@serracollector The issue is those effects are optional. Your opponent can decline to search. Field of Ruin is mandatory (I remember using it to disrupt topdeck tutors when I was fooling around with it in Vintage) but those are the type of effects you want to include.

@blindtherapy

The rules allowing you to look at a player's sideboard while controlling their turn where changed in 2016 because of Emrakul, the Promised End. You are no longer able to do so and you cannot choose cards from outside the game with things like wishes or Karn's -2.

Source: Gatherer entry on Mindslaver

@lienielsen No.

The planeswalker redirection rule was eliminated. Several cards received errata to preserve functionality but most untargeted damage sources were not changed.

@thewhitedragon69 I've been using Sevinne's Reclamation to either Breach kill, bring back a couple walkers, or trigger the 3rd ability to clean up planeswalkers.

Does the deck evaluate the strengths of Omnath or the strength of Oath of Druid in a format that has a lot of BUG/Bazaar decks?

Does the deck evaluate the strengths of Omnath or the pretty heavy permission suite with a ton of Blue cards and disruption to make the Forces work (without as much inconsistently as Oath typically has when you have a Griselbrand in your hand)?

Does the deck evaluate the strength of Omnath or the power of the cantrip-Delve card engine letting you win the late game with whatever you want, provided you can consistently get there?

The goal of any deck should be to have cards that work together and I think trying to pull out parts and look at them in isolation loses sight of the bigger picture.

To that end, I don't know how to really answer your question any more than I did before by playing it in a Lutri shell. Omnath is just doing the same things he was doing before more frequently in this shell.

Record now is 7-1 for what it's worth but again, that's not what I'm trying to do here. My main goal is to convey the general strategies I'm pursuing with this card and the results.

I am responsive to this criticism.

I have now rebuilt the deck as an Oath deck.

Omnath is the only creature I can Oath into in the MD (SB has an Archon of Vigor).

The deck's name is Omnoath.

Currently 2-0 in league matches

Edit: Finished 4-1

@blindtherapy said in Splendid Scholar Oath:

@nofuture said in Splendid Scholar Oath:

Since we are also putting a Sanctuary into play and will almost certainly have the requisite 4 islands

note that if you don't have 3 other islands in play before Splendid Reclamation, Mystic Sanctuary will enter tapped and you will get no trigger.

Since Splendid Reclamation returns lands to the battlefield tapped, it will never be able to trigger Mystic Sanctuary, regardless of the number of Islands its controller controls or when they control them.

@evouga said in [ZRN] Omnath, Locus of Creation:

Yes, I think this is the right assessment. I'm not sure how this thread got so heated---it's clear that (1) Omnath is good, (2) Omnath is not Vintage-warping good, (3) establishing that a miser's copy of any card is significantly better than the next-best choice (in a quantitatively-sound way, beyond isolated anecdotes) is always very difficult, and that is no different for Omnath. Run him if you like him, or don't. shrug

I agree, when you only know the record, it is very difficult to infer the effect of a single card on game states an contributions to those records. But I really tried hard to describe the actual games in which Omnath was involved. This isn't a black box - you have the pilot's insights into the games played. In that way, it is more testing rather than observational data derived just from decklists and result. Except it has the added benefit of competitive play against random opponents.

It was compared to a singleton Peek and I won a Vintage Challenge with Peek. Where is the single card discussion I made on Peek? It doesn't exist. If you would have asked me why I included it, I was in the process of testing out several cantrips and included Peek for the Instant speed play around Narset/Leo and to help engineer the Breech combo around things like Surgical Extraction. Not the biggest endorsement of the card but I designed the deck, I played the games, and I won with the deck. That is certainly more insight than you had just glancing at the winning Breach list and going from there. It was also funny - another streamer picked up the deck played games with it, was like "Why am I playing Peek in my Vintage deck?" and cut the card for Lavinia. When you put their experiences with mine, it certainly builds more of a narrative regarding Peek as not the end-all-be-all card for Vintage.

Now, I included my reasons for including Omnath and then followed with my experiences with the card. Of this information, people have picked and chosen whatever snippets they find most convenient, whether it's of the record or things like pitching to either Force being a primary mode of play (it's not, but a card is the sum of its parts and pitching to Forces is a component of its versatility). That is really frustrating when you take the effort to include much more in your posts.

I will add additional information in that the MTGO leagues have been insanely Bazaar heavy, with 10 of my 19 matches against various Bazaar decks. In those matches, I am 9-1 (17-3 overall) with Omnath fulfilling a critical part when he makes an appearance. The gaining 7 life a turn nullifies Hogaak or multiple Vines + Hollow Ones and the 4/4 body blocks the smaller creatures. The card isn't enough by itself but you are generally able to remove a portion of the clock with graveyard hate, removal, or Tabernacle, and the Omnath effectively closes the door with either the life or by fueling a broken turn with 9 mana (and Lutri to copy a Time Walk or Ancestral or something).

I would also ask @LieNielsen, which of those matchups is Omnath bad against? It's really just Xerox (which hasn't been very popular). Omnath is actually better than Mentor against PO and Doomsday because of the ability to pitch to Force and the cantrip, so it's rarely a dead card as opposed to Mentor, and I've found it to be circumstantially better than Mentor against the various Hogaak decks since your tokens can't always deal with the Trample. In any case, you aren't choosing between Mentor and this but having a card that has a comparable role to Mentor is certainly a boon for control decks in this metagame.

This thread...

@lienielsen said in [ZRN] Omnath, Locus of Creation:

So in conclusion all you’re really getting here is a cantrip 4/4, which is good enough for limited, but not Vintage.

EDIT

I think it’s probably good enough in Standard as well.

@lienielsen said in [ZRN] Omnath, Locus of Creation:

@chubbyrain1

I agree with you. I think Omnath being banned in standard has nothing to do with Vintage.

But if it were banned in legacy or modern, I’d have a good reason to assume it’s a really good card.

Can't wait for the follow up: Alright, it's banned in every format, WotC bought back every copy, set them on fire, and gave every player a holographic Black Lotus as compensation. I guess the card was decent.

@botvinik said in [ZRN] Omnath, Locus of Creation:

I can not find a shell that is comp viable and works for Omnath and I strongly suