Gaea's Blessing in Oath

[Anusien]

What is the strategic purpose of Gaea's Blessing in Oath builds that plan to attack with Angels or Dragons?  It can't be because you're worried about Oathing the rest of your library into your graveyard after you've gotten out your creatures because Oath is an optional trigger.  Nowadays Oath decks don't even have the cards to cast Accumulated Knowledge for 4 multiple times.  The cards in Oath are generally pretty even; it's not like you have some singleton you want to tutor up and recast multiple times; even if Blessing was to help you try and find Time Walk and recast it, wouldn't running Recoup or Krosan Reclamation or Yawgomth's Will to just recast Time Walk be better.  Or is Oath in the deck merely to save you in case you Oath up the second Angel and it's the bottom card in the deck?

[meadbert]

So you do not lose a few Edicts/Swords.

[Anusien]

Okay, this question takes three forms:
#1) Do you need a card that fulfills the role of this slot.
#2) Would Krosan Reclamation be a better card to fulfill that role?
#3) Would a third creature be a better card to fulfill that role?

By the way, Gaea's Blessing is miserable at stopping two Swords to Plowshares...  And what deck runs Edicts anyway?

[Anusien]

[11:44:36] <BrassMan> no see you're missing the point
[11:44:44] <BrassMan> even if you were defending against edict
[11:44:51] <BrassMan> a 3rd creature defends against edict BETTER
[11:45:00] <BrassMan> a 3rd creature defends against stp better
[11:45:12] <BrassMan> a 3rd creature hedges against drawing a creature better

[M.Solymossy]

After you've been Oathing, you want to constantly  have your forces, time walk, and duresses in your deck.  It increases your chances of of havingthose cards.

[JACO]

There are a number of reasons to run Gaea's Blessing AND a third creature in Oath right now.
1) to defend against removal
2) to shuffle back in your best spells that you've likely already cast
3) because of the fact that one or more creatures is stuck in your hand
4) to not deck yourself

It can also help combat Painter/Grindstone interactions, and cannot be countered (outside of Stifle, which is rarely played in Vintage right now).

The odds of decking yourself are slim, but it can and does happen (see: Paul Matriano's round 5 match against me last weekend at the Steel City Open, in which he had me dead on board Game 3 and decked himself).

The restriction of Brainstorm really screwed Oath, and if you're not playing multiple Sensei's Divining Tops there are frequently games where you draw multiple creatures. It's just the reality of playing Oath now. Gaea's Blessing just helps as a hedge against when things get interesting. If you end up drawing Blessing it just cantrips and puts back gas in your library, so it's really not worth the risk of not running it.

Krosan Reclamation basically sucks unless you're playing a combo version of Oath with Yawgmoth's Will (which is questionable in Oath anyway).

[voltron00x]

Current Oath builds are pretty strong against Plow, given the approx. 8 counterspells plus 4-5 discard effects, and especially in the builds that run Chalice.  That said, to prevent decking I'd generally rather have the Blessing than the 3rd creature.  If you draw Blessing, you can at least cantrip it off; if you're running Dragons or Plats, you can't even pitch them to FoW, so most games they'll just sit there as dead weight.  Now that I play Regrowth and key/vault, if you play a card like Extract in the SB, Blessing provides part of another win condition, although I realize this is the most corner of corner cases... you can do the same thing against many decks (basically anything non-blue) using Regrowth + Blessing + Ancestral Recall. 

There are examples that aren't quite as wacky.  I'll never forget my semis match at Blue Bell where I was running Ichorid against my own Oath deck, on loan to Chas Hinkle.  G1 I play Bazaar, activate, and pass. He plays Wasteland, destroys the Bazaar, AND plays Blessing and shuffles back the dredgers I discarded... AND draws a card!Naturally I top-decked another Bazaar so it didn't matter, because I'm a master, but it was still pretty ridiculous.  The Grindstone interaction has come up for me three times in 50ish rounds.

To answer your Edict question, Sui / Budget black decks play Edict.  While a small part of the metagame, they do exist.  Some people who are playing other decks that splash into black (such as G/W/b or Alabama Black Snake-type decks) may also run it.

[MirariKnight]

Recurring all of your spells after the Oath is critical. Even when I use 2x Platinum Angel as my Oath creatures, I still run the Blessing. Not decking is a side benefit of getting your stuff back over and over again. This also enables new ways of "brainstorming" your creatures back into the deck: Thoughtseize yourself, activate Oath into nothing, hit blessing, or something similar. And I have faced tons of Edicts since Inkwell was printed.

