Tez-Oath: The Evolution of the Obvious

[Troy_Costisick]

Also, don't forget that the times we fizz out, we can still beat face with two 5/5 flyers.

How do you do that?  Aren't they legendary?

[SiegeX]

Good call, I should have picked that up considering its key to the combo. Ok, so one 5/5 flyer which is not the best in the world but it beats a kick in the balls

[AmbivalentDuck]

I'll also point out that Sharuum recurring Trinisphere or Crucible/Strip can be pretty brutal.  Sharuum doesn't have to recur a combo piece to do something meaningful.

[TinkerAcademy91]

If you are worried about Tendrils going off just run Stifle.

[Negator13]

This might be slightly off-topic, but has anyone thought of combining Sharuum with Mindslaver in an Oath build? You could run a set of TFK's, a couple Sharuums, 2 Slavers, and the Vault combo. That way you would pretty much be guaranteed of winning with a single Oath activation as long as you have 4 colorless mana.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I did mention that above, but haven't gotten around to testing it yet.

[AmbivalentDuck]

After losing to MWS jank several times despite having an active Oath, I've concluded that Mindslaver has *no place* in this deck.

I've also concluded that cutting Crucible of Worlds (one of my favorite Tinker and Sharuum targets) for a second Mindslaver was a deeply flawed decision.

The question remains: is Sharuum worth running?  He performed reasonably well with Altar + Bridge from Below...but would I take that to a tournament?  It's a lot of dead cards.  You'd need Thirsts (or something) to make it work reliably and cycle out dead stuff.

[SiegeX]

The question remains: is Sharuum worth running?  He performed reasonably well with Altar + Bridge from Below...but would I take that to a tournament?  It's a lot of dead cards.  You'd need Thirsts (or something) to make it work reliably and cycle out dead stuff.

Replace your mindslaver with Possessed Portal and I think you'll be singing a different tune.  The problem with oath is that even if you put a creature on the board, so what, you still don't stop your opponent from winning the game; and with a meta as fast as we have now, stopping your opponent from doing anything relevant is worth the extra turns (if we whiff) it takes to kill them than putting them on a 2-turn clock.  I've been testing this on MWS and I've seen alot of success. 

The general strategy is this, oath up a possessed portal on your first activation if you can find it.  9/10 times your opp's game plan just went down the shitter unless hes already holding bounce/artifact-kill or can DT into it.  If you need to, you can sacrifice your Sharuum to portal as it wont matter anyway when you oath again next turn.  On your next oath, hopefully you'll hit an altar and seal the deal, if you don't no big deal, your opp is still not doing anything relevant except discarding/sacrificing.  If you find yourself with a Sharuum in the GY and one in play, then just oath again so that you hit your blessing and shuffle your sharuum back into your library for another try next turn.  This deck works great with blessing since even if you hit it when looking for an altar, you can stack all of your sharuum's CIP triggers on top of it indefinitely until your opp has no more library, and then you get to shuffle your GY back.

As for thirsts go, I found these to be sub-optimal because oath is not about the mid-late game like slaver, it wants to put an oath on the board ASAP.  However, we do need a way to put drawn threats back into the library and/or GY.  For this, enter Scroll rack.   Scroll rack is really the nuts in this deck as it digs really deep while putting back stuff we don't want in our hands, it gives us a new set of cards to look at with fetchlands and you can tutor it up via Sharuum.  Right now I am running 1 of these with 4 impulses, but I'm highly considering running 2 as every time I have it on the board its an absolute house.   Also note that Possessed Portal can also play the role of thirst/scroll rack.  If you're holding a sharuum or altar in your hand (or even both!), just oath up portal and discard them to portal as you'll have two discard opportunities before you oath again.

If you only hit an altar on your first oath, its not nearly as game breaking as portal but its not as dead as hitting a bridge from below.  It still poses a threat to your opponent as you just shut down his top-deck tutors and if he passes the turn you should sac sharuum to it and maybe get lucky enough to hit something juicy in those 5 cards.  If he passes the turn, chances are you're going to win anyway.

