Omen Oath

[Ancestralx]

I was thinking about making a wall collage with some art I really like. The card was omen, but I couldnt find enough at one time to buy so I was talking to Chris Wolbereck at Starcity because they had a large number of them. He was really cool and had made a table he told me about. When I tell him what card I want to use he says oh the ponder like card? Later I started thinking," Wow this is ponder for one more!!!" So most of the day I have been testing it out!! It seem really really good in oath.

Here is a list and the results I had out of ten game with most of the major decks.

4 Forbiden Orchard
3 Polluted Delta
2 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Tidespout Tirant
1 Merchant scroll
1 Brain freeze
1 Demonic tutor
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Timewalk
1 Mystical tutor
1 Ponder
4 Oath of druids
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Force of wills
1 Yagmoths will
1 Black Lotus
5 Mox
1 Mana Crypt
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Omen
1 Misdirection
1 Gaea’s Blessing
1 Senseis Diving top
4 Mana Drains
1 Echoing truth

My result out of 10 games against each came out to the following but I am unsure if my playtest partner was playing new slaver correctly and no sideboarding was involved as I am testing it.

Stacks: 8 out of 10 games oath crushed it. Only if it resolve enough early threats to keep an oath off the board did stacks win and both games involved a chalice for two.

Pitch Long: 5 games out of 10. The omens really helped in this matchup because when on the play they pushed you into counters or oaths if you didnt have them already and helped give you better draws overall.

Aggro workshop: 9 out of 10 games. The omens helped dig and were cheaper then the thirst if you were not at enough mana. And it helped filter into land and oaths.

Dredge: 1 out of 10. I believe this matchup will get better after sideboard or maybe adding wastelands. Searching for echoing truth helped and omen helped search for cards and lands if a chalice for 0 was in play but it was usually too late.

Control Slaver: 7 out of 10. Although as I said my playtest partner may have been playing this incorrectly. Brian Demars is kinda like superman so I dont know. The omens help fix your bad draws then the thirst become amazing!! Putting you into either gas or something you need at the time.

Painter Control: 8 out of 10 games. The games that he won were on the back of a pyroblasted oath and tyrant and tormods crypting after gaeas trigger on stack.

I really think Omen is pretty amazing and should be tested more. It is really cheap right now. A set is like $1 right now.

When I have finished testing an adequate board I will test further results. I think there is probably a way to build a new ponder long also with Omen and I will be testing it in that also. Thanks for any comments or even critisisms.

[Moxlotus]

Why is Omen better than Impulse?

[Ancestralx]

I thought about that for quite a while actually because impulse is actually one of my favorite cards. Omen only digs three but you can keep all three if you like them or shuffle. This is better because if the cards are gas you keep them and if not you trash them and there is alot of draw to dig into better stuff. You only get one card with Impulse no matter what and the others go to the bottom but you can get all three to fix problems in say your mana base or drawing into an oath or getting a force or hidding the card you really want then drawing it next turn.
Thanks for the questions.




P.S. Dance your cares away!! Clap Clap.

[Ancestralx]

Also although impulse digs one deeper, if you draw the stains with impulse your just screwed but if you used omen then you can at least shuffle and hope to draw something. I have been trying to think if it would be better as impulse but each time it seems better as omen, except maybe one game. Its really good for setting up plays on turn one or turn two and not getting duress, thoughtseized, etc.





P.S. Dance your cares away!!!

[Ancestralx]

Why was this moved?

[Dante]

First off, as a mod, don't double-post (two posts in a row).  You can edit your posts to reflect updated posts.  This was moved because 1. your "stats" are misleading/wrong (see below) 2. you don't have a sideboard put together or even tested and that's 50%+ of your games. and 3. Until you can show us otherwise, you appear to have taken a good deck and made it worse, so the Improvement forum is where it belongs until proven otherwise.  It doesn't mean it's a bad idea, just untested (and no, your small sample below doesn't cut it). 

second, how is it

..really good for setting up plays on turn one or turn two and not getting duress, thoughtseized, etc.

 - it only lets you hide one of the 3 cards on the top (since I assume you mean you put the card you want 2nd from the top), which isn't quite as handy.

Also, I seriously doubt this Oath build can go 50/50 preboarded against any good ritual-based combo deck with a competent pilot - you only have counters to protect you - no strips, no Null Rod, no Chalice, no Duress = no way.

I also doubt you're 80% preboard against Owen's Painter deck - the 5 REBs main will make it really tough, Painter or no.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Omen is just Ponder for 1U, right?  How is that even remotely playable?  Wouldn't you rather have Strategic Planning, Impulse, or even Portent?  I'm not seeing how this build is even remotely better than ICBM Oath, which rocks the Chalices.  I'm also not seeing any reason to run Academy.

[Ancestralx]

Are you talking about Jessy Spirits's deck  that owne played when you say painter or another painter deck that Owen played? And yes that is what I was refering to by hiding the card of the three you want to keep or two in a row for say thirst for knowledge from off the top. I have only playtested 10 games each with the deck. I say that at the begining of my post. And I apologize for double posting I didnt know I could respond like that.

