gifts in oath

[median]

Oath has been plagued  by a lack of good tinker target almost since the creation of the deck. the problem being that to put a big stompy robot into oath, your going to have to run the risk or oathing it up, and not the much better creature that is part of your game plan. Matches like fish and shop aggro can easily be won with a tinker->robot and having a tinker target is wanted.
I haven't found a tinker target.
I've found something just as good.
The idea of gifts ungiven is an old one and very mana intensive. However the following pile works if you have the mana to cast gifts.

vampiric tutor
demonic tutor
yawgmoth's will
regrowth


The idea is to pass the turn with two tutors in your hand, and vampiric tutor on your upkeep for lotus, break lotus to cast demonic tutor, go for recoup, -cast recoup targeting will.
Play lotus, your graveyard and cast a tendrils or hunting pack.
Hunting pack helps due to how immensely easy it is to get three or four storm and that that is often enough to end the game with that card. Making this actually viable under sphere and rod situations.
The cards you need to add to oath to do this are recoup, a storm win, and gifts which is already good in the control match and you may be running for vault/key. (This is also less mana intense than vault key gifts piles.)

Adding two or three cards to have an additional win that is easy and effective in two wanting matches is something I thought worth telling. There are also advantages to recoup like being able to recur time walk twice and play your graveyard from your graveyard after oathing. Also this strategy allows most versions of oath to dodge jester's cap effects.

Lastly it is possible to break the lotus to pay for the recoup, so you don't technically need the red splash.
This has really helped me in testing, any feedback is worth while.


Edit,
also the pile of

yawgmoth's will
regrowth
chain of vapor
hunting pack


Will usually get you twenty power worth of beast against null rods if you have moxen. Replacing the chain of vapor with rebuild will do the same against shops.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Oath doesn't want dead cards like Tendrils and Recoup.  Why not just Gifts for Will, Regrowth, Key, and Vault?  Oath already runs those.

[median]

This was mentioned, it's less mana intensive and recoup is less dead than time vault combo pieces. It also allows for oath to win through jester's cap effects pre board.

[Rico Suave]

This was mentioned, it's less mana intensive and recoup is less dead than time vault combo pieces. It also allows for oath to win through jester's cap effects pre board.

The only gain of including Recoup and Tendrils in the deck is so that you can cast Gifts and directly win on the next turn with just 5 mana instead of 6.  There is a serious problem with this though:

There are more piles than the standard pile.  While I may not be able to directly win on the next turn with just 5 mana and a Gifts for the standard package, I can likely come up with some combination of 4 cards that will either win in 2 turns or put me so far ahead my opponent is unable to keep up.  In short, the game is effectively over after resolving Gifts in the vast majority of situations.

The drawback of including Recoup and Tendrils in an Oath deck is that they are inherently weak cards.  Yes there will be games that Recoup and Tendrils in the deck would let you win, but there will be a much greater number of games where you will need a really good topdeck and get a blank in Tendrils.

Nobody can tell you what to run, but instead you must decide for yourself whether it's worth including two sub par cards in the deck for what amounts to a marginal increase in performance of an expensive restricted card. 

As for the other topics:

1) Time Vault and Key is way too good not to run. 
2) There are a variety of ways to win through Jester's Cap.  My current build runs 5 win conditions maindeck.
3) Tinker, while you seem to dislike it, has proven invaluable to me.  It is more than just a great card against Workshops/Fish, it allows the deck to side step hate on its Oaths, it helps assemble Vault/Key, and it adds value to other cards like Mystical Tutor.

[Cyberpunker]

This was mentioned, it's less mana intensive and recoup is less dead than time vault combo pieces. It also allows for oath to win through jester's cap effects pre board.

I don't know about Hunting Pack. Its really heavy at 6 mana. So under Sphere and Rod situations...6 mana seems too much.

