Budget Oath

[Ozymandias]

Here's a deck I was playing around with for going unpowered in a powered environment. The idea is to put the disruption of Chalice/Rod together with the excellent clock of an oath package. The support color I picked was black for the hand disruption, tutoring, and draw. This is just a rough sketch, but I think there's potential.

//Kill
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Oath of Druids
2 Hellkite Overlord
//Disruption
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Null Rod
1 Seal of Primordium
//Draw and Tutoring
4 Night's Whisper
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Vampiric Tutor
//Mana
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
4 Chrome Mox
1 Lotus Petal
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
2 Bloodstained Mire
2 Wooded Foothils
4 Bayou
3 Swamp
1 Forest

One thing I'm concerned about are the antisynergy between the 7 mana artifacts and the Chalice/Rod package. Unfortunately, ESG is unavailable to an Oath deck, but I wanted the availability of the "Mox, Orchard, Oath" T1 play. Vault and Ring don't really contribute to that, so I might get rid of them and leave Chrome+Lotus.

Not sure about the SB yet. I know I want an anti-dredge component like Leylines, but other than that I was thinking of a wishboard based around Living Wish. the ability to tutor up any number of useful, time-buying lands (like 1 Wasteland, Dust Bowl) or even a creature (Tarmogoyf and various 187 dudes come to mind.) An MD Crop Rotation package, with a few Life from the Loam to back it up, is also a possibility.

Any comments are welcome.

[meadbert]

I only counted 58 cards.

Once you are running 8 Chalice/Null Rod and 8 Duress effects the Chrome Moxen become sub optimal.  Basically you should have turn 1 plays without Chrome Mox and too often it will sit dead in your hand.

My recommendation is to use a 5 color mana base with City of Brass and Gemstone Mine along with Forbidden Orchard.  Then run Ancient Tomb for acceleration.  This allows turn 1 Null Rod more often.  Also, it allows for Intuition which can be a great tutor to get Oath or Orchard or Null Rod.

5 Colors give you access to white which crucially means you can run Argivian Find and Enlightened Tutor.  In a deck that badly wants Oath and Null Rod these are good cards.  Basically without the ability to consistently drop Oath on turn 1, you will find that Oath is Duresses on turn 1 or perhaps Drained on turn 2 a lot.  Argivian Find and Enlightened Tutor are great for getting that second Oath.  Also, if you do run Chalice what makes it strong is that Chalice@0 frequently tears apart a deck if played turn one on the play.  Argivian Find is great here, because if they Force Chalice in desperation you can use 1 mana to Argivian Find out Chalice and replay the Chalice.

Consultation is very risky in a deck with only 2 win conditions.  I would probably run Enlightened Tutor there instead despite the card disadvantage.

One issue with Chalice is that you frequently want Chalice@1 because you already have Rod or you already resolved Chalice@0.  Chalice@1 basically messes up your own deck with all of the top deck tutors and Duress/Thoughtseize.  For that reason I am not sold on Chalice in general.  In particular 4 may be too many.

Along with Intuition, blue also gives you access to Brainstorm and Ponder which are good for finding the cards you need.  Also, Brainstorm puts creatures back in your deck which will be important at times.  I am not sure if Thirst and Compulsive Research belong.  They are good for getting creatures out of your hand and they give you draw.  Instant Speed does not matter and you have more lands, thus Compulsive Research may be better.  It is also a turn 2 play with Ancient Tomb.

The only removal I see is Seal of Primordium.  The trouble I see there is that although it does remove Ensnaring Bridge and Platz nicely, it does not address Chalice@2 and Meddling Mage.  I realize that Meddling Mage is not played heavily now, but Chalice@2 will frequently rear its ugly head so a solution for that is needed.  Chain of Vapor or Wipe Away might work there.

One of the best cards that you can run is actually Root Maze.  This does not have much synergy with your list as is, but if you go to a 5 color mana base then you will not have fetchlands to mess up.  Root Maze slows down everything but creatures and creature are what you should beat most easily.  If you run Compulsive Research then Root Maze is better because you may be throwing away your extra lands anyway.  Also, if you go the Root Maze route, then Tyrant might make sense.  Basically if you Oath up Tyrant then you can either Enlighten Tutor or Argivian Find for Root Maze and bounce two of your opponent's lands that will come back into play tapped.  That is a strong play.  Still, Overloards may just be better.