[Harlequin]

As far the opening post is concerned:
- If you want people to understand your deck, placement of cards is important.  Take 20 seconds in notepade with copy/paste to re-organize your list before posting does alot to help people understand your intent.  All your mana should be together, all your counterspells, all your draw cards, your win conditions... etc. 
- Always post something as a sideboard.  Even if its a list of cards with no numbers like: "my board will consist of: oxidize, extirpate, tormod's crypt, a few utility creatures - and I was hopeing to find room for spell snare or possibly nullrod."  Something simple, but shows dirrection.  Remember at a tournement more than half the games you play will be boarded.
- The best way to have "veteran" TMDers ignore your list is to post outragous win %.  No match-up is really ever worse than 75:25.  For vintage, every deck has some sort of out.  Does that mean its impossible to go 0-10 against ichorid? not at all... but 10 games is really not a large sample.  A better way to catagorize your 10 game testing experiance is use a gut-check.  Somewhere between "Very Unfavorable," to "Even," to "Very Favorable."  After 10 games, reguardless of who wins or loses... you should have a good gut-check for how comfortable you felt durring the match.  How many times you say "this hand would lose to duress" is actually much more relevant that how many times you -actually- get turn1 duressed in the course of 10 games. 
- Improvement is not an Insult.  I personaly post most of my decks here first.  Think of it as the brainstorming forum.  Its a much less critical place than the main forum.  In the improvement forum you are looking for just that: ideas for improvement.  In the open forum you have reached a place to critically defend your build, as well as consider and debate the flaws and merits of the critiques of others.  Think of the Improvement forum as the grindstone and the open forum as the honing steel. 


On the topic of Oath:

Tyrant oath right now has lost its anchor: Brainstorm and Gush. As a result it is really starting to wander off in many differant dirrections.  It has no real dirrection or purpose.  Every time I look at a tyrant deck, I see haphazard replacement rather than calculated synergy.

For your build spesifically, I wonder if you would get better results from running even Mana Leak in the Omen spot.  Ponder wasn't -that- good for Tidespout Oath.  The purpose of ponder was mostly to find a 2nd non-orchard land.  Omen, Impulse, and Stratigic Planning cannot replace what ponder was for two fundamental reasons.  First, they all cost 2 mana.  Second, and more contraverially, they each only really allow you to select 1 card, and often it feels like a waste to pick the land.  Omen does not actually have this problem, but it's still a 2 mana sorcery.

Oath and "digging" cards.  Digging cards are only so good in oath.  Remember that finding oath is really only 1/3 of the battle.  With 1/3 battle being resolving oath, and 1/3 battle being surviving the extra turn needed to win.  Digging cards rarely do anything to ensure resolution and survival.  Considering impulse, omen, limdul's vault, muddle the mixture, stratigic planning, and even to an extend Thirst (because you have a low artifact count) often these card parody cards don't build a strong oath deck like the Gushbond build packing ponder did.

So what's the answer?  You'll just have to wait and see.  I have a few decks on the burners now, and one of them is an Oath deck that I think addresses these problems and has an acceptable replacement for Gushbond.  On Time and Testing will tell if the deck can compete against Rit-Combo.

[Ancestralx]

First of all thank you Harlequin. I did not know some of the things you posted about I really appreciate you taking time to explain to me. I believe I can more sufficiently post now. Also I wanted to answer Gunslingers comment with I have tried plannings and I didnt like it, it didnt seem to do what I wanted it to in the deck but maybe with a different build it might work but not in this one. And Portent does not draw a card immediately!! That is terrible for me. Impulse I tried out but it didnt seem as good as Omen. The ability to keep the cards if they are really good was outwieghing the seeing one more card ability of impulse.

[Cavius The Great]

Omen doesn't put cards from you hand on top of your library like Brainstorm. So if you draw a critter it's pretty much useless.

[Bill Copes]

Lat-Nam's Legacy
 
Instant
Shuffle a card from your hand into your library. If you do, draw two cards at the beginning of the next turn's upkeep.

This could be a potential answer to the "oops, I drew my oath target" problem.

[Ancestralx]

I know lat nam legacy does that I just use the thirst to get rid of the extra copies and oath. This usually hits the gaeas so it doesnt matter, even with one tidespout in play I can normally win. Plus with legacy although less probable you could draw the tidespout again.

[xXscrumXx]

I don't think that Omen is terrible. I think it even has a place in Vintage; maybe not in Oath, but in other decks. Ponder is obviuosly good! Omen is Ponder but for 1 more mana and that seems fine. It seems like it would be good in decks that utilize Top, bomerman, or even some long variants. A short while ago people were talking about Strategic Planning and how it sucked. Now that the card has found a place in a notable deck, and now everyone wants them. This could be a repeat of that same senerio. I think that we just need to give it a chance and test with it. I picked up a set just because I don't want to pay for them later if Brian DeMars decideds to play them in a deck.