[Deck] Eternal Oath

[Seraphim3577]

Granted, I am fairly new to type 1, I was thinking about problems that decks like oath have and am constatnly trying to find ways to make them better.

My first thoughts actually were prompted by a scene I saw at GenCon, so I cannot claim this to be my own actual design.

I didn't copy anyone's decklist, this is my own based off seeing someone Oath out an  Eternal Witness.

Eternal Oath:

3 Eternal Witness
4 Oath of Druitds
2 Skullclamp

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell (drain causes too much pain)
2 Misdirection

4 Brainstorm
4 Duress

1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor

2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Burning Wish

The Kill (looking for better  ):
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Zuran Orb
1 Fastbond

1 Strip Mine
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Island
1 Bayou


sb:
1 Massacre
1 Yawg Will
1 Hull Breach / 1 Meltdown
4 Swords To Plowshares
1 Chainer's Edict
4 Pithing Needle
3 ??? (maybe more massacre for fish matchups)


Premise of the Deck:
Get Oath of Druids out.
Recur Time Walk with Eternal Witness.  If Time Walk isn't milled, tutor for it.
Eventually (hopefully within a couple turns, draw a skullclamp.
Once you have a skullclamp and your oath out, you can take infinte turns setting up for whatever kill you want.

The reason for the combo I have chosen is that all of the cards are decent on their own.
Zuran Orb can save you a game vs tendrils or aggro by letting you sac late lands for life.
Barbarian ring can kill meddling mages, confidants, and goblin welders.
Crucible is good vs stax. 
I know that all of these are one ofs and do not affect matches much considering they are one ofs, but I am open to suggestions for that slot, too.

The first real question that needs to be answered about the deck is:  Is this better than Angel Oath?
I believe it is.  Even if the combo "fizzles" its usually after timewalking 2-3 times allowing you to fill your hand with counters and the ability to start the combo again on your next turn.  If you draw into one of your creatures, Eternal Witness is a significantly better card to try to play from your hand than akroma or razia is.

Thoughts, Questions, Comments, Concerns?

[GrandpaBelcher]

I think you, heh, want fewer Witnesses.  Dumping your library into your graveyard is key with this because it gives you more cards to access with the Witnesses.  For a combo-like Oath like this, I would suggest just one Witness, maybe two if you're worried about Extract or decking yourself.  You only need one Gaea's Blessing too, if any, so you don't shuffle your recurrable goodies into your deck.  And why is Yawgmoth's Will in your sideboard?!  That and Tendrils should be your primary win condition.  Dump your library, Witness back Yawgmoth's Will, and win the game.  It's a strong deck idea because it allows Oath to win right away rather than over two or more attack phases.  The only problem is the increased use of Tormod's Crypt and Leyline of the Void, and right now, it looks as though you probably scoop to them if they hit the board in the first game.

[Seraphim3577]

The reason I included a 3rd witness and a 2nd blessing is due to the fact that I need the extra turns of recurring timewalk to set up a repeatable combo.
I found that 1 blessing was not enough due to the fact that I intend to draw the combo with skullclamp and usually end up drawing 1 of the blessings that way.  The 3rd witness means that once you go off, you have 3 turns instead of 2 to set up something.
That 3rd turn usually meant getting a couple more lands in play and 2-3 more cards in hand to in the event that you do actually have to pass turn.
I tried running the yawg will tendrils combo, but it wasn't working that well because i'm not running dark rits.  I tried running 5 moxes with yawg will and rebound (think thats right, the bounce all artifacts card), but it wasn't working efficiently enough...not enough storm copies.

Any ideas on how to modify the deck so that a combo could work more effectively?

[GrandpaBelcher]

Go up to five moxen because that increases your chances of getting a first turn Oath on board.  Then you plan to win somewhat like Gifts--use Rebuild and Chain of Vapor in conjunction with free mana artifacts and Tendrils for the win.  Neither Rebuild nor Chain is ever dead.  With this in a Yawgmoth's Will plan, you shouldn't even need to use Time Walk more than once, if at all.  If you keep Fastbond in the deck, you should have plenty of mana to storm up to ten, especially since you can always Force or double Force one of your own for extra spells.

The problem with Crucible-Orb-Fastbond is that, without Test of Endurance on the board, it's not really a win condition.  It's just really annoying.  So you're beating down with Eternal Witnesses, which is acceptable.  Long, but acceptable.  And if your opponent can survive out of your Time Walk turns and remove your Witnesses and Blessings, they have plenty of time to figure out a win.

