[Deck] Yawgmoth's Oath

[netherspirit]

I've been trying to find a decent new Oath build for a long time; and after building many variations of Oath I've come to a combo version that I've found works very well a lot of the time.

The idea is to dump your whole library into your graveyard and then Recoup Yawgmoth's Will and go insane. There's only one problem with this - flashbacked Recoup + Yawgmoth's Will = 

So, naturally the deck is very mana consuming; but as I am using red and black I have access to many nice rituals.

Yawgmoth's Oath:

Mana Base:
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Lotus Petal
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
5 Moxen
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Forbidden Orchard
2 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand

Essentials:
4 Oath of Druids
1 Obstinate Familiar
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Recoup

Acceleration:
4 Dark Ritual
4 Rite of Flame
1 Fastbond

Disruption:
4 Duress
2 Extirpate

Draw/Tutor:
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Necropotence
4 Brainstorm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Crop Rotation

Storm Enablers:
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild

The Kill:
1 Tendrils of Agony

Well that's the list. The deck's aim is to drop an Oath as quickly as possible, just ignoring the opponent. You have Duress and Extirpate to ensure your key cards aren't countered, you have the 8 Ritual effects to make sure you can cast Recoup --> Yawg's Will, and you have Obstinate Familiar to stop you decking out once your library is in the 'yard.

So, explanations!

Oath of Druids - I guess this is obvious but I'll explain anyway. You simply use this to tutor up Obstinate Familiar and dump your library into your graveyard.

Obstinate Familiar - Once you have no library you need a way to prevent your draws; while the "Words" enchantments would work as well, they can't be brought into play using Oath, so I chose Obstinate Familiar to ensure I don't deck out.

Recoup - Allows you to play Yawg's Will from the graveyard.

Dark Ritual/Rite of Flame - In combination with each other or the many artifact accelerants it is easy enough to get the mana for Recoup --> Yawgmoth's Will by turn 2 or 3.

Duress - Black's best disruption.

Extirpate - I only use it to get rid of counters or Extirpates as they are the only cards that really hurt my game plan once I've "gone off".

Necropotence - Turn 1 it's insane; but any later and it kinda sucks. It rarely shows up, though, so drawing it later in the game isn't much of a problem.

Crop Rotation - Grabs Forbidden Orchard or Tolarian Academy. A nice little storm increaser too.

Chain of Vapor/Hurkyl's Recall/Rebuild - These three serve the obvious purpose of allowing me to bounce my artifacts repeatedly, but they also allow me to deal with artifact threats. I've chosen these three because between them it would take three Chalices (all at different settings) to counter all of them.

Well, I think I've explained the cards thoroughly enough. My sideboard at the moment is:

3 Pithing Needle (For dealing with Tormod's Crypt and Withered Wretch)
2 Pull From Eternity (For general 'yard hate)
1 Balance (Fish, Oath, Goblins)
1 Burning Wish

Obviously it needs more though!

Well that's it; so, any thoughts, comments or suggestions? I really want to get this deck working better; at the moment it's brilliant when it goes off but there are still occasions where it just falls to pieces.

Any help would be very much appreciated!

Thanks guys!

  netherspirit

[Duncan]

This deck looks a lot like the older combo oaths, only they used krosan reclamation to shuffle Yawgmoth's Will back instead of recouping it. That's a cheaper so more solid strategy. Now you have to play an Obstinate Familiar to prevent you from decking. The familiar will slow your deck down by a whole turn, which is truly bad. So reclamation seems the way to go to me.

Another question: why do you play fastbond? You don't play that many lands, and you have enough mana acceleration to combo out once your whole deck is in your graveyard.

Good luck with the deck!

[netherspirit]

I just play Fastbond because it's randomly good if you get what I mean. Sure it does nothing sometimes, but others it's just insane; however, it will probably be cut soon... I just need something to fill the spot with; I'm considering Intuition.

As for the old decks; I've never heard of them until you mentioned them! Seems like something worth looking into!

Thanks so much for the reply Duncan! Very much appreciated!

  netherspirit

[verduran]

Eternal witness is another way to get Y's will back into your hand and has a bit more flexibility. Granted, it's slow.

