Terastodon Oath

[voltron00x]

So you're saying I shouldn't play spells because my opponent could counter them?  Does Jace have split second now?  Wouldn't it get countered just the same?

While we're on the subject, I'm pretty sure Jace sucks anyway.  Playing a four casting cost card that Brainstorms is pretty weak.  There are a number of cards which are more powerful for the cost.  Even re-adding the Show and Tell you cut from the mainboard would be more powerful since you're playing Mystical along with three creatures.  

The problem with this line of thinking re: Jace is that you're applying your conceptual understanding of Vintage and Oath of Druids decks and then applying it your conceptual understanding of the potential of Jace.  There's nothing wrong with this of course, it's how everyone assesses cards prior to their release and so on.  However, Jace has moved beyond a hypothetical and into a reality; there's no need to apply theory anymore, we can just test.  

Sure, there are stronger cards that also cost 4 mana.  That's fine – the problem is that statements like this don’t really mean anything.  We obviously wouldn’t be talking about Jace if we could still play 4 Brainstorm, but we can’t.

You can only play one Brainstorm in today's Vintage, yet there is incentive to play 3 creatures, and that puts you in an awkward position.  Jace happens to solve this problem better than the other available options (Lat-Nam’s Legacy, or Scroll Rack).  Not only that, the card itself is actually much better than I, and most people, would've thought when we looked at it on paper and applied it to our understanding of Vintage.  The ability to counteract Tinker from opposing decks that have Sphinx or DSC is powerful.  The fact that, left unchecked, you're not Brainstorming once, for UU2, you're Brainstorming EVERY TURN for UU2 one time and then for free thereafter is a huge difference and literally gives you a simultaneous draw/filter engine for a one-time investment cost.  Jace even gives you back-up win conditions versus Sad Sac.  Granted, not the best win conditions in the world, but still a win condition.

Jace can bounce Meddling Mage naming Oath off the battlefield to let you sneak in an Oath.  It can help you find Orchard, or Oath, or Key or Vault.  In the Oath mirror, if you resolve one before your opponent, and they have Iona, Sphinx / DSC, Terastodon, they need to hit Terastodon before they’re achieving anything more than milling their own Library – and more importantly, if you resolve Jace in the mirror, you’re probably able to STOP them from ever getting Oath active because you’re in such a stonger position on the board.  

The card is really good. I’m not sure how much I care if people believe that at this point – the results will begin to show in tournaments.  The Tezz deck that split the finals of the last NYSE had one Jace over FoF.  Beaver’s Drain Tendrils deck that made the finals at Blue Bell on 3/13 had 3 Jace.  Jace was a one-of in the second-place Noble Fish deck from the 4/3 Blue Bell, and a one-of in the first-place Drain Tendrils deck.

There’s no need to act as if we have to consider Jace conceptually and compare to existing cards.  The card is already showing up in decks that are winning.  

[MULocke]

Jace does seem pretty good if he sticks.  However, I had a bit of a realization today:  the original reason Rich played so many mana sources is that so many of the decks in this format attack your mana (Stifle/Waste from fish, 9 Sphere, etc.).  If you're adding mana sources in order to make sure you have mana when you get Wasted, isn't it a bit counter-intuitive to be adding spells like Drain, Jace, and Tezzeret?  Against mana denial, they're probably going to end up being a liability stuck in your hand (and if you have your mana against MUD, it really doesn't matter what you're casting; tutor up an Oath or something).  And it's already been said by Matt and others that this version of Oath plays a bad Tezz game, i.e. is bad against other Tezz decks because it's basically just an inferior version of the mirror at that point.  So, what are the Drains and 4-5 mana spells helping?  They're bad against decks that tax your resources (mana), and weak against decks that don't because those decks are either comboing out way faster than you're casting them or Draining them.

[voltron00x]

My belief was that old versions of this deck were poor because they were out-Tezz’ed by Tezzeret.  This is somewhat mitigated by a few factors:

1 – In my area, Tezz is a much smaller player in the metagame right now, especially if you make it through the first few rounds.  That means this is less of a concern, just as a general concept.

2 – Jace helps an Oath/Tezz hybrid keep up with actual Tezzeret.  Drain and Spell Snare help you keep Tezz’s draw engine of Bob off the table.