[Seraphim3577]

fastbond + zuran orb + crucible = infinite mana and infinite life
add in barbarian ring and you have infinite damage from a land source


I've tried the 5 moxen rebuild, but the deck still has trouble getting all of the mana necessary to do what it needs to do without dark ritual.

If you drop the witnesses down to 1, the deck dets infinitely more vulnerable to extract.  Having 2 witnesses seems to be optimal for something like that.  The chain of vapor idea could work, but I would have to gut a lot of the deck to add in other mana sources (dark rits) to let the deck actually cast the yawg will.
The gaea's blessings would have to be cut, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. 

Going the tendrils route makes the deck a little more vulnerable to the hate that the tendrils players will be facing, too.

Just thoughts.

It would appear you would recommend the following (although it is noted you missed the barbarian ring):
-2 blessing
-1 witness
-1 crucible
-1 zuran orb
-2 skullclamp
-1 barbarian ring
-1 strip mine
-1 fastbond

+1 tendrils of agony
+4 dark ritual
+1 yawg will
+2 moxes
+1 rebuild
+1 chain of vapor

[GrandpaBelcher]

If you're still having trouble with mana, add more mana artifacts (Sol Ring, Crypt, Vault, LED) and keep the Fastbond.  It's easy to play after Yawgmoth's Will and can also help before.  Otherwise, your changes look about right.  There have been discussions on here about Salvagers Oath (http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=22233.0 among others) and I think one about Combo Oath that I couldn't find, but they might be a place to look for more information and ideas.

You are susceptible to Tendrils hate, but you have a better control package with which to face it.  I would be far more worried about graveyard hate with your deck, but it was that way before as well.  If you're not using Mana Drain, you might want to consider Rune Snag or Mana Leak in place of Counterspell.  They're easier on the mana base but are almost as effective when you need them most.

[warble]

Oath works by resolving one spell, disrupting your opponent, and winning as minimally as possible.  You require multiple spells (so you lose to workshop AND control) and don't disrupt your opponent with this deck.  Additionally, because you have 2 blessings the chance that you mill blessing before milling time walk is reasonably high, meaning your combo will sputter out a bunch and additionally requires a spell to be cast basically every turn.  Add to that the nonexistent clock that you have and...well...I'd be hard pressed to play this build of oath over some random fast deck with 4 panoptic mirrors, a bunch of tutors and maybe some welders.  As for fastbond+crucible+zuran orb...that's not a win condition...

Imagine this scenario.  You drop a turn 1 Orchard+Mox+Oath and your opponent FoW's, you FoW back.  Now you have 2 cards, he has 5 and will draw a 6th.  At this point you are totally reliant on your clock.  Aggro oath builds will be fine here, because they don't need anything else.  Your deck, however, is NOT fine.  The random oath deck will have null rod, chalice, duress, something or other to disrupt an opposing clock.  Yes, if you magically oath into witness putting time walk in the grave you have a decent chance of winning.  But if you don't?  You grab that Force from the graveyard and start forcing away, and if you hit blessing your witness does zilch, you lose a turn and oath activation, and your clock is, sad to say, nowhere close to ticking.

I would be hard pressed to play this over a simple bounce deck with witness because:
a) you save 11 cards at LEAST by not playing oath and your win condition
2) you can play a faster deck, one that is more reliable, and one that will have answers and disruption that you can recur...as well as having a friggin' awesome matchup against control decks and gifts.

What I think this deck does right:
The speed that the deck can execute the combo is the same as oath.  When it works.

What I think this deck does wrong:
The combo just won't work consistently, and in many instances won't work and can't even be made to work.  3 witnesses, no graveyard...you just beat yourself!  Ouch.  Leyline or Tormod's Crypt or Withered Wretch remove Time Walk.  Oh dear.

[GrandpaBelcher]

I was thinking about Mana Drain and counters in general and that it would be nice if blue never entered into your equation.  Black and artifacts still can provide a whole bunch of disruption if you know where to look.  The problem is that none of it is Force of Will.  Some of it, though, is Leyline of the Void.

I was reminded of this list, though.  Thought you might take some inspiration from it.  Plan for a longer game than this list presents, but getting Oath out in a hurry so you can Tendrils and win in a hurry is tech:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9787.html

[Seraphim3577]

Oath works by resolving one spell, disrupting your opponent, and winning as minimally as possible.  You require multiple spells (so you lose to workshop AND control) and don't disrupt your opponent with this deck.  Additionally, because you have 2 blessings the chance that you mill blessing before milling time walk is reasonably high, meaning your combo will sputter out a bunch and additionally requires a spell to be cast basically every turn.  Add to that the nonexistent clock that you have and...well...I'd be hard pressed to play this build of oath over some random fast deck with 4 panoptic mirrors, a bunch of tutors and maybe some welders.  As for fastbond+crucible+zuran orb...that's not a win condition...

