Broken Oath presentation

[quentin]

This thread is meant to present a deck which hasn't received yet much attention outside of France, however in this country it has top8ed several times in the past few months and won a couple of tournaments, the results being posted first in my hands and then by several other pilots who picked up the deck, which is why I took the time to write this and posted in the open forum (section #8 has results which I believe are suited to call this deck "proven").
While the deck doesn't feature particularly new or unseen before cards or ideas, it pushes pretty far a concept that hasn't been fully explored yet : hybriding oath and storm archetypes.

0. Deck name
1. Decklist
2. Deck inception
3. Deck features
4. Sideboard
5. Matchup analysis
6. Room for improvement and alternate choices
7. Common questions and critics
8. Deck results

0. Deck name

I don't care much about deck names, I called it "grim oath" and "junk oath" in the past, here it's referred to as "oath combo" fairly often, I called the latest version "broken oath" because I once swore that I wouldn't ever play a vintage deck without tinker because it was just so fucking dumb, and well, I did with this deck ^^.

1. Deck list

I guess a thread can't really start another way.

   4  Oath of Druids
    1  Tidespout Tyrant
    2  Eternal Witness

    1  Tendrils of Agony
    1  Timetwister
    1  Yawgmoth's Bargain
    1  Yawgmoth's Will
    1  Necropotence
    1  Gifts Ungiven
    1  Mind's Desire

    1  Demonic Tutor
    1  Vampiric Tutor
    1  Merchant Scroll
    1  Brainstorm
    1  Ancestral Recall
    1  Time Walk
    1  Mystical Tutor
    1  Ponder

    4  Force of Will
    2  Misdirection
    2  Duress
    1  Rebuild
    1  Chain of Vapor

    4  Forbidden Orchard
    1  Tolarian Academy
    4  Polluted Delta
    2  Underground Sea
    2  Tropical Island
    1  Island
    1  Volcanic Island

    1  Mox Emerald
    1  Mox Pearl
    1  Mox Ruby
    1  Mox Sapphire
    1  Mox Jet
    1  Lotus Petal
    1  Sol Ring
    1  Mana Crypt
    1  Black Lotus

    4  Dark Ritual

// Sideboard
SB: 2  Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2  Ancient Grudge
SB: 3  Pyroclasm
SB: 1  Tinker
SB: 1 [ARB] Sphinx of the Steel Wind
SB: 3  Ravenous Trap
SB: 2  Sadistic Sacrament
SB: 1  Pyroblast

2. Deck inception

I'm a long-time TPS player, a deck that I love and that brought me a good amount of results (among which a top8 at bazaar of moxen 2). My sideboard strategies to fight with the difficult matchups of the deck has been similar to other's (first with tombstalkers, then tarmo+confidants), but the last times I played a smennen-like TPS list, my sideboard strategy against shops and fish was to transform into oath (with empyrial*2 and gaeas blessing originally). With the advent of confidant-remora tezz over here in europe last year, I realised that boarding the oath plan was more and more relevant in matchups they were not meant to adress originally, and thought that if I was gonna board it 70+ % of the time, I should run it maindeck. From there I started working on a TPS-oath hybrid.

A little bit of initial research provided me with some lists which were either obsolete due to restrictions or didn't make me particularly happy (samples 1 2 3).
My own first build (list) kept tinker->jar and incorporated oath with tyrant and magister sphinx as creatures (hence the name junk oath, magister sphinx being a junk rare). Sphinx had the advantage of being a 2-turn clock like colossus, pitching to fow, and not trampling over tokens to avoid the opponent activating oath. While I had some good results with the list, I wasn't yet completely happy with the synergies between the two strategies. I wanted the oath plan to fit in the storm plan better, to depend less on drawing my beasts, and to avoid bad cards such as krosan reclamation or lat nam's legacy.
The recent explosion in the european meta of qasali pridemage decks made the sphinx obsolete, and tyrant just by himself often felt underwhelming. This is how I arrived to the tinkerless tyran-witness version presented here.

3. Deck features

To get to the above list I tried to adress some of the weaknesses of the decks I wanted to hybrid :

A. Generally speaking, why does TPS lose games ?
a. Because many cards make the storm plan unavailable or very difficult (spheres, cannonists, chalice, null rod). TPS is made to adress one of those threats landing the board, but if a second hits, or if a counter hits the countermeasure, you're pretty much out (the latter is particularly relevant in the fish-infested meta with have over-here).
b. (a year ago) Because of mystic remora. Control was 2 years ago a good matchup for TPS. Then came mystic remora, and suddenly control became another difficult matchup, making the whole field really hostile to the deck. This is less important today because remora (at least over here) has become much less played in a metagame full of creatures.
.c Because of a too low threat density. With spell pierce joining fish and control's usual annoyances package, resolving a bomb (which is normally all what tps needs) has become much more difficult then it used to, the increase in the amount of counters in opposing decks making draw7s more unreliable as well. Therefore, getting to the critical turn with at the very least one and preferably two disruption elements in hand has become much more of a necessity, the problem being that nowadays even control has a clock able to match the time necessary to achieve that.

B. Generally speaking, why does (traditional) oath lose games ?
a. Because it relies on oath too much. Cards like chalice, meddling mage, and now qasali pridemage (and trygon to a lesser extent) punish strongly a deck relying only on oath to win. Iona versions are the evolution of control-oath to adress this issue (actually another hybrid), by incorporating the tezz plan in addition to the oath one.
b. Because of a too slow clock. Killing 3 turns after playing oath is too slow. Killing 2 turns after playing oath will sometimes prove too slow. This is particularly relevant in the control matchup. If it takes a couple of turns to find the oath of the orchard, then another couple to kill, chances are your opponent kill have infinite turn'ed you before. This is even more important in this matchup because due to the number of slots you need for the "kill" (6-8 depending on the version), a control deck built with less slots to kill has a better draw engine and more counter backup than you do.
c. Because of an oath target being removal-sensitive. Swords, ET, CoV, duplicant, depending on the oath version you're playing, can ruin the day if they shot the only target you had remaining.
d. Because of so many insanely awful topdecks. Drawing one of your targets is not only bad because it isn't in your library anymore, but also because you just lost that draw. In a vintage game that can easily be all what's needed to make a difference. The third target (often krosan reclamation or gaea's blessing) will also be an awful card to have in hand in 90% of cases.

