Oath of Druids Post-Zendikar

[Bibendum]

Gotcha. I know how much oath loves to see creatures on the other end of the board but i figured For some occasions thoughtsieze might be the better bet, Welder, Some Cases BoB stuff like that

[voltron00x]

I'd prefer Thoughtseize if there are any Noble Fish or G/W decks in the room.  It handles Meddling Mage, Trygon Predator, and Qasali Pridemage preemptively; those cards can be an issue in game 1.  I'll also pretty much always steal Goblin Welder, its too good to be sitting on the table, unless it means Oath goes active immediately.

[mr.grim]

Noble fish can indeed be an issue. I guess it comes dowm to whos on the play.
If you are on the play then thoughtseize would be great to get the pridemage or predator. game one i dont fear the meddling mage they wont know what to name unless you drop orchard or oath in most cases.
But if they go first and drop dude and then you thtseiz, life can be an issue.
LOl tho i guess if your matt or me the opp . knows its prob gonna be oath .
The last time i played A.J he turn one game one drops chalice for 2 *jerk* lol JK ,love ya A.J

[SiegeX]

latnam is necesary for the corner case of being able to not deck if I go all in on yawgwill plan and I fear extirpate. ie I mill library, get priority, announce krosan reclamation targeting both yawgwill and twister. if they extirpate yawgwill, I twister and am fine. if they extirpate twister, then I yawgwill, reclaim X, regrowth lat nam, attack 7. next turn draw X, attack 7. next upkeep latnam X, draw X, attack 7 ftw.
latnam also does its primary purpose of shuffling back Iona or redundant oath. not outstanding, but functional.

What about Words of Wind instead of Lat-Nam's Legacy?  If Yawg resolves, you play Words of Wind off Academy mana then you take infi turns, replacing all of your draws and bouncing his entire board to his hand while you recycle a mox.  You don't need to worry about getting the   for Reclaim and Regrowth on the same turn, in fact you can probably cut Reclaim as well.  

Although careful play will minimize this, this deck scoops if Iona gets exiled for whatever reason and that does not give me the warm fuzzies. Also, the likes of Fire//Ice as a backup plan wont cut it because you'll have to play it out manually and can't shortcut it with twister recursion.  If you guys can think of a decent non-creature card that bouncing and re-casting each turn to Words of Wind will cause your opp to draw or take 1+ damage, then you have yourself a loop that you *can* shortcut to a winning gamestate.  If such a card exists then Words of Wind is strictly better than Lat-nam because you can win without Iona altogether.  If such a card does not exist yet, well then I think Words of wind still has alot of merit to consider.

[credmond]

If you are playing drains, Tezzeret may be the best back up win condition. After you oath up your whole library and Krosan reclamation yawg will as usual, you just need to reclaim anything to be the last card in your library and you can win with the Tezz ultimate win condition on your following vaulted turn. The best part of Tezzeret is the drain version of Iona Oath is pretty close to a Tezzeret deck anyway and you can take those lines of play when you draw it.

[conboy31]

the interaction wheel sun moon provides is good, and its cheap, true. problem is you have to resolve it from hand before your 2nd oath. the kros-rec plan just needs 5 mana on board and nothing particular in hand.

I took apart my oath deck and am trying out the iona version.  A situation came up where I did not have 5 mana but Iona'd my deck.  (blue mox, white mox, orchard) I was mildly concerned for a few seconds then realized I could simply Krosan for Black lotus, Will, and then draw one, tap my SDT and draw the other.  Commence operation win.

[vroman]

words of wind is complete shitpile. latnam provides synergy in shuffling back dead cards at even card advantage.
to win fire/ice doesnt take that long. I can goldfish a twister chain x10 in a few minutes.

a better alt win would be jace, since it draws cards in normal situations, and then if Iona is exiled, you cycle twister until jace has 31 counters, then take 4 turns w/o twister and deck them.

@conboy, yes if you can afford to give them another turn (when you dont have cantrip effect), it only takes 2mana to win post-iona. this still shaves off one turn from the plain attack strategy.

[MirariKnight]

If you are playing drains, Tezzeret may be the best back up win condition. After you oath up your whole library and Krosan reclamation yawg will as usual, you just need to reclaim anything to be the last card in your library and you can win with the Tezz ultimate win condition on your following vaulted turn. The best part of Tezzeret is the drain version of Iona Oath is pretty close to a Tezzeret deck anyway and you can take those lines of play when you draw it.

Did you ever have the problem of Tezz dying to Spirit tokens? The inevitability of untapping with Tezz is greatly diminished when he can't stick around. Not sure how much of a problem this really is though, it's just made me somewhat afraid of running him in Oath.

I like Jace a lot since this deck needs card draw. I'll test him out, but again he has the same problem as Tezz does...

[Darkenslight]

What about a Sarkhan Vol as the PW?  It gives your creatures haste, steals a Spirit and makes 20 power as an Ultimate.  It's only drawback is it's GR.