Krosan Reclamation sucks if you're not running Tidespout and/or Will, which seems to not be the right decision now.

Also, Blessing isn't dead if you draw it vs. most decks, I've won a few games against Dredge with it by buying a turn or 2, put stuff back into the library vs. Shops, and cycled it into drawing my out so many times.

With that said I have at times and do see merit in running a 3rd creature.

Edit: Nevermind voltron beat me to every point I just made by about 5 seconds

[T00L]

Current Oath builds are pretty strong against Plow, given the approx. 8 counterspells plus 4-5 discard effects, and especially in the builds that run Chalice.  That said, to prevent decking I'd generally rather have the Blessing than the 3rd creature.  If you draw Blessing, you can at least cantrip it off; if you're running Dragons or Plats, you can't even pitch them to FoW, so most games they'll just sit there as dead weight.  Now that I play Regrowth and key/vault, if you play a card like Extract in the SB, Blessing provides part of another win condition, although I realize this is the most corner of corner cases... you can do the same thing against many decks (basically anything non-blue) using Regrowth + Blessing + Ancestral Recall. 

There are examples that aren't quite as wacky.  I'll never forget my semis match at Blue Bell where I was running Ichorid against my own Oath deck, on loan to Chas Hinkle.  G1 I play Bazaar, activate, and pass. He plays Wasteland, destroys the Bazaar, AND plays Blessing and shuffles back the dredgers I discarded... AND draws a card!Naturally I top-decked another Bazaar so it didn't matter, because I'm a master, but it was still pretty ridiculous.  The Grindstone interaction has come up for me three times in 50ish rounds.

To answer your Edict question, Sui / Budget black decks play Edict.  While a small part of the metagame, they do exist.  Some people who are playing other decks that splash into black (such as G/W/b or Alabama Black Snake-type decks) may also run it.

So you run blessing for random corner cases and because it sometimes might cantrip maybe? Just want to be clear on this.

[OwenTheEnchanter]

Can we get some of the formats greats like LSV and Paul Mastriano to weigh in on this one?

[voltron00x]

Current Oath builds are pretty strong against Plow, given the approx. 8 counterspells plus 4-5 discard effects, and especially in the builds that run Chalice.  That said, to prevent decking I'd generally rather have the Blessing than the 3rd creature.  If you draw Blessing, you can at least cantrip it off; if you're running Dragons or Plats, you can't even pitch them to FoW, so most games they'll just sit there as dead weight.  Now that I play Regrowth and key/vault, if you play a card like Extract in the SB, Blessing provides part of another win condition, although I realize this is the most corner of corner cases... you can do the same thing against many decks (basically anything non-blue) using Regrowth + Blessing + Ancestral Recall. 

There are examples that aren't quite as wacky.  I'll never forget my semis match at Blue Bell where I was running Ichorid against my own Oath deck, on loan to Chas Hinkle.  G1 I play Bazaar, activate, and pass. He plays Wasteland, destroys the Bazaar, AND plays Blessing and shuffles back the dredgers I discarded... AND draws a card!Naturally I top-decked another Bazaar so it didn't matter, because I'm a master, but it was still pretty ridiculous.  The Grindstone interaction has come up for me three times in 50ish rounds.

To answer your Edict question, Sui / Budget black decks play Edict.  While a small part of the metagame, they do exist.  Some people who are playing other decks that splash into black (such as G/W/b or Alabama Black Snake-type decks) may also run it.

So you run blessing for random corner cases and because it sometimes might cantrip maybe? Just want to be clear on this.

The question is 3 creatures vs 2 and 1 blessing.  So basically, potentially useful corner cases (ability to cantrip, sometimes time walks against ichorid, provides potentially infinite recursion of creatures against non-Exiling removal, protection against Painter, potential alt. win con with Regrowth + Key/Vault, etc) PLUS what was noted above (making sure Walk, in particular, is in your yard to tutor for after you Oath, lets you Thoughtseize a creature into your yard to recur with Blessing) vs a 3rd guy, which is generally just going to sit there doing... nothing.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Nobody's mentioned it, so I thought I'd chime in: both Blessing and Krosan Reclaimation provide a shuffle effect.  Reclaimation has a decent shot of Time Walking against a good Ichorid player while Blessing does not.

Also, Goblins (which is vastly underrated) plays Warren Weirding(s) main and can tutor aggressively for them.  Their ability to drop a 2nd turn Earwig Squad, given that many of us run Negate over Mana Drain, is a real concern. 