The list above, by incorporating tidespout tyrant and eternal witness as oath targets, tries to maintain as many advantages as possible of both the original strategies :

- The power of the bombs, flexibility and explosiveness in TPS.
- The ability of oath to win by playing a single undercosted card.

and, in the meantime, adress the issues listed previously :

A.a. Hate cards that are a problem for TPS are virtually ineffective against oath. One strategy relies on playing plenty of spells, the other on resolving a single 2-mana enchantment.
A.b. While remora isn't much present anymore as it used to, oath just needs you to play a single spell to win. Also nowadays, most control decks are playing at least a few creatures, which definitely helps the matchup.
A.c. While the deck has lost tinker and jar compared with original TPS, it has won 4 oaths as additional bombs in its package, giving it an overall higher threat density, even moreso in matchups without mana denial in which witnesses can be reliably harcastable.

B.a. The storm plan in the deck remains very solid. This is not primarily an oath deck. It isn't primarily a TPS deck either, while it definitely is a storm deck. I've made statistics out of the hundreds of games I played with the deck, and "only" approximately 60% of victories relied on oath to win. You'll just as often as in TPS be able to tutor for a turn 2 necropotence and win from there.
B.b. There are plenty of ways the deck will win on "first" activation (see further down). The kill rate at the second activation is extremely high.
B.c. Witnesses are virtually immune to removal (in that they provide their benefit on the CIP). Getting a tyrant bounced can be handled (if necessary) by witnessing brainstorm. Getting a tyrant plowsharised sucks, although most of the times against decks that play swords oathing double witness takes care of the game.
B.d. The single bad topdeck is tidespout tyrant. The witnesses are completely hardcastable, and are even pretty good against anything that doesn't do too much mana denial (control primarily), mana denial strategies being the ones against which oath shines. Even having tyrant in hand, if you need it to bounce some annoyance, witnessing brainstorm will allow that. No krosan ! The risk to get killed by an innoportune spell snare on krosan disappears, and a very bad topdeck with it. With 2 witnesses and all the tutors in the deck, you will have access to your whole deck, without the need to put your balls on the table.

So what exactly happens when you oath with this deck ?

The main idea is to either witness a Ywill, or witness a time walk until you have both tyrant and witness in play, point from which if you have mox/spell you can bounce/play witness for a hand-built infinite ywill. There are many variants that can lead you to win like this on first activation, just to list a couple :
oath->witness->walk->oath->win
Or without walk in the first graveyard drop :
oath->witness->mystical->walk->oath
oath->witness->vampiric->walk->oath
oath->witness->demonic->walk->oath
From there, if you oath the 2d witness, in 99% of cases you'll have enough in the yard to kill (directly or from tutoring ywill to kill). If you oath the tyrant in 2d position, there are many tyrant+witness shenanigans, again just to list the main ones :

Tyrant + Witness + 5 manas + walk = infinite turn (who needs time vault anyway ? ).
Tyrant + Witness + mox emerald or black lotus + 1 extra artifact mana = get all cards from your yard in hand (multiple times if need be).

There are very few realistic board situations which you can't get out of to win with these two cards in play.
Oathing the tyrant first is where you have the least chances to kill on first activation, because you have only your hand and board to play with, although anyone who played tyrant oath in the gush era knows there's plenty you can do with just that. With a tyrant in play, even if you don't win right away, you should have enough to buy time until your second activation and win from there.

The deck is extremely fun to play, although also quite demanding, due to the many available lines of play and choices.

Its main weaknesses compared to the original decks it is hybrided from are I think twofold :
- The mana base is less strong than in TPS. The need for colored mana and orchards makes you more sensitive to wasteland. To mitigate this, the deck plays 15 lands (compared to the 12-13 of original TPS), and the oath plan, if more mana demanding here than in a dragon oath, is still much less hungry than a regular TPS build. Magus of he moon still spells game (though nobody plays it these days).
- You need to play spells after resolving oath. Comparing it to dragon oath, with the latter once you activate, all you have to do is tap your dragons and keep your butt cheeks tight hoping your clock will be enough. Here, you will need to play spells after activating, meaning that if you slipped your oath through a counter wall "by chance" (n the first turn, or because of an opponent tapping out too hastily), you will hit the counter wall once you activate. This can hinder seriously your clock, and while you still have 2 other activations left and inherent card advantage coming with them, sometimes yes, you may lose you a game you'd have won with dragons.

I think it's important to understand that unlike most oath decks which use oath to dump a fatty, this deck most of the time uses oath as a tutor + graveyard filler, which fits in really well in the storm strategy. Oath->witness is essentially a tutor on the first X cards of your library, putting the others in your yard.

4. Sideboard

The maindeck here is geared towards the control matchup. The metagame being full of fish these days over here, the red splash for pyroclasm comes in handily, and also provides ancient grudge which is nice with oath. Tinker and sphinx can be boarded in from the sideboard to mitigate opposing graveyard hate and have a third game plan versus creatures. In a meta with less creatures, or with mostly bant as creatures it is possible not to splash R, run nature's claim, perish, and get another basic maindeck.
The deck sporting dark ritual, we have easy access to sadistic sacrament as a "kill" against control and oath.

Note that in the past I used to run an extra land in the sideboard and one less maindeck. I have chosen now to run the land maindeck, and take it out in matchups that do not do mana denial. In the case of this list, the island would typically get out of the deck post side in control or combo matchups.

