Rainbow Demon--a new ICBM Oath Variant

[Tha Gunslinga]

Benjamin Carp
Team ICBM
Rainbow Demon

4 Forbidden Orchard
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Tropical Island
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Force of Will
3 Mana Drain
2 Flusterstorm
2 Mental Misstep
2 Spell Pierce
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Oath of Druids
3 Rune-Scarred Demon
3 Preordain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Gaea's Blessing


Sideboard:
4 Yixlid Jailer
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Nature's Claim
1 Forest
1 Massacre
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Pithing Needle


I have placed second in two tournaments in a row with this deck.  Today I went 3-0, 6-0 vs UR LandStill. The LandStill matchup is just horribly in your favor.  This list beats MUD, LandStill, Fish, most blue decks, and can handle Dredge.  It is absolutely insane.  It has a heavy control package that is good at both resolving and defending your Oaths as well as keeping your opponent off-balance.  Unlike previous Oath lists, it generally wins with one Oath activation.  If you want to win tournaments I would play this deck.


Previous versions of Rune-Scarred Demon Oath ran things like Krosan Reclamation/Memory's Journey and Noxious Revival.  I have cut all of those and not missed them.  Gaea's Blessing is superior to Krosan Reclamation because it is repeatable, uncounterable, and does not cost you mana, and with Blessing you are able to loop things enough that you do not need Noxious Revival at all.

Here's the basic kill:


First Oath trigger: Trigger Oath, hit Demon, find Time Walk, draw your card for the turn, play a land if you have one, play Time Walk.

Second Oath Trigger: Trigger Oath again, hit another Demon.  If you have hit Blessing, then stack the Demon first, then the Blessing.  Blessing trigger resolves, you search, then find Walk and play it.  If you don't hit Blessing, you can search for Yawgmoth's Will and replay Walk if you have the mana in your yard, which you probably do.  Otherwise you might be able to set up Yawgmoth's Will for Key/Vault if those are in your yard, or if you have a lethal Will.  If you mill Will but not Blessing, you can just find a Mana Drain or other hard counter and pass the turn, but generally you will be able to recycle Time Walk consistently enough that once you trigger Oath you have basically won.  It's pretty rare that your opponent will get a turn.  Gaea's Blessing is absolutely amazing in this deck, because it allows you to loop Time Walk repeatedly.
Anyway, swing for 6, Time Walk again.

Third Oath Trigger: Hit Blessing again, find Walk, swing for 12, play Walk, win.


If your Walk gets countered at all, you still have a 6/6 flyer on board as well as an active Oath.  LandStill really can't deal with fat at all, so once you have an Oath+Orchard on board you've basically won, and once you have a Demon on board you're set.

The sideboard is a heavily anti-Dredge board because they have an insanely fast clock AND will have Nature's Claims out of the sb.  Leyline shuts them down until you can either get Oath or Yixlid going to doubly shut them down.  I am running Leyline over Planar Void because Leyline hits harder and faster and doesn't prevent you from using Yawgmoth's Will.  I SB out something like Blessing, 2 Jace, Sensei's Top, Ponder, 3 Drain, 1 Island, and bring in Pithing Needle, 4 Yixlid, 4 Leyline.  You have plenty of counters left, and Leylines AND Yixlids is a beating.  You do have a decent shot at winning game 1 because of Dredge's lack of counters as well as your quick clock.  At a tournament today my Dredge opponent had a lousy set of mulligans game 1, and I was able to Spell Pierce his LED to cut him off a good turn 1, then I played turn 2 Oath and won turn 3.  Game 2 I mulled to a 6 that was basically Voltaic Key, 2 lands, Mox, Sol Ring, Leyline of the Void, then I ripped Vampiric Tutor and Key-Vaulted him turn 2.