[netherspirit]

As good as Eternal Witness is I don't think it would work particularly well because there's a strong chance that I'd Oath it up before Yawgmoth's Will is in my graveyard. It might be worth trying though.

[Seraphim3577]

Eternal Witness does not slow the deck down at all...it speeds it up in fact.

The deck i piloted to 3rd place at a pasttimes tourney a few months back sported 2 witnesses for the recursion aspect.

Remember, if you oath up a witness and don't hit your will, you still probably oathed up a demonic / vampiric tutor or a timewalk.  If you oathed the timewalk, just timewalk into your next turn and oath again.  9/10 times this works.  The 10th time, you just oath up the 2nd witness, recur timewalk, and then use reclamation to put the yawg will back in your librarly.

[silvernail]

Hows the timing work on using Oath though? do you put the creature into play after your chuck your deck to the yard ( the card has to be in the yard already to be a legal target) ?

[Harlequin]

The trigger for eternal witness won't go on the stack until gamestate is checked.  Gamestate is checked -after- oath is completely done resolving (which includes putting the cards in the yard).  Then the active player will make all choices (including the order of resolution) that are to be made for all triggered abilites they control.  In this case, they would need to choose a target for eternal witness - and the cards will be in the yard at this time.

[Seraphim3577]

running eternal witness instead of obstinate familiar lets you do the following:
-8 rituals
-1 familiar
-1 recoup
+2 eternal witness

hurkyls recall / rebuild is plenty once you have dropped 5 pieces of jewelry to bounce back to your hand.

that leaves you with a net gain of 8 cards to help you find your oaths and protect your combo.

I would add in 4 fow and 4 of another counter (mana drain in my deck) or tutor effect here.

I personally liked adding in merchant scrolls and gifts for my tutors instead of necrop and others, but you could easily just add in leaks / rune snags and stick with your tutor / draw engine. 

Just my 2 cents on a deck i've already built and played at a tourney.  Good luck with your build.

[netherspirit]

I've just been testing with -1 Fastbond, -1 Necro, -1 Familiar, +1 Krosan Reclamation, +1 Regrowth and +1 Time Walk.

This allows me to flashback the Reclamation, shuffling Regrowth and Recoup, and then use the drawn card to play Time Walk. Next turn I then use the remaining of the two cards to play Yawgmoth's Will and win... I'm not sure how I feel about this build though..

[Thegreatgonzo]

Krosan reclamation shuffles up to two cards. So you don't need recoup/regrowth to get will, you just need to shuffle will alone in your deck. Then you just draw it and win the game.

Just my 2 cents, good luck with your deck

[netherspirit]

Oooh, I didn't realise the Reclamation said up to! My bad! Thanks!

EDIT:

I've taken out the Regrowth and Recoup and added 2 Intuition; would cutting 4 Rite of Flame for 1 Intuition and 3 Cabal Ritual be a wise idea? (Therefore allowing me to alter my mana base too).

[Seraphim3577]

i don't think you need the cabal rits at all.

If the goal is to oath up most of your library, just include hurkyl's recall / rebuild to build up your storm.
You should have some mana artifacts in the graveyard, too.  Yawg will, recur the moxen + lotus, recall / rebuild (after tapping for mana), replay moxen + lotus, tendrils.

Its pretty straight forward.  All you need are the artifacts in your graveyard and a bounce spell to buld up your storm.  Tapping them for mana is usually all you need to do, also.

If you want to include 1 dark rit / cabal rit, that wouldn't be a bad idea...but you don't need 4 of either, much less 8. 

I found that I usually had all the mana i needed when doing this for a couple reasons...1) black lotus generates absurd amounts of mana for you while jacking your storm count up  2) you can play tolarian academy out of your graveyard to tap for a bunch of mana with your moxen out.

This also gives you a good reason to run engineered explosives (great for fish matchups) as a free spell to play from your graveyard and then out of your hand again after hurkyl's / rebuild.

I'm not going to say that dark ritual / cabal ritual wouldnt be handy in "going off" sometimes, but its important to note that they really aren't needed that much.  Yawg will = win 98% of the time

[Harlequin]

Isn't there some creature who has : Recoup on a stick?

Any thoughts about him + dragon's breath instead of eternal witness?  It essentially does the same thing, but hes an alternate win condition (because hes got decent P/T) if you face Tormod's or something like that.