5. Matchup analysis

While I have detailed stats and sideboard plans, I won't make this post 200 pages and will just post here a few comments:

- Tezz : control, as for TPS, is always a tense and difficult matchup in which victory can shift sides pretty quickly depending on your choices. Witness really shines here when comparing to "regular" oath as a card that would normally have been bad and suddenly becomes pretty good. The threat density is your bigger strength here, knowing when to throw each is key. Desire is as awesome as always in the matchup.

- Oath : (assuming control-iona-vault version). This can be very dumb as most oath mirrors are (looks who's got the most orchards). Or it can look like a tezz vs storm matchup. Post side, both players take out 3 oaths and it looks even more like a tezz vs storm matchup, only this time you also have the 2 sacraments as extra kills and game plans.

- Fish : (assuming selkie-qasali-denial bant). Oath makes us much stronger against the general denial approach, however this is far from an easy matchup, mostly due to qasali pridemage. Even trygon can be a hassle paired with stifle. Post side, bring in 3 pyroclasm, pyroblast and tinker, and life suddenly has become much easier.

- MUD : I tested originally a list with only 2 witnesses as targets. MUD makes the tyrant necessary, although in tests it has proven usefull and necessary in many other situations as well. The oath strategy has the inherent advantage here, being cheap and the opponenet relying on creatures to win. You even have the flexibility of a maindeck rebuild to reach critical turn TPS-style.

- Ichorid : you have a slightly better G1 against ichorid than most of the metagame, due to being able to race it. The fact that you can win on first oath activation, and the access to timetwister as a reset button, are our best chances here. Still in the 30-70 though, nothing magical. Post side, I have found that 5 hate cards were generally enough. The 2/1 beatdown route for him is generally too slow, so the game plan here is basically have 1 hate card resolve, then race. Witness -> hate has proved relevant multiple times.

- TPS/ANT : luckily the meta is not very nice with TPS these days, because this can be a pretty difficult matchup. The oath plan will often be too slow, and our disruption package is a bit light in these matchups (particularly vs ANT).

6. Room for improvement and alternate choices

Suggestions that have been made and should at least be worth testing :
- Depending on the meta, desire, which is mostly there for the control matchup, may not have its place maindeck. It probably would in the US, however the european meta is infested with tezzeret destruction decks, and control tends to be much less represented, at least in top8s. Getting desire out would probably mean taking out rebuild too, since we have tyrant as a bounce engine and rebuild probably doesn't carry its weight anymore without its storm enabler role. The best candidate for these slots is not completely clear though, I would probably test impulse first, then maybe extra disruption slots (spell pierce ?). Note though those cards must be U to be able to rely on force and misdirection.
- As noted above, not splashing R and keeping a pure BUG version with 1 more trop or 1 more basic is definitely an option.
- Some consider bargain too expansive without the cabal rituals, and have replaced it with grim tutor. I personally wouldn't go without it.
- There could be alternatives to the chosen disruption package 4 force 2 misdi 2 duress 2 bounce. Spell pierce is probably worth testing, but again any blue card out should be replaced by another blue card.
- Someone suggested playing with just 1 witness. I find more comfortable playing with 2, and running only 1 would seem like unnecessary risk to me, considering the hardcastability and relevant ability of witness.

7. Common questions and critics

After about 12 pages of discussions in the french forums, here are the most common / relevant comments received.

- Your deck looks like a bad TPS and a bad oath.

Well that's not exactly the critic I get, it is more along the lines of "the storm plan seems to be too much disturbed with all the oath jank in the middle and doesn't seem like a really solid alternative to the oath route".

I generally answer by suggesting to look at what's in and out compared with TPS (using a regular smenenen list).

Out :
- tinker, jar, colossus, 2 duress, imperial seal, grim tutor, 2 cabal ritual, mana vault
In :
- 4 oaths, 2 witnesses, 1 tyrant, 1 misdi, 2 lands

The main TPS engines (ywill, necro, bargain) are all still there as well as the 3 main enablers (gifts, twister, desire) and the 2 multifunction enablers (rebuild and chain of vapor). You only lose jar as an engine. Imperial seal and grim tutor are essentially tutors that let you play the card you tutored for the next turn, which is very similar to what oath does in this deck.
Drawing jar, colossus or tinker while comboing isn't much better than drawing an oath (yeah tinker->lotus can be relevant sometimes, but I wouldn't consider it a consistant storm enabler). Witnesses are pretty decent setup cards before comboing, immune to spell pierce, and good chump blockers.
Mana vault was deemed too unreliable in a null-rod infested environement.
Finally the real things that you lose are the 2 cabal rituals and 2 duress (1 of which is replaced by a misdi for upping the U count). Sure these can be very relevant while comboing, however they are definitely not necessary pieces, and what the oath plans offers seems to me definitely worth the loss.

The situation where their loss is the most relevant is when resolving an early necropotence. With TPS you can often be very aggressive with necropotence, setting up an instant win next turn. Here in most cases you have to play necropotence more conservatively. But if you look at things objectively, necropotence doesn't have to win you the game next turn. It has to win you the game. It does so very well in this deck too, even if it sometimes takes a couple more turns than in traditional TPS.

- I tested your deck, oathed a witness as the 3rd card and had to regrowth a land, it sucks.

Most of the time, you'll have something broken to get back with witness, or a tutor to get that broken stuff. Most of the time it will win you the game.
Sometimes, you'll flip the witness very early. Well, regrowthing a force or a brainstorm isn't too shabby waiting for the next activation. If your graveyard is completely empty, it generally means you're very early in the game and went orchard-oath turn 1 or something. If that's the case, well maybe you'll still win after the 2d or 3rd activation.