Imagine this scenario.  You drop a turn 1 Orchard+Mox+Oath and your opponent FoW's, you FoW back.  Now you have 2 cards, he has 5 and will draw a 6th.  At this point you are totally reliant on your clock.  Aggro oath builds will be fine here, because they don't need anything else.  Your deck, however, is NOT fine.  The random oath deck will have null rod, chalice, duress, something or other to disrupt an opposing clock.  Yes, if you magically oath into witness putting time walk in the grave you have a decent chance of winning.  But if you don't?  You grab that Force from the graveyard and start forcing away, and if you hit blessing your witness does zilch, you lose a turn and oath activation, and your clock is, sad to say, nowhere close to ticking.

I would be hard pressed to play this over a simple bounce deck with witness because:
a) you save 11 cards at LEAST by not playing oath and your win condition
2) you can play a faster deck, one that is more reliable, and one that will have answers and disruption that you can recur...as well as having a friggin' awesome matchup against control decks and gifts.

What I think this deck does right:
The speed that the deck can execute the combo is the same as oath.  When it works.

What I think this deck does wrong:
The combo just won't work consistently, and in many instances won't work and can't even be made to work.  3 witnesses, no graveyard...you just beat yourself!  Ouch.  Leyline or Tormod's Crypt or Withered Wretch remove Time Walk.  Oh dear.

The very very important detail that you miss is that the blessing trigger goes onto the stack, then the witness comes into play putting its trigger on the stack on top of the blessing trigger.
That way you get the card you are looking for immediately.
Having 3 witnesses has rarely been a problem.  All you need is 4 mana to go off the 2nd time (at the most...because that includes demonic tutoring for the time walk or vampiric tutoring after the oath resolves and before your draw), at its best, you use 1U the first and 2nd time.  On the 3rd oath activation, you usually pick up the skullclamp out of the graveyard and clamp your witnesses for a total of 9 cards drawn before your opponent does anything.  If he chose to block your witnesses with the spirit tokens, then you can keep going over and over again with the blessings restocking your deck.

Before you flame, realize that Angel Oath requires at least 2 times of passing the turn to its opponent to win.  My build of Oath gives them 1 usually, 2 at the worst and thats only after drawing 9 cards.
It packs duress and a suite of counters.

Yes, Leyline of the void would be devastating to this deck.  At the present, I haven't really answered that.
The only thing I can truly say to that is that I haven't seen leyline in many decks as of right now.  This is not to say that it won't pop up, but on the whole I have not.  Tormod's crypt on the other hand is a serious problem.  Ways I see to solve it include pithing needle out of the side board or just casting force of will on it if you can.  Withered Wretch won't be a big issue due to his requirement of having mana open to target the card or cards in the graveyard.  If wretch does get popular in anything, he is solved by the same answers that tormod's crypt is, pithing needle and force of will.

I do appreciate your comments, but I feel that you missed the important point of the fact that the blessing trigger doesn't resolve until after the eternal witness trigger does.

Also, what do you think about the changes that lochinwar suggested?

[brianpk80]

Have you considered Tidespout Tyrant?
You could probably get away with narrowing your win conditions down to one or two Tyrants and an Eternal Witness.  Dropping 2 Skullclamps, 2 Blessings, and the Fastbond/Crucible kill would open up a lot of slots to give you resilience. 
The Tyrant/Witness deck's main goal is:

Oath up Eternal Witness and Time Walk
Then Oath up the Tyrant and bounce the Witness to get Mox Emerald (infinite green with any other Mox) and Time Walk forever.
Or alternatively, just Yawgmoth's Will afer the Oath has put everything in the graveyard and win.

The best Tyrant/Witness Oath build I've seen packed 4 Merchant Scrolls (for Ancestral) so unlike standard Oath, it almost always had a relevant threatening Turn 1 play.  If you're worried about Tormod's Crypt, you can always Scroll for Wipe Away or Echoing Truth (which I now think should be standard in all Oath decks over Rushing River... I say this having died way too many times to my opponent's armada of Spirit tokens).

Nice work innovating. I can tell you've put a lot of thought into your build and you do a good job defending some of your card choices that have drawn criticism.  Best luck,

-BPK

[SiegeX]

I like this idea but let me offer a suggestion:

Screw Skull clamp, toss in 4 cabal therapies!  Ya you can only do this 4 times but if you have oath'd 4 times in a row and can't win kill yourself.

