Meadbert's Winter Testing

[meadbert]

So due to the birth of my daughter I had much less time to test since the summer thus this is much smaller with fewer decks and fewer games played.
There are no new lists here.  I limited myself to just 16 decks this time, but still ended up putting in only half net decks and half pet decks.
Many of the pet decks are very good in my opinion, so the quality is overall quite high.
My biggest regret was not including a TPS list.  Basically, I did not predict it would be as competitive in the current meta as it has been.
Also, there is no "The Deck," but I believe that did not yet exist (or at least was not popular when I started.)
These lists were all frozen in stone back in October so none of the new cards like Nature's Claim or Bojuka Bog made it in.
One disadvantage of only playing 16 decks is that many cards and entire mechanics were missing.
For instance there were no Jester's Caps or even Jester's Cap effects in the entire tournament other than Extirpates.
This meant that decks with only a token DSC or Progenitus to win with were safe from loss do to RFG.

The lists I tested were as follows.

7 Net Decks:
Tez (Hiromichi's list with Gargadon added to board in place of Arcane Lab)
ANT
B/R Stax
Noble Fish
Fatestitcher Dredge (my version)
Iona Oath
Steel City Vault

3 Pet Decks that "earned" a spot through recent past performance:
Arcane Scrying
Root Maze Oath
Hermit

2 Old Pet Decks that did decent last time.
Vault Combo
Goth Slaver (Intuition/AK/Welder/Force/Drain + Vault/KEy)

Test Decks:
Brooch Uba Stax (new, but Serum Powder Uba Stax has consistently performed for me in general)
Turbo Oath (Did well back when Thirst was unrestricted, but has done poorly recently)
Squee Land (Never done well)
Crusher (Never done well)

Here are the results: Rating RoundRecord (Game Record)
1. Root Maze Oath 100.00 15-8 (35-22)
2. Vault Combo 92.76 15-8 (33-24)
3. Steel City Vault 78.26 13-8 (29-23)
4. Fatestitcher Dredge 76.28 11-9 (28-21)
5. Noble Fish 75.44 10-9 (26-20)
6. Brooch Uba Stax 71.36 11-9 (26-24)
7. Iona Oath 57.02 10-9 (24-22)
8. Hermit 53.08 6-9 (16-21)
9. Ad Nauseam 47.43 9-8 (19-21)
10. Arcane Scrying 44.91 6-8 (17-18)
11. Goth Slaver 40.52 5-8 (13-18)
12. Tez 35.10 6-9 (16-23)
13. Crusher 34.12 5-9 (11-20)
14. Turbo Oath 24.32 0-4 (3-8)
15. B/R Stax 18.17 0-4 (3-8)
16. Squee Land 16.62 1-4 (3-9)

I will review the decks in reverse order.

I will not bother with Squee Land's entire list, but basically it was Intuition fueled Turboland with Bazaars, Squees, Loams, Rods, Ancient Tombs, Crop Rotations, Enlighten Tutors and Argivian Finds.  On paper I thought it looked good.  It had fast disruption in the form of 8 Strip/Waste/Cropper and Tomb->Rod.  Given that Cropper can get Tomb, Rod was a fairly reliable turn 1 play.  It had a sweet draw engine in the form of Bazaar/Squee/Loam which could be tutored up with Cropper or Intuition.  Finally it had a reasonably fast combo.  The weakness was Crop Rotation.  If Crop Rotation were uncounterable this deck might have had a chance.  Instead there are too many hands like this: You start with 2xSquee, Cropper, Rod, Fetch, Loam, Wasteland.  Basically, you want to open with Cropper for Bazaar and pitch the Squees.  Then turn 2 you can slow with Wasteland and if you have found another Cropper or Ancient Tomb you can follow up with Rod.  From there Waste recursion with your draw engine ensures a win.  If Cropper Resolves you are in good shape against everything but fast combo.  What if Cropper is Forced!!!  Then turn 2 you can Waste, but you are now out of lands with 2xSquee stuck in hand.  Basically you lose.  You are vulnerable to Spell Pierce on the draw as well. 
The other issue was vulnerability to graveyard hate post board.  Tinker->DSC is not great since there were no Moxes to Tinker out so I think I had Words of Wilding as a backup win condition, but that was just too slow in general.
Anyway, this deck sucked because it lost to Force/Pierce on Cropper too much.  If I every try it again I will drop the Croppers which means only 0-2 Squees would make sense and I would possibly add Ancient Grudges as Intuition targets.  The other option would be to run Quiet Speculation + DA + Ancient Grudge.
RIP Cropper fueled Turboland.