Otherwise, yeah shit happens. That's the moments where you think about those dragons. But then you also think about those dragons, about all the times you drew them, when you hardcast a witness returning that ancestral to your hand.
When you actually lose a game to a poor oath->witness, think big picture and how many games they turned out better than their conterparts. I personnaly think the benefits outweight the cost. You don't have to .

- I find it bothering not to know which creature is going to be flipped first.

Yep, there's some randomness in that, that's true. You'll often find yourself hoping for witness and flipping tyrant, or the other way around. The games when you lose the next turn because you flipped the bad one, you'll curse me. But I think the flexibility of having both makes it a necessary evil.

- Your manabase seem shaky.

Well it isn't that bad, really. Oath being only 1G makes things possible with a manabase far less appealing than TPS's. The deck has posted many results in the french meta, which currently is over-filled with null rod and wasteland decks. As I said one extra land that used to be in the SB is here maindecked and SB-out-able.

- Aren't you sensitive to graveyard hate ?

Yes and no. Maindeck definitely, even if tyrant does wonders (witness + tyrant still works after a tormod effect ). But few people maindeck GY hate. Often you'll sideboard out one of the witnesses to bring in the tinker plan to mitigate the graveyard hate your opponents might bring in. You'll have strong GY-independant storm+oath+tinker plans while your opponent might draw irrelevant GY-hate cards.

8. Deck results

The top8s I'm aware of in the last months (all in France, in the hands of 4 different pilots) :

1st out of 58 players in Bourgoin Jallieu
1st out of 31 players in Paris
2d out of 18 players in Bourgoin Jallieu
3rd out of 34 players in Annecy
4rd out of 34 players in Annecy
6th out of 32 in Bourgoin Jallieu (invite-only 2009 french championship finals tournament)
8th out 24 in Bourgoin Jallieu


Thanks for reading, shoot .

[Killane]

Good Article, however I'm nto sure TPS/Oath is as synergistic as it appears.

I recently ran a TPS/Oath Hybrid list at a 32 man event locally- going with the hybridization due to the prevalence of shops since the printing of Lodestone Golem. I went a very dissappointing 3-3

Rd 1: vs Sharrum Dredge - straight TPS would have won this match - I died game 3 to Orchard tokens after having Therapy take my turn 1 Oath plan. (I had a Leyline and a Crypt, so the dredge plan didn't cut it for them)

As a general note, Cabal Therapy is much harder to use to 100% efficiency vs TPS than it is vs Oath- thee's much more guesswork.

Rd 2: vs Drains - the Oath plan was fine here, but I won game 2 with Desire and game 1 would have been just as winnable off Tinker-DSC as it was off Oath.

Rd 3: Tezz - loss -  this is the main crux of my point below regarding bombs.

Rd 4 - Lodestone.dec (13 Sphere shops) -  Oath won off the Hellkite plan I had in my board. This is the only one of 6 rounds in which I felt the Oath plan was better than the TPS plan.

Rd 5: Tezz - loss - ok so almost nothing could have won this - he had nutty 1sr turn key-vault (FoW back) on the play game 1, and Nutty 2nd turn same deal on the draw game 2 (and he had Piece after he FoW'd my turn 1 duress. silly).

Rd 6: my opponent scooped to me (not sure why).

Note that 4-2 with good tiebreaks from winning Rd 1 (my opponent there made top 8) woudl have put me in top 8.

The issue here is bombs. Oath is not really a bomb in the same way. It's a pass the turn bomb. TPS is so powerful because it can chain bombs together- desire might find mana and jar, which might get Bargain (and then the Desire mana lets you resolve it), which gets you will, which gets you everything else back, which gets you Tendrils and CA + 1,000,000,000 with free FoW's and Duress to back it up. Replace Jar with Oath in that chain, and you have to pass the turn. the TPS engines are all cross-synergistic, whereas Oath as an engine is only synergistic with Yawgmoth's Will, already a point of attack vs Storm decks (how may times do you bring in a Crypt in the mirror to shut off the most powerful engine?). the TPS Bombs either evade passing the turn by just winning, and give you so much CA in the pass that you can stop them in their tracks for the one relevant turn they actually do anything. This version of Oath suffers the same issue vs modern drain decks that all non-Iona builds suffer- they pass the turn without virtually unanswerable mass disruption.

After my experience with the TPS/Oath hybrid, I came to the following conclusions:

1) Vroman Oath is a superior version of combo Oath. If that's waht you want, Vroman oath is just better.

2) TPS is better in traditional form. Maybe someone will innovate some tech to help TPS beat shops without going hybrid, but it's just not a great choice for a Lodestone meta until that happens, and Hybridization is not the answer.

3) Oath is not as synergisitic as it seems in a Storm shell. It's too Will dependant.

If you want to tune Oath to beat drains, I think a transformational board from Vroman to Dragon Oath that allows you to run 4 x Null Rod out of the Side is the way to go.  A fast clock with Null Rods is hard for Tezz to deal with.

[median]

If you want to tune Oath to beat drains, I think a transformational board from Vroman to Dragon Oath that allows you to run 4 x Null Rod out of the Side is the way to go.  A fast clock with Null Rods is hard for Tezz to deal with.

I just want to add that having a transformational oath board in tps is great also, I like that tps pilots are experimenting and still doing well, I could never see a main deck oath plan working for me with my current skill level with the deck however.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

If you’re going to try to wedge another game plan into oath of druids, we not stick with the well established vault/key approach. It's more easily accomplished and takes up fewer slots.
With the appropriate sb (mass bounce and bobs/xantid seems like it solves your shop/remora issue), I’m not sure there is any reason to play oath in tps, main or sb (befor anyone says this, "surprise factor" is not a real reason).

[median]

yeah it's hard to be surprised by an oath side board these days, i was referring to the oath sideboards that local tps players use to dodge the shop matches.

