Vintage Oath

[Byron]

This is a vintage Oath deck that was modified from an old extended build. It has the Merchant Scroll engine of Kai Budde's Illusions/Donate deck as well.

4 mana drain
4 force of will
4 brainstrom
4 merchant scroll
4 oath of druids
4 accumulated knowledge
3 swords to plowshares (for other oath decks w/targetable creatures, and misc decks)
2 intuition
2 gaea's blessing
1 impulse (can't afford ancestral recall =( good to scroll for wjhen stuck on 2 mana)
1 fact or fiction
1 balance
1 morphling (I don't like Aroma and other creatures that can be removed from the game w/a STP)
1 spike feeder
1 spike weaver

4 tropical island
4 tundra
4 forbidden orchard
4 flooded strand
2 polluted delta
2 wasteland (this plus strip mine = intuition a copy)
1 strip mine
1 island (to fetch one the first turn when facing a wasteland)
1 library of alexandria (hate this card, never got to use it)

SB
3 ray of revelation
3 energy flux
2 phantom nishoba (for sligh and other beatdown decks... if there are any)
2 pristine angel
1 platnium angel
1 akroma, angel of wrath
1 spirit of the night (outdated, i know)
1 crater hellion
1 woodripper (is this playable vs decks w/lots of artifacts?)

Notes: I'm not sure about my selection of SB creatures or my SB in general.

[SonataOfTheCathedral]

Goldfish five games with your Oath, then goldfish five games with ICBM or GWS Oath. Then see how you feel about this list.

[Byron]

I don't know what ICBM or GWS Oath are. Can you provide links or decklists?

BTW, if they depend on expensive cards, forget it.

[houseplant]

1 morphling (I don't like Aroma and other creatures that can be removed from the game w/a STP)
1 spike feeder
1 spike weaver

I don't understand you creature choices at all, but if you want morphling for its ability to but untargetable, why not just use simic sky swollower? 5UG 6/6 flying, trample, can't be the target of spells or abilities, seems to me an a lot better choice.

[chrissss]

I think this deck lacks speed.

you wont get a kill condition very fast, and against combo you need Stifles, and the deck doesnt have them.

spike weaver should be a baloth imo, it gives 4 life, but its 4/4 instead of 2/2.

how does the deck do against most mathups? I jsut cant immagine it doing well against some decks. I have been testing my oath all summer, and I have used so many different combinations, and most decks were too slow. getting a first turn oath is great, and you can get a 3d turn win or definately 4th turn, which makes it fast, but also good against different matchups. I agree with houseplant about the SSS against morphling, morphling takes up a LOT of mana to do 5 damage, fly and be untargetable, while the SSS does it all for free.

How is not having duress working out for you? or the other black tutors? and why dont you play misdirection? MD is a good way to protect against creature removal, since your opponent will always have a spirit token in play, which can also be stps.

I tried testing with LOA also, and I only got to use it a few times, but without stifle to protect it, I wouldnt jeapordise your mana base for it.

I would remove Spirit o t night for a SSS for sure, because the spirit is just a bad akroma nowadays.

[The M.E.T.H.O.D]

The logic in your deck is flawed.

Other oath lists are usually early/midrange combo-control decks out of necessity. You need to slap an oath down and get a guy quickly because lets face it, the deck's chances of surviving the midgame THEN the lategame are very very bad.  Not only are you NOT maximizing your ability to 1. find oath 2. find it asap, once you slap that card in play your wasting precious time oathing up threats that are somewhat relevant to baerly relevant today. You need run either fast beaters or creatures that may be a turn slower that have staying power ie. darksteel collassus, Simic sky swallower, etc. You really don't want more then two oath targets in your library at once because you want your oath to get you something relevant/powerful. If you run two many guys your dicerolling instead of creature tutoring and the wrong superfriend might pop up at the wrong time.  Your running an oath build that uses inuition to gain card advantage as well as tutor the combo. That alone might warrant more then two copies, impulse might be a candidate to get cut for another one. Brainstorm is a must have and is miles ahead of merchant scroll in this deck. Just in general bstorm is about a billion times better. Specifically since your trying to oath as fast as possible digging for 3 cards with 1 mana as well as having hte ability to throw back blessing and creatures you draw is amazing. Merchant scroll can't get balance, stp, or oath. Instead your using scroll in a long tutor chain that will end with the card you want, but thats generally not that good especially if your not fully powered. d

