@wakkz Spyglass is amazing utility vs lands. It works vs Maze as well in some matches. Strip/Waste is your best utility vs bad-for-you lands.

@fsecco Gaea's Blessing has been played extensively before to mitigate this problem.

I am aware that in a hypothetical scenario you might see both Blessing and a creature and have to bottom both.

I personally take those chances.

TBH, I don't know that it's such an extremely new idea. The first Oath deck I played (way back in the dark ages), utilised Null Rod and the full complement of Wastelands + strip mine to even the odds against all the dual lands, moxes and Lotuses I didn't have and then win with Oath, Tinker+Sundering Titan or one of the other haymakers in the deck before they could recover/get rid of it.
Worked like a charm then. I've thought for a while now that with PO decks on the rise and Workshop's artifact creatures actually having activated abilities that it might be a good time to dust that version off the deck again, but with no local Vintage community, family commitments and work I just haven't had the opportunity.
I could try to bring my Vintage decks when I travel for work (which is a lot), but unless I'm certain there's Vintage to be played where I'm going I'm a little hesitant to carry around tens of thousands of dollars in cards.
Only thing I'm a little fuzzy on is what Oath targets to run. You want the package to be as tight as possible, but able to kill quickly. The new Niv-Mizzet looks very spicy as an Oath target for a hybrid Oath/Storm kill, but then I've always liked the clean focus of Demonic-Tutor-Demon into Time Walk into regrowth/recoup as it didn't add any extra cards to the combo (both Time Walk and Regrowth are cards you were happy to play then).

@zaefermalkav said in Why is Arlinn Kord played in Oath of Druids?:

Great article!!!

I'm one of that guys that use Airlinn Kord just because you used it. After reading this i have a new perspective of how important she is.

Thanks!

You're welcome. It's a honor to have the trust of the community and players like you.

Following up to our conversation on Twitter, would definitely like some sideboarding strategy advice. I've been trying out both Librarian Oath (shoutout to Ben Perry) and a Burning Paradoxical Oath list that Jason Jaco played.

You did not include any combo builds of Oath. I have been playing Saheeli Rai Oath with great success and I know that the old Brian Kelly Salvagers build is still OK. I have seen Paradoxical Oath on MTGO and it did win. I am not sure if these are of any interest to you but the style of these decks are very different since they win in a very different ways and fight the field in very different ways.

I look at Oath as 3 types of decks - Control, Combo, and Planeswalker

The control builds have the core counterspells - 4 FOW, 4 MM, 2 Flusterstorm and 2 creatures plus some defense.

Combo builds vary greatly with Time Vault, Yawmoth's Will, Paradoxical Outcome or in my case Sun Titan and they have some way to lock the game down for a combo style finish.

Planeswalker builds are the Brian Kelly style decks with Inferno Titan and 3 or 4 differrent planeswalkers.

I have built all of these decks and I have tested them on paper. I do not play Oath on MTGO for various reasons but I am seeing that you may choose a different style of Oath based on where you are playing the deck.

The combo builds compete well against Shops, Dredge, and other combo style decks like Paradoxical Mentor, but these builds have some trouble with blue decks depending on you decks counter package and defenses.

The planeswalker deck appears to be the most versatile against the field but they are also the hardest to play.

The control style has issues with Shops and Dredge but plays well against blue and combo.

I do not like the idea that there is a best deck here, just like several Shop players and Dredge players will tell you there are several versions of those decks that perform differently in the meta-game.

...contains some metrics to influence the game-play experience that they believe would somehow increase the program's profitability.

Tinfoil hat time!

Nah, just recognizing that it's a good rule of thumb to err on the side of assuming corruption in an American institution rather than lack thereof. 🙂

As for the correct number and identities of Oath targets, I would say it varies, but I do not recommend less than three unless you're playing one of the terrible cards to mitigate that (Memory's Journey, Gaea's Blessing, or heaven forbid, Krosan Reclamation). That dead slot is probably just better as creature #3.

Chrome Mox, while a dreadful accelerant in many lists particularly on the control side, is surprisingly nice in Oath since you can realize some utility for the otherwise chaff cards in hand, whether they are uncastable creatures, inapplicable nuisance counters v. Shops g1, or redundant copies of Oath of Druids. I liked it a lot, especially as it can help make Tolarian Academy viable.