[meadbert]

If you’re going to try to wedge another game plan into oath of druids, we not stick with the well established vault/key approach. It's more easily accomplished and takes up fewer slots.
With the appropriate sb (mass bounce and bobs/xantid seems like it solves your shop/remora issue), I’m not sure there is any reason to play oath in tps, main or sb (befor anyone says this, "surprise factor" is not a real reason).

Vault/Key and Oath are hated out by a lot of cards in common.  Pridemage, Nature's Claim, Seal of Primordium, Chalice@2 and Explosives@2 are examples are cards that hit both.
There are fewer options for attacking both Oath and Storm.

[pierce]

great article.

not sold on the deck just yet, but i'll have to try it

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

If you’re going to try to wedge another game plan into oath of druids, we not stick with the well established vault/key approach. It's more easily accomplished and takes up fewer slots.
With the appropriate sb (mass bounce and bobs/xantid seems like it solves your shop/remora issue), I’m not sure there is any reason to play oath in tps, main or sb (befor anyone says this, "surprise factor" is not a real reason).

Vault/Key and Oath are hated out by a lot of cards in common.  Pridemage, Nature's Claim, Seal of Primordium, Chalice@2 and Explosives@2 are examples are cards that hit both.
There are fewer options for attacking both Oath and Storm.

All of the cards you've mentions save natures claim are easily answered by main deck cards, such as deed, and sb cards such as needle. Natures claim seems fairly easy to play around, because if you can wait to play the oath and play deal with claim on your terms (at least it worked for me no sweat). If there is on card oath really doesn't care about, aside from generic dudes, its null rod. Against a null rod deck oath will do just fine on its own. No one has done well with EE due to null rod for many months, and most shop builds have dropped cotv for null rod. Even in the event that cotv @2 resolves, oath has always had answers to this, via mass bounce or oxidize/claim, you know cards you'd sb in vs shop anyways. Any of the reasons you've given me are things oath has been dealing with successfully for a while now. As far as playing both oath and storm, have you ever tried to storm out and drawn into oath, dude, and x? Seems pretty awful.  Ever need to resolve an oath and drawn ritual+ toa?
Tps is a deck which is notoriously hard to play when all the cards in it work together. Adding a bunch of cards like 4x oath and a     regrowth and huge blue dude you can at least pitch to fow seems extra bad.
The first post tries to defend this point by comparing this to the following card:  - tinker, jar, colossus, 2 duress, imperial seal, grim tutor, 2 cabal ritual, mana vault
Honestly, these cards all seem worlds better than what’s going in for storm. I know that deck loves duress, and I hard cast jar off rits all the time. Tinker + DSC seems like it already solves the problems you’re attempting to solve with the oath of druids addition. Your also now playing a terrible mana base, 4 colors opposed to 2.

It just seems like both of these decks have solutions to the problems stated. When you play them together, your list is suboptimal with an unfocused game plan and you’re hoping top luck into the right half opposed to recognizing the appropriate game role and winning from there.

[Killane]

If you’re going to try to wedge another game plan into oath of druids, we not stick with the well established vault/key approach. It's more easily accomplished and takes up fewer slots.
With the appropriate sb (mass bounce and bobs/xantid seems like it solves your shop/remora issue), I’m not sure there is any reason to play oath in tps, main or sb (befor anyone says this, "surprise factor" is not a real reason).

Vault/Key and Oath are hated out by a lot of cards in common.  Pridemage, Nature's Claim, Seal of Primordium, Chalice@2 and Explosives@2 are examples are cards that hit both.
There are fewer options for attacking both Oath and Storm.

All of the cards you've mentions save natures claim are easily answered by main deck cards, such as deed, and sb cards such as needle. Natures claim seems fairly easy to play around, because if you can wait to play the oath and play deal with claim on your terms (at least it worked for me no sweat). If there is on card oath really doesn't care about, aside from generic dudes, its null rod. Against a null rod deck oath will do just fine on its own. No one has done well with EE due to null rod for many months, and most shop builds have dropped cotv for null rod. Even in the event that cotv @2 resolves, oath has always had answers to this, via mass bounce or oxidize/claim, you know cards you'd sb in vs shop anyways. Any of the reasons you've given me are things oath has been dealing with successfully for a while now. As far as playing both oath and storm, have you ever tried to storm out and drawn into oath, dude, and x? Seems pretty awful.  Ever need to resolve an oath and drawn ritual+ toa?
Tps is a deck which is notoriously hard to play when all the cards in it work together. Adding a bunch of cards like 4x oath and a     {G}regrowth and huge blue dude you can at least pitch to fow seems extra bad.
The first post tries to defend this point by comparing this to the following card:  - tinker, jar, colossus, 2 duress, imperial seal, grim tutor, 2 cabal ritual, mana vault
Honestly, these cards all seem worlds better than what’s going in for storm. I know that deck loves duress, and I hard cast jar off rits all the time. Tinker + DSC seems like it already solves the problems you’re attempting to solve with the oath of druids addition. Your also now playing a terrible mana base, 4 colors opposed to 2.

It just seems like both of these decks have solutions to the problems stated. When you play them together, your list is suboptimal with an unfocused game plan and you’re hoping top luck into the right half opposed to recognizing the appropriate game role and winning from there.

QFT.

If you’re going to try to wedge another game plan into oath of druids, we not stick with the well established vault/key approach. It's more easily accomplished and takes up fewer slots.
With the appropriate sb (mass bounce and bobs/xantid seems like it solves your shop/remora issue), I’m not sure there is any reason to play oath in tps, main or sb (befor anyone says this, "surprise factor" is not a real reason).

Vault/Key and Oath are hated out by a lot of cards in common.  Pridemage, Nature's Claim, Seal of Primordium, Chalice@2 and Explosives@2 are examples are cards that hit both.
There are fewer options for attacking both Oath and Storm.

Ture, but the Oath plan interferes with the Storm plan maindeck. Maybe as a transformational SB, but after testing it main, it's not worth it and hurts the TPS aspect of the deck too much.

