stax, Gifts, Stax, Tendrils, CS ... Combo, Gifts, Stax in top 8.  If you end up faceing more than 25% aggro then fish basically cannot win.

If your not fealing the Oathy love, perhapse or UG Survival madness is the way to go... It does decent without power so long as you have Elvish Spirit Guide and an LED.  Survival Madness (with squee) is technically not as good as Bazaar Madness, but for a budget deck vrs Agro it does alright.  Survival can definately power out some rather large fatties, and with squee you have more stable, but slower, Wild Mongrel beats.

[frontier]

If you end up faceing more than 25% aggro then fish basically cannot win.

If your not fealing the Oathy love, perhapse or UG Survival madness is the way to go...

Last time I faced about 50% aggro decks, so accourding to gentlemen`s post, fish should be obvious underdog (but U/R one made top 8)

I`m currently searching for the optimal deck worth investing - so I`m proxing various decks and try to see which one is powerful enough and is closer to my heart (yes, this is important - one can play very powerful deck, but if he or she dislike the deck or don`t believe in it, results may not so good). I used survival in a Dragon deck, but never tried to play pure Survival deck. Actually, I`ve never seen such a deck in action. Decks I also have tried recently: Rector tendrils, Pox control (amazing card), Food chain goblins, Sligh and so on.

[scutakicker]

Other options for upowered Oath in an aggro metagame.
-There is a creature (I thought it was a dragon from a Portal set but I can't find it now) that does 3 or 4 damage as a comes into play ability. Some people played around with that as a Welder shooter but it never did much. There's probably some better creature that would be better--like a non-echo Crater Hellion or something.
-You could run the Triskelion plan. For a while the tech was to run 2 Trikes in the board for the mirror match to shoot your own orchard tokens so you could keep Oathing and shooting your opponent. It fell out of favor, but you could run a couple of Trikes main and shoot all their creatures. Doesn't seem great though.
-Blazing Archon is an interesting thought in an aggro metagame, but its strength is its weakness. It stops aggro, but since there's so much aggro everyone can deal with the single creature that stops them. Maybe if you run Nullstone Gargoyle with it  :lol:
-At one point I was splashing red for Pyroclasm. I switched to Massacre because all of the Fish I faced ran Plains, but if that much of the field is aggro you'll be facing down Shades, Mongeese etc and without everything having plains 'clasm may be better.

[frontier]

Someone has misunterstood me. I have no problem with aggro decks - I have problem to find Oath, put it on table and keep alive against Control decks.

[scutakicker]

What kind of control do you generally run into? A lot of "control" decks in vintage only run around 8-10 counters with lots of draw/tutors plus an explosive combo finish. If the metagame is unpowered, then a deck like Gifts propably isn't the issue--is it just mono blue control? First, add in a misdirection or two--they'll give you backup when you lay down Oath against a counterspell. Make sure you run a full set of Duresses, they're amazing against control decks. Drop Lat-Nam's Legacy. Put in something like Lim-Dul's Vault or Night's Whisper. Lat-Nam's Legacy is cute, but it isn't card advantage, doesn't dig deep and is a delayed effect. I also use a single Muddle the Mixture--early game it helps vs control and mid-game it tutors for an Oath. Aside from those things most of it is playing against control decks a ton of times in testing.