MUD is a decent matchup because you have Force to keep them off turn 1 brokenness, and you should be able to win as long as you can get Oath down before you get locked out.  Postboard you will have some more spot removal and the Hurk's if you need it.   If you can't cast Walk because of Spheres, just tutor up Force of Will with the Demon.  There isn't much that really bothers a 6/6 flyer anyway.

LandStill is a great matchup because you're an intensely aggressive deck that's not vulnerable to a lot of their gameplan.  Mishra's Factories are too slow, Standstills are too slow, REB and Misstep won't hit your Oaths, Hurkyl's won't hit your Oaths or Demons, and the only weapons they really have are Strips and Echoing Truth.  Strips aren't that bad because your win condition costs 2 mana and you run a fair amount of land, including 2 basics.  Vs LandStill I would just sb out a pair of Drains for a pair of Nature's Claims, which are great vs Mishra's Factories, or if you know they have Null Rod then just leave in the Drains and cut the Sensei's Top, Key, and Vault for 2 Claims and the Pithing Needle.

Typically the difficult decks for you are BUG control decks that have heavy control elements like Duress/Thoughtseize, Force of Will, Mana Drain, and Mental Misstep, and can bring in Nature's Claims (or have them main).  These decks also have quick kills in Key/Vault and Tinker-BSC.  They're just tough matchups.   You can usually slug it out with them, but they are tough.

The manabase is designed to make Leylines, Yixlids, and the Demons easier to cast.  The double basics are there so you can avoid getting wrecked by Wastelands and Ghost Quarters.  I only run 4 fetches because it's possible for games to run long and you don't want to run out of lands.  It's also possible to take serious damage from spirit tokens, so fetchland damage can add up.  I run the full Moxen to get Oath out faster, but I cut Mana Crypt due to lack of Tinker and because I don't want to take damage from it during slower games.

Tinker is not in the deck because this is a Rune-Scarred Demon deck.  Oathing up anything else screws up your gameplan and loses games.  Tinker is a waste of time, period.

The counterbase is pretty heavy, which lets you go toe-to-toe with other control decks and just wreck random stuff.  The Pierces and Flusterstorms are great for resolving turn 2 Oaths off 2 lands and a Mox and having backup or double counter backup with a Force.  Flusterstorm is really great offensively, especially when you do some stuff and your opponent EOTs a Nature's Claim.  Just Flusterstorm it and watch them wish they could Force back.

The Preordain/Ponder split isn't really relevant; you can run 4 Preordain and 0 Ponder if you want.  Digging for your Oaths or for Key/Vault pieces or counters is important, but digging is better than drawing, since the more cards you draw, the more likely you are to draw Demons or Blessing.

The 2 Jaces are great for putting back Demons or Blessing, and for digging up Oaths and counters.  I never use any part of Jace other than the Brainstorm ability and occasionally the bounce to take care of a BSC.  This is not a Jace deck, it doesn't want to be +2ing it ever.  Just Brainstorm until you find a win.  I guarantee you that if you can't win with 6 turns of free Brainstorms, you are doing something wrong.

Key/Vault is absolutely amazing in the deck.  It's really easy to win just by having one piece and a Tutor in an opening hand, or by randomly drawing into the win.  If you have one piece already, the first Demon can just get you the other pieces and save you the trouble of looping Time Walk, and the ability to have another Time Walk effect in the deck makes losing your Time Walk much safer.  Against LandStill today I got my Time Walk Surgically Extracted, but I just searched up Key, countered both my opponent's counters, and took infinite turns.

Yes, Yawgmoth's Will+Gaea's Blessing is bad.  However, you will typically not have issues with this.  First of all, once you start Oathing, you're winning, and if you hit Blessing, you should be able to get Time Walk, so you have pretty much won.  If you hit good stuff but do not hit Blessing and Walk is in your yard, just get Yawgmoth's Will and use that.  I know the Will/Blessing thing seems really awkward, but they really work great in the deck.