If you’re going to try to wedge another game plan into oath of druids, we not stick with the well established vault/key approach. It's more easily accomplished and takes up fewer slots.
With the appropriate sb (mass bounce and bobs/xantid seems like it solves your shop/remora issue), I’m not sure there is any reason to play oath in tps, main or sb (befor anyone says this, "surprise factor" is not a real reason).

Bobs unfortuantely don't solve the shop issue anymore since Lodestones are around- they are a fast clock that negate Bob as a threat - not that Bob is "bad" in that match now, but he's not as awesome as he was 2 months ago. Mass boucne is still nice, but with 13 sphere.dec there are hands where the lock pieces get out of hand quickly and mass boucne becomes difficult to resolve. If the mulligan proeprly it's a brutal matchup.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Show and Tell dodges pretty much every piece of Oath/Time Vault hate out there.  Play that.  Combo-Oath has never been able to work.  Running 3 dudes also is pretty dodgy.  The original build that I can recall ran DSC and 1 Witness, which seems better than 2 and a Tidespout.  Tinker-DSC wins games all the time, and running 2 vs 3 means your Witness will dig deeper.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

I don't understand why the three random creatures. Either you should play no creatures and just dump your whole deck->krosan rec->win or play a single Iona to do the same thing with protection. For Witness to be anything but a waste of an Oath activation you pretty much need to dump Yawgmoth's Will+enough gas to win that turn. If you hit Time Walk then you didn't really accomplish anything other than maybe playing a land. In other words it acts like a Krosan Reclamation that potentially wastes Oath triggers. Tidespout Tyrant has nothing to do with either combo so I don't see why it is there at all. Clogging up Oath activations just because sometimes it does cool infinite stuff seems suboptimal. (Note this does not mean that an Oath deck solely dedicated to Tyrant is bad, but I don't see it doing much in this deck) If you're afraid you can't combo out after you activate Oath and need to bounce lots of stuff then I think that is what Hellkite Overlord is for. Once you take out the Eternal Witnesses you no longer need Tyrant to bounce Witness after a crappy trigger.

I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way but I would really think that those tournament results were something to do with strong players winning with a random restricted pile or a lot of luck. I do not think this is a better Oath combo deck than Iona Oath and it is certainly not a better standard combo deck than ANT or TPS. Rather it seems that you fan open your starting hand and try to half-ass whatever your deck gives you hoping that your second strategy doesn't eat up draw steps.

I would also like to note that you have no answer to Sadistic Sacrament/Bitter Ordeal/Jester's Cap/Juggercap: The Goblin Saga. Even post-board all they have to grab is Sphinx+Tyrant+Tendrils and you pretty much lose. I am very curious as to how this deck does not get wrecked by any mana denial strategy since you're running 1 basic land and both strategies bank on chaining spells together. I mean if you don't have your singleton Island out you pretty much scoop to Magus of the/Blood Moon right? Your Oath plan is still dependant on getting Tendrils to resolve and unless you hit Tyrant and have enough mana to cast spells then you still run into all the same problems that standard TPS does against Spheres, except your maindeck and sideboard are nowhere near as streamlined to these threats. I think rather than taking the strengths of both decks you've taken the weaknesses of both decks and mashed them together.

Of course I mean all this in the most constructive way possible.

[median]

Back on topic, I prefer imperial seal over gifts for set up. I actually hate gifts in tps since there is no standard pile or strategy to base one on. Has anyone tried using seal over gifts in the french lists? Also it seems like a given to cut the necropotence for an oath, you have to pass the turn for both. Is there any reason it stayed over other cards. Lastly it's quite common for tps to be a two colour U/B deck, I would think three colours is enough for this deck, why bother stretching to include red at all?

Edit: Also seconding what FlyFlySideOfFry said, the deck is screaming for Iona+ krosan reclamation.

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

Back on topic, I prefer imperial seal over gifts for set up. I actually hate gifts in tps since there is no standard pile or strategy to base one on. Has anyone tried using seal over gifts in the french lists? Also it seems like a given to cut the necropotence for an oath, you have to pass the turn for both. Is there any reason it stayed over other cards. Lastly it's quite common for tps to be a two colour U/B deck, I would think three colours is enough for this deck, why bother stretching to include red at all?

Edit: Also seconding what FlyFlySideOfFry said, the deck is screaming for Iona+ krosan reclamation.

I hope this was a typo. Gifts is insane in TPS and if you aren't having amazing results with it then you're playing it wrong. I would love to see anyone who has won or split a tournament with TPS to say otherwise.

Also how are you cutting anything for an Oath? The list already runs 4 of them.

[honestabe]

Back on topic, I prefer imperial seal over gifts for set up. I actually hate gifts in tps since there is no standard pile or strategy to base one on. Has anyone tried using seal over gifts in the french lists? Also it seems like a given to cut the necropotence for an oath, you have to pass the turn for both. Is there any reason it stayed over other cards. Lastly it's quite common for tps to be a two colour U/B deck, I would think three colours is enough for this deck, why bother stretching to include red at all?

Edit: Also seconding what FlyFlySideOfFry said, the deck is screaming for Iona+ krosan reclamation.

Lotus, Mana Vault, Mana Crypt, Dark Ritual is a pretty standard pile, especially if its during your turn, for at least the same amount of mana, and plus 3 storm

[quentin]

Thank you all for your feedback.