[MirariKnight]

The win in this deck is Time Vault, Oath is secondary. Sarkhan does nothing to help assemble Time Vault, doesn't speed up the clock on Iona any more than getting Yawg Will the next turn, and is in a color we don't run (red).

[sawechan]

how about try using Sharuum the Hegemon / Krosan Reclamation / Reconstruct?

oath her? out, maybe either your vault or key would be place in your gy, put into play, and assemble time vault / key from there.

[MirariKnight]

The problem is that Sharuum comes into play before the Oath stuff goes to the yard so unless Vault or Key were already in the yard you can't get them back with her.

[Kowal]

Not quite.  You need to finish resolving the oath before you resolve any triggers as a result of the critter you've dug up with it.

[conboy31]

how about try using Sharuum the Hegemon / Krosan Reclamation / Reconstruct?

oath her? out, maybe either your vault or key would be place in your gy, put into play, and assemble time vault / key from there.

I think that would end up being very very bad.  Iona usually lops off 1/3 to half a decks playable spells the moment she resolves.  She also protects herself against bounce.  Sharuum would come in, bring back half of the combo, and then?  My guess is A) you have the combo win, B) Sharuum gets bounces and you have no combo, c) you get half the combo, they untap and win.  d) you get the combo, they bounce some of the pieces and you dont have mana or they counterspell when you try to replay them because they can still play blue spells.  Try it out though, but I am very skeptical.

[vroman]

the problem w sharuum/ e-witness, is the combo only happens 50% of the time, when your recursion guy is below the combo piece in your library when oath activates.
Iona reclamation is better bc there is no random chance
oath 1 - you definitely get Iona, and immediately impact game
oath 2 - you definitely get yawgwill, well protected

[MirariKnight]

Not quite.  You need to finish resolving the oath before you resolve any triggers as a result of the critter you've dug up with it.

This is true, sorry. But...
there is a good chance that Sharuum is "on top" of the artifacts in your library and is thus a pretty much useless fatty. She also only brings back half the combo while Iona + Krosan Rec brings back the whole thing+draws your deck+plays ALL your permanents except land, and you don't have to worry about counters.

[credmond]

Without the drains I have through testing become suspect of several cards in the basic list for the deck. Mystical, thirst for knowledge, merchant scroll, and library of alexandria all seem problematic without the drains. I have been testing impulses and negates along the lines of a more classic oath list and it really seems to work nicely. EOT impulse keeps this deck moving nicely. Regrow is slow without drains and is not required for the combo (its only required in the rare scenario where you need to recur timetwister for some win with fire/ice). Library seems only good when you have it in opening hand since without drains the deck generally plays out aggressively.

[vroman]

I won ruby with this deck today in chicago area.
report in the reports forum

regrowth belongs in any deck w recall and green mana. seriously, you are questioning mystical tutor in a deck w recall and yawgwill?
t1 library vs non-wasteland decks is a win. I have library in a spell slot, not a mana slot

[Nehptis]

I won ruby with this deck today in chicago area.
report in the reports forum

If your Oath list with Vault/Key begins to dominate Top 8s, is it the Oath components that are the strengths or the synergy with Key/Vault that is starting to put it over the top?

Another way of asking this is, if the Oath deck didn't include Vault/Key as a win condition, would it be slightly weaker of a deck or greatly weakened?

[vroman]

thats a pretty dificult question, bc wo time vault, the entire metagame would be drasticaly different, so I have no idea if oath would continue to be viable or not.

[MirariKnight]

Time Vault is most certainly the problem, this deck is just another (in my opinion the most powerful) way to abuse it. Without Time Vault you'd have to do something like Iona+Krosan Rec+Storm Kill or something, which carries the huge downside of being plan A rather than plan B like Oathing is now (as of now, assembling Vault/Key the old fashioned way is just as good as Oathing). This is speaking in a vacuum though, so in reality I have no idea.

[credmond]

I won ruby with this deck today in chicago area.
report in the reports forum

regrowth belongs in any deck w recall and green mana. seriously, you are questioning mystical tutor in a deck w recall and yawgwill?
t1 library vs non-wasteland decks is a win. I have library in a spell slot, not a mana slot

Absolutely I am questioning it. Mystical is card disadvantage and in this deck it lacks tinker, gifts, facts, and tendrils as additional targets. Regrow is sorcery speed and can clog up your early hands when you want to land an early oath. Regrow and mystical were generally absent from winning oath lists for a long time even though those lists obviously ran green. The best line of play for this deck is possibly just resolving oath + orchard as soon as possible and impulse works really well at doing that without the problem of drawing Iona into your hand. Impulse speeds the deck up a lot and makes your spell pierces that much better. Yawgwill is best played after Iona is oathed up and via Krosan reclamation anyway.