Also, I have an anecdote where James King left his deck sideboarded by accident against me at the ICBM open and lost a game Oathing for a creature that was no longer in his deck with no Blessings.  I had no clue how many creatures he ran main, but milling himself to death made it clear that something was wrong.  On the plus side for him, he had 5 creatures post-SB: plenty to evade Earwig Squad.  I'd consider 3 creatures main *and* Blessing.

[LordHomerCat]

Can we get some of the formats greats like LSV and Paul Mastriano to weigh in on this one?

I very rarely do this but I actually laughed out loud.  Well played sir.

[Diakonov]

I've always hated running Blessing, but after losing a match in two different tournaments because the second creature was my last card, I swore to change something.  Since then I've gone back and forth, but currently I'm of the opinion to run three creatures main.  Granted, drawing one is a dead card, but Krosan Rec. almost always is as well, and Blessing is a sorcery speed draw ONE card, which while better is still terrible.  

Seeing as how Oath decks thrive on the early game, I hate to let that get away while waiting for Blessing to reshuffle my library so I can get a creature the following turn.  If your opponent had enough removal to deal with 3 creatures, or you drew one and they dealt with 2, that's really just awful luck.

[meadbert]

The other big issue is what happens when they drop something like Ensnaring Bridge and your only bounce spell is in the yard.  You could perhaps run Recoup so you can Recoup->Regrowth to get a bounce spell back, but that is 6 mana.  Also Recoup is off color and it thus less useful than Gaea's Blessing when in hand.  There is always the option of running Ancient Grudge so perhaps that is better.

[Harlequin]

Back in the days of Akroma + Spirit of the Night / Double Angel - I was a huge fan of running 2 creatures 2 Gaea's Blessing.  The purpose of this was to basically ensure that Timewalk was in my deck post-oath.  The point was to just tutor for timewalk.

Later in the days of TSOath (Tidespout Tyrant), I absolutly got hooked on Krosan Rec.  Krosan Rec is great, far from a dead draw.  Not only does it hose top deck tutors at instant speed.   In an ELD even against storm I was able to KRec back thier Lotus + DT in thier yard in response to Yawg.  This gave them almost nothing to do, because they had only 1 land drop post yawg to cast I think brainstorm into pass the turn. 

Today we're in a different world.  I'm not 100% sure I would run either in a Beats build.  3 creature beats with scroll rack is probably fine.  In a TS build I'd probably still run KRec.   

If you run 3-4 Scroll Racks you can probably get away with not running any sort of recoverery card.  Scroll Rack can prevent you from decking yourself indefinately assuming you have 1 card in hand.  It doesn't answer permanents though.  In that case I do like the idea of maindeck Grudge.

[T00L]

Back in the days of Akroma + Spirit of the Night / Double Angel - I was a huge fan of running 2 creatures 2 Gaea's Blessing.  The purpose of this was to basically ensure that Timewalk was in my deck post-oath.  The point was to just tutor for timewalk.

Later in the days of TSOath (Tidespout Tyrant), I absolutly got hooked on Krosan Rec.  Krosan Rec is great, far from a dead draw.  Not only does it hose top deck tutors at instant speed.   In an ELD even against storm I was able to KRec back thier Lotus + DT in thier yard in response to Yawg.  This gave them almost nothing to do, because they had only 1 land drop post yawg to cast I think brainstorm into pass the turn. 

Today we're in a different world.  I'm not 100% sure I would run either in a Beats build.  3 creature beats with scroll rack is probably fine.  In a TS build I'd probably still run KRec.   

If you run 3-4 Scroll Racks you can probably get away with not running any sort of recoverery card.  Scroll Rack can prevent you from decking yourself indefinately assuming you have 1 card in hand.  It doesn't answer permanents though.  In that case I do like the idea of maindeck Grudge.

I approve this post

[MirariKnight]

Except that Scroll Rack has so many problems with it - it gets owned by Null Rod and it's as mana intensive as Top, and this deck can't really afford to be tying up mana in something like that. I'd much rather just use a Blessing in the place of the Scroll Rack.
Then again I think we all may be talking about different builds here.

[voltron00x]

If and when Oath reaches a point where 3-4 Scroll Racks are needed, its probably time to scrap the deck.  They're slow, unwieldy,  and awful in a Null Rod heavy meta.

[Harlequin]

If and when Oath reaches a point where 3-4 Scroll Racks are needed, its probably time to scrap the deck.  They're slow, unwieldy,  and awful in a Null Rod heavy meta.

I approve this post.

Becuase trust me when I say.... I've tried.  I've built and scrapped about 5 completely different oath builds each with countless itterations of tweaks and adjustments.  From everything from practically mono-blue TSOath down to builds running Scroll Rack + Loam that don't have room for the nessisary support for FOW.  
 I just can't find one that gives me the consistancy I think Oath should have.  I either have a reliable control package with an inconsistant win - or a reliable win with almost no control.  