@killane : while I appreciate the effort you did with your report, I have the following comments :
- Without a decklist of what you played, it is hard to figure if the report is relevant at all (not in an absolute manner, but as a comment on the specific deck presented here). What oath targets did you play ? Which of TPS's bombs did you play ? If your decklist significantly differs from the one presented here, your comments may apply to it and not to the one introduced here.
- You argue about the deck's lack of bombs, but all of TPS' engines (bargain, desire, necropotence, ywill, gifts...) but memory jar are present in the list I posted. So either you play a very different decklist (making this comment irrelevant to the one presented here), or you'll have to elaborate as to which bombs are missing.
- You are not without realizing that a single's tournament experience is not necessary to evaluate a deck's abilities. We've all experienced this feeling of being over-confidant in a deck, getting crushed in a tournament, and leaving with the feeling the deck sucks, but it doesn't have to be true, 5 matches are very few to evaluate a deck's potential. I've been testing this deck for hundreds of games, but I waited until 4 different people posted results with it (among which two tournament wins) to post it here, because there is a need of quantity in the number of results + number of players posting the results to determine a deck's viability.


Regarding your conclusions :

1) Vroman Oath is a superior version of combo Oath. If that's what you want, Vroman oath is just better.

To quote america's favorite vintage writer, this is comparing apples and oranges. Iona oath is not a combo oath, it is a control deck. It's not your oath target(s) that make the deck control or combo, it's the shell it lies within. Iona oath plays many counters and hybrids the oath plan in the control shell, so much that it inclues its main "kill" (vault/key). This deck plays oath in the storm shell : rituals, bombs, and 7-9 disrupt like in TPS.

Iona oath may very well be better or as good in a number of matchups, but where Iona oath fails in my opinion is in the "traditionnal" control matchup (tezz). Just like this version struggles in the TPS matchup, Iona struggles in the controle MU. Only TPS is nowhere to be seen these days whereas tezz hass been *the* control deck for months. Iona oath has an inherent disadvantage when facing control : its kill takes many more slots, it has 2 awful topdecks (iona and krosan), and control has a much better draw engine. The machup Tezz vs Iona Oath is therefore clearly to the advantage of stock tezz (without regards to other matchups, in which Iona may very well fare better), and I wouldn't want to enter any tournament with a deck that has a bad matchup against the main control archetype.

2) TPS is better in traditional form. Maybe someone will innovate some tech to help TPS beat shops without going hybrid, but it's just not a great choice for a Lodestone meta until that happens, and Hybridization is not the answer.
3) Oath is not as synergisitic as it seems in a Storm shell. It's too Will dependant.

These two comments without facts or reasonning to back them up seem a bit blunt. Too will dependant ? How is it more will dependant than TPS ? Why is it a problem to rely a lot on Ywill ? You can win very easily with this deck without ywill, by either resolving on of TPS' engines, or by assembling witness+tyrant, or even just tyrant.

If you’re going to try to wedge another game plan into oath of druids, we not stick with the well established vault/key approach. It's more easily accomplished and takes up fewer slots.

I'm not trying to stick another game plan into oath of druids, I'm sticking another game plan into TPS. Oaths are here to complement TPS's toolbox of bombs and tutors aimed at achieving storm 10+toa. They do so by acting both as a bomb and a tutor, and by taking the tinker role as well.

Vault/Key and Oath are hated out by a lot of cards in common.  Pridemage, Nature's Claim, Seal of Primordium, Chalice@2 and Explosives@2 are examples are cards that hit both.
There are fewer options for attacking both Oath and Storm.

Thanks . Oath plays two roles in this deck : increase the density of threats, and attack from a complementary angle than traditionnal TPS tools. it essentially accomplished the same thing as tinker in TPS : either enable storm via witness, or bring in an alternate win cond in tyrant. Only you get to play 4 oaths instead of 1 tinker, and tyrant is much more versatile than a colossus, acting as a storm generator, bounce engine, or hand-made yagmoth's will with witness.

As far as playing both oath and storm, have you ever tried to storm out and drawn into oath, dude, and x? Seems pretty awful.

Not worse than drawing colossus or jar while comboing in stock TPS... I've posted the ins/outs regarding this in order to highlight the differences between the decks. it is true that you have less storm generators in this deck than in regular TPS, but that doesn't mean there are not enough. As I said already, the main engine affected by this is necropotence. It is the only card that I've found I had to play more conservatively than when piloting regular TPS. But playing it more conservatively, does it mean it loses you the game ? Of course not. Necropotence still wins just so many games, only it might take 2 or 3 turns instead of 1. The game is still just as sealed by the black enchantment.

Ever need to resolve an oath and drawn ritual+ toa?

This is so easy to make up. Ever need to find a counter and draw a confidant ? Ever need a qasali pridemage and draw a tarmogoyf ? Ever need a dredger and draw a bridge from below ? Come on.

Tinker + DSC seems like it already solves the problems you’re attempting to solve with the oath of druids addition.

It would be true if you could run 4 tinkers. Losing the counter battle around tinker, or getting the colossus bounced kicks you out of the game. With 4 oaths, your odds of drawing into it are much higher, you can activate it multiple times, and tyrant offers a lot more flexibility than DSC.

Your also now playing a terrible mana base, 4 colors opposed to 2.

And 3 more lands. And I am boarding an oath package against decks that do mana denial. TPS needs a super-strong manabase because it will need plenty of mana to launch its nukes. Oath archetypes don't because against decks that do denial, the 1G enchantment does wonders.

It just seems like both of these decks have solutions to the problems stated. When you play them together, your list is suboptimal with an unfocused game plan and you’re hoping top luck into the right half opposed to recognizing the appropriate game role and winning from there.

You clearly do not understand how this deck works. Stop considering Oath and Storm as 2 separate strategies. Forget about all decks that need oath to win. Here oath is a complement of the existing bombs in TPS to generate storm. It's not like it costs 6 to resolve an oath and win from there. It's a 1G spell. There is no reason to consider that running it makes your game plan unfocussed.

Show and Tell dodges pretty much every piece of Oath/Time Vault hate out there.  Play that.

Show and tell needs you to have the target in your hand. It's really bad.

Combo-Oath has never been able to work.

If I posted here, it is because with 7 top8s and 2 tournaments wins in the hands of 4 different pilots, this assertion you just made is false.