Here are some other finer points worth considering:

1. The manabase (which is always most important in my book) for your deck needs a complete overhaul. If you still feel you want to run this deck as is you have to at least make changes to that. Your only splashing white for STP so there is no reason to go all out for tundras. You also don't need that many tropical islands either. Waste/Strip and mana disruptive decks have been in a recession as of late in vintage but there is no reason to give up free games because you lost to rod or chalice or got all your lands stripped. If you count Lotus + Mox + Forbiddan orchard x4 thats already 6 colored mana sources. If you ran only 1 tundra and 1 tropical island plus the MINIMUM four fetchlands (you have six) your already looking at 13 colored sources of each which is more then enough. You also have the ability to dig for cards if need be. If your not running power in because of budget reasons I would go ahead on maximizing the amount of waste/strip/ghost quarter in your deck because having the extra blue sources is irrelevant. And since you run intuition a single copy from the loam wouldn't be too bad because you can intuition for it and strip mine and forbiddan orchard.

2. The sideboard- ok its nice you have a lot of SB options about what creatures to oath up in each matchup but you actually need sideboard cards. Its up to you what SPELLS you want to run in your sb but just make sure they have synergy with your deck like SB cards that can work from the GY when you oath (ie. flashback, return effects). And you want at least three copies of all these SB cards just to maximize the power of intuition in your deck. I'd have at least 1 untargetable, 1 woodripper, 1 hydra though.

I have a lot more to say and i'll see how this thread turns out and i'll add more if I need to.

Oath is a good deck and your starting the race a little late but hopefully with our help you'll finish in time. 

[zeus-online]

Oh. My. God. This looks like an Oath deck from like 4-6 years ago

You should check out ICBM Oath or GWS as mentioned, just use the search function.

/Zeus

[Harlequin]

Oh. My. God. This looks like an Oath deck from like 4-6 years ago

No Verdant Touch??  =P

[Implacable]

BTW, if they depend on expensive cards, forget it.

Why are you playing Type 1, then?

EDIT: I should expound upon that.  The purpose of these forums is to optimize decks for competitive Type 1 play.  Truly competitive decks in this format run expensive cards or proxy them.  If you're not willing to do either of those things, then this may not be the place for you.

[Zarathustra]

Morphling, Spike Feeder, and Spike Weaver are obsolete creatures for Oath in T1.  The new creatures are Akroma and Razia, Boros Archangel.  You have countermagic to protect your Akroma and Razia.  Furthermore, you can side in SSS, which is a house against Fish and anything that plays removal.

Your best bets are ICBM Oath and GWS Oath, and yes, these decks require Power and Mana Drains to work right.  Without them, Oath cannot be competitive in Vintage.

[zeus-online]

Oh. My. God. This looks like an Oath deck from like 4-6 years ago

No Verdant Touch??  =P

Actually those 3 creatures he's running is *exactly* what old-school oath decks used

Even Zvi's turbo-land deck used this configuration Hehe.

I'm somewhat happy to see this deck posted here, eventhough it isnt viable in any way.

/Zeus

[Mr. Type 4]

I totally played this list in Extended as a teenager, it was pretty sick back in the day.  Hot tech from 1998- you can kill your own Morphling by pumping him too much so you can get up Spike Weaver!!! OH, and you can make Morphling real big with Spikes!!!

Just kidding.  obviously there are better creature choices, even if your whole metagame is aggro, it'll still be better to just roll them with some sort of Angel, and counter them if they try to kill your dude.  Or just play Sky Swallower. 

Now-a-days, I'm pretty sure that any combo deck is going to roll this thing.  It seems like you need some sort of proactive disruption card like Chalice, or Null rod or Duress.  It makes me question what sort of metagame this is built to deal with.  I would guess that this player doesn't encounter a lot of Moxes so that would explain the lack of cards like this. 

I'd definitly chop that Impulse for like... anything.  You could play Lat-Nam, at least that puts your oath guys back in your deck if you draw them.

[warwizard87]

Is Garza Zol wworth playing over razia? She seams like she MIGHT be better but mabey not (no vigalance)

[taniquetil]

This is a more recent version of Oath of Druids. Since I have no Mana Drains, I play the GWS version, modified a little since the advent of a new, good blue counterspell in Coldsnap:

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

Artifacts:
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus

Control Element:
4 Force of Will
4 Rune Snag
2 Mana Leak
4 Duress

Tutor Element:
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
4 Impulse
4 Brainstorm
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Crop Rotation
1 Ancestral Recall

Winning:
4 Oath of Druids
1 Akroma
1 Razia/SSS/Spirit of the Night (this is personal preference mainly)
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Time Walk

I think that's it for the list. More likely than not I left out an important 4-of, but this deck is very explosive.

Choices Explanation:
You run Akroma and some other fattie, depending on preference. Akroma is protected by your huge control element (Force, Rune Snag, Mana Leak, Duress) and if you play SSS you don't have to worry about removal.

4 Impulse are very good. Since you need to be explosive, Impulse helps dig for your combo pieces.

[chrissss]

personaly I prefer the version I am playing right now, which you can find in the "5 proxi oath thread"
rune snag isnt always that good, because of blessing. but it can be great if your graveyard is full and blessing hasnt triggered yet. IS can be ok, but 2 card disadvantage tutors cant always be good.

Impulse can be great; but its no card advantage, and Drawing a DT, Oath, AR and orchard, can be annoying, thats why I prefer TFK.

the 4 challice of the voids are amazing, and it can stop fish and many other decks, or at least slow them down. Challice at 1 protects the angels from stps, and stops many 1 CC cards in T1.

[Tha Gunslinga]

ICBM Oath, v7.0


Maindeck:
        4 Forbidden Orchard
        1 Strip Mine
        2 Wasteland
        3 Underground Sea
        2 Tropical Island
        1 Island
        2 Polluted Delta
        2 Flooded Strand
        1 Vampiric Tutor
        1 Demonic Tutor
        1 Crop Rotation
        1 Rushing River
        1 Time Walk
        1 Ancestral Recall
        1 Black Lotus
        1 Mox Sapphire
        1 Mox Ruby
        1 Mox Jet
        1 Mox Pearl
        1 Mox Emerald
        2 Null Rod
        3 Thirst for Knowledge
        4 Brainstorm
        4 Chalice of the Void
        4 Mana Drain
        4 Force of Will
        3 Duress
        1 Razia, Boros Archangel
        1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
        4 Oath of Druids
        1 Gaea's Blessing


Sideboard:
2 Oxidize
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus
2 Pyroclasm
2 Simic Sky Swallower
2 Pithing Needle
2 Energy Flux
1 Duress

Enjoy

[netherspirit]

Crop Rotation is great for Oath, and I've been playing around with Muddle the Mixture, which isn't too bad a counter card beings the format uses so many instants and sorceries, but its transmute ability is great for finding Oath and any other 2 drops you may be running.

[M.Solymossy]

Yes, if you can afford 2UUG to play oath before being destroyed.  or 3UU to drop nullrod... or 2UUU to Impulse, or...

[yangtze34]

I don't know what ICBM or GWS Oath are. Can you provide links or decklists?

BTW, if they depend on expensive cards, forget it.

Wait..If you don't want to use expensive cards, then why are there mana drains and FoWs in the deck?  the combined price of a playset of those would run you like 350-400 bux.  Also, if your not willing to use or at least proxy pieces of the power 9, your deck will face some serious problems against decks that do utilize the p9 to its full potential.  But if you want to try a slightly less expenisive version of oath that actually works, look in the vintage open forums section and find "tyrant oath".  It plays fiddy cent(i had to say that) rares called tidespout tyrants instead of the angel duo and might or might not use mana drains, i cant say for sure either way until brian posts his decklist.  I've played against it and its killer.  It's certaintly a different approach to oath than icbm or gws or meandeck.