[MirariKnight]

While losing Brainstorm really did hurt this deck, I think it's far from dead guys. I too have tried many builds (never with Scroll Rack because it obviously sucks), and I've been doing something totally different from what we've been seeing lately and having good matchups against a lot of the field (obviously Stax, even with Tezz, capable of beating Dredge game 1 and Fish is fine too).

[AmbivalentDuck]

never with Scroll Rack because it obviously sucks

Seeing 3+ cards for 3 colorless mana is a horrible play in vintage /sarcasm

Scroll Rack is one of the most card drawing effects ever printed, especially when paired with shuffle effects.  When I was playing Sharuum Oath, Scroll Rack was as strong a recursion target as any other non-comboing artifact.

[MirariKnight]

I love tying up my mana every turn when I play Oath. That's why I also play Sensei's Top...
But seriously? Would you really run Scroll Rack if Brainstorm was unrestricted? It just seems so bad with Null Rod everywhere.

[Harlequin]

Scroll Rack is a fine card.  Null Rod is in the D-List when it comes to "cards oath cares about." 

Over time alone scroll racks its effect quickly deteriorates.  Howver the first activation often shows you everything you need to Oath.  The problem is that when it doesn't, what do you do next?   It has to be combined with something like Life from the Loam to keep it up as a viable engin.  But with LftL and possibly Crop Rotate you end up with quite a bit of selection. 

This leads to a new set of problems: all those non-blue cards on top of the Oath engin itself leaves very little room for 17-18 blue cards including FOW.  Which makes either your disruption suit, or your mana base will suffer at the hands of what ammounts to a highly card dependant plan-B. 

All this considered, I can back these statements with testing - not just theory.  I would say that Scroll is not really that bad - just hard to fit into the boundries of a 60 card oath deck supporting force.  I think the crux of the problem is that Oath has a big problem right now when it doesn't have Oath of Druids in the opening grip.  All the Plan-B's availible fall short of "good" ... scroll included. 

[zeus-online]

Disclaimer: I'm not an "Oath expert", and have next to no experience in playing the deck.
And this is probably an idea many have considered....But here it goes:

How about running tinker, inkwell and mystical? that way you get a chance of getting tinker, a tutor to find tinker an additional creature and 3 extra blue cards for FoW?
M. Tutor can also find time walk if you've got an active oath.

Main problem i see is that inkwell is just plain worse then hellkite, akroma and progenitus.....Maybe DSC instead? Although that cuts the blue count down by 1.

/Zeus

[vassago]

Can we get some of the formats greats like LSV and Paul Mastriano to weigh in on this one?

I see what you did there sir.   

[MirariKnight]

Scroll Rack is a fine card.  Null Rod is in the D-List when it comes to "cards oath cares about." 

Stuff about FoW, etc.

I agree, but I would much rather have Force than Scroll Rack.
Also I like to run Null Rod somewhere in my 75.

As far as a Tinker target I've been using 3 creatures, 1 of which is Sphinx of the Steel Wind. He's blue and I just never find Inkwell to be that good (especially since I have a 1/2 chance of playing against Stax here, and Karn <3's Inkwell).

[Andreas]

Also I like to run Null Rod somewhere in my 75.

I second this. Even with 4 Duress Effects, 4 Negates, and 4 Force of Will in the Deck Null Rod is necessary to bring the matchup percentage against Vault/Key Control and Combo to acceptable levels. I also find Null Rood to be much better at this than Chalice, which with all the 1cc spells in the deck a lot of times is far too symmetrical for my taste.

In my experience the hard part in Oath's gameplan is to actually get Oath to trigger (and sometimes to prevent a combo finish from the opponent before the Dragon(s) have connected two times). Drawing Blessing before this is not that helpful, and Impulse also does a decent job at preventing yourself from decking yourself.

[Diakonov]

I'm definitely a fan of Null Rods in Oath.  They are much better than Chalice.  In this case I use Lat-Nam's to put back creatures.  If I'm not using rods, Scroll Rack is great.  If you have a full hand and a fetch, you can find your Oath/Orchard very quickly.

[voltron00x]

I've been testing with 3 creatures for this Saturday's event in Long Island.  I found something... special... to Oath up that I think is better than Blessing against Stax and has hilarious potential in the mirror.  I'm excited to see how it goes this weekend.  If I win even one game with this card, it will make my day. 

Mind you, I've been on prescription painkillers for a week straight, so... yeah.