Duress vs. Misdirection in Oath

[poopyhineydinky]

I am trying to build Oath and I am not sure which is better: Duress or Misdirection?  Do these differences represent a fundamental shift on how the decks are played?  Your insight would be appreciated.

Here are to builds that I refer to:

#1 Courtesy of AngryPheldagriff

ICBM Oath v.3.14159

Mana:
5 Moxen
1 Black Lotus
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Tropical Island
2 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Win:
4 Oath of Druids
1 Razia
1 Akroma
1 Gaea's Blessing

Active control:
4 Chalice of the Void
2 Null Rod
3 Duress

Reactive control:
4 Mana Drain
4 Force of Will

Draw/Manipulation:
4 Brainstorm
3 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall

Tutors/other:
1 Time Walk
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Crop Rotation
1 Rushing River

Sideboard:
2 Simic Sky Swallower
2 Pithing Needle
2 Oxidize
1 Rushing River
1 Darkblast
5-7 Metagame slots, depending on if you like Tinker/Colossus or not

#2 Courtesy of Ben Carp

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
4 Chalice Of The Void
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Null Rod

Enchantments
4 Oath Of Druids

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Crop Rotation
4 Force Of Will
4 Mana Drain
3 Misdirection
3 Thirst For Knowledge
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Wipe Away

Legendary Creatures
1 Akroma, Angel Of Wrath
1 Razia, Boros Archangel

Sorceries
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Time Walk

Lands
2 Flooded Strand
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Mishra's Factory
2 Polluted Delta
1 Strip Mine
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Wasteland

Sideboard:
2 Pithing Needle
2 Simic Sky Swallower
3 Oxidize
2 Trickbind
1 Wipe Away
2 Life From The Loam
3 Mishra's Factory

[OfficeShredder]

Oath is one of those decks where I don't think it makes that much of a difference... the win condition costs very little mana, and both of them are really inexpensive solutions.  Duress is possibly better because it can hit wipe away, whereas misdirection can't, but overall they're probably not that different.

[Metman]

It's not that big of a deal whichever you choose.  Both do fundementally the same thing, protect your Oath and stop them from winning really fast.  In my testing it's been a comfortablilty thing.  I prefer the effect of Duress better but it requires you to drop a black source on the first turn.  Misdirection doesn't require mana but Oath doesn't have the strongest draw engine and may leave you with blue spells you really don't want to pitch.  Plus it doens't hit stuff like Seal of Cleansing.  Pick your poison or play both. 

[OfficeShredder]

After a bit more thinking, I've realized also that duress doesn't help the standard turn one play of orchard, mox, oath, go, so may in fact force you to play more defensively (purely hypothetical, the situation of orchard, mox, oath duress or orchard, mox, oath misdirection + other blue card is probably quite rare)

[poopyhineydinky]

So if I understand you, Misdirection offers a better chance for a Turn 1 Oath.  It also makes your opponents Ancestral riskier and offers better protection against Swords.  Duress, which is more controlling.  Would it be correct to assume that Duress is also better against Long, Gifts, and Stax?  Is it simply a meta choice is there some reasoning with substance to to choose one over the other?

[dad]

Well, I think the issue of the two cards is CotV.  You frequently want to set the Chalice at 1, which renders Duress useless.  That said, I think Duress is the better card in the current meta, but you need to play it to see if you like it.

Here is a question: Has anyone tested Bogarden Hellkite?  It virtually has haste or clears the board of Bob's, Welders, Bouncers, etc...

[Hydra]

Misdirection has seen play in ICBM Oath over Duress for a few reasons, most of which have been addressed here already.  Greater flexibility to set Chalice at 1, Duress' near uselessness against Fish, helping fix the deck's mana requirements, and adding another card to pitch to Force all contributed to Misdirection getting the nod.  Duress was often times a card where you'd play it and immediately realize you had just wasted a turn because your opponent had nothing threatening.

ICBM Oath is a deck that runs a lot of answers (Null Rod/Chalice/Drain/FOW) to various problem cards the deck might have, and as a result of that there's really a lack of cards you care about your opponent having in hand (obvious exception bring the broken nuts).  I'm a firm believer that in this deck Misdirection is better, although I'd be leaning towards Duress over MisD in other Drain decks.

[Smmenen]

Here's what I'll say on the matter, note that I'm a huge proponent of Misdirection and have been for years.  MDG originally had 3 and my GroAtog decks from back in the day ran 4.

Duress is an overall superior card, but Misdirection is more effective at protecting your spells (ignoring the costs of the card).    The reason I run Misd over Duress in Gifts is that Duress is a shitty card for protecting a turn three Gifts.  It just can't do it.  Misdirection is great at protecting not only early bombs like Anestral, but also Gifts. 

I also ran Misd in Oath when I first built early Oath lists with Orchard, but I would run both because Oath probably needs Duress, not to protect its Oaths, but to not lose the game.

[brianpk80]

I prefer Misdirection to both Duress and Mana Drain in my Oath lists (which are usually Tyrant based, giving a higher than typical blue count to complement both FoW and MisD).  Misdirection is an offensive counter, so it's prime use is to defend your offensive plays.  Although Storm decks can goldfish ridiculously early in the game, playing Oath of Druids itself is still one of the most offensive moves you can make against a large cross section of the decks currently played.  Misdirection is online on Turn 0 so there's a bit of a speed edge there against Turn 1 Ancestral-fueld Ritual/Tutor plays that come up from time to time and plays that require double counters.  The is harder on Oath than any other deck running black because half the time, it means you'll be giving a Spirit token to an opponent on Turn 1 when you might not have the Oath ready.  If it turns out you're opponent is playing Fish, there's a decent chance that token may end up later delivering a lethal blow; it happens all the time. 