[GUnit]

I know this is probably the job of a moderator, but you should probably go around and read a bit before posting a new decklist if you don't know much about the format. There are loads of solid decklists and articles written about oath on this site, star city games and other sites.

Here, next time you'd like feedback on a decklist first follow this link, enter the criteria for your deck and see what other people have suceeded with: http://www.starcitygames.com/pages/decks.php

It is extremely informative.

[taniquetil]

Morphling is an inferior creature to today's Oath Standards. It just soaks up way too much mana, and there are too many things that can race it. The good thing about Morphling is that you can hardcast it in a time of trouble, but if it gets around to that situation I don't think you're going to want to spend 3-4 mana a turn just to make Morphling effecient. Play the other Oath creatures that people recommended (Akroma, Razia, SSS, SPirit of the Night) because they are hasty (with the exception of SSS, but it's un-swordsable, which I believe is what you were looking for) and provide a faster clock than Morhpling withough locking up your mana base.

[Byron]

Thanks everyone! I took all of your advice and simply built a cheaper version of ICBM Oath deck. Here goes:

lands:

4 tropical island
4 undergroud sea
4 flooded strand
4 polluted delta
4 forbidden orchard
1 island
1 strip mine (could previously intuition for this + the 2 wastelands when i ran intuition.)
2 wasteland (don't know what the right number of these is b/c i took out the intuition)

enchantments

4 oath of druids

creatures:

1 akroma
1 razia

sorceries

4 duress (should i cut 1 to make space for maindeck darkblast? i don't know if i'd ever tutor for it)
1 demonic tutor
2 gaea's blessing (i hate just having one b/c I once had a creature + my single blessing in hand & no brainstorm and oath'ed up a creature at the bottom of my deck. i know it probably won't happen all the time but i hate the idea of losing to myself.)
4 compulsive research (substitutes for thirst for knowledge)

instants:

4 mana drain
4 force of will
4 brainstorm
4 impulse
1 fact or fiction (kind of high cc but oh well)
1 rushing river (what is this for anyways? i only have 1 b/c it somewhat combo's w/duress and it's blue for force of will)
1 vamparic tutor

SB:

don't know yet

[Byron]

Thanks for the input everyone. I realize that my card selections are a bit prehistoric. That's b/c I haven't been keeping up to date with MTG since I quit playing in tournaments in '03. Don't worry though, i'm researching articles and getting with the program. In any case, the reason why I can afford Mana Drains but not other vintage cards is b/c they were Legacy (then called 1.5) legal when I bought them. Playing them in Legacy was my intention before Oath became banned. They were also only $30-40 dollars in the comic book store I bought them in. Also most of my friends don't have a lot of money (they can't even afford to buy new boosters) so I'd also feel weird about throwing out the "Power 9" in front of my group (imagine flashing a wad of bills in the 'hood, not a good idea.) So that's where i'm coming from and why i'm trying to build Oath on a budget.

[kombat]

So that's where i'm coming from and why i'm trying to build Oath on a budget.

Find yourself proxy tournaments and play there.  Your list had Mana Drains, a bunch of dual lands, and Force of Wills.  All you're missing are 8 of the Power 9, which you can proxy in most tournaments.

Oath is already a budget deck.  Trying to cut out the only cards that make it good to make it even cheaper just ends up making it ... bad.

[misslehead3]

4 tropical island
4 undergroud sea
1 akrom
4 compulsive research (substitutes for thirst for knowledge)
4 mana drain
4 force of will

I still don't understand how this works, Looking at all these cards, a set of drains will be like 300, fows like 60-80, duals like 160-180, and akoma like 20-25 and you can't spend 3 or 4 dollars to get the set of thirst for knowledges you need. also, you could probobly find a set of null rods online for like 40 bucks, and chalice o the voids are 4 dollars a piece. The point of this is you play with drains and fws and duals but can't get simple stuff like thirst for knowledge

[Byron]

4 tropical island
4 undergroud sea
1 akrom
4 compulsive research (substitutes for thirst for knowledge)
4 mana drain
4 force of will

I still don't understand how this works, Looking at all these cards, a set of drains will be like 300, fows like 60-80, duals like 160-180, and akoma like 20-25 and you can't spend 3 or 4 dollars to get the set of thirst for knowledges you need. also, you could probobly find a set of null rods online for like 40 bucks, and chalice o the voids are 4 dollars a piece. The point of this is you play with drains and fws and duals but can't get simple stuff like thirst for knowledge

Uh, i'd need the 5 moxen + black lotus to pull off using thirst of knowledge optimally... As far as the duals go, I collected them a long time ago from trading and local card shops where they were very reasonably priced. I don't recall EVER spending more than $40-50 on a single card (never spent more than $20 on a dual) and i'd like to keep it that way.