Without drains the optimal line of play in this deck is a little blurry. Is it better to slow roll and generate a critical mass of cards like a big blue combo deck with mystical and library of alexandria or is it better to simply play oath and orchard and just win? Iona is such a powerhouse that either way will work really well and the results you are getting are certainly showing that. We are only dealing with questions of which way is slightly more optimal. Once the meta adjusts with cards like remora and repeal to fight this monster we might find that the deck comes out short as a big blue power deck but can beat those decks to the punch with impulse and an early oath.

[vroman]

the primary win is time vault, with oath just used as an enabler. I tutor for recall before oath almost every time. regrow doesnt clog up your early hand, if your first play is tutor for recall majority of games. thus get double recall, or can afford to lose a counter war. orchard+oath is a welcome early play, but not something I try to force. for example I dont think I have ever tutored for orchard. always better to get a draw spell, etc. pierce is good bc the early turns are always tight counter battles over recall.

[Killane]

Time Vault is most certainly the problem, this deck is just another (in my opinion the most powerful) way to abuse it. Without Time Vault you'd have to do something like Iona+Krosan Rec+Storm Kill or something, which carries the huge downside of being plan A rather than plan B like Oathing is now (as of now, assembling Vault/Key the old fashioned way is just as good as Oathing). This is speaking in a vacuum though, so in reality I have no idea.

Yes, the storm kill works just fine here post Oath. No it's not better than Key-Vault due to the fact that the way the deck would be built has little chance of using the Storm kill outiside of Oathing, whereas Key-vault gets there without Oath. no, you won;t ever have a situation where you can't get to 10 Storm the turn after you get Iona, and with Iona on blue if you can counter any Ranvenous Trap BS that they come up with then the storm kill is just as invulnerable as the key-vault kill.

They key vulnerability of this combo is the Yard, and without Key-Vault this vulnerability is magnified. Iona can get there on her own, but's it's a 4 turn clock which gives your opponent far too many chances to get out of it.

In a metagame without vault at all, there is no real way to answer this, but I would think it would be an interesting Storm option. They can't stop you mid-combo due to the presence of Iona, and plan B with the Angel as a beatstick is very strong due to the high disruption factor. I don't own a vault or even a key ATM so I've been running the Storm kill and I like it just fine, but it does suffer from being virtually impossible to use without the Oath (I did have one silly game wherein my opener of game 2 was 5 mox, rebuild, tendrils and since my opponent was a non-FoW Dredge deck I simply stormed and killed him, but that would be defined as a God hand in that matchup and I doubt I'll ever see it again).

Here's my list:

Iona

Land (16):
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine

Artifacts (9):
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
5 Moxen (not pearl)
1 Mana Vault
1 Sensei’s Divining Top

Creatures (1):
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria

Enchantments (4):
4 Oath Of Druids

Instants (20):
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Lim-Dul's vault
1 Gift’s Ungiven
1 Impulse

4 Spell Pierce
4 Force Of Will
1 Krosan Reclaimation
1 Wipe Away
1 Rebuild

Sorceries (11):
4 Thoughtseize
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Timetwister
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ponder
1 Time Walk
1 Merchant Scroll

Sideboard

1 Karrthus, Tyrant Of Jund
1 Empyrial Archangel
2 Hellkite Overlord
3 Extirpate
3 Oxidize
4 Leyline Of The Void
1 Pithing Needle


List needs some work I think, but it's been good in the limited matchups I've played with it.

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

with this oath deck on the rise it seems like goblin bombardment just got alot better

[Gekoratel]

If your looking for a card strictly for the Oath matchup I think both Greater Gargadon and Spawning Pit are better, but I'd rather play something more versatile like Engineered Plague which I can use against Oath/Elves/Goblins and even some fish lists have a high density of Wizards.

[vroman]

engineered plague is a poor option, since its 3c non-instant, and leaves you exposed to just lose to time vault. same story w sac outlet functions. seal cleansing/ qasali pridemage/ pernicious deed are the most effective, bc once resolved, they provide indefinite protection from either wincon, at minimal further investment.

[oshkoshhaitsyosh]

i think bombardment is fine....once u sac all the guys to gargadon they are gonna activate oath when he comes in play and just win anyways...it slows the game down thats all...plague seems alright too

...that is in UR landstill =) MU-HAHAHAHAH

[vroman]

i think bombardment is fine....once u sac all the guys to gargadon they are gonna activate oath when he comes in play and just win anyways...it slows the game down thats all...plague seems alright too

...that is in UR landstill =) MU-HAHAHAHAH

go for it

[voltron00x]

I split in the finals of the 53-person NYSE III tournament last Saturday:

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=39106.new;boardseen#new

I'll post a report in my article on SCG on Monday.

I was tempted to run something similar to Vroman's list, but just updated my Gamecore finalist list to include Zendikar instead.  It worked out pretty well.  Zen has really pushed Oath into the first tier of Vintage, IMO.