So, there's the deck.  It's still a work in progress, but I think it's absolutely amazing, and if you want to beat LandStill, you're in the right place.  My sideboard is clearly geared towards MUD and Dredge, which are the two most dangerous decks for you, but if you need to add stuff for other matchups, feel free.  I have been playing Oath since 2004, and I've won at least a set of power with it, so I think I know a fair amount about it, but if you have questions, just let me know and I will do my best to answer them.  I'm not claiming this has all favorable matchups, or that it's the best deck in the format, but damn is it good.

[Elric]

Here's the basic kill:


First Oath trigger: Trigger Oath, hit Demon, find Time Walk, draw your card for the turn, play a land if you have one, play Time Walk.

Second Oath Trigger: Trigger Oath again, hit another Demon.  If you have hit Blessing, then stack the Demon first, then the Blessing.  Blessing trigger resolves, you search, then find Walk and play it.  If you don't hit Blessing, you can search for Yawgmoth's Will and replay Walk if you have the mana in your yard, which you probably do.  Otherwise you might be able to set up Yawgmoth's Will for Key/Vault if those are in your yard, or if you have a lethal Will.  If you mill Will but not Blessing, you can just find a Mana Drain or other hard counter and pass the turn, but generally you will be able to recycle Time Walk consistently enough that once you trigger Oath you have basically won.  It's pretty rare that your opponent will get a turn.  Gaea's Blessing is absolutely amazing in this deck, because it allows you to loop Time Walk repeatedly.
Anyway, swing for 6, Time Walk again.

Third Oath Trigger: Hit Blessing again, find Walk, swing for 12, play Walk, win

Quick math related to the bolded sentence: if you start with Time Walk in graveyard and Will, Blessing, and 2 Demons in your deck (in random order- doesn't matter what other cards are there as long as none are creatures), there's a 1/6 chance that you mill Will but not Blessing.  Unless Will is the first card (of these four), milling Will but not Blessing can't occur.  If Will is the first card, then this occurs if one of the Demons is second, which conditional on Will being first happens 2/3 of the time.  So 2/3 * 1/4= 1/6.  Sound correct?

[Blue Lotus]

Lists seems very strong. I have always been an advocate of vault-key in oath decks and this is a much better approach then the iona + krec plan.

Could you comment on your counter package? Why 2/2/2? None of these can target a lodestone, has this been a problem for you? And only pierce can target tangle wire, which I hate seeing when playing oath.

Edit - also I would try to go up to three jaces. Jace is so strong in the oath deck b/c the only way vintage decks can deal with it is attacking creatures, which obviously opens them up to oath. Maybe cut a preordain. Agree entirely with the only use brainstorm comment.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Quick math related to the bolded sentence: if you start with Time Walk in graveyard and Will, Blessing, and 2 Demons in your deck (in random order- doesn't matter what other cards are there as long as none are creatures), there's a 1/6 chance that you mill Will but not Blessing.  Unless Will is the first card (of these four), milling Will but not Blessing can't occur.  If Will is the first card, then this occurs if one of the Demons is second, which conditional on Will being first happens 2/3 of the time.  So 2/3 * 1/4= 1/6.  Sound correct?

Yeah, that sounds about right.  The odds of you being totally screwed are extremely low, and that's why I don't run any Noxious Revivals.  Worst-case scenario is generally that you just tutor up a Drain and then get Walk back next turn.  Noxious Revival is an incredibly good card, don't get me wrong, but you're already running 4 "dead" cards in 3 Demons and a Blessing, and the more dead cards you run, the worse your deck gets.


