Play Scenario: Oath vs. MUD

[Demonic Attorney]

So in the last tournament I played in, I encountered an interesting decision I thought I'd share with the community.  It's top 8.  I'm playing Oath, paired against MUD.  I'm going into game two, having lost game one after mulling to 6 and getting locked out in the early turns.  I boarded up to 26 lands, one of which is a Strip Mine, plus 3 Nature's Claim.  Other Shop-relevant cards in my deck include an EE, a basic Forest, 2 basic Islands, and 5 Fetches.

My opening hand is, roughly:  Lotus, Mox Pearl, Oath, Force, Drain, Yawgmoth's Will, Ponder

I'm on the play, obviously.  Should I keep?  If the hand didn't have Force of Will, would that change the decision?  What about the Ponder?

I'll post what I did and how that game turned out once there are a few replies.

[meadbert]

26 Lands or 26 mana sources?

[vassago]

That's a tough one for sure. You could have been really ballzy and kept, with force back up for smoke stacks/tangle wire. Turn one oath against a MUD deck can be pretty good, buying you lots of time if they try not to play into it and just try to lock you out.

A safer play would have been to mulligan into a hand that does something other than sit there and hope.

tldr: I would have played it.  

[BC]

I would have kept, but only because of the Ponder.  I would play the Lotus, break it to play the Ponder and pray for an Orchard.  Alternatively, you could sit on your Lotus for a turn, counter whatever they throw out on their first turn with FOW pitching Drain, then your Ponder digs one card deeper.  It's not a great starting hand, but you could easily hit something that will make it good.

[Demonic Attorney]

26 Lands or 26 mana sources?

26 sources

[meadbert]

I would have kept and Pondered into a land for turn 1 Oath.

It is possible that you have no mana in your top 4 cards, but if you your next 4 draws will net you no mana then mulliganing is unlikely to end well either.

[Yare]

I agree that you have to keep here, breaking Lotus to play Ponder and hope you get a land or some kind of business that you can play that turn. Having Force + Drain also nearly guarantees you get to look at at least 1 more card beyond Ponder unmolested so you get to see 5 cards to get Orchard. I think the odds of getting Orchard on these draws are:

1 - (49/53 * 48/52 * 47/51 * 49/53 * 48/52) = 32.9%

Maybe I messed up, but I think that's close to the true odds. This also doesn't account for other possibilities like ripping Ancestral, Brainstorm, getting a non-Orchard black mana source when you play Ponder so you get to Ponder again (if you want), ripping a non-Orchard green source and playing Oath, which prevents MUD from beating down with men.

Well, let's see, if you have 15 outs (4 orchards, 1 brainstorm, 1 ancestral recall, 5 fetchlands, 2 underground seas, 1 forest, 1 tinker, maybe something else), the odds of getting one of those in the 4 cards you see from Ponder are:

1 - (38/53 * 37/52 * 36/51 * 38/53) = 74.1%

Those aren't the odds to win the game, but they seem pretty good to me.

Keep.

Edit: Added Tinker

[vassago]

Dont forget, tinker could be a serious out at this point too, 2 mana floating and a pearl.

[Yare]

Dont forget, tinker could be a serious out at this point too, 2 mana floating and a pearl.

Yeah, I actually thought of that and for some reason thought that the Pearl was tapped so Tinker wasn't open, but you're right, you'll have exactly enough. That changes the math above a little.

[vassago]

Not to derail this, but watch everyone say "I would have kept it" just have him say....."lol you guys suck, I mulled."     

[Demonic Attorney]

Ha, no, I kept.  But my opening play was different than those mentioned here.

[JR]

I think people are under selling the strength of "lotus, pearl, GGG, Oath" as a first turn play against MUD. Without knowing specifically what the MUD player has in terms of hate, it seems like most decks are just running Dups right now. The pressure that MUD has other than that doesn't really effect you. MUD either plays a guy, which is terrible for them, or they play a sphere effect, which you are not weak to because of the pearl. This allows you to still force the threat you care about if they have something like Eon Hub or ensnaring bridge.

I'm not saying that this is the most optimal line of play available, but it is slightly safer in some ways than the ponder play.

JR.

[Cyberpunker]

Keep it!

Break Lotus for Green and play Oath. Force the Smokestack, which is the only thing that can threaten you after you play Oath. If they do not play creatures, you should have enough time to topdeck into land and play Ponder or topdeck into Orchard iuno.