I'll post my decklist soon after I give it a few more tweaks.

Edit
I thought I should mention in case it's not clear that if you sharuum up an altar to mill your opponents library, make sure you sacrifice your portal to itself so that your opponent looses the game =)

[Harlequin]

WOW you're totally on to something there.  Actually, you don't need the alter at all!  millions of zombies are amazing with portal in play.  They give you totaly inevitability.  Plats, Ensnaring bridge, etc... totally don't mater.  The turn after you get infinite zombies sac the -Oath- EOT so they can't oath and you've got the game!

If I were going to play this deck, Alter of Dementia is totally out, and Possessed Portal is now totally in!

[SiegeX]

WOW you're totally on to something there.  Actually, you don't need the alter at all!  millions of zombies are amazing with portal in play.  They give you totaly inevitability.  Plats, Ensnaring bridge, etc... totally don't mater.  The turn after you get infinite zombies sac the -Oath- EOT so they can't oath and you've got the game!

If I were going to play this deck, Alter of Dementia is totally out, and Possessed Portal is now totally in!

I would really urge you to consider taking out bridge and keeping in altar.  I've been trying out portal for about 3 days now, two of which had bridge and just recently I switched to altar.  Here is why bridge is not as good as altar in the order of relevance:

1) Because we are running blessing, if your first oath activation hits both bridge and blessing then you just wasted an oath activation to bring back lotus at best (maybe scroll rack.)
2) Altar is not susceptible to all the collateral damage against ichroid that just about all decks pack nowadays.
3) Drawing bridge makes baby jesus cry, drawing altar can easily be hard casted into play.
4) Although bridge gives you tokens up the wazoo to sac to portal, it does not win now.  Also we don't need infi tokens for inevitability.  We can just keep sac'ing a random artifact and sharuum to portal and oath them back out next turn. 

Although #1 can be remedied by replacing blessing with Krosan, I was completely dissatisfied with it.  At most it gives you two more tries and that's only if you leave both sharuum's in the yard.  Also #4 pretty much kills the only benefit bridge has anyway.

Also, I should mention the achilles heel of this deck is Extirpate.  A well timed Extirpate means good bye sharuum's.  This is why it's imperative to run at least 4x duress effects in this deck. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

Sweet tech!  This is a truly compelling reason to play Sharuum.

The whole point of using Altar over the stations was its interaction with Bridge's infi tokens.  It looks like either Grinding Station or Blasting Station could be chosen now since they aren't dead draws.

Oh, and Portal + Crucible also has a lot of inevitability with Crucible being anything but dead.

[SiegeX]

The whole point of using Altar over the stations was its interaction with Bridge's infi tokens.  It looks like either Grinding Station or Blasting Station could be chosen now since they aren't dead draws.

You bring up an interesting point.  Altar of Dementia is strictly better than Grinding station so I won't discuss that card, but Blasting station is worth mentioning.  Here is my pro/con list for it vs Altar of Dimentia.

Pros

• Blasting station is the only card so far that can win you the game on your turn
• It takes care of the likes of platinum angel so we don't need to play a waiting game with portal.
• It doesn't care if our opponent runs DSC (*discussed below)

Cons

• In order for blasting station to work the turn it comes out, we must oath it up on our first activation such that there is already a sharuum in play along side of it when sharuum #2 comes in.  This is the opposite of what we want to do with this deck.  We want portal to come out first to lock our opponent out of the game
• Assuming portal wasn't available to oath up and we had no choice but to choose blasting station, it does not pose a threat at all to our opponent.  The most I can see it doing is taking out a Bob, or something we probably don't care about anyway.  Altar on the other hand is like having a not-as-good Canonist out.  It can definitely buy you that one extra turn you need to mill them out.
• Although blasting station can be hard cast, that one extra mana makes it alot harder to cast and back it up with counter magic which is something we must do because if it gets countered, we must now oath two more times to use it.