As far as Lodestone:
The counter package is mainly there to fight other control decks.  Vs MUD Lodestone is only a problem if you:
Are not on the play
Don't have Force
Are facing a godhand where Force has to be blown on a Sphere, and your opponent has 6 mana turn 1
have a weak or bad hand
Don't have the Moxen/Sol Ring to play through the Lodestone

You do run 7 counters that can hit Lodestone, but there really isn't much out there that's good enough to play that can hit Lodestone.  Other than Force of Will, the only other free counters that are even remotely relevant are Disrupting Shoal, Mindbreak Trap, and Daze, and none of those are seriously playable.  If MUD is a real problem in your area you could run the Nature's Claim or Steel Sabotage/Annul (or even Dismember) in the main over the Flusterstorms, Missteps, or Spell Pierces.  At the tournament today there were zero Workshop decks in the room, and at the last event there was I believe 1, which I went 2-1 against because I had Force of Will in my openers and was able to slow the MUD player down enough to resolve an Oath.  Tangle Wire I don't really fear because Wire will resolve before the Oath trigger does, so you're still going to get an untapped 6/6 and you can tutor up either another permanent such as a land or Mox, or you can grab a Force of Will or Nature's Claim or whatever you need.

The thing is, a turn 1 Lodestone Golem is serious trouble for basically any deck, even Dredge, and there's only so much you can do about it.

I was running 3 Jaces in a previous build, and my opening hands were getting clogged up with them.  You don't want to draw multiple Jaces, since they're dead except to pitch to Force until you can resolve one and Brainstorm the other one back.  4 mana is often way too much for you, especially since casting Jace off Orchard (or multiple Orchards) is not what you want to do.  I am much happier with 2 Jaces, and I think that's the optimal number.  One reason Tolarian Academy is in the deck is to cast Jace, just fyi.

[boggyb]

Neat. Quick question, have you tried Elesh Norn in the sideboard as a safety valve Oath target versus Dredge? I imagine it'd be typical for them to find a few Narcomoeba's in G2/3 while you're assembling Oath, enough to block your demons and ride out the time walks in order to swing back for a win. Is that too much of a corner case?

[The Atog Lord]

Thanks for posting this, Ben.  Very interesting list. The idea of using Oath backed up by such a powerful counter package seems good.  I have not had a chance to test this yet, but I want to. My only question is, have you tried using a higher number of Missteps? I found them to be extremely good right now in Gush decks. Especially against Ichorid. And here, they have the added bonus of hitting Duress and Nature's Claim, which are both strong against Oath in general.  I stopped playing Spell Pierce to play more Misstep and have been quite pleased with it.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Neat. Quick question, have you tried Elesh Norn in the sideboard as a safety valve Oath target versus Dredge? I imagine it'd be typical for them to find a few Narcomoeba's in G2/3 while you're assembling Oath, enough to block your demons and ride out the time walks in order to swing back for a win. Is that too much of a corner case?

The problem there is that you have the Yixlids in, so you'd be Oathing a LOT in order to find the Elesh Norn, and frankly, if you have Leyline and/or Yixlid online you should be fine.  Since Blessing is out, you should be able to set up Yawgmoth's Will into Key/Vault fairly easily, or failing that you should be able to use Demon to tutor up the Pithing Needle or additional Leylines/other hate pieces.  I would probably run Blazing Archon over Elesh Norn, since Elesh kills your opponent's dudes and prevents you from future Oathing, and lets them Oath and possibly mess things up for you.

My only question is, have you tried using a higher number of Missteps? I found them to be extremely good right now in Gush decks. Especially against Ichorid. And here, they have the added bonus of hitting Duress and Nature's Claim, which are both strong against Oath in general.  I stopped playing Spell Pierce to play more Misstep and have been quite pleased with it.

Misstep vs Dredge is just insane, yes.  I personally like a more split counter package so as to keep your opponent off-guard, and Misstep is just about dead vs MUD and useless vs Force of Will, which is why I like having the 2 Pierces and 2 Flusterstorms, so you can go turn 1 Land, Mox, Preordain/Tutor/whatever, then turn 2 play land, Oath, with Pierce/Flusterstorm backup and possible FoW backup as well.  Misstep is really good, but I just hate drawing multiples and having them sit in hand.  The main issue I have with Misstep is that it does not counter Tinker, which used to be less of an issue when Darksteel and other things were played, but with Blightsteel now you really have to counter the Tinker or have Oath on the table already.  However, the beauty of the 4/3/2/2/2 countermagic suite is that it's infinitely customizable, and you can easily slot in Annul, Steel Sabotage, Spell Snare, or more of the Missteps, Pierces, or Flusterstorms.