Also, it looks like you are missing a Krosan Reclamation/Gaea's Blessing.  These are important in case Platz/Ensnaring Bridge hit and your only removal is in the yard.

As far as a sideboard goes I recommend the following if you use Argivian Find/Enlightened Tutor:

Planar Void, Pyrostatic Pillar, Choke.

[Ozymandias]

Thanks very much for your comments on the deck. First, the two cards that were missing in the list were indeed 2 Gaea's Blessing, which I feel is better than Krosan Reclamation because it cantrips, and because it can give you theoretically limitless stream of dragons.

I'm still mulling over your suggestions, but I like the 4x enlightened tutor and 5c manabase suggestions-a suggestion whch actually makes the deck more affordable. I'll have more comments after I figure out what to cut.

[Ozymandias]

So, after trying to take as much of meadbert's advice as possible, I came up with the following list:

//Oath Package
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Oath of Druids
2 Hellkite Overlord
1 Gaea's Blessing
//Tutors and Draw
4 Enlightened Tutor
3 Intuition
3 Crop Rotation
R Brainstorm
R Demonic Tutor
R Vampiric Tutor
//Toolbox
1 Planar Void
1 Life From the Loam
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Seal of Removal
1 Dispeller's Capsule
1 Seal of Primordium
//Disruption
4 Null Rod
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
//Mana
4 City of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Wasteland
1 Academy Ruins
R Strip Mine
1 Undiscovered Paradise
R Lotus Petal

Now I have answers at both 2 and 1 cc for Chalice, Mage, and so on-answers which can be tutored up. The lone Planar Void is in there as a hedge against Ichorid, as I can play it off a t1 enlightened tutor after seeing their Bazaar or something. Pillar could do the same thing if I wanted to include it. Crop Rotation is a concession both to the paucity of good tutors for Orchard, and as a hedge against opposing wastelands in my all-nonbasic manabase. Because I already have Wastelands, the lone Life from the Loam and Crucible serve as a small package capable of Strip-locking my opponent. Right now the sideboard is:

3 Planar void
1 Crop Rotation
1 thoughtseize
4 Pyrostatic Pillar

which leaves 6 slots to play around with. Any more suggestions before I get in testing vs the gauntlet?

[Natxete]

What do you think about this list? Is pretty solid, and moxes and lotus can be suplied by lands.

MAIN
4 Dark Ritual
1 Krosan Reclamation
4 Oath of Druids
3 Hellkite Overlord
1 Necropotence
1 Crop Rotation
2 Enlightened Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
4 Duress
3 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Null Rod
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Life from the Loam
1 Balance
1 Regrowth
1 crucible of worlds
1 lotus Petal
1 Black lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
4 Bayou
3 Bloodstained Mire
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Scrubland
1 Strip Mine
1 Swamp
4 Wasteland

SIDEBOARD
4 Tombstalker
1 Extirpate
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Pithing Needle
1 Oxidice
1 Krosan grip
1 Seal of primordium
2?Huh

[meadbert]

I am not sold on Crop Rotation.  The trouble is that with 13 Rainbow lands you are likely to only have 1 and then having Crop Rotation Forced would be crippling.

Choke's will be pretty good in the board and a token Choke might make sense to add to your tool box.

At least test Root Maze.  It is probably better than Crop Rotation.

You probably want a Jester's Cap plan for the board.  Either a few more creatures could work or perhaps some Pithing Needles.

With Oaths, Intuitions and Rainbow Lands, Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation can be solid in the board.

[RecklessEmbermage]

You probably want a Jester's Cap plan for the board.  Either a few more creatures could work or perhaps some Pithing Needles.

With Oaths, Intuitions and Rainbow Lands, Ancient Grudge and Ray of Revelation can be solid in the board.

If peoplew are moving away from stp and snuff out towards edicts and tarrif as the removal of choice, having creatures that dodges them in the sideboard would be interesting. In particular woodfall primus, since it deals with the main engines in the format. Having primus land on consecutive turns could be game-breaking against a variety of decks.

Including a single grudge main would make a lot of sense, since it is so convenient to play it in response to a blessing trigger against an artifact obstacle (ensnaring bridge or either half of a grindstone or time vault combo threatening the win in next turn). It would be stronger with only one blessing in the deck.