If it wasn't for the fact that Altar can buy you that critical extra turn by messing up top-deck tutors, I would say run Blasting station because even if we don't oath it up turn #1, portal is going to make sure they don't do anything relevant for the next two turns that it takes for it to go off.  I'm of the opinion that the pros for Altar justify allowing our opponent to go through one more untap and upkeep step before we win the game. 

Now about the DSC problem.  If we altar our opponent and he flips a DSC, hes going to have one card in his library no matter what.  Sacrificing our portal and passing the turn is a no-no because that gives him a full turn to do something vicious, especially if he is holding YawgWill or some way to recur it from the GY; and that means game over.  In this case I suggest you stall them out with portal until they discard all of their hand.  I wouldn't even be satisfied if all their land is gone because they could be holding a lotus.  If time is close to be getting called, check their GY to make sure all the jewelery is in there, or at least mox jet and lotus.

Oh, and Portal + Crucible also has a lot of inevitability with Crucible being anything but dead.

This is true, but this is definitely a win-more card.  Once portal is out, we have all the tools we need to stall out our opponent until they have an empty board and hand.  Leave your utility artifacts at home and instead pack more disruption/countermagic to get oath to stick.

P.S.
Since we all seem to agree that Possessed Portal is viable tech with Sharuum and this deck has deviated far enough away from the parent post, I am going to start a new thread tonight with my decklist so it can get the attention it deserves.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Alter of Dementia is strictly better than Grinding station so I won't discuss that card

Just hardcast, Grinding Station can counter a topdeck tutor, whereas Altar is only relevant in the mirror and not significantly better.  I would consider Grinding Station strictly *superior* to Altar.  This is between Blasting Station, Grinding Station, and Crucible.

Oh, and Portal + Crucible also has a lot of inevitability with Crucible being anything but dead.

This is true, but this is definitely a win-more card.  Once portal is out, we have all the tools we need to stall out our opponent until they have an empty board and hand.  Leave your utility artifacts at home and instead pack more disruption/countermagic to get oath to stick.

I strongly disagree, using Sharuum to recur Crucible if you *don't* flip Portal the first time is just as good as any other option presented.  By Stripping your opponent's mana, you relieve him of any options he might have had.  Compare this to the pitiful effect of Blasting Station.  I mean, do you really want to run multiple Blasting Stations?  You still 'win' on the second Oath through Portal lock.

If you do flip Portal the first time, 99% of the time you just start beating with Sharuum and win. You usually won't need a combo kill.  When you don't flip a first-Oath 'kill,' you still want an effect that still does something right away.  Remember, Portal itself will eventually kill their Platz if they somehow have one.

Unlike the Stations, Crucible has an effect that's very relevant, especially g2/3 when you bring in your Mishra's Factory against aggro and the mirror.

[SiegeX]

Just hardcast, Grinding Station can counter a topdeck tutor, whereas Altar is only relevant in the mirror and not significantly better.  I would consider Grinding Station strictly *superior* to Altar.  This is between Blasting Station, Grinding Station, and Crucible.

I don't see how grinding station is even on par with Altar let alone superior.  Both grinding station and altar can counter a top-deck tutor.  True, grinding station can sac any artifact to mill 3 whereas altar requires a creature, but sacrificing Sharuum to altar does not affect your game plan in any way shape or form, plus you mill an extra two more cards.  Altar on the other hand costs 1 less mana and is just as potent on the second oath activation as it is on the first, not so with grinding station.  What am I not seeing about grinding station that even makes it a contender with Altar?

I strongly disagree, using Sharuum to recur Crucible if you *don't* flip Portal the first time is just as good as any other option presented.  By Stripping your opponent's mana, you relieve him of any options he might have had.  Compare this to the pitiful effect of Blasting Station.  I mean, do you really want to run multiple Blasting Stations?  You still 'win' on the second Oath through Portal lock.

Here is why I think crucible is sub-par.  Yes it strips your opponent's mana, but 75% of the time you're only going to need to use it once before portal gets put on the table and makes crucible redundant.  I just don't see it winning you more games than having another control piece would in its place.

If you do flip Portal the first time, 99% of the time you just start beating with Sharuum and win. You usually won't need a combo kill.  When you don't flip a first-Oath 'kill,' you still want an effect that still does something right away.  Remember, Portal itself will eventually kill their Platz if they somehow have one.

Unless there is some reason why I have to (perhaps altar was RFG), I would never swing in for the win as that's just way too slow.  Why waste 4 turns beating face when I could just oath up altar next turn and win on their draw step.

I think once you play with portal, you'll see just how much it locks down your opponent all on its own and any utility artifact is just going to be redundant and would be better served as something else.

[AmbivalentDuck]

What am I not seeing about grinding station that even makes it a contender with Altar?

It can be sacrified to itself.  It requires no enablers.  Altar does *nothing* hardcast.  Grinding Station, for the same 2 mana, can actually do something without a Sharuum in play.

Here is why I think crucible is sub-par.  Yes it strips your opponent's mana, but 75% of the time you're only going to need to use it once before portal gets put on the table and makes crucible redundant.  I just don't see it winning you more games than having another control piece would in its place.

Name one.  I'm not a fan of dead cards in hand even being *possible.*  Crucible is active in most matchups, and combines with Portal for a hard lock. (If there was a lock in the first place, which has nothing to do with which strategy you chose: if they had bounce/artifact kill/Extirpate, they already had it.)  If anything Crucible ups your chances of working around hate by cutting off access to key colors.

Why waste 4 turns beating face when I could just oath up altar next turn and win on their draw step.

They're under a *hard lock.*  Why waste space on 'win more?'  Anything that answers Portal also answers Altar.

I think once you play with portal, you'll see just how much it locks down your opponent all on its own and any utility artifact is just going to be redundant and would be better served as something else.

Crucible isn't just a utility artifact.  It's a hard lock with Crucible that actually does something relevant if you happen to draw into it.


Among all the options discussed, only Grinding Station and Crucible aren't dead draws.

Edit: Testing scourglass against the rather nasty aggro matchup.  Oath that doesn't roll WW...*sigh*

[SiegeX]

It can be sacrified to itself.  It requires no enablers.  Altar does *nothing* hardcast.  Grinding Station, for the same 2 mana, can actually do something without a Sharuum in play.

I made the mistake in thinking grinding station was 3 mana to play just like blasting station, so the fact that its only 2 makes things a bit more on-par as I can now imagine being able to hardcast it and make it stick.  But, the fact that it's only useful if you oath it up first really sticks in my craw.  This only makes it relevant if its the only thing you flip over, otherwise you would always pick portal.  I can see it making sense for your style of play which is to win using the red-zone when portal is out.  However, I'm not fully convinced that oathing one more time to combo them out is win-more.

As far as crucible goes, its pretty anit-synergistic with blessing.  As I mentioned, I tried krosan in its place and I just didn't like it all.  Granted my strategy was not to attack FTW.  But if you are going to play krosan, yawgwill is pretty much an auto-include and now the list gets even tighter.

I can see a case being made for grinding station or crucible, but I just don't see room in this deck for 5 combo pieces; I strongly feel its one or the other.  Our number one goal is to make oath hit the board, if we fail in doing that then this deck rolls over and dies.  Each additional combo piece you add means you are removing a card that helps get oath to stick.

[AmbivalentDuck]

What are you talking about with Altar?  Altar and Grinding Station have identical function in the combo without bridge.

Oath 1 -> Sharuum -> Milling Artifact
Oath 2-> Sharuum (infi loop of Sharuums animating each other and getting sacced to milling artifact) -> opponent is decked and you have some artifact and a Sharuum.

With Bridge, the last artifact reanimation could get Altar after all of the Bridge tokens had already been made.  Grinding Station is almost strictly superior without Bridge since it actually does something outside the combo.  Altar's one high point is its utility against other Oath decks: you always 'win the Orchard war.'

I don't run Blessing or Krosan Reclamation at all.  Two Possessed Portals are all the 'dead cards' this deck can stand.  Here's my decklist, which is anything but final, just so we're discussing something similar.  I've found the maindeck Crucibles to have very high utility in testing.


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

Creatures
    2 Sharuum the Hegemon

Spells
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Black Lotus
    4 Duress
    1 Thoughtseize
    4 Mana Drain
    4 Force of Will
    1 Misdirection
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Ponder
    1 Brainstorm
    2 Scroll Rack
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Mystical Tutor
    1 Merchant Scroll
    1 Time Walk
    4 Oath of Druids
    1 Tinker
    1 Wipe Away
    2 Possessed Portal
    2 Crucible of Worlds

 Sideboard
SB: 1 Thoughtseize
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 4 Oxidize
SB: 4 Mishra's Factory
SB: 1 Scourglass
SB: 1 Trinisphere

[Zieby]

Also, I should mention the achilles heel of this deck is Extirpate.  A well timed Extirpate means good bye sharuum's.  This is why it's imperative to run at least 4x duress effects in this deck.

What about 4x Chalice of the Void in the Sideboard. It Buys you turns against Storm and can be set at 1 against extirpate, so you dont have to worry about it any more.

Instead of Crucible you can also play Life from the Laom for the infinite Portal-lock.

I believe blessing and Altar belongs in this deck to have a win now oppertunity.

Greetz Arjan

[Qube]

What about 4x Chalice of the Void in the Sideboard. It Buys you turns against Storm and can be set at 1 against extirpate, so you don't have to worry about it any more.
Instead of Crucible you can also play Life from the Loam for the infinite Portal-lock.
I believe blessing and Altar belongs in this deck to have a win now opportunity.

Does Life from the Loam works with Portal-Lock? how's the rules with the dredge from LftL, because Portal say: If a player would draw a card, that player skips that draw instead.
and dredge say: If you would draw a card, instead you may put exactly three cards from the top of your library into your graveyard. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand. Otherwise, draw a card. Does this works`?

I would like to see 4 Chalice in the Sideboard.
And for MB: why not run the Vault & Key-combo? it's no death card, key also goes broken with scroll rack. both are castable with the colorless mana of Waste/Mana Drain and if the oathplan fizzle, you can change on tutor --> Vault or Key.

I would change.
1 Portal             --> Voltaic Key
1 Thoughtseize  --> Time Vault
1 Misdirection     --> Mana Crypt or Voltaic Key #2

So with the first oath activation you can hit:
-Portal (every time a hardtime for the opp), Key or Vault (with tutor or walk or other in play/hand), Crucible (when Strip/Waste in grave/hand/play, and if it's necessary). and Crucible & Vault/Key-combo is mostly not bad on hand, with Portal I see a problem with hardcasting.

Peace
-Qube

[Zieby]

Does Life from the Loam works with Portal-Lock? how's the rules with the dredge from LftL, because Portal say: If a player would draw a card, that player skips that draw instead.
and dredge say: If you would draw a card, instead you may put exactly three cards from the top of your library into your graveyard. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand. Otherwise, draw a card. Does this works`?

Both are a replacement effects, so you can stack them in the same way as when you discard DSC if Leyline of the Void is in play at your opponts side. You can stack the replcement effects so you can still shuffle your DSC back into your deck. (I hope this is told correctly, it is much harder to explain in english for me)

Greetz Arjan

[Qube]

Does Life from the Loam works with Portal-Lock? how's the rules with the dredge from LftL, because Portal say: If a player would draw a card, that player skips that draw instead.
and dredge say: If you would draw a card, instead you may put exactly three cards from the top of your library into your graveyard. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to your hand. Otherwise, draw a card. Does this works`?

Both are a replacement effects, so you can stack them in the same way as when you discard DSC if Leyline of the Void is in play at your opponts side. You can stack the replcement effects so you can still shuffle your DSC back into your deck. (I hope this is told correctly, it is much harder to explain in english for me)

Greetz Arjan

Allright, thx for explaining. you can also explain on german for me 

I think the crucible is better than the Life from the Loam for the strip/waste effect. But Loam have some synergy with the 2 Scroll Rack. Maybe 1 Loam/1 Crucible?
-Qube

[AmbivalentDuck]

So with the first oath activation you can hit:
-Portal (every time a hardtime for the opp), Key or Vault (with tutor or walk or other in play/hand), Crucible (when Strip/Waste in grave/hand/play, and if it's necessary). and Crucible & Vault/Key-combo is mostly not bad on hand, with Portal I see a problem with hardcasting.