[voltron00x]

I like the way you've updated the previous versions here, although no Gifts Ungiven strikes me as possibly wrong in a deck with Key/Vault plus Tolarian and 3 Drains... but Gifts may also just be too slow for a Dredge/Gush/Shops metagame.  Was that your thought process?  It's admittedly worse once you cut the recursion package.

Also, no Merchant Scroll?  I feel like that's a painful cut for any Oath deck.

In any case, I would happily run this version.

[JACO]

Just wanted to chime in here, that I also think this deck is sick. I would run a slightly modified version, but pretty close to this, and think that Rune-Scarred is probably the best guy you can Oath up right now, and doesn't dilute your deck with junk like Dragon's Breath or Memory's Journey/Brainfreeze.

To answer Matt's question, as far as Gifts Ungiven goes, you're not playing Regrowth in this version, so Gifts becomes much weaker. Also, for 4 mana, would you rather cast Gifts or Jace in this particular deck? I know I would rather cast Jace, to search and to put back crappy cards that are stuck in my hand.

[voltron00x]

Many people have played Gifts and Jace in the same deck.... I would consider playing both. I'd probably play Scroll before Gifts.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Gifts and Scroll are both similar in that they don't do anything by themselves, which is why I am not running them.  Gifts is 4 mana, which is a lot in here, and since you don't have any recursion in the deck except for Blessing and Will, you can't really set up a Gifts pile in the way that you could in another deck.  You can always get something like Oath/Recall/Jace/Drain, but it's not something I like playing with.  Scroll can only get Recall or a counterspell, and I don't like Recall (or any other "draw X cards") spell in Oath because you want to be manipulating your deck or tutoring, but not just blindly drawing cards, because blindly drawing cards leads to drawing Demons and Blessing and stuff like that.  I pretty much never tutor up Ancestral under any circumstances, whether it's a turn 1 Vamp or Demonic or a Rune-Scarred Demon trigger.  Yes, Ancestral is a good card, and yes, I love firing off a turn 1 Recall, but it's not really a pivotal card in here.

The thing I don't like about cards like Gifts and Scroll is that they just find other things, but don't do anything themselves.  This was fine before MUD came about, but the reason MUD wrecks people so badly is that when you have a hand full of tutors and draw, you really get screwed when your cheap draw effects suddenly cost 1 or 2 mana more.  As a MUD player, I always love watching people playing 3-mana Ponders and Preordains, and I try to run a bit less of that in my blue decks.

If you want to fit those cards in, I'm sure you can do it, but I prefer to run without them.

[voltron00x]

Gifts and Scroll are both similar in that they don't do anything by themselves, which is why I am not running them.  Gifts is 4 mana, which is a lot in here, and since you don't have any recursion in the deck except for Blessing and Will, you can't really set up a Gifts pile in the way that you could in another deck.  You can always get something like Oath/Recall/Jace/Drain, but it's not something I like playing with.  Scroll can only get Recall or a counterspell, and I don't like Recall (or any other "draw X cards") spell in Oath because you want to be manipulating your deck or tutoring, but not just blindly drawing cards, because blindly drawing cards leads to drawing Demons and Blessing and stuff like that.  I pretty much never tutor up Ancestral under any circumstances, whether it's a turn 1 Vamp or Demonic or a Rune-Scarred Demon trigger.  Yes, Ancestral is a good card, and yes, I love firing off a turn 1 Recall, but it's not really a pivotal card in here.