[nicofromtokyo]

Actually this deck is a creation of a the Japanese Team: the "Team Evolution ". Guys from Nagoya, they are using this deck for years here with success, and one member of the Team took the plane for the first time of his life to participate to the event. Unfortunatly, noone can speak english, but I will ask them if they have particular comments or list to gather with the TMD Community. It was the first appearance of this deck abroad, and I am happy for them this deck retained attention.

[Seraphim3577]

sorry nico if i'm stepping on anyone's toes here, but the only thing I took from anyone else was seeing eternal witness getting oathed out while i was walking by two type 1 players at gencon.  I didn't copy this list from anyone.  I do appreciate any suggestions and comments that anyone is willing to make, though.  I brought my deck with me last night to an fnm draft and ended up getting in a few games with it against other people with type 1 decks.

I played against a tendrils combo deck twice and went 1-1.
The first game I won the die roll and played a first turn orchard oath, while holding demonic tutor.
He played 2 moxes, a t academy and lotus and ended up combo'ing out first turn.
Game 2 I countered a critical combo piece and oathed on the fourth turn for the win.

I played against a variant of meandeck gifts and lost to it on the third turn when he resolved gifts after draining my counterspell on it.

Anywho, thats that.

Thoughts, questions, comments?

[EnialisLiadon]

What about md Goblin Bombardment?  That sacks your Witnesses, helps you win Orchard wars and is a win-condition all in one.

[Seraphim3577]

Goblin Bombardment sounds like an excellent idea.

I appreciate the comment.

So how does this sound?

Eternal Oath:

3 Eternal Witness
4 Oath of Druitds
2 Goblin Bombardment
2 Gaea's Blessing

4 Force of Will
4 Counterspell (drain causes too much pain)
2 Misdirection

4 Brainstorm
4 Duress
1 Engineered Explosives (could be stifle)
1 Crucible of Worlds

1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Crop Rotation
1 Burning Wish


1 Strip Mine
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Polluted Delta
4 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Volcanic Island



sb:
1 Massacre
1 Yawg Will
1 Hull Breach / 1 Meltdown
4 Swords To Plowshares
1 Chainer's Edict
4 Pithing Needle
3 ??? (maybe more massacre for fish matchups)

[AmbivalentDuck]

You realize that at this point, the combo is just plain bloated?  You've committed so many cards to your kill that you can't reliably protect your Oath.  That's a major concern even for the "mainstream" varieties.  If you want a fast kill off Oath, Salvagers can end the game the same turn it comes into play.  So can a hasty Cognivore (Dragon Breath).  There's also the "Final Fantasy" option using Platinum Angel to ignore the insta-loss condition on Final Fortune (Imprinted on Isochron).

I mean, even Oathing up Academy Rector and saccing it to Cabal Therapy gives you immediate access to Yawgmoth's Bargain.  You're much more likely to win if winning doesn't require playing spells other than Oath.

Also Remand>>Counterspell

[brianpk80]

3 Eternal Witness
2 Goblin Bombardment
2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Crucible of Worlds

I'm just going to point out that everything you're aiming to accomplish with these 8 cards can be done just as well with 1 Eternal Witness and 1 Tidespout Tyrant.  Making that switch would give you space for a maindeck Yawgmoth's Will, an additional Tyrant for protection against randomness and Extract effects, and four more protection/disruption/draw pieces, like Intuition or Life from the Loam. 

-BPK

[SiegeX]

Using Brian's suggestion on Tidespout Tyrant I came up with this version of the deck

// Lands
    4 Flooded Strand
    4 Forbidden Orchard
    1 Strip Mine
    2 Tropical Island
    3 Underground Sea
    2 Wasteland
    1 Island

// Creatures
    1 Tidespout Tyrant
    1 Eternal Witness

// Spells
    1 Gaea's Blessing
    1 Brain Freeze
    2 Duress
    4 Chalice of the Void
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Black Lotus
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire
    2 Null Rod
    4 Oath of Druids
    1 Time Walk
    4 Brainstorm
    1 Crop Rotation
    4 Force of Will
    4 Mana Drain
    1 Rushing River
    3 Thirst for Knowledge
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Demonic Tutor


As you can see it is very much like your standard oath except it has Eternal Witness + Tidespout Tyrant + Brainfreeze.  I decided to leave out Yawgmoth's Will because it is very anti-synergetic with Gaea's Blessing.  I tried a build with yawgwill without gaea's blessing and krosan reclimation in its place and I really wanted blessing back.  Tidespout Tyrant is really the star here as he can be the win condition in all of himself by bouncing all opp's perms and swinging for the win.  Additionally if you have a Witness out along side him you can make infi mana and then bring back a Brainfreeze FTW.  I'm actually considering on removing the brainfreeze and the rushing river and putting in two Cunning Wish's so I can use my SB as a resource and not clutter my library with 2 dead cards.