3 – A combination of Spell Pierce and Mana Drain (or, IMO, Spell Snare when Fish is extremely popular) will help you survive to the mid-game where a Tezz deck with an additional, cheap win condition (Oath) will allow you to leverage the high power level of the deck.  Spell Pierce is very strong in a deck like Oath that can win by just resolving a 2-mana win condition in Oath, especially given that this win con is unaffected by Null Rod and is unrestricted.

This is basically a logical extension of the combo-control hybrid that is most Tezz decks, it just skews harder to the combo side.

Again – I’m not saying Drain belongs in every Oath deck.  It doesn’t.  I do, however, think *I* would play at least two if I were to play Oath at this exact moment in time, in my metagame.  There are a host of spells I want a hard counter against and I think there’s an efficient, synergistic “sink” for Drain mana.

[MULocke]

Point 2 seems to be a contradiction of point 1.  If Tezz is less of a concern (especially in the later rounds where you will be facing stiffer competition), why are you working on improving that matchup, potentially at the cost of others (like fish and shops)?  Also, I'm confused what spells Drain is actually intended to counter except in the mirror.  You said that you'd prefer Spell Snare against fish, Tezz is less of a presence, and I don't see it being too useful against spheres.

[voltron00x]

Point 2 seems to be a contradiction of point 1.  If Tezz is less of a concern (especially in the later rounds where you will be facing stiffer competition), why are you working on improving that matchup, potentially at the cost of others (like fish and shops)?  Also, I'm confused what spells Drain is actually intended to counter except in the mirror.  You said that you'd prefer Spell Snare against fish, Tezz is less of a presence, and I don't see it being too useful against spheres.

They're not contradictory.  In fact they're unrelated.  There's less Tezz as a function of a shift in the metagame.  The printing of Jace also helps the Tezz match-up for Oath as you also have a draw engine.  My previous concern that Oath with "big blue" spells couldn't keep up with Tezz is doubley mitigated by the fact that Spell Pierce and Tezz help Oath compete against Tezz, AND there's less Tezz to worry about.

Also, it has nothing to do with "stiffer" competition.  Many of the better players are still playing Tezz.  They're just losing to people playing dedicated anti-time vault decks.  Oath has an advantage there because it plays Time Vault but isn't a Time Vault combo deck.

Drain is going to counter... whatever you need it to, b/c it's a hard counter.  That's why I like it.  Instead of playing Impulse and digging for mana or Force of Will, I can just play Drain and untap with a mana boost.  I realized I wanted Drain when I tested with split cards (Impulse / Drain) and almost always wanted Drain.

Also, please understand, I'm playing 3x Drain +4x [Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Thoughtseize] at the moment, but will test different configurations based on what I'm trying to beat.  There's no point in comparing / contrasting Drain vs the other counters.

[MULocke]

Point 2 seems to be a contradiction of point 1.  If Tezz is less of a concern (especially in the later rounds where you will be facing stiffer competition), why are you working on improving that matchup, potentially at the cost of others (like fish and shops)?  Also, I'm confused what spells Drain is actually intended to counter except in the mirror.  You said that you'd prefer Spell Snare against fish, Tezz is less of a presence, and I don't see it being too useful against spheres.

They're not contradictory.  In fact they're unrelated.  There's less Tezz as a function of a shift in the metagame.  The printing of Jace also helps the Tezz match-up for Oath as you also have a draw engine.  My previous concern that Oath with "big blue" spells couldn't keep up with Tezz is doubley mitigated by the fact that Spell Pierce and Tezz help Oath compete against Tezz, AND there's less Tezz to worry about.

Also, it has nothing to do with "stiffer" competition.  Many of the better players are still playing Tezz.  They're just losing to people playing dedicated anti-time vault decks.  Oath has an advantage there because it plays Time Vault but isn't a Time Vault combo deck.

Drain is going to counter... whatever you need it to, b/c it's a hard counter.  That's why I like it.  Instead of playing Impulse and digging for mana or Force of Will, I can just play Drain and untap with a mana boost.  I realized I wanted Drain when I tested with split cards (Impulse / Drain) and almost always wanted Drain.

Also, please understand, I'm playing 3x Drain +4x [Spell Pierce, Spell Snare, Thoughtseize] at the moment, but will test different configurations based on what I'm trying to beat.  There's no point in comparing / contrasting Drain vs the other counters.

This makes more sense; the way you said it in your previous post was just a bit confusing to me.  I've never played with Drains, but I'm willing to believe testing results over theory.  I'm going to give some Drains a shot and see what I think. 