Running 3 dudes also is pretty dodgy

First, many oath decks run 3 targets (if you include krosan).
Second 2 of your targets are 1GG legged regrowths, which in any matchup that doesn't do denial (and even soemtimes in those) are completely hardcastable, and which can turn out to be pretty good in some matchups (tezzeret being the most notable one).
Rather than argue other that, let's take the last 3 tops8s posted on this very forum, and look at the dudes.
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=39879.0
R.Shay playing iona, colossus, terrastodon
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=39909.0
S.Robbins playing hellkite*2, iona
http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=39896.0
M.Klemic playing hellkite, iona, kartus, krosan

Looking at the above, how does running 1*tyrant and 2*witness seem dodgy ? The witnesses are incomparable as topdecks to any of the above, and at least the tyrant pitches.

The original build that I can recall ran DSC and 1 Witness, which seems better than 2 and a Tidespout.  Tinker-DSC wins games all the time, and running 2 vs 3 means your Witness will dig deeper.

this however is a very valid point. In the original post, I discuss in the "possible improvements" section that playing only 1 witness is an option. Playing 2 feels more comfortable, considering its hardcastability, especially if you draw 1 and can resolve oath but not hardcast the witness. Witness #1 very often turns into time walk (directly or via a tutor) in order to grab the second and have a GY more full. But I'm not sold on the issue of 1 witness vs 2.

I'm curious though of the "original build" you mention ? I haven't found another witness-tyrant-storm version played in a tournament anywhere, I'd be very interested in any pointer you'd have to another try at building this.

I don't understand why the three random creatures. Either you should play no creatures and just dump your whole deck->krosan rec->win or play a single Iona to do the same thing with protection.

This is all explained in the first post really. I know it's long, but it's there.
The gist is : you don't need your whole GY to win, krosan is an awful topdeck, krosan is counterable, krosan+iona is 2 awful topdecks, draw iona means krosan unprotected, to leverage the latest you can board stuff like latnam's legacy but it means 2 awful topdecks + bad cards, finally tyrant synergizes better with the rest of the deck.

I hope this doesn't come off the wrong way but I would really think that those tournament results were something to do with strong players winning with a random restricted pile or a lot of luck.

While it's true that the deck was picked up by players (much ?) above the average, you gotta wonder why they did so . Also, at what stage do we consider that tournament results are out of the random pot of luck and become statistical proof ? I posted here thinking the results posted in #8 were enough, but you don't have to agree (nobody has ). Consider though that appart from these results, the deck was almost never played, which means the "conversion rate" has been pretty good so far.

I would also like to note that you have no answer to Sadistic Sacrament/Bitter Ordeal/Jester's Cap/Juggercap

This is a very valid point. And while it is true of many vintage decks (TPS, tezz, oath...), it still definitely is a weakness of the deck, just as well as being able to sport sacrament in the SB is a strength.


Regarding thegifts question : I would never question gift in TPS. It's just either game winning or game breaking. Seal has the problem over the other 2 topdeck tutors not to work in the oath->witness->tutor->draw chain. Another player of the deck chose to run 1 grim tutor though.

Thanks again for all the answers .

[FlyFlySideOfFry]

I may be reading impaired but I don't see anywhere an explanation of your Oath win condition choices. Why exactly is Eternal Witness superior to just dumping your deck and winning? It also frees up 1-2 slots more for disruption or combo cards.

[mistervader]

I think that this deck has potential, but I feel it could be fine-tuned some more.

My gut feel is that Tyrant's only advantage over Iona is he is pitchable to FOW, but otherwise, I personally think Iona is still the better choice of creature in your shell. Why is that?

Because if you intended to combo out, Iona is better at protecting you while you do it than Tyrant would, and while Tyrant affords you some nice little tricks here and there to storm into a win, I think Iona + Witness would do a better job of setting up a combo for you than Tyrant + Witness would. If Iona hits first, you lock them out of U so they can't counter you anymore. Then, the second Oath gets Witness, and you win the game from there.

Or, if Witness hits first, you have the (potential) to hit Time Walk, Oath again, then hit Iona this time, and lock them out from there.

To be honest though, either way, Iona still feels like the better deck because...

1. Your assessment that Tezz beats Oath is way off. In testing and tournament results in the Philippines, Oath with Spell Pierce hurts Tezz a lot, especially once Oath hits Iona, locking Tezz out of Blue. Oath has the capability of going off before Drain mana is up, and that's a huge factor to consider in this matchup.

2. I'm sure that somewhere out there, a *good* Tendrils deck with Oath is lurking, but I feel Iona is better equipped to do it than Tyrant. Tyrant relies on stuff in your hand before you can go off, while Iona will have you sitting pretty with a full yard after the second Oathing, and at times, even after the first. Holding "bad" cards is okay. Bargain in hand with no rituals is you holding a "bad" card. Same with holding Yawgmoth's Will without having any bombs to go with it. That, and I worry about the quality of your Mind's Desires if you keep on hitting Oath of Druids + Orchards. TPS is already having a hard time getting things going with a Desire for 5, despite its threat density. Only Grim Long, to my recollection, had savagely brutal Desires at a high rate.

3. Your Dredge matchup doesn’t seem to be any better, and given your disruption suite (FOW, MisD, Duress), neither does your Stax matchup. Vroman’s version has a decent race against Dredge and Stax, and Elias’s version has a great time against Stax and a comparable race against Dredge due to hasty critters in place of Vault-Key shenanigans on Oathing #2. If, as you claim, you have a better Tezz matchup (Which through experience may not necessarily be correct.), then affecting your matchups against two of the other main archetypes in the meta adversely seems a bit problematic to me.

I'm not contesting results here with you, or telling you that your deck sucks. I can tell the deck works. I just want to see how it can work *better*. All in all, though, I like your deck’s concept, as I like TPS but I envy Oath's simplicity from time to time.