The thing I don't like about cards like Gifts and Scroll is that they just find other things, but don't do anything themselves.  This was fine before MUD came about, but the reason MUD wrecks people so badly is that when you have a hand full of tutors and draw, you really get screwed when your cheap draw effects suddenly cost 1 or 2 mana more.  As a MUD player, I always love watching people playing 3-mana Ponders and Preordains, and I try to run a bit less of that in my blue decks.

If you want to fit those cards in, I'm sure you can do it, but I prefer to run without them.

I play Scroll to find Brainstorm, for the times that Demons get stuck in hand.  Based on testing and watching video streaming, this does come up enough that I want Merchant Scroll.  The fact that it can find counters to protect Dredge hate, push through or protect Oath, grab Ancestral, or find Hurks to beat Tink/BSC is all just gravy.  I noticed you're also not running Mystical, which makes it that much harder to find BS.  In this list, you may want 3 Jace.


I'm also not convinced that4 mana is a lot for this deck.  You have 3 Drains and an Academy.  What are you running Academy for if you're struggling to hit 4 mana or avoiding spells at that cost?  It's fine to not play Gifts, mind you, but again, plenty of decks have played Gifts without running Regrowth.  Yes, Regrowth makes Gifts that much better, but in a deck like this that often wants a key card (say, Orchard, Oath, or Key/Vault), when you're playing Will, DT, and Vamp, you're already able to fire off Gifts to complete a combo.

[Troy_Costisick]

The fact that it can find counters to protect Dredge hate, push through or protect Oath, grab Ancestral, or find Hurks to beat Tink/BSC is all just gravy.

I think these are really important uses for Merchant Scroll right now.  Games can end so fast that you need a tutor that can put something in your hand right away.

[Blue Lotus]

Tangle Wire I don't really fear because Wire will resolve before the Oath trigger does, so you're still going to get an untapped 6/6 and you can tutor up either another permanent such as a land or Mox, or you can grab a Force of Will or Nature's Claim or whatever you need.

I was running 3 Jaces in a previous build, and my opening hands were getting clogged up with them.  You don't want to draw multiple Jaces, since they're dead except to pitch to Force until you can resolve one and Brainstorm the other one back.  4 mana is often way too much for you, especially since casting Jace off Orchard (or multiple Orchards) is not what you want to do.  I am much happier with 2 Jaces, and I think that's the optimal number.  One reason Tolarian Academy is in the deck is to cast Jace, just fyi.

The thing about tangle wire is that all of oath's action is sorcery speed so wire tends to be about a time walk or two. It doesn't do much once you resolve oath, but MUD is boned when you resolve oath anyway. As for jace I don't mind seeing multiples. If you can resolve one, you can brainstorm and get more cards. But if you tried three yet are happy with two then more power to ya.

[bluemage55]

Gifts and Scroll are both similar in that they don't do anything by themselves, which is why I am not running them.  Gifts is 4 mana, which is a lot in here, and since you don't have any recursion in the deck except for Blessing and Will, you can't really set up a Gifts pile in the way that you could in another deck.  You can always get something like Oath/Recall/Jace/Drain, but it's not something I like playing with.

Recursion isn't strictly necessary.

Key/Vault/Demonic/Vamp is always a viable pile, since they're forced to give you a tutor which grabs Yawg.  If you already have Key or Vault, then Demonic/Vamp/Yawg/X will complete the combo too.  For this deck in particular, Oath/Walk/Demonic/Vampiric will also work, since Oath+Walk will end the game and the other combinations let you tutor for Yawg. Finally, if you have Yawg in hand already (or Demonic/Vamp to grab it), then you can tutor for mana and whatever you need, and then win with Yawg.

Of course, Mystical would make Gifts even better, and is good for finding BS as already pointed out by Matt.