Plus the way you describe it, you would be relying on Lotus mana to cast it. In sphere or rod situations you cannot rely on Lotus mana. (or Lotus becomes a Dark Ritual/Cabal Ritual)

[TheBrassMan]

I cant comment one way or another on the viability of "gifts oath", but I should mention the the initial suggested pile has some issues.  The suggested Gifts Pile pilegetting Will online costs 5 mana, and requires vamp, demonic, and regrowth all to unused/in your deck.  Just getting YawgWill, Recoup, Lotus and failing to find on the fourth card will get you Will for 5 mana, and doesn't require you to have unused tutors, or even be running Regrowth in your deck.  That fourth card could be anything, and you probably get to cast it twice.  A Time Walk, Lotus Petal, or Dark Ritual greatly reduces the total cost of Will, and makes the Will generate more mana.  If mana isn't an issue you can just get that DT there, and unlike the original pile, you dont have to burn it on finding the recoup or the lotus, you can just grab what you want right away.  For that matter you can just put what you want to get right in the pile.  Running recoup means you dont have to jump through tutor/Regrowth hoops with Gifts!

I don't know about Hunting Pack. Its really heavy at 6 mana. So under Sphere and Rod situations...6 mana seems too much.

you wish, Hunting Pack costs 7... I'd consider it if it made 3/3s at 5 or 6... but at 7 mana you might as well just start casting oath creatures

[median]

@ rico suave
I agree on tinker and think it should be run when at all possible. The idea isn't that this replaces tinker, but augments the general win conditions. With Demonic, vampiric, mystical and tinker. I have 4 paths to a win, with gifts and merchant scroll I have an additional two, with 4 oath of druids I now have 10 path's to a win condition. This makes it easier to top deck a win, find an "oops I win" hand, and push through disruption.

@ brass man
Thanks for your math. I agree that the standard pile has issues. A side note here, hunting pack puts out 4/4s. We could try Empty the Warrens.
The standard pile probably needs some work but I have found that under most situations, current oath of druids lists play out just as well as period mean deck gifts when it comes to gifts ungiven. if you look at the accelerants run by the decks they're identical, and both list run very resilient mana bases for their times. The only thing gifts has that oath might not are drains. A mana effective (5 mana it turns out) pile helps in that regard, vs the 6+ mana you needed to win with meandeck's pile.


One thing that could be looked at as a hybridization of previous piles would be a pile of YawgWill, Recoup, Lotus, empty the warren's which might get you there, this would be six mana. if you can run tinker (say a terastodon list) then you can run the pile of YawgWill, Recoup, time walk, tinker and pretty much seal the game with that.
For passing the turn and six mana you should get there.

Adding one or two cards to oath will let you win games that you probably would have lost; either because you got hit with a sadistic sacrament or because you couldn't draw a win. I certainly think that It's more worth while to play gifts than to run 4 oath targets.

[Rico Suave]

I don't think anybody was arguing against running Gifts.  The point is more along the lines that you shouldn't have much of a problem winning if you resolve Gifts and get to untap, regardless of whether Recoup is in the deck or not. 

[healo]

I don't think anybody was arguing against running Gifts.  The point is more along the lines that you shouldn't have much of a problem winning if you resolve Gifts and get to untap, regardless of whether Recoup is in the deck or not. 

That is true. There is no point to involve win-more cards if they are likely to be dead most of the time. Oath has lots of good targets for Gifts. I belive, that you should always use Gifts to set up a win, not win imidiately, or next turn. Of course, there are situations, that this can happen, like - Will, Regrowth, Key, Vault.. But its more like a draw/engine, than win card..

[median]

I don't think anybody was arguing against running Gifts.  The point is more along the lines that you shouldn't have much of a problem winning if you resolve Gifts and get to untap, regardless of whether Recoup is in the deck or not. 

That is true. There is no point to involve win-more cards if they are likely to be dead most of the time. Oath has lots of good targets for Gifts. I belive, that you should always use Gifts to set up a win, not win imidiately, or next turn. Of course, there are situations, that this can happen, like - Will, Regrowth, Key, Vault.. But its more like a draw/engine, than win card..

If this doesn't catch on then I can call it my very unsecret tech. It is much easier to win with a storm card and some jewellery than dredging thorough your deck for two dead halves of a combo. The fact recoup isn't always dead makes this even better, I'll leave it at that.