[Seraphim3577]

its a 3/3 for 5 mana...it is blue which could make it more attractive.  At 5 mana, though, dragon's breath won't auto attach to it from the yard.

[Harlequin]

its a 3/3 for 5 mana...it is blue which could make it more attractive.  At 5 mana, though, dragon's breath won't auto attach to it from the yard.

Oh I thought he was stronger / more casting cost then that ... oh well.

[Judge_Julez]

Hi from the UK,

...well I have been enamoured with Y.Will in this deck ever since FAILING to hit a Gaea's & then stumbling upon the Y.Will that I had put in there as the 59th or 60th card, as I was running a lot of Black after getting my Imperial Seal. The recursion was so good that I managed to hard cast Akroma from the Graveyard, which made me think 'Tendrils would have worked there' with such a full graveyard.


Anyway, here is the current build that I am playing...


Mana Base:
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
2 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Mishra's Factory

Spells:
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Rebuild
1 Time Walk
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Fastbond
1 Regrowth
4 Oath of Druids

Disruption/Counters:
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Leak
4 Muddle the Mixture

Draw/Tutor:
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Tinker
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Crop Rotation

Creatures:
1 Akroma (w)
1 Darksteel Colossus


________________

My oen major concern is the 4x Muddle in the 4xDuress slot. I have found the Muddle FAR FAR more useful to pitch to Force-of-Will; and it is inherently a tutor within itself to go get an Oath; which I seem to have to use one in every 3 games. I am still unhappy at losing the access to Duress, which is why it remains as a 3x of in the sidebarod against blue decks.

I have gone for less symbiosis in the cards, but utilising the Tinker/Colossus (with the support of all the Black Tutors) seems pretty strong.  The factories offer a 3rd form of victory against any non-land permanant clearance...I am pretty much forced into using the Mishra's due to the local creature-heavy metagame, as a tap to create a 3/3 blocker stops Kird Apes as well as pesky elves.

Regrowth+Time Walk (or Will for Time Walk) seems to happen fairly reguarly as well.

I have also tried 4x Disk, 4x E.Explosives and 4x Chalice; but the deck plays out pretty well as is.
I have also removed the off-colour moxes as I can acheive the STORM combo even without Pearl and Ruby. I much prefer having the Crpyt and Petal in their place. It's enough. I dont feel that you need to ''max out'' on the

• cost artifacts. I really have not experienced mana problems in this build.

If this gives you an idea or two that you can see incorportated into your version - then great. The only thing that jumped out at me - was that I am runnign Regrowth in place of your Recoup

Regards,

[verduran]

Just thought combo Oath players might enjoy reading this

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=mtgcom/daily/af39

[Seraphim3577]

Something that I noticed in your build, judge, is you are still oathing up 2 critters despite running colossus.  I think this is a mistake.  If you want to oath to kill in 1 turn, play witness; 2 turns, play angels; 3 turns, play colossus.  Witness makes you more vulnerable to graveyard hate.  Angels do not have the added ability of using tinker.  Colossus is the slowest of the 3.  Mixing angels and colossus does not actually help the clock that much.  17 damage will not be lethal against any decks not running mana crypt, mana vault, or dark confidant.  Don't forget that you have to give orchard tokens to your opponents to oath most of the time, too.  Those will reduce the damage and provide your opponent critical turns.

If you want to go for the tendrills kill and still run colossus, I would suggest the following list played by Randy Beuhler as a good starting point:

Maindeck:

Artifacts
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

Artifact Creatures
1 Darksteel Colossus

Enchantments
4 Oath Of Druids
 

Instants
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Brainstorm
1 Fact Or Fiction
4 Force Of Will
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Krosan Reclamation
4 Mana Drain
1 Mystical Tutor

Sorceries
1 Burning Wish
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Duress
1 Recoup
1 Regrowth
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Basic Lands
2 Island

Lands
4 Flooded Strand
3 Forbidden Orchard
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island

Legendary Lands
1 Tolarian Academy
 

Sideboard:

2 Pithing Needle
3 Sacred Ground
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Pyroblast
2 Rack And Ruin
2 Red Elemental Blast
1 Balance
1 Tendrils Of Agony



While I think that some of the deck might be a little outdated...I still think that it is a good base to start from.