[BaronSengir]

Question for you Ben, or whoever knows the answer. I was watching the video of you playing Danny at Xtreme and in game one after you Oathed for the demon you shuffled the cards you had revealed before the demon back into your library that would normally go into your graveyard. Is that because of Rune-Scarred Demon's ability? I'm missing something huge because it's how you kept fishing for Time Walk.

Edit: Oh I see, Gaea's Blessing. But I saw you kept removing cards even after the Blessing until you hit the Demon. Is that because Oath of Druids has to resolve first and then Gaea's Blessing 2nd ability Triggers?

[DubDub]

Is that because Oath of Druids has to resolve first and then Gaea's Blessing 2nd ability Triggers?

Yes.  Oath has to finish resolving before any new triggers are placed on the stack.  Gaea's Blessing's reshuffle triggers during the resolution of the Oath trigger, but it doesn't get onto the stack until later.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Oath says:
Reveal cards until you hit a creature.  Put the creature into play and the other cards into your graveyard.  At that point the Blessing triggers.  Since the Blessing and Demon triggers happen at the same time, and you control both of them, you decide how they stack, so you can shuffle the Walk back and then find it again.  It's a million times better than Krosan Reclamation/Memory's Journey.

[BaronSengir]

Oath says:
Reveal cards until you hit a creature.  Put the creature into play and the other cards into your graveyard.  At that point the Blessing triggers.  Since the Blessing and Demon triggers happen at the same time, and you control both of them, you decide how they stack, so you can shuffle the Walk back and then find it again.  It's a million times better than Krosan Reclamation/Memory's Journey.

I appreciate the clarification. I'm still getting used to Vintage and the common decks in it.

[The Duressed]

I have a couple questions mostly for Ben, but also for anyone who feels qualified to answer:

1. Why is there exactly 1x Sensei's Top in this deck? If the card is good in this deck, why not play more? If it's ok but not great, why not play Preordain? My gut tells me that there are two possible options. Option a: Ben wanted to play more tops, but the blue count was really starting to get toward his minimum threshold for FOW, so the rest of the tops are replaced by Preordains. Option b: he wanted to slightly increase the permanent count for the shop match-up, so a top emerged. Or maybe it's none of these, and it just slipped through for some reason. Regardless, 1 seems like the strangest number to include given that this deck does not play Bob.

2. Is Beast Within useful as a singleton utility card in this deck? Two examples would be that it can deal with Dark Confidant and other problem creatures and that it can also mess up an opposing Shop player trying to ramp a Smokestack to blow away your Oath.

3. Why Sol Ring and not Mana Crypt? Once the deck gets online, it will take a minimal number of turns to finish it off. Has the damage proven to regardless be a problem?

[Commandant]

1. From my experience 1 SDT is really good and more than 1 is bad. No Goblin Welder etc to to take advantage of multiple tops.

2. Dark Confidant also triggers Oath. IMHO Confidant is too slow to really make a difference vs. Oath.

3. No Tinker to remove it. Sol Ring is great whether it's powering out a Jace or paying for Remora and Sphere effects. People underestimate how good Sol Ring is. The damage does matter with Crypt, this list has to deal with spirit tokens and with no Tinker using Time Key becomes odd to say the least.

[Tha Gunslinga]

Beast Within is an awesome card, but ultimately it's not one you will need much of the time.  I really have not had much of an issue with permanents or with triggering Oath.  It's justifiable as a SB card perhaps, but I don't think it's necessary.  The only permanents that you're really worried about are Bazaar of Baghdad and Blightsteel.  Beast Within cannot hit Blightsteel and is too slow vs Dredge.

Sensei's Top is good, but you don't want to see multiples and you don't want too many because it's dead vs Null Rod.  It's great as a permanent as well, and it's a nice mana sink and nice for searching for stuff.  It doesn't pitch to Force, and while you can effectively cycle dead ones if you have a shuffle effect, it's not really good in multiples the way Preordain is.