The engines I run in Oath these days are inspired by a list an acquaintance of mine from Europe was running a few months ago.  Apparently Merchant Scrolls are (were?) big in some Oath lists there.  I liked how they felt in Oath, especially since I always ran Intuition.  It gives 8 very relevant turn 1 plays (Scroll for Recall or Oath of Druids).  You can Scroll up your Oath too, technically, if you Scroll for Intuition and cast it for 3 Oaths.  Then toolkit cards in the maindeck or sideboard, like Echoing Truth or Trickbind, become very accesible. 

I'd shy away from the aggro builds and go towards a Tyrant based prison.  A Tyrant may be one turn "slower" but against the decks where that matters, its disruption goes much farther than damage.  Pitch Long won't mind taking 6 to the face from Akroma but it will hate seeing you Brainstorm and play a Pearl, bouncing their two lands, and then laying Chalice @ 0 and bouncing their Mox.   

The problem with aggro-Oath is that Akroma + Razia will never be as aggressive as Tendrils of Agony so more disruptive creatures (Tyrant, Arbiter) help enable the more controlling route you'll be inevitably forced into playing.  Against less aggressive decks like Fish, Tyrants are just as ferocious as Angels most of the time.  And they're a wrecking ball v. Stax.

So in sum, Misdirection over Duress definitely.  And I'd consider an ensemble of Scrolls + Intuition + bounce in place of the Mana Drains. 

-BPK

[taniquetil]

Since we're on the topic of tools in Oath, what do you people think of running Null Rods and Extirpates?

[Nehptis]

I've recently picked up Oath again and to re-educate myself I pulled up some of Steve's SCG Articles.  Although they are a bit dated in terms of today's meta-game I think his core concepts are still relevant.  In one article he talks about how his builds should be played like control decks.  "Going turn 1 Orchard, Mox, Oath is not the right play."  Unless you can back it up ( http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/9476.html ).  It's better to build a strong position of control, and then drop the combo.  The optimal play style of Oath reminds me of Gifts.  Draw / Tutor cards, build a strong controlling position, and then win (in 2 two turns with Oath vs. 1 with Gifts).  So, with this in mind I like MisD over Duress.

Also, I'm intrigued with brianpk80's discussion of Tyrant Oath vs. Angel Oath and would like to hear some more about his thoughts on this and also I'd like to see a deck list.  Possibly in a new thread on the topic.

[Seraphim3577]

I think it truly depends on your meta and your build.  My combo (eternal witness) oath deck was able to find room for duress and misdirection but it was at the cost of not running chalice and null rod.  I think that what you run as your win will definitely affect how you decide to disrupt your opponents. 

For example:  Angel Oath kills 2-3 turns after it sets up its combo (oath = orchard / opponent's creatures)

Combo Oath is meant to kill / lock the game out the first turn after it achieves its combo.

On the face, it appears that there is only 1 turn difference in the kills.  The significance comes in the turns these kills happen.

Combo Oath: turns 3-5 for normal goldfish
Angel Oath: turns 3.5-6 for normal goldfish

This means that angel oath is going to attempt to delay the game by playing cards that deny mana.  These include wasteland, chalice of the void, and nullrod.  In a vacuum, those cards are significantly weaker at stopping your opponent's gameplan than duress and misdirection.   They are very good at delaying gamestates, though.  This plays into Angel Oath's hands.

More importantly, what purpose are you trying to serve with your disruption piece here?  Are you looking to force your oath's through (cue misdirection), or are you attempting to put the breaks on your opponent at the detriment of your manabase (duress).  I don't really like chalice and null rod as solutions to the environment right now due to the prevalence of fish in my meta (chalice doesn't affect them much unless set to 1 and nullrod is run in their deck quite frequently).  I think that duress is better at fixing the matchups that oath has troubles with (combo).  Oath's manabase will be easily wasteable anyways due to orchards, so I don't think that exposing your mana for a 3rd color turns 1-2 is that serious of a problem for the deck.  You should be aggressively mull'ing hands that don't have at least 2 and most of the time 3 mana sources most of the time anyway.

Further, duress is the most amazing card at helping you not make mistakes.  So many games bog down into does he have force or not?  Duress gives you this information while affecting their hand.  Misdirection does not.  Both can affect matchups in the same way (forcing through an oath), but duress is much more versatile and can give you much more information about your opponents hand.

If I didn't work full-time and have a girlfriend, I would write an entire article about knowledge and options as it applies to my 3 favorite formats (type 1, 1.5, and 1.x).  Seeing as I barely have time to write up a top 8 report for my last ptq, I'll have to put that on hold.

Suffice to say, there are soo many times that a player makes mistakes based off imperfect knowledge of the gamestate.  Knowing what is in your opponent's hand and how it affects yours is the most important thing that you can have when you play any kind of deck.  Cards like peek are very poor at furthering their controller's gameplans, but they make imperfect desicions much much better.

[mox apricot]

Misdirection enables turn 1 orchard mox oath go protection, duress needs another mana source.
Duress provides information on the amount of control you have to compete with and clears something out.
Misdirection often finds its self being a dead card. However, people will definitely think twice before laying out a recall
Duress can usually find something to target
I’ve played with both and prefer the speed of misdirection by a narrow margin.

[Kirika]

I aggree it really depends on your meta game.

As others  stated Misdirection helps force through the first turn or early Oath.   Where Duress you need a black source also however it can strip combo of a key peice or get rid of a nasty spell in addition to clearing a counter to resolve oath doing double duty.  If you see alot of combo and control Duress might be a good choice instead of Misdirection.   I ran both at one point but moved more towards Misdirection as that doesn't stretch the mana as much having to fetch or get black early then you need green to cast the Oath too as well as it works ok with the Thirst/Chalice plan where Duress does not.