I would have still kept that hand if Force wasn't in it, I mean if you don't have Force you would have another card that could help you unless it was a creature.

Another important question:

How do you guys handle a Gargadon? Do you guys just simply play on and keep on making them sacrifice counters EOT? Do you guys side in Pithing Needle (sacrificing other slots?)

[Yare]

Regarding Gargadon, you can bring in Needle if you have it in your board (I usually only brought in 1 for this purpose), you can hardcast your men, or you can hope for Tinker or Vault/Key. You can also just play into it sometimes too. Gargadon isn't really the scariest card out there.

[vassago]

Ha, no, I kept.  But my opening play was different than those mentioned here.

What did you do? Ponder, rip an orchard, will, ponder, oath, timewalk? Seems pretty busted, and it seems to be what I would do in this situation.   

[Will]

First and foremost I'd like to know what MUD type or variant it is or if you have any idea about that.  For instance, did you see any distinguishable cards such as Serum Powder or Juggernaut? Against the MUD deck I feel is the best and play the most (Espresso Stax) I'd probably keep and go Lotus Pearl Oath with Force still up to answer anything that could really hurt you such as Smokestack which is the only thing that would actually beat you here aside from something like Duplicant or Maze of Ith from the board that could technically hurt you.  Another option would be to play Lotus Pearl and pass as an extra card could do a lot for you and the only really scary turn 1 play from MUD involves Powder Kegging your stuff for which you have Force.  As a whole, just getting Turn 1 Oath with a Pearl to play through a single sphere effect seems good enough to warrant a keep in my book but it all depends on which MUD variant you are playing against. 

[TheBrassMan]

I don]t think I get any of these "crack lotus" plays.  I'm not sure I keep at all, but if I do, I would Lotus, Mox, Pass.  

Getting anything other than Orchard off the Ponder is really not that good, (with the exception of silly things like ponder into ancestral into crypt/walk/petal>yawgmoth's will).  Pondering into one land, and playing the Oath might as well be a loss.  Cracking the Lotus to play Oath is even worse (though it least you can't miss the green mana entirely).

As the MUD player against an Oath and no lands I'm not particularly scared.  It's just really easy for a MUD player to think "alright I can't play a guy, so I need to resolve Smokestack and I win.  Smokestack is important, so I just need to lead with a sphere or two first."  Not every shops player runs Smokestack, but this is game two.  Even a plan like "Tabernacle + Wasteland + Crucible" locks Oath out of this game, and with an opening like that it should be easier for Shops to find a win than for Oath to stop him.

If you just lotus, mox pass, there's this huge additional chance of him actually playing a creature.  "No land, Pass" kind of signals to the shop player "Welp, time to clean this up", and there's very little reason for him to play anything besides a Lodestone if he has it.  If they don't play any relevant early business, and you draw the land naturally, you're in much better shape.  With one land you can Will for value, casting double ponder, (and you don't have to grab any land you see) greatly increasing the chance of hitting something that matters, if the land is fetch you have even more options.

Now if they don't play a guy out, and they *do* have enough business to stop you through force, or you *dont* draw a land naturally in a few turns, then that turn one Oath or Ponder wasn't going to win you any games either.

This would be wrong if the shop player had two different cards that could stop you (null rod, powder keg, chalice 2), and could play them both on turn one.  If they did have those and you ran the Oath out there though, again, I don't see where you're the favorite.  Alternatively of course, you could just have a sick read that the shop player is the kind of guy to just randomly play creatures into an Oath when the Oath player has no other gas.

[Rico Suave]

I think people are seriously overestimating just what this Ponder can do.  If you miss on the Ponder, your tournament is over. 

If you hit a land other than Orchard, you're merely "in" the game.  You're not winning.  And you probably have to deal with Ponder leaving dead draws on top of your deck to boot.

If you Ponder into Orchard, congrats you won the lotto. 

Personally, I would mulligan this and Ponder for 6 cards instead of 3. 

[TheWhiteDragon]

I'd keep, but I'd also pass as brassman said.  If they play a sphere, let it resolve.  If they play a golem, do the happy dance.  If they play smokestack, tangle, or null rod, you have no choice but to counter.  Odds are they won't have 6+ mana to cast null rod and chalice @2, smokey & rod, or something nuts like that.  Even if they cast sphere first, you have pearl to let you have FoW.  Just watch for the big threats (smokey, null rod, tangle) and let spheres and golems resolve.  Either way, you get to dig 1 card deeper, and give them a chance to play a "token" for you with golem.  You have more than enough mana to cast oath through double sphere and are protected against threats that affect your mana with FoW.  Keep and hold seems the right call to me.

[vassago]

If you miss on the Ponder, your tournament is over. 

If you hit a land other than Orchard, you're merely "in" the game.  You're not winning.  And you probably have to deal with Ponder leaving dead draws on top of your deck to boot.
Personally, I would mulligan this and Ponder for 6 cards instead of 3. 

This is probably the correct way of thinking about this. 

[mr.grim]

I feel that you already have a five card hand,due to pearl and will. So it should be pitched.Craking the lotus for oath could lead to way to many turns of draw go.

[Prospero]

I don't think you can keep it.  It's a super awkward hand, and while the FoW is important, I'd take a few things into consideration:

1.  A good Shop pilot knows to keep, at least, a double threat hand.  Even a Sphere can be devastating against you, mostly because if you cracked the Lotus to drop an Oath, you may have trouble casting a spell to find what you need to win.

2.  Will is dead in this hand, so it's like you already mulled.

3.  You have no pressure.  If you don't hit what you need, you just hand him the game with minimal resistance.

It's a tough mull, and you might not hit what you need, but I don't think that changes that you can't keep that hand.  It's a play preference thing though.  If you rip Orchard off the top, you're golden.  But I think you have to play to the percentages, and it seems like there's a higher chance that you get screwed with that hand than that you knock some heads in.

[Cyberpunker]

I think you guys are underestimating Oath as a deck. You have good chance to topdeck into land and Oath is basically a stall card because MUD cannot play any threats that can kill you other than Smokestack (which you have a Force for). Eventually you will get your lands. The only things that can kill you are:

Smokestack
Mishra's Factory + SOFI

[vassago]

But I think you have to play to the percentages....

To echo an ideal of precaution, math only goes so far. Statistically speaking can only provide a reason as to why one would keep something so questionable.  After thinking about it some more, if you are trying to calculate the odds of not getting fucked as a means to justify keeping something as questionable as this, it seems like you should stop kidding yourself and mulligan, right? I understand this is extremely conservative, but a sure thing , i.e. more stable manabase, is completely different than a gamble, especially if we compare the supposed matchup, the post board card choices, etc...

So, I guess the best answer would really depend on the match up assumptions/knowledge? Who needs to be the aggressive one? What are the most likely turn one plays on the opponents side? I can see why a lot of people would keep. AggroBots generally try to either play spheres or Juggs/Golems/Metalworker on the first turn or two. If they have an "All in Hand" then this opener is the nuts, but if they have an atttrition hand, then it sucks. At this point it seems like the judgment call is synonymous with luck, because it really is kind of a toss up at that point.

So much for not really saying much, right? lol

because MUD cannot play any threats that can kill you other than Smokestack (which you have a Force for).

I think you may be forgetting that non blue decks can, and should, bait for counter magic.   

[TheWhiteDragon]

I think keeping is ideal, as I said before, because you have FoW (and pearl to pay under sphere) for a smokestack/chalice @2/tangle/null rod.  If they play golem, you can cast oath and win.  Odds are fairly good of you drawing into a land/sapphire in the top 52.  If you decide to mull, your odds are pretty good of A) drawing another dead card like tezz/critter/yawg will/etc. B) not having FoW to stop their threat C) not having oath (which stops golems/karn/worker from being playable) D) not getting moxen and having land, pass...land, pass...opening you up to a world of hurt if they play ANY sphere effect, tangle, smokey, etc at that point.  Since your hand contains 4 mana, FoW + U card, oath, and ponder should you rip a blue land, I think you need to keep this.  The plays that they can make are minimal to screw you.  The odds of you drawing a much worse hand with dead cards, no threat/counter, or poor mana are very high if you mulligan.  It's quite rare that I mulligan my somewhat keepable hand and get lotus, orchard, oath, timewalk, ancestral, sapphire.  Usually I'll get a hand that I think is keepable, mulligan for something better, and draw delta, tropical, jace, mana drain, time walk, terastadon....if you mull beyond this, you are looking at 3 mana + FoW + yawgwill, or tropical and 4 cards costing 2+.  Mulligans are no guarantee that you will get a better hand, and since you have 4 mana on turn 1, a counter, a threat, and later plays with ponder (even if you rip tinker, you are good - assuming you run sphinx/dsc), I feel you HAVE to keep this hand.