You're absolutely right that Life from the Loam is better.  It means that you have a hard lock on the *first* Oath since both Portal and LftL can be active immediately.

I'm less excited about Vault-Key since I'm putting serious thought into Null Rod or Chalices in the SB.

[Troy_Costisick]

I'm less excited about Vault-Key since I'm putting serious thought into Null Rod or Chalices in the SB.

I think that's a pretty wise choice.  What's your bounce package (including SB) by the way?

[AmbivalentDuck]

Just the lone Wipe Away.

It looks easier/better to just Oxidize in most cases?

[Qube]

I'm less excited about Vault-Key since I'm putting serious thought into Null Rod or Chalices in the SB.

Yea but if you've Chalices in the Side, just board out the Vault-Key. But are Portal #2 is necessary? it's a death card more if the Oath-plan doesn't works. and Sharuum isn't as easy to hardcast, so you just have a Tinker. Because we don't run Will.

You're absolutely right that Life from the Loam is better.  It means that you have a hard lock on the *first* Oath since both Portal and LftL can be active immediately.

Yea i think too. The Loam is also to discard at the EOT for Portal. and loop again and again. But so cut both crucibles?

Life from the Loam:
+Big synergy with Scroll Rack
+get back your Waste/Strip
+make portal permanent
-every round cost  to play, if wanted to play often the cost are higher than crucible

Crucible of Worlds:
+ Easy to play after Drain
+ Can be put into play from Sharuum
+ Can be tinkered if necessary
+ The Waste-effect is to play for free
- Easier to destroy
- No synergy with Scroll Rack

But for me it's important, that we also have a chance in the game also without the oath. Because that is the major problem with playing oath, that resolving oath (and wait a turn) mostly is the only way to win. That's why i like the crucible to play denial on the opponent and then have no problem with resolve a oath and have the time to get up a turn.

Edith: What's about adding Gifts Ungiven? for good Loam and/or Crucible piles.
Peace
-Qube

[AmbivalentDuck]

I've started a new thread since this now has nothing to do with Tezzeret


Life from the Loam also has monster synergy with Scroll Rack.  The Loam version is effectively a 'different' deck since Drain loses a lot of its utility.  This version has problems with aggro, but (so far) rolls most variations on control and combo.  Remember, I've only had time to play, like, 10 games with this.  The sideboard needs a lot of work, too.  It's easily the worst part of this deck. 

@Aggro: do we try Scourglass (Sharuum wipes the non-artifact, non-land board when he comes into play) or just board in different Oath creatures?  Sharuum failing to get bounced/StP/something-ed is iffy.  Empyrial Archangels look pretty, but they're an untested addition.

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

// Creatures
    2  Sharuum the Hegemon

// Spells
    1 Mox Ruby
    1 Mox Sapphire
    1 Mox Pearl
    1 Mox Jet
    1 Mox Emerald
    1 Black Lotus
    4 Duress
    4  Negate
    4 Force of Will
    1 Misdirection
    1 Ancestral Recall
    1 Ponder
    1 Brainstorm
    2 Scroll Rack
    1 Demonic Tutor
    1 Vampiric Tutor
    1 Mystical Tutor
    1 Merchant Scroll
    1 Time Walk
    4 Oath of Druids
    1 Tinker
    1 Wipe Away
    2 Possessed Portal
    2 Life from the Loam
    1 Extirpate

// Sideboard
SB: 4 Oxidize
SB: 1 Pithing Needle
SB: 4 Leyline of the Void
SB: 2 Thoughtseize
SB: 2  Empyrial Archangel
SB: 2 Arcane Laboratory