15th was R/B Stax which I misplayed.  Basically I was dropping Bob too early.  I would generally open with a Resistor effect to slow a little and then drop Bob turn 2 to start drawing.  Twaun warned against this saying you should drop 3 lock pieces in your first two turns and he was right.  Basically the idea is to drop your lock pieces and then drop Bob on turn 3 hoping he draws 7 cards over a 10 turn game.  Do not drop Bob turn 2 with just one lock piece out because Tinker or Vault/Key are too likely to nail you.  In general I was not thrilled with R/B Stax, but I cannot fairly criticize it since I blatantly misplayed.

Turbo Oath is an Oath deck that also has Turboland components.  It has Enlighten Tutors, Argivian Finds, Intuitions, the black Tutors, Null Rods, Wastes, Strip and a Rainbow mana base.  It actually did well (with only 1 Enlighten Tutor) back during the Thirst era, but has done poorly recently.  Turbo Oath's fast clock and maindeck Wastes make Dredge a favorable matchup.  Stax and Fish are favorable due to the fact that is has the Turboland and Oath pieces.  The trouble is that the Drain matchup seems to have been severly hurt by the more stable manabases and the inability to lock Thirst out of the game.
Turbo Oath relies on exploiiting weak mana bases which many modern control decks do not allow for.  Meddling Mage and Pridemage can hurt the Oath plan.  Pridemage also hurts the Turboland plan and Noble Hierarch dodges Rod and Wastes.  This is now a weak deck.

13th Was Countryside Crusher.dec:
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Windswept Heath
1 Stomping Ground
4 Taiga
4 Barbarian Ring
1 Forest
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Bazaar Of Baghdad
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
4 Crucible Of Worlds
4 Null Rod
4 Countryside Crusher
4 Exploration
1 Fastbond
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Vinelasher Kudzu
4 Life From The Loam
sideboard
3 Pyrostatic Pillar
3 Greater Gargadon
3 Lava Dart
3 Ancient Grudge
3 Root Maze

  I am going to get bashed for even testing it, but it has consistently finished in the top 32 or so decks of of 128.  Basically it is built around synergies.  You run 30 lands including Bazaars, Wastes, Ghost Quarters and Strip.  You run a fast clock in the form of Vinelasher Kudzu, Tarmogoyf, and Countryside Crusher.  You play extra lands through Fastbond and Exploration and you hose mana with Null Rod, Life from the Loam and Crucible of Worlds.
Crusher is usually as fast as Tinker since with Bazaar and/or Loam it is not uncommon to swing for 8 and then 14 in Crusher's first two two attacks.
The synergies are insane, but how do matchups hold up?
Dredge is favorable pre board thanks to 9 Waste effects and a fast clock.
Fish should be terrified of a deck with so many huge creatures.
Stax gets crushed by a deck that plays way more permanents and has huge creatures.
The Drain matchup is unfavorable, but not terrible. It comes down to home many basics the control deck plays.
Combo and Oath are near disasters pre board.
Post board Oath is answered with Greater Gargadon (which also has synergy with the deck).  Gargadon + 9 Strip is insane against Oath.
Root Maze and Pyrostatic Pillar are good against Combo, although that is an uphill fight.
I was never quite able to get Choke to work in the main or sideboard.  This is especially true now that Swamps and City of Brass are showing up in Control decks.

Crusher's undoing was the Oath decks and ANT as expected and then Steel City Vault also ended up being tough.
Crusher finished in 13th which is pretty bad, but it's final score was actually closer to the middle tier than to the bottom 3 decks.