So...what did you do, and how did it turn out?

[Will]

I feel that the point I made should be reiterated and answered if a correct or accurate conclusion is to be drawn.  What did you see during Game 1?  If they played a Juggernaut then chances are they aren't running Smokestack and if they ran out SoFI chances are they aren't running Juggernaut.  Once you establish what actual deck they are playing, besides just saying MUD then you can get a better idea of what is acceptable and what is not when determining the acceptability of a hand.  Against a list running Smokestack you probably can't keep this but whether they do or not can be inferred from Game 1.  If the only things that will beat you from the deck are Sword of Fire and Ice plus Mishra's Factory or multiple Duplicants then it seems safe enough to lead with Pearl Lotus and wait to see whether they play a creature allowing you to get an early Oath going.  Another consideration is the probability of you drawing a land or more specifically a Forbidden Orchard as compared to that of your opponent overwhelms you with lock pieces that can't really beat you or answer an Oath of Druids.  

[Cyberpunker]

because MUD cannot play any threats that can kill you other than Smokestack (which you have a Force for).

I think you may be forgetting that non blue decks can, and should, bait for counter magic.   
[/quote]

I know they can bait for countermagic but if you play correctly than you should still be at an advantage. It is way better than mulliganing the hand anyways.

[vassago]

...but if you play correctly....

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think saying this doesn't necessarily prove that that's the right move. This statement is way too vague to go so far as to justify your judgments.  I mean, isn't this thread questioning, fundamentally, what is "playing correctly?"

[Demonic Attorney]

So I guess I should cut the suspense.  I kept the hand, and won the game.  To answer some questions raised in the thread:

I didn't know much about the opponent's list.  I don't think I saw Smokestack out of him in game 1, but I assumed he had it.  I did see Lodestone Golem, and expected it was a 4-of.  Beyond that, everything else was more or less standard, I guess.

To explain why I kept:

I had just lost game 1 to keeping a shaky 6 on the draw.  Granted, being on the play is better, but I didn't want my tournament to end by losing 0-2 to bad draws.  Not that a no-lander opening 7 is a great draw, but I felt I could afford to take the gamble.  Here's why:

1.  I had boarded up to 26 sources in game 2, so the odds were pretty good that I was going to draw into land early.  

2.  I could Force of Will through one Sphere effect to stop something catastrophic like Smokestack.  It's true that if he had something crazy like double Sphere, Smokestack, I was going to be in a lot of trouble.  But I figured an opening like that would probably beat an average 6-card hand out of my deck anyway, so at least this way I had one more card in hand and a threat on the board.

3.  Leading off with Oath blanks Lodestone Golem, and Karn if he ran it.  So now in order to shut off my Force, he needs Spherex2, Thornx2, or one of each.  Certainly possible, but harder to manage now that Lodestone is out of the equation.

4.  Forbidden Orchard, as a 4-of in my list, was reasonably likely to come up soon after the Ponder.  After Ponder, on my next turn, I'd have drawn 9 cards deep, and seen the next 2 beyond that.  At that point, the odds of seeing Orchard in the remaining 49 cards in my deck get pretty good.


I didn't go Lotus, Pearl, pass.  While that does create the possibility of him dropping Lodestone and me answering with Oath, I thought the risk was too great.  If he did run out Lodestone and I popped Lotus to play Oath, all he needs is one more Sphere effect to lock out my Force.  If he had a Duplicant in hand, or if I Oath out a Sphinx and he followed up with Smokestack, I was probably dead.


So I kept the hand and led off with Lotus, Pearl, Oath, pass.  I drew into a land the next turn and Pondered into 2 more lands.  I didn't see Orchard for a long time after that, but I did start find other cantrips and counters.  He apparently had multiple Lodestone Golems that he couldn't play, and I wound up putting Vault/Key together once my manabase assembled itself.

[waywreth]

I'm assuming this game was against me... so I can comment on the build of Stax.  It was based on the Expresso Stax list, although I cut the Serum Powders for Sculpting Steels and I believe a Mishra's Factory.  ELD will post the lists (eventually).  I did not play Juggernaut or Null Rod.

As it happened in this game, I had a hand which had either T1 Karn or T1 Lodestone, and a Turn 2 Lodestone, which I think is playable.  I also did have 3 Sculpting Steel, and 3 Duplicants in the deck.