Mana Crypt I cut for the 4th Underground Sea after it spent a control matchup in my hand because I was scared to cast it.  Had I cast it I would have never needed the mana and would have died to it most likely.  You have no way to remove it, and your kill, while fast, is not fast enough for me to want to risk it.  It's dead too often.  Sol Ring is amazing.  It also gets around Chalice 0, and lets you pull off fast Key/Vault kills.  Mana Crypt with Key/Vault is not the best thing.

[The Duressed]

I also wonder about the possibility of running Thoughtseize in this deck. I've seen many Oath pilots have success with the card in the past, but personally I have a very hard time evaluating when it's a good strategy and when it is not. Given that you could come up with a configuration that would keep you in a safe place in terms of a blue count for Force of Will, under what circumstances would you play the card? Where in particular does it shine and where is it found lacking?

[Tha Gunslinga]

Thoughtseize is an awesome card and I love it to death, though I'm not sure whether I would prefer Duress because of the life loss and very occasional Misdirection.  The issue I have with Seize is that it's somewhat dead vs Dredge, though somewhat better post-board, and it's very easily countered via Mental Misstep now.  It does also bring down your blue count.  You could easily cut the Spell Pierces for Thoughtseizes, it's just not what I'm currently playing.  Pierce is also a great way to trade 2-for-1 with stuff like Tinker and Force of Will.

[honestabe]

I was a little unsure of this deck but I figured I'd try it out.  One of my games, I was drawing terribly, and ended up with a hand of Demon, Demon, Blessing, Drain, and 5 lands out.  My opponent goes for a Jace.  I drain it.  Hardcast Demon getting another Mana Drain and pass.  My opponent draws for turn (only 2 cards in hand now) and goes for a Gush.  I drain it.  My opponent plays a land, and yawg's to set up a Tinker for Blightsteel.  I untap, hardcast a Demon, get a Time Walk, swing for 6, Time Walk, Swing for 12 and kill him.  Pretty sick.

I was definitely impressed by Rune-Scarred Demon, and the countersuite is really strong, though I can't help but wish I had something to side in against the blue decks...

[Tha Gunslinga]

I'm working on rebuilding the SB to address that, actually.  What I'm thinking right now is something like:
4 Leyline
3 Yixlid
3 Nature's Claim
1 Pithing Needle
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Extirpate

[The Duressed]

Your plan against blue is triple Extirpate? What are you targeting, and what are you siding out? I'm afraid I'm a little lost on that one.

[Tha Gunslinga]

That would only be the plan against stuff I have issues with, specifically UBG control with Nature's Claims.  Extirpate would be used to remove counters, Nature's Claims, and possibly Dark Confidant/Jace if I can get those and if necessary.  I would board out 1 Island, 2 Spell Pierce, probably, in anticipation of a longer game.  I have not tested this yet, but I have used Extirpate in Oath to deal with control mirrors in the past.

[Elric]

I'm working on rebuilding the SB to address that, actually.  What I'm thinking right now is something like:
4 Leyline
3 Yixlid
3 Nature's Claim
1 Pithing Needle
1 Hurkyl's Recall
3 Extirpate

How would you sideboard against another Oath deck (and how it would differ by Oath variants, if applicable)?

[Tha Gunslinga]

Right now I don't have much for the mirror because I haven't seen much Oath floating around.  I would probably just sb out 2 Oaths for 2 Nature's Claims, or possibly 3 for 3.  If I had Extirpates in my SB, I would probably yank 2 Oaths, 1 Island, and Blessing for 2 Extirpates and 2 Nature's Claims.  This is not something I have tested, though.  I generally try to just outplay the mirror.  If you end up actually needing specific SB cards for the mirror you can always run Heartless Summoning, which makes it close to impossible for your opponent to activate Oath and lets you cast Demons cheaper too.  Beast Within would probably be decent in the mirror as well, since you can toast your opponent's Orchards as well as Key/Vault/Jace/Oath/whatever.