Basically 7th - 13th were packed reasonably tightly so Crusher held its own better than expected.

12th Was Hiromichi Tez with 1 Arcane Lab dropped from the board in favor of a Greater Gargadon.  This left too little Oath hate which was tough in a meta with 4 Oath decks if you count Hermit.  It also had insufficient Dredge hate.  Noble Fish is a tough matchup to begin with.  Tez's strong points were against the other Drain decks which it could outdraw in a long game and against the mana denial and Stax decks.  An up to date sideboard would have done much better. 

11th was Goth Slaver.  Think Tez, but with Intuition/AK/Welder instead of Bobs.  The trouble was that AKs are just so much worse with only 1 Thirst and with few blue cards like Thirst and Brainstorm you must pitch AK to Force too often.  Combo was always slightly weak since turn 1 Welder is such a bad play.  Stax was not THAT amazing in this meta.  R/B Stax's Thorns and Resistors are painful for an AK deck since the whole idea is to play a lot of spells, while Uba Mask wrecks the AK draw engine.  Maybe Goth Slaver is strong against Stax in general, but in this meta it was actually weak!  Oath was problematic any time an early Oath was found.  Dropping Welder into Oath is out of the question.  Without Argivian Finds, Intuition could not go straight for the combo without a lot of mana, which meant AKs were the only way to go.  Trying to control with AKs while Oath is already out is super dangerous since top decked Orchard crushes you at any time.
This deck seemed strong in general, but this was certainly not the right meta.  In the Future Jester's Cap effects need to be handled better.  Currently if Leviathan and Vault are take then the back up plan is to control and win with Welder beats which seems unlikely to lead to success.

10th was Arcane Scrying (AKA TurboBert):  Arcane Scrying has consistently done well.  I would not claim this is an exception since it still finished 10th out of a tough gauntlet, but it is hardly the top deck.  Basically Spell Pierce severely hurt it.  The ideal opening for Arcane Scrying used to be to open with Mox, Land and then Denial a Mox or Bauble.  The nemesis of this plan was Stifle which essentially counters the Denial and the Bauble.  Now Spell Pierce has the same function and this alone severely hurts Arcane Scrying.  Also, in the late game Skeletal Scrying was a huge bomb.  Now you either need to draw 2 fewer cards to protect from Pierce or risk investing the card, the life, the graveyard and the mana and lose everything!  Furthermore this deck only has 1 win condition (DSC) which was fine in this meta since it cannot be Extirpated, but needs to be rethought in the future.  Given the prevalence of Cap effects and Spell Pierce I would be inclined to change Arcane Scrying to more of an Arcane Bob list.  The following list is not what I tested, but rather what I would play today:

1 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
2 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Dark Confidant
1 Tendrils Of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
4 Force Of Will
1 Thirst For Knowledge
4 Arcane Denial
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain Of Vapor
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Spell Pierce
sideboard
4 Pithing Needle
4 Engineered Explosives
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Rebuild
2 Hurkyl's Recall

The CMC is really low!

Also, DA has suggested that Spell Pierce may need to be the 3rd control staple along with Force and Drain.  If so, this is the right place to run the full set of 12.
The combination of insane draw, huge Yawg Wills and 16 counters is strong.

The new idea is to open with Turn 1 Bob.  Then turn 2 you either have Drain up or you can Denial a Bauble and ideally have Spell Pierce backup.  From there the draw goes nuts.  DSC was replaced with Tendrils because of life loss do to Bobs and the fact that a mini Tendrils is frequently enough to finish a game where Tinker would take another turn.
Arcane Scrying actually struggled against Tez going either 0-3 or 0-4.  Its other weakness was Fish.  The strengths were Stax and Dredge (thanks to the amazing board)  Also Explosives in the board really help against the Oath decks.

9th was ANT.  Xantid Swarms were huge in a meta with Spell Pierces.  ANT had the second fastest clock behind Dredge and had a solid Dredge board.