Ive played this deck about 5 games on MWS and its pretty much gg on the spot if you get oath going.  Another consideration is to add red so you can put in burning wish as well as recoup for the tendrils kill.  This will allow you to remove Witness altogether and have double Tyrants incase you get Extracted on games 2-3.

Regardless the configuration its very important the deck keep focus and not water it down with too many combo enabler pieces.  The list I posted as well as the proposed changes keep this in mind

[brianpk80]

Nice build.  My only suggestion would be to replace 1 Chalice of the Void, 1 Thirst for Knowledge, 1 Crop Rotation, and 1 Underground Sea with 2 Intuition, 1 Life from the Loam, and 1 Tolarian Academy.  Intuition is generally superior to TfK in Oath, because unlike Thirst, rather than drawing three cards and hoping you find it, Intuition will get you that Oath when you need it.  Further, it replaces Crop Rotation by casting Intuition for Forbidden Orchard, Strip Mine, and Life from the Loam.  Academy gives you another great Loam target because you'll find yourself able to hardcast the Tyrant more often than you'd initially believe.  It goes a long way. 

If you move the Brain Freeze to the sideboard, another alternative is to drop it altogether and add red for Burning Wish and maybe Wheel of Fortune.  Then, you can sideboard Tendrils of Agony, Balance, Timetwister, and Show and Tell as Wish targets.  In tandem, you might want to add a second Tyrant and maindeck Show and Tell, which I found extremely gamebreaking in my Tyrant Oath build.  If you do so, you would be able to drop Gaea's Blessing and maindeck Yawgmoth's Will.

Good luck!

-BPK

[AmbivalentDuck]

Definitely a more elegant build.

I'm going to disagree with Brian and say that the Rods are evil and should be cut for Cunning Wish.

Tyrant in play->play a spell->bounce a mox->replay mox->tap it->bounce a different mox via Tyrant -> repeat Mox bouncing and tapping => Infinite mana and storm count.  Cunning Wish protects this by fetching Misdirection, grabs the pretty new Split Second answers, AND grabs your win condition Brain Freeze.

[brianpk80]

I'm going to disagree with Brian and say that the Rods are evil and should be cut for Cunning Wish.

Null Rod is critical in the match-up because it's one of the few bombs Oath has to squeeze by the relatively horrible storm combo match-up.  Further, it should never prevent you from going off with your own Moxen because if that is your strategy, you simply bounce the Rod first.  Cunning Wish, on the other hand, alternates as an overpriced counterspell, an overpriced removal, an overpriced draw spell, or a superfluous kill.  It's hard to think of a situation where you need Cunning Wish to win the game when you have a 5/5 Flying bounce-everything beast in play.

Tyrant in play->play a spell->bounce a mox->replay mox->tap it->bounce a different mox via Tyrant -> repeat Mox bouncing and tapping => Infinite mana and storm count.  Cunning Wish protects this by fetching Misdirection, grabs the pretty new Split Second answers, AND grabs your win condition Brain Freeze.

Correct. 
I'm not sure if the other interaction has been apparent enough in this thread, so I'll make it explicit:

Tyrant -> Tap Mox X for -> Play Mox Emerald -> Bounce Mox X -> Tap Emerald for -> Replay Mox X -> Bounce Mox Emerald -> Replay Mox Emerald -> Bounce Eternal Witness -> Tap Emerald for -> Replay Eternal Witness, bouning Mox Emerald -> Target Time Walk with Witness -> Cast Time Walk, bouncing Mox X...

-BPK
 

[AmbivalentDuck]

Adding Rod adds both an extra spell (to bounce the Rod) and extra mana (to play the extra spell to bounce the Rod) to the kill.  If you're going to kill *two* turns after Tidespout comes into play, just play a "normal" Oath build and kill with angels instead of wasting maindeck slots on storm kill.   The only solid argument for wasting slots on a "larger" kill is adding speed.  This deck is innappropriate in the metagame due to its low resilience against combo.  Even "suboptimal" cards like the cleric that gives you life equal to the number of cards in your graveyard can effectively end the game against combo the turn they're oathed (or Children of Korlis which I'd think strongly about replacing Witness with post-side against Combo).   

Cunning Wish is exactly what you say it is: an overpriced something else.  That said, it's an instant speed blue tutor with no card loss.  It can fetch your kill (no extra cost since you have "infinite" mana resources) or completely prevent any hope of a Colossus or Tendrils kill late game.  I'd argue very strongly that the Split Second cards made it *better* than Intuition.  It adds consistency by acting like Brainfreeze 2 and 3.  Yes, I know it can be countered, but any opposing counterspell can theoretically slow you down a turn anyways.

As far as having a less than optimal combo matchup...yeah.  That's Oath.   You could theoretically maindeck brutal hate just because combo's so prevalent in the metagame though.  Sure Leyline of the Void sucks to draw late game, but it buys you at LEAST two turns.  The format has too many answers for artifacts as evidenced by the slow demise of THE Null Rod deck: Stax.  I mean, even Planar Void is a reasonable answer:

Stack the RFG effect, stack the witness/blessing -> Grab Time Walk or shuffle.  Either way, you likely lose nothing relevant.  This approach pivots on running the Wishes so you can't RFG your one Brain Freeze, though.

EDIT:  Martyrs can be children, but children shouldn't be martyrs.  Oops.

[SiegeX]

I had a really good reply to this but as soon as I hit 'send' I got an error and it appears my reply didnt go through so ill try to make this as breif as possible and remove the part regarding bouncing your own null rod that Brian already mentioned and reply to the cunning wish arguments.

I think intuition is a great idea, I never really liked thirst in this deck anyway

I have my doubts with Life from the loam, I feel its taking this deck in another direction, ie mana denial by breaking stip/wasteland.  I only need one activation of Orchard to enable oath and Im guarenteed that if I can sucessfully cast intuition for 3xOrchard.  If they wasteland/strip my Orchard that very turn, the damage has already been done.

I would much rather remove 4xChalice of the Void since more often than not I end up going "god damn chalice" and I'm the one who put it down.  Null rod is a must keep because its great even mid to late game, it hits more than just moxen, it allows me to actually play moxen to enable tyrant and power Academy etc etc.

I really think Cunning wish is the right call because Brain Freeze is never played until you have infi mana anyway, so in that case why not play a card that allows you to grab something else just in case pops up.  

And here are the changes I would make

-1 Brainfreeze
-1 Rushing River
-4 Chalice of the Void
-3 Thirst for Knowledge

+2 Cunning Wish
+4 Impulse
+2 Intuition
+1 Tolarian Academy

In regards to intuition, I think 2 is the right number but its not enough for this deck to rely upon so I think Impulse is the right call.  That along with brainstorm should be more than enough digging to get the oath online.

[SiegeX]

Even "suboptimal" cards like the cleric that gives you life equal to the number of cards in your graveyard can effectively end the game against combo the turn they're oathed

Sure Leyline of the Void sucks to draw late game, but it buys you at LEAST two turns.  The format has too many answers for artifacts as evidenced by the slow demise of THE Null Rod deck: Stax.  I mean, even Planar Void is a reasonable answer:

Damn, you trumped me on two cards I was about to talk about.  I really didnt expect anybody to mention 'Ancesetor's Chosen' which is the Cleric I believe you are referring to.  In fact just yesterday I used MWS to list all creatures with cmc >= 7 (usually these are the guys with the broken effects) and I came upon this and said 'wow, he would really put me out of combo's reach.' 

And as for leyline of the void, that was in my post that didnt get through, I was going to suggest replacing Chalice of the Void with Leyline 1for1.  Like you said, it sucks as a topdeck but I think brainstorm+impulse might make it more palletable and so many decks abuse the GY, present company included.

About the Martyr, im not sure what is so great about him, if its for DSC then since im guessing the Martyr is being oath'd out id much rather pull Tidespount and return DSC to opp's hand.

Here is another crazy idea that may warrant a new thread but I thought id toss it out for initial responses.  Since oath wants to disrupt and slow the game down until it gets oath online, and since stax is the king of disruption, has anybody considered an oath/stax hybrid?  I remember playing against an Ubastax varient that uses Bazaar and Barbarian Ring + Crucible of Words for the kill.  I could easily see Bazaar/Ring being replaced with Orchard and Crucible replaced with Oath.  IIRC the only creature the deck had were goblin welders which are not fundamental to the deck.  For game 2 or 3 you might be able to keep the artifact hate away just long enough to make them irrelevant when oath hits the table, or even sb away the oath for a straight ubastax game.   We might not even have to go with the combo solution, just two tyrants to make the opp's board dissapear and swing for the win. Anyway, just a crazy idea that may or may not work.

[AmbivalentDuck]

The Children are a one-mana answer to Tendrils that you can Oath up and can't be Duressed.

I'd definitely leave the Tidespout in against...well...everything.  But I think you'd cut the Witness against combo.  I'd cut Witness against Fish and put in Thunder Dragon (I think that's the card from Starter that deals 3 damage to all creatures?)  For Stax, I'd leave the Witness in and toss 1-2 Rebuild into the deck.

And I'm slowly starting to think that Planar Void would be better than Leyline.  You can hard cast it, FoW buys you turn 1 against combo (so you don't need turn 0 disruption), and since you don't run Yawg Will it doesn't affect much if you *really* careful.

Actually, Rebuild is *really* good in this deck...


EDIT:  Martyrs can be children, but children shouldn't be martyrs.  Oops.

[SiegeX]

Oh oh oh, you mean Children of the Korlis, heh thats alot different cause Martyr of Korlis says "As long as Martyrs of Korlis is untapped, all damage that would be dealt to you by artifacts is dealt to Martyrs of Korlis instead" which is why I was scratching my head going WTF? =P

anyway, ya rebuild isnt bad at all in this deck and from my exp oath doesn't have the best game vs stax.  The only win I had agaisnt it with my inferior build was when I wished for rebuild at EOT, triggered oath and brainfreezed ftw

[rmn]

4 Oath of Druids
1 Eternal Witness
1 Krosan Reclamation
2 Pandemonium
2 Saproling Burst
2 Replenish

4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Misdirection

4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
4 Intuition
1 Ray of Revelation
1 Ancient Grudge
2 Deep Analysis
3 Orim's Chant/Stifle

4 Forbidden Orchard
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
1 Island

This list is pretty much off the top of my head.  You should totally try it.  The kill is not nearly as complicated and hard to pull off as yours, and with an opening hand including 2 land, 2 mox, 1 Oath, it goldfishes on turn 2.  I've tried to add a little resilience by using doubles of all the combo pieces plus the artifact/enchant destruction, but you can take it out if you want a more consistent early kill.  Plus, Mana Drain lets you hardcast the combo if you like.

Edit: Every time I post this deck I just get ignored.  It's weird.

[brianpk80]

Adding Rod adds both an extra spell (to bounce the Rod) and extra mana (to play the extra spell to bounce the Rod) to the kill.  If you're going to kill *two* turns after Tidespout comes into play, just play a "normal" Oath build and kill with angels instead of wasting maindeck slots on storm kill.   The only solid argument for wasting slots on a "larger" kill is adding speed.  This deck is innappropriate in the metagame due to its low resilience against combo. 

Tidespout Tyrant gives several advantages over Angels that you may be dismissing too quickly.  First, they are generally hardcastable by the fourth or fifth turn and beyond, and even earlier with Mana Drain and Academy.  (I know it's an outlier, but I would be remiss in not mentioning that I once scored a turn one Academy, Jet, Emerald, Lotus -> Tyrant, followed by Time Walk next turn, Regrowth on Time Walk the following, and Yawgmoth's Will -> Time Walk again).    Second, if used in multiples, they clog the hand up less by pitching to Force of Will and/or Misdirection.  Third, they have an innate synergy with Show & Tell because you can negate Show's drawback by auto-bouncing anything your opponent puts into play.  Fourth, they are actually much stronger v. combo than Angels because while Angels give you a comparably slow clock v. Long, Tyrants give you an added capability of disruption by bouncing their lands, Sol Ring, Memory Jar, etc.  This is especially pertinent if you do run Null Rods, which, while I kept mine in the sideboard, I see no fault with running maindeck.  If you run Chalice, like SiegeX does, then bouncing an opponent's previously resolved Moxen is likewise relevant.  With a rampaging Tyrant bouncing lands and Moxen, then Chalice @ 1 makes a near hard lock and at most a 3 turn clock to escape it.  Root Maze is a particularly nasty lock piece in Tyrant Oath and I wholly advocate including at least one maindeck. 

Also, if I had a Tidespout Tyrant and a Null Rod in play, my strategy would be to keep the Rod in play, bounce lands, and win by clobbering for five each turn.  In sum, I've found Tyrants coupled with a mana denial strategy to be the best route for the deck.  Accordingly, I disagree with the notion that failing to include generally dead cards like Brain Freeze renders Tyrant Oath strictly inferior to aggro-Oath. 

Cunning Wish is exactly what you say it is: an overpriced something else.  That said, it's an instant speed blue tutor with no card loss.  It can fetch your kill (no extra cost since you have "infinite" mana resources) or completely prevent any hope of a Colossus or Tendrils kill late game.  I'd argue very strongly that the Split Second cards made it *better* than Intuition.  It adds consistency by acting like Brainfreeze 2 and 3.  Yes, I know it can be countered, but any opposing counterspell can theoretically slow you down a turn anyways.

Intuition and Cunning Wish can hardly be compared because they occupy such different niches in this deck.  Intuition isn't included to guide you out of rough spots like Cunning Wish for Wipe Away.  Intuition is an end of turn non-card disadvantage tutor for Oath of Druids.  Additionally, in the appropriate build, it's a tutor for Life from the Loam and any two lands, like the other combo-piece Forbidden Orchard and Strip Mine, Tolarian Academy, or Library of Alexandria.  By the way, the latter example used for Intuition is always the deciding play in an Oath mirror.  Your opponent usually doesn't recover from such a deafening blow in the Orchard war.

As far as having a less than optimal combo matchup...yeah.  That's Oath.   You could theoretically maindeck brutal hate just because combo's so prevalent in the metagame though.  Sure Leyline of the Void sucks to draw late game, but it buys you at LEAST two turns.  The format has too many answers for artifacts as evidenced by the slow demise of THE Null Rod deck: Stax.  I mean, even Planar Void is a reasonable answer:

Planar Void is tragic in a deck whose goal is to empty its library into the graveyard and recur something from there infinitely.  If you Oath up anything other than the Witness, you've probably disembowled your own win condition.   
And "the Null Rod" deck, Stax, generally doesn't even run Null Rods anymore, opting instead for Jester's Caps, Karn, Silver Golem, Triskelion, Granite Shards, and Tangle Wires.   In fact, the deck that both Gifts and Pitch Long players acknowledge as their most annoying is Fish, which typically does run Null Rod.  The three lock pieces that chafe Long players the most are Trinisphere (which I could definitely see maindecking in Oath and have done with varying degrees of success), Null Rod, and Sphere of Resistance.   

Here is another crazy idea that may warrant a new thread but I thought id toss it out for initial responses.  Since oath wants to disrupt and slow the game down until it gets oath online, and since stax is the king of disruption, has anybody considered an oath/stax hybrid?
...
We might not even have to go with the combo solution, just two tyrants to make the opp's board dissapear and swing for the win. Anyway, just a crazy idea that may or may not work.

I think this is a good idea.  Check out some of the comments regarding an Oath Prison build from August and September:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=29749.0

-BPK

[Seraphim3577]

BPK, I really appreciate your comments on the deck.  They are well thought out and structured.  That said, your deck still has some (not all) of the same issues that the others have.  Oath's common weaknesses (angel and tyrant builds share these) are:  Challice for 2, extract,  and swords to plowshares.  My version of the deck is resilliant to stp and extract by being able to take 1 hit from one of these answers, but not 2.  My version is significantly weaker to graveyard hate.  That said,  which one appears to be the best answer to the metagame?

Tyrant offers a little more disruption post oath than angel does, but is weaker in the sense that it does not win the game as fast as angel oath (a big problem vs combo).  My version (eternal oath) wins the game usually the first turn that it gets to oath a creature out (by first turn, i mean before your opponent gets to take another turn due to recurring timewalk several times).  The current version of the deck would be resilient to null rod (only affecting some mana) but would have some difficulty with pithing needle. 

The reason that I am currently clinging to my build (eternal oath) is for the following reason:  It locks the opponent out as soon as you successfully oath.  I have no real answer leyline of the void, but i feel that engineered explosives or stifle could handle most of the problems presented by common forms of graveyard hate.  I still feel that the deck wants to run skullclamp due to its ability to shut the opponent out of the game after oath (eventually using goblin bombardment as the win), but this brings back a weakness to nullrod that makes the fish matchup just as bad as angel oath (angel oath is weak vs stp).

Thoughts, questions, comments?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Oath's common weaknesses (angel and tyrant builds share these) are:  Challice for 2, extract,  and swords to plowshares.  My version of the deck is resilliant to stp and extract by being able to take 1 hit from one of these answers, but not 2.  My version is significantly weaker to graveyard hate.  That said,  which one appears to be the best answer to the metagame?

The reason that I am currently clinging to my build (eternal oath) is for the following reason:  It locks the opponent out as soon as you successfully oath.

Um, using the suggested Cunning Wish plan you have three answers to Chalice at 2, or Brian's suggestion of just hardcasting the Tyrant.  Extract isn't really a big deal either: Just board one copy of Research/Development or ignore it completely.  If they take the Tyrant, you can just use the Cunning Wish->Research option to put Yawg Will into your maindeck and bounce that using the Witness.  I mean, Seraphim's version also dies to Extract on Time Walk.  It's no less Extract-resistant.

Swords to Plowshares is almost certainly not a problem.  If they hit the Witness, who cares?  Just beat down with the Tyrant.  If they hit the Tyrant, just bounce it in response or counter the StP.