Unrelated question:  Has the Waste/Loam plan for the mirror become obsolete thanks to Time Vault and Tinker being included in more lists?  It seems much less reliable to sit on Wasteland and Loam now that they can just bypass the Oath route completely.

[Rico Suave]

The main reason I put Bribery into the main deck is because I wanted an edge in the Oath mirror, but I was tight on SB space while having a few open slots in the main deck.  Instead of sacrificing an important SB card, I opted to just throw one of those SB cards (Bribery) into the main deck.

It is awkward against other matches.  It is a 5 mana Moat against Fish, and against Workshops it is bordering on uncastable.  On the other hand, is Jace that much better?  Or Tezz?  None of these are really impressive in those matches in the first place.

[Tha Gunslinga]

The thing is, against all those decks that Bribery and other crazy cards are dead against, you have OATH OF FUCKING DRUIDS, the absolute worst nightmare for them.  Oath of Druids.  A card that has ruined MANY people's days.  A card that I have won or split at least 10 pieces of power with.  A card I played for 2 or 3 years straight.  A card that destroys aggro decks.  I don't care how many Qasali Pridemages and Seals of Primordium you bring in; I will crush you.  Why?  Because I am bringing the pain.  Oath of Druids.  It will destroy you.

[JCrawl]

I really don't see the benefit of Bribery in the Oath matchup. Oath now runs several Spell Pierces main board, which effectively means Bribery is an 8CC answer to Oath (and worse off sorcery speed). Also, what do you cut for Bribery?

[Grand Inquisitor]

Why?  Because I am bringing the pain.  Oath of Druids.  It will destroy you.

(Puts cards back in binder, takes out four Oath of Druids, starts shuffling)

[mistervader]

Jace has been an absolute house in the control/Oath matchups. I haven't really seen him during my Fish/Stax matchups yet, but in all the times he's hit the table for me, it's been massive card quality + advantage all the way.

Think about it this way... in a control/Oath mirror, if you don't get an early game broken start, a Sensei's Divining Top/Library of Alexandria would tip the scales in your favor if you have either but the opponent doesn't. Jace is both.

[Evenpence]

The thing is, against all those decks that Bribery and other crazy cards are dead against, you have OATH OF FUCKING DRUIDS, the absolute worst nightmare for them.  Oath of Druids.  A card that has ruined MANY people's days.  A card that I have won or split at least 10 pieces of power with.  A card I played for 2 or 3 years straight.  A card that destroys aggro decks.  I don't care how many Qasali Pridemages and Seals of Primordium you bring in; I will crush you.  Why?  Because I am bringing the pain.  Oath of Druids.  It will destroy you.

Ben,

What list are you running right now?  I value your opinion. 

[Tha Gunslinga]

http://www.morphling.de/top8decks.php?id=1243&highlight=1#place1

I haven't tested any updates yet; I'm sure I'll get around to it before the next event.

[Cyberpunker]

Mini Report for you guys .

4-1 today with Elephant Oath.

Thoughts:

Show and Tell is awesome. Drawing a creature in Oath would mean you have a higher chance of losing, but having Show and Tell in your deck would mean you have another way out and so do not lose ground when you draw a creature. You don't need to mulligan that 2 creature hand when you also have a tutor .

Jace can be in the deck. I do not know what to cut for it though, but vs the Metalworker combo it can be awesome. Plus, it is another bomb by itself. You increase your chances of winning drastically once it resolves, if only it was an effective win condition by itself...

Tinker Robot debate:

The conclusion I have come up with today is that we face a situation in which there is no perfect Robot to fit our needs. Inkwell Leviathan is untargetable, blue, and has Islandwalk but it needs 1 more turn to kill and you can be out racved by Fish or MUD. Sphinx will always win you the damage race, is blue, and flies. But it can be bounced/Swords and gives the opponent 2 more turns to find their answer. Darksteel Collossus kills in 2 turns but cannot be pitched to FoW and out of all 3 robots DSC is the hardest to protect.

So...there is no correct Robot. I saw a game where another Oath player won because he had Sphinx out, but today I won because the opponent could not utilize his Chain of Vapor vs my Inkwell Leviathan. So it is up to your own personal judgement as to which weakness you want to open yourself up to when you choose your robot.

/END RANT.

[Metman]

With all of the discussion on the robot target for Tinker I would like to open another door.  Maybe we are looking at the situation incorrectly.  Is there another Tinker target that wins games that isn't a creature, other than the obvious Time Vault which is already included?  In my testing I've really liked Tinker as another win condition but I've hated flipping over the robot with Oath like many of you have already eluded to. 