8th was Hermit Druid which won the last set of Testing.  I replaced the Cognivore win condition with the Sharuum win condition and still played 12 counters with Force/MisD/Daze.  Having 3 other Oath decks was tough since the Oath plan is fairly weak.  Also, there is no Dredge board.  Those combined to make life tough later on.  Also, it turns out the list I played basically had no answer to maindeck Ensnaring Bridge which was terrible against an Uba Stax list that had 4 Bridges in the main.  If it were not for a few screwy matchups like that Hermit might have had a chance.  A huge issue going forward is RFG effects.  Pre board it only takes removing one card to mess up the whole deck.  Post board things are safer with 4 Oath creatres and Vault/Key but there is still danger.

7th was Iona Oath.  Iona Oath was one of the more powerful decks overall, but suffered from bad matchups against the top 5 decks.  Noble Fish had a surprisingly strong Oath matchup with all the counter magic and the Meddling Mage and Pridgemages.  I used Vroman's board which IMHO is insufficient for Dredge so that was a poor matchup.  Vault Combo's sideboard is strong against Oath because it ran Seal of Cleansings and Thoughtseizes providing plenty of ways to answer Oath starting on turn 1.  Finally Root Maze Oath had an advantage in the mirror since it had the Wastelands.  Only Steel City Vault was a favorable matchup.  Vroath crushed many of mid tier and lower tier decks.

The top 6 decks were clustered fairly closely together.

Brooch Uba Stax got 6th.  This is the alpha or beta version of what I posted in the improvement forum.  Basically I had stupidly pulled Chalice of the Void not only from the main deck, but from the sideboard as well to make room for the abominable Bottled Cloister as well as the 4th Null Brooch and 4 Uba Mask.  Still, this deck did reasonably well.  Serum Powder Uba Stax has consistently been the top performing Stax deck for me going all the way back to the Gifts era.  Even when Uba Mask itself was neutered through erata it was still a strong deck.  I will be brief since there is a already a topic on this deck in the improvement forum, but basically adding Ensnaring Bridge to the main answered the Tinker->Robot issue and provides a strong Dredge matchup pre-board (So long as they are not running Sharuums)  Null Brooch answers the Hurkyls, Oath, Time Vault issue. 
Another key difference between the listed I tested in this gauntlet and the one in the improvement forum is Greater Gargadon which I included here, but not in the improvement forum.  Basically my hope was that Chalice@2 would sort of replace Gargadon as anti Oath tech. 

5th was Noble Fish - Noble Fish has been doing alright in America, but really been doing well in Europe.  When I started testing Noble Fish it became clear why.  Noble Hierarchy is way better than I expected.  This is true to the point that I now wonder if Birds of Paradise is playable in type 1.  A few Birds could potentially really helps "The Deck's" mana base by getting 4 colors in a non Wasteable, non Rodable form.  Also, Noble Fish combined quick counter magic with a quick clock.  The biggest threat remains a quick Tinker, but on the whole I was very surprised at how strong this deck played out.

4th was Faststitcher Dredge - Basically Root Maze Oath and Vault Combo have insane Dredge boards leaving those as terrible matchups.  Uba Stax was still strong since this version had the Sharuums to win through Ensnaring Bridge.

3rd was Steel City Vault - This seems to have really faded recently in tournament play possibly being replaced by the deck which I did not test.  This may largely be because of vulnerability to Jester's Cap effects.  That was not an issue in this meta, thus Steel City Vault put in a very strong performance.

2nd Was Vault Combo:
2 Scalding Tarn
2 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
2 Underground Sea
2 Tundra
1 Island
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Time Vault
2 Voltaic Key
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Tinker
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
4 Force Of Will
1 Fact Or Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven
4 Intuition
1 Thirst For Knowledge
1 Echoing Truth
4 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Mystical Tutor
3 Argivian Find
4 Enlightened Tutor
sideboard
2 Pithing Needle
4 Planar Void
3 Thoughtseize
1 Ravenous Trap
1 Sacred Ground
3 Seal Of Cleansing
1 Balance

Above is the list I actually played.  First of all Fact or Fiction and possibly Mana Vault do not belong.  Instead a 3rd Voltaic Key would have been huge.  Once Enlightened Tutor was added to the deck you badly want 3xKey so you can do stuff like Intuition for 3xKey and then ET for Time Vault.
The Balance in the board was huge against Fish.
The Seal of Cleansings were strong against Oath.
The 4 Planar Voids in conjunction with a zillion tutors and Argivian Finds just crushes Dredge.
A tough decision was regarding whether to use Drains or Spell Pierces.  Enlightened Tutor makes Spell Pierce better since you can hold Pierce mana open turn 1 and then EOT Tutor for a combo piece if you did not need it.  I tested and ultimately decided that I usually wanted the Drains, but that does not mean that 4 Drain and 0 Pierce is the right answer.  Perhaps there should be 2-3 Drain and 1-2 Pierce.
I wonder if a token Mystic Remora makes sense against control/ANT.  Being able to ET that up to play turn 2 seems like it might be worth it even if it just in the board.
A huge issue that is unaddressed is what to do about Jester's Cap effects.  This deck is wide open to them and thus may not be playable in the current meta for similar reasons that Steel City Vault is struggling.  The obvious answer is to add a few copies of Tez.  Generally I hate Tez, but ET's mean it is easier to find Lotus and thus resolve Tez faster.  You still must wait to have enough artifacts to swing with though.

First place was Root Maze Oath:
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 City Of Brass
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Strip Mine
3 Wasteland
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Vampiric Tutor
3 Tidespout Tyrant
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
1 Ponder
4 Force Of Will
4 Intuition
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain Of Vapor
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Oath Of Druids
4 Root Maze
1 Balance
4 Argivian Find
4 Enlightened Tutor
sideboard
1 Wasteland
1 Time Vault
2 Voltaic Key
4 Pyrostatic Pillar
4 Planar Void
1 Progenitus
3 Choke

I have already written plenty about this deck in other threads.  Basically the idea is to use ET and Argiviand Find to find and protect Oath.  Then Oath up Tyrant and use any remaing ET or Find to get Root Maze into play while bouncing as much of your opponent's board as possible.  From there lock them out and win with Tyrant beats.

Vault/Key replaced the Null Rods that used to be in the board.  If you can't beat them then join them!  It turns out that with Intuitions, Enlightened Tutors, Black Tutors and Argivian Finds that this basically boards into Vault Combo.  For the same reason that Vault Combo should have run 3 Keys, this should too.
Planar Void was amazing in the board against Dredge in conjunction with Wastelands.  Choke was terrible.  Basically I would drop at least 2 Chokes to add Key#3 and then possibly Sacred Ground against Stax.
The Progenitus is there to dodge Cap effects and to handle a quick Leviathan.

The biggest weakness was fast combo which was not terrible at all.  4xRoot Maze + 4xPyrostatic Pillar + 4xForce is solid. 

Having Wastelands was helpful in the Oath mirrors.  Wastelands and Planar Voids were huge against Dredge.  Fetch based Drain decks with Bob as a draw engine are unhappy about playing against both Root Maze and Oath of Druids.  This deck is very good at abusing the yard with Vault/Key, Intuition and Argivian Find, while at the same time it is perfectly happy to totally ignore its yard by going straight for Oath with its 4 Oaths and 11 Tutors.

The 4th creature post board protects from Squad and Cap, but Bitter Ordeal is still scary.

[jovialevil]

  I've always liked your bauble deck, but I'm curious to know whether you've tried a version with 3-4 Repeal and 2-3 Erayo.  I'd like to think that would improve fish and tezz more than adding Dark Confidant would, but haven't tried it personally.

[TopSecret]

Would Steppe Lynx be better than Kudzu in the Crusher deck?

It does cost white, so perhaps it isn't worth changing the manabase or the maindeck over.
In the short term, it can deal more damage faster than Kudzu and costs a mana less.
If you're swinging with Kudzu more than twice, Kudzu is probably much better,
but if not, Steppe Lynx might be worth a try.

[meadbert]

  I've always liked your bauble deck, but I'm curious to know whether you've tried a version with 3-4 Repeal and 2-3 Erayo.  I'd like to think that would improve fish and tezz more than adding Dark Confidant would, but haven't tried it personally.