[kombat]

I still don't understand how this works, [...] you can't spend 3 or 4 dollars to get the set of thirst for knowledges you need. also, you could probobly find a set of null rods online for like 40 bucks, and chalice o the voids are 4 dollars a piece.

Uh, i'd need the 5 moxen + black lotus to pull off using thirst of knowledge optimally.

Proxy them.  Do they not have proxy tournaments in your area?

[Byron]

Here's my latest build:

4 forbidden orchard
4 flooded strand
4 polluted delta
3 tropical island (don't know if my duals are better 3/3 or 4/2)
3 underground sea
1 island
3 wasteland (cut 2 duals to add 2 wastelands)
1 strip mine

4 mana drain
4 force of will
4 brainstorm
4 muddle the mixture
4 compulsive research (tutor for oath, yay!
1 fact or fiction (still not sure if this card is worth it)
1 naturalize (compulsive research target)
4 duress
4 oath
2 gaea’s blessing
1 akroma
1 razia
1 demonic tutor
1 vamparic tutor
1 crop rotation

blue spells: 21

oaths: 10

control: 18

card advantage: 6

blue mana: 19

green/black mana: 15

colorless mana: 4

mana curve:
1) 10
2) 16
3) 8
4) 1

SB: (still under construction, too many creatures, yeah, I know)
4 darkblast (1 toughness creatures, replaces duress)
2 SSS (for swords to plowshares, etc.)
2 blazing archon (mono green or beats w/out removal)
2 phantom nishoba (sligh or goblins)
1 crater hellion (trade survival or anything w/annoying, hard to kill creatures)
1 woodripper (umm, artifacts)
1 oxidize (the artifact that potentially counters anything cast for 2)
1 null rod (decks that rely upon too many activated artifacts)
1 rushing river (in case the oxidize doesn't work, misc stuff)

[Byron]

Here's my updated build:

4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
4 Underground Sea
1 Island
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will
4 Brainstorm
4 Muddle the Mixture (transmute for Oath)
4 Compulsive Research (great b/c i'm running 24 lands...)
1 Naturalize (Muddle the Mixture transmute target)
4 Duress
4 Oath of Druids
2 Gaea’s Blessing (running 2 copies b/c i've drawn one and Oathed all thhe way to the bottom of my deck before... with no Brainstorm to save me)
1 Akroma
1 Razia
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vamparic Tutor
1 Crop Rotation

mana curve:
1) 10
2) 16
3) 8

SB:
4 Darkblast (1 toughness creatures, replaces Duress)
2 Oxidize (artifacts like Pithing Needle, etc.)
2 Krosan Grip (more artirfact and enchanment removal)
2 Simic Sky Swallower (for Swords to Plowshares, etc.)
2 Blazing Archon (mono green or beats w/out removal)
2 Phantom Nishoba (sligh or goblins)
1 Crater Hellion (Trade Survival or anything w/annoying, hard to kill creatures)
 
This deck feels pretty complete to me. Any objections?

[Seraphim3577]

The reason for running thirst for knowledge is not because of running moxen, its because its an instant.  Compulsive research is a 3cc sorcery that doesn't say you win the game.  This is important.  Every other 3cc sorcery that sees play in type 1 says you win the game.  Tinker, Yawg will, the draw fours, etc... As an oath player, countermagic is crucial to your deck.  You cannot afford to tap out on turn 3 to play something that could get drained straight into a perfect gifts for your opponent.  I would also highly suggest the inclusion of null rod.  Since you aren't even playing artifacts, it is a total BOMB against powered decks.  Just a thought.