[The Atog Lord]

Metman,

Mindslaver is that card, but requires too much mana sitting around on the table to work right now. And there is the Null Rod issue. If there is another card that you can Tinker into and win, we'd all certainly like to know about it, but I'm afraid that such a card does not exist. Yawgmoth's Robotic Bargain? Perhaps we can wait for Mirrodin Pure.

[Metman]

Ha! RoboBargain would be nice.  I know that Possessed Portal is a card played at times with Shuruum in Oath and Ichorid.  That is more along the lines of my thinking.

[DubDub]

Is there any way to abuse Memory Jar?  I can't think of one.  I've Tinkered that up before but not in Oath.

[MULocke]

Is there any way to abuse Memory Jar?  I can't think of one.  I've Tinkered that up before but not in Oath.

Like, tap and sacrifice it?

The problem is that it seems to suffer from the same issue as Slaver: Null Rod.  It doesn't seem good in the matchups where you'd want to be casting Tinker.

[DubDub]

Is there any way to abuse Memory Jar?  I can't think of one.  I've Tinkered that up before but not in Oath.

Like, tap and sacrifice it?

The problem is that it seems to suffer from the same issue as Slaver: Null Rod.  It doesn't seem good in the matchups where you'd want to be casting Tinker.

I said abuse, not use.  While Null Rod is just as much a problem for Jar as Slaver, Rich's criticism of Slaver is the activation cost, which doesn't apply to Jar.  And actually I think Jar can be decent in the matchups where you want to cast Tinker and not get a robot.. Crucially I think it can neutralize opponents' hand sculpting, and give you a shot at finding Time Walk.  It is probably better in a build with Tidespout Tyrant.  Maybe Tyrant, Iona, and Elephants after boarding the robot out?

[Rico Suave]

While Null Rod is just as much a problem for Jar as Slaver, Rich's criticism of Slaver is the activation cost, which doesn't apply to Jar.  

Yes it does.  In order to make Jar useful, you are going to need extra mana untapped to cast the things you draw.  It isn't technically a part of the activation cost, but it may as well be.  

[Tha Gunslinga]

There's no decent non-creature Tinker target, the closest would be Mox Lotus or Gleemax, which are unfortunately not a part of Vintage.

[xerxes]

If you play null rod, mycosynth lattice would work.

If you get the lattice in play, you can also tinker out bargain, timmay.

[MEATROCKET]

You can't Tinker in a Bargain with Lattice in play.  Bargain would be colorless while it's in your library, but it wouldn't be an artifact.

[Cyberpunker]

10/10 Shrouded Trample or Evasion Artifact Creature would be what we need.

Making it blue would make it perfect, but let's keep our expectations humble .  


Then again, if only Platinum Angel had shroud...sigh. I guess we will have to take the effort to protect our Tinker Robot. ::rolls eyes::

[LotusHead]

LSV wrote an article about Vintage, and specifically Rich Shay's Terastodon Oath deck over at www.channelfireball.com

http://strategy.channelfireball.com/featured-articles/initial-technology/

Includes tourney report.  Enjoy!

[Cyberpunker]

LSV wrote an article about Vintage, and specifically Rich Shay's Terastodon Oath deck over at www.channelfireball.com

http://strategy.channelfireball.com/featured-articles/initial-technology/

Includes tourney report.  Enjoy!

I read the article and I'm not sure exactly what he said. It looked more like a Draft article with a Vintage tourney report. Not criticizing the article, just wondering if there was anything new he added.

[Cyberpunker]

15/15

[Tha Gunslinga]

Can't be Tinkered out, does nothing when it hits play, not interested.  Question for folks:
I'm thinking of SBing 3 Yixlid Jailers against Dredge.  You can Oath them up or cast them.  Is this a good idea, or no?

[voltron00x]

Can't be Tinkered out, does nothing when it hits play, not interested.  Question for folks:
I'm thinking of SBing 3 Yixlid Jailers against Dredge.  You can Oath them up or cast them.  Is this a good idea, or no?

That's what I've been testing... 3 Jailer, 2 Needle, 1 Tormods, 1 Rav Trap.  I played something similar to this for a long time last summer and it worked relatively well.  With many Dredge decks banking on Chain of Vapor for Jailer, if you Jailer + Iona on blue, you've basically locked out the game.