I want to get back to testing Erayo since he is so easy to flip in this deck, but I have not tested it recently.

Would Steppe Lynx be better than Kudzu in the Crusher deck?

It does cost white, so perhaps it isn't worth changing the manabase or the maindeck over.
In the short term, it can deal more damage faster than Kudzu and costs a mana less.
If you're swinging with Kudzu more than twice, Kudzu is probably much better,
but if not, Steppe Lynx might be worth a try.

Steppe Lynx is interesting.  It is another one-drop which Crusher is missing.  I would probably drop Tarmogoyf before I dropped Kudzu.  Kudzu grows insanely fast adding somewhere between +1 and +4 a turn.  Still, Lynx could get +8 by playing two fetches which is pretty easy with Exploration out!  The mana base would be the issue, particularly since white would need to available reliably on turn 1 which is when you would want to play Lynx.
One option would be to drop Red (And therefore Crusher) to play Lynx instead.  That would make Ray of Revelation a bomb in the board to deal with Oath and Leyline.  That is an interesting idea.  Thanks!

[median]

A couple Hermit questions first, in your last battery you precluded to a Tinker sideboard, -with the meta shifting to Shops, Fish, and Oath I could see that hitting 2/3's and allowing for hate against the last. Would you consider running a tinker geared board in the future with that deck? Also could I get a list to crosspost in the appropriate thread. Finally I love your Time Vault combo list. I'm deconstructing several decks now and making a few orders on E-bay to assemble it. Have you tried Night's Whisper in that shell.

[meadbert]

Regarding Tinker in Hermit:
I was not running Tinker in this gauntlet.  I used Oath and Vault/Key.
I doubt I will change that.  The trouble with Tinker is it plays into the prexisting weakness to Jester's Cap effects.  Oath, Vault/Key, 3 Oath creatures and a Cloud of Faeries seems better than running Tinker and then 4 Tinker targets.

I have never tried Night's Whisper in Vault Combo.  That is an interesting idea since you could Whisper turn 1 and still play ET on upkeep the following turn.  That is worth testing.

[TopSecret]

For the Crusher deck, if white for Steppe Lynx isn't worth it, you could still drop Tarmogoyfs for Plated Geopedes.
It sounds like the Geopedes would be better than Goyfs anyway.
Or, another consideration for white is changing the Crushers to Knight of the Reliquary and dropping Goyfs for Steppe Lynx.

Knight of the Reliquary would also allow for a small land toolbox to handle typical problem scenarios.

If the Crusher deck became green and white, would Riftstone Portal be worth consideration?
White could also allow Enlightened Tutors to tutor for Fastbond and other things.

[conboy31]

For the Crusher deck, if white for Steppe Lynx isn't worth it, you could still drop Tarmogoyfs for Plated Geopedes.
It sounds like the Geopedes would be better than Goyfs anyway.
Or, another consideration for white is changing the Crushers to Knight of the Reliquary and dropping Goyfs for Steppe Lynx.

I don't know on the Lynx and Geopede.  Running them just seems to make an opponents darkblast and fire // ice relevant. Though the upside with fastbond and uncracked fetches could make it a moot point.

[meadbert]

Lynx + Reliquary would be interesting in place of Crusher and Goyf although there may be room for Goyfs still if some Ghost Quarters are dropped.

Since Reliquary can tutor up Strip Mine, Ghost Quarters are less needed.  Also, without Crusher having a super high land count becomes less needed.

Also, Enlightened Tutor would frequently find Null Rod and might allow dropping the Crucible count down to 1-2.

A main concern for dropping Red is the loss of access to Barbarian Ring and Lava Dart.  Goblin Welder can tear this deck apart by Welding out a Null Rod and dodging mana denial in general.  Post board I really want the Lava Darts against any deck with Welders.

Barbarian Rings would largely be replaced by Riftstone Portal which would be huge in a G/W list.  I will have to test some of these ideas.
I will say that the 8 Crushers/Crucibles always felt like too many 3 drops and the deck was way too light on the 1 drops. Fastbond and Exploration barely count as 1 drops, because even when you do drop Exploration on turn 1, you just play another land and thus want a second 1 drop.