I for one actually think Nezahal is on par with Sphinx of the Final Word. Having a Mystic Remora attached to it is pretty great actually. It's a bit harder to protect from Swords since it doesn't have hexproof, but if your opponent needs to dig for that Swords he's in bad shape because you'll draw a lot. The great downside is that is has no evasion and that can hurt your clock a lot and make it impossible to race a Mentor.

Zacama seems good for the destroy artifact/enchantment ability, but it seems too pricey and Inferno Titan already takes care of most of the problems in Shops these days anyway.

The other 2 I don't see playing. Azor's abiltiy is too expensive and the cip trigger is just "kinda" useful. Zetalpa is just a big dumb beater so no.

@brianpk80 pppffffttt... get a load of this Brian dude everybody. Like this guy knows anything about Oath decks. Next he will be telling us to play with some big dragon from type 2 like a 14 year old. What a noob.

I know this is over a year old but I recently got into vintage and this was the deck I was looking at. Any other updates on this deck? Looks great.

Perfect, Thank you!

Using a free program sounds like it might be a good idea before committing to a deck. Thank you for telling me about that!

@PugSuperStar against null rod and stony silence my main way to win at that point is oath, but null rod is still good against this deck as it does slow the deck down, but against the decks with null rod (fish, shops, humans, etc...) i usually go for an oath win any way. the wish board has been amazing and has just won me games at times. im still working on the sideboard at the moment as im trying to fit in tendrills and yawgs will for a storm kill, sometimes the deck can cast 10 plus spells in one turn.

@Minkar said:

So if you're being a real rules stickler, you could call out an opponent who controls Oath but has less creatures than you for not placing the ability on the stack during your upkeep? Wonder if anyone has ever done that in a tournament before...

Called out? You could... It's not likely to be a particularly harsh punishment unless you can prove your opponent did it intentionally. There is enough confusion surrounding Oath of Druids that the opponent easily could have misunderstood how the card/rules works (this thread is evidence of that). I've on several occasions let my opponent know that I was going to use his Oath in my upkeep and won by flipping over Salvagers. It doesn't come up a lot but I look out for those corner cases. However, I'm never going to try and get my opponent a warning unless I think they should know the interaction and are forgetting intentionally (which is cheating by the rules definition). The better play in my opinion would be to explain it to the opponent after the match.

@Islandswamp I have been thinking about Omniscience builds for the past couple of weeks and here I see that your list is two months old. Oh well! In theory I think that the Omniscience builds are the best suited right now.

Also I think we can shave a Misstep for another spell right now, preferably something like an Abrupt Decay which interacts favorably with Priest, Displacer, both Thalias, etc.

I ended up playing this deck at the Minneapolis GP.

I did take out the Accumulated Knowledge and replacing it with 2x Abrupt Decay and 2x Preordain.

Here is a quick and dirty TR:

Round 1- I went 2-0 against 4c Mentor. Both games had me pretty low, but the power of Griselbrand and storm got me out of it.
Round 2- Lost to Merfolk 1-2. Game 1, I got run over by island walkers, game 2 I stormed off, game 3 I lost to a Cursecatcher, wasteland and light mana hand.
Round 3- Beat Grixis/Pyro Delver 2-0
Round 4- Lost 2-0 to Dredge. Game two I had two Leyline of the Void in the opening hand, and an Oath out on turn 1 or 2 (but no Orchard), but he drew all of his Naturalizes so I couldn't capitalize.
Round 5- Beat 5c Humans 2-1. Game 1 I hard cast a Griselbrand after wiping his board with a balance. Game 2, Thalia and 3 Glowriders MUDed me out. Game 3 I had a double Oath hand and fought through a Naturalize and Containment Priest. Griselbrand beat for 3 turns.

Overall, I really liked the deck. The Abrupt Decays turned out to be too good to not run. The wish board utility was fantastic and the ability to just win with some moxen and and Hurkyl's Recall was great.

Too much to respond from thoroughly at the moment, but I will say this. I tested Cruise and don't like it without playing Dack Faydens. Dig is just better. I chose top to I could smooth my draws better. I don't want more artifact fast mana because I play this as a landstill/grindy control deck first and foremost. The worst thing would be playing a Standstill and drawing moxes. My list is a direct reflection of my playstyle. If I wanted a more aggressive oath list with faster and more aggressive plays, it certainly wouldn't be a landstill variation.