EDIT:  Preliminary testing indicates that Reliquary is no go as he is just way too slow.  Also, while tons of lands hit the yard to trigger Crusher, Loam and Crucible bring them back out making Reliquary weaker.  Lynx is strong.  I would want to keep Goyf.  ET is very strong since it is another 1 drop.  Turn 1 Exploration + ET for Rod is very strong for example.  I am now considering Crop Rotation in place of Reliquary to find Fastbond.  That Cropper is an instant is nice for Goyf and putting a land into play is huge for Kudzu and Lynx. 

[jovialevil]

  The concern about welder seems unnecessary... if you're afraid of null rod being welded out, you could always just side out the moxes (to remove the only really easy shaman target), and then you won't have artifacts in your graveyard... and if you're afraid of it being used to dodge mana denial, you could keep wheel of the sun and moon in the side, for welder and dredge.

  In general, though, I think I agree that steppe linx could be a lot faster than the kudzu or tarmogoyf.  And enlightened tutor would definitely be nice to see... certainly seems to warrant a place in the deck before 4x bazaar.

[TopSecret]

Perhaps Flagstones of Trokair would be worth inclusion if Crop Rotation is in the deck?
It also has synergy with Ghost Quarter.
This might not outweigh the disadvantage of not tapping for green and specifically not casting Crop Rotation.

In such a build, would Bojuka Bog help against Welder?

Also, would a maindeck Ancient Tomb (or Workshop) be worth a slot to enable Crucible and/or Null Rod in a hurry?

[Cyberpunker]

How does your Root Maze Oath fare with 22 mana sources?

[meadbert]

How does your Root Maze Oath fare with 22 mana sources?

Just fine.  Excluding the Tyrants, the only spells that cost more than 2 are the Intuitions so the mana curve is really low.  Root Maze acts to slow down when lands come into play.  It does not stop them from coming into play (excepting fetchlands that get wasted.)
Running the Rainbow base means Root Maze slows you down only a turn, while your opponents are slowed down 2 turns.

Against Stax you obviously want to board out Root Maze lest it lock you out and you want to board in the 4th Wasteland.

The one issue where Root Maze can be problematic is getting Forbidden Orchard online against a deck with Wastelands.  If they have an untapped Wasteland, then they can destroy Orchard before it untaps.  For that reason you may want to play Orchard early.

[swawagon]

Do you have any trouble with your "Vault Combo" against 4 Golem Stax? I tested a similar version of my own Vault Combo and 'any' Sphere or Tangle Wire affect snarled the deck so much it could not recover. Intuition was way too high of a casting cost with few Basic lands and a 5/3 breathing down your neck... Or did you have a completely different result bearing your SB not addressing Stax at all?

[meadbert]

Do you have any trouble with your "Vault Combo" against 4 Golem Stax? I tested a similar version of my own Vault Combo and 'any' Sphere or Tangle Wire affect snarled the deck so much it could not recover. Intuition was way too high of a casting cost with few Basic lands and a 5/3 breathing down your neck... Or did you have a completely different result bearing your SB not addressing Stax at all?

The lists in the gauntlet were all set backin October, so there were neither Golem Stax nor Golem's in the gauntlet, thus I did not have to play that matchup.  The closest would have been B/R Stax which was not a problem.

Sacred Ground was supposed to be crucial card against Stax, but Golem Stax does not rely on Strip recursion so maybe that is not enough.  Explosives might be good for removing Resistors and Thorns.
Still, with 4 Enlighten Tutors to grab Vault and Key at instant speed with Tangle triggers on the stack, and given that Golem himself does not effect Vault or Key I do not see Golem Himself being a huge issue, but this is pure speculation on my part.  Let me know if you discover viable strategies for defeating Golem Stax.

[Grand Inquisitor]

How does your Root Maze Oath fare with 22 mana sources?

Just fine.

Yeah, this has not been my experience post-WW (I understand you provide this caveat).  Sometimes even a single sphere effect can knock this out of the game and wastelands are crippling in conjunction with other hate.

Similarly I found the mana base is itself affected by root maze enough to slow down the deck's own threat delivery so that if the initial oath doesn't stick, it's very difficult to come back against control (even worse if they have removal or bounce).

Root maze certainly has game against opposing fetchlands, but combinations of spell pierce, fow and duress are often enough to blunt the early oath plan this deck offers.  From there the root maze plan slows the midgame down enabling controlling decks to thwart the support cards like E.Tutor, Argivian Find, etc.

I like the innovation and overall energy you bring to your testing.  Still, I can't but help feel there is something fundamentally flawed in the approach you take that makes the findings less useful than they otherwise would be.

[Rico Suave]

I like the innovation and overall energy you bring to your testing.  Still, I can't but help feel there is something fundamentally flawed in the approach you take that makes the findings less useful than they otherwise would be.

I agree completely.

It is excellent that you have taken the time to go through all this work.  This effort alone is a great example, and very commendable.

Unfortunately, the end result seems to be very...misleading.  If we are to take these results seriously, then we would all be led to believe Root Maze Oath is the best deck, if not one of the best.  While this certainly isn't definitive, the basic idea you are trying to convey is that Root Maze Oath is a really great deck.

So why hasn't everybody else caught on to Root Maze Oath, and why does it see no success whatsoever? 

[Cyberpunker]

So why hasn't everybody else caught on to Root Maze Oath, and why does it see no success whatsoever?  

While I question the 22 mana sources (I have problems all the time even at 25 when playing Oath against Fish/Suicide/Stax due to the high number of nonbasics Oath has to run)

I do think there are a lot of potential dominant decks just waiting to be discovered. Who knows? Maybe Root Maze Oath is one of them.

[meadbert]

So I was not testing against Lodestone Golem, but I just do not see how he is that big a deal.  This is an Oath deck.  Tt is not like getting to 3 mana is super hard and he is after all a creature.

Is 22 sources okay?  I say it is.  The winning decklist from Philly ran 16 lands, same as I do, but did not have a land in the board, so post board it will have fewer lands than this deck.  It did run Petal and Mana Crypt and Mana Crypt is no doubt nice for paying for Oath through Resistors, Thorns and Golems, but it is also shut off by the Rods and Chalices and the life loss can add up if both decks are mostly locked down.

Meanwhile Petal is fairly terrible for playing though Resistors and Thorns although it does dodge Golem which is nice.

If you believe that Mana Crypt is great for dealing with Golem you always have the option to Enlighten Tutor for Black Lotus to get enough mana up for Oath of Druids.

I agree that Root Maze is fairly terrible against Shop Aggro, but it is golden against all the decks with fetchlands including Fish, other Oath decks and Tez.

Tyrant is a much better Oath target then Iona or even Overlord.
EDIT:  To be clear I am referring to the Shop Aggro/Stax matchup and not in general.

Also, running 5 Strip/Waste post board against a Shop deck with 13 Sphere effects is huge since the end up locking down their own mana if you Waste Shop.


FYI:  I have updated the Arcane Denial deck.
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Flooded Strand
4 Underground Sea
3 Halimar Depths
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
4 Mishra's Bauble
4 Urza's Bauble
4 Dark Confidant
1 Tendrils Of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Time Walk
4 Force Of Will
1 Thirst For Knowledge
4 Arcane Denial
1 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain Of Vapor
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Spell Pierce
sideboard
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Engineered Explosives
4 Tormod's Crypt
2 Hurkyl's Recall

I increased the number of Mana Source by 2 given the new Meta with more mana denial.  Also, I added Halimar Depths.  It is really good with Baubles since you can put Force on top and then draw it on your opponent's upkeep.  Also Depths is basically a poor man's Ponder that can be played through Resistor's and Thorns.

EDIT #2:  Swapped out Needles and Rebuild in the board for Strip and Wastes.  The way to beat 13 Sphere Shop Aggro/Stax is to removal the troublesome Shop and run plenty of mana yourself.  Wastes do both.  Also replaces Needle as Dredge hate.
Rebuild was tough to get off against against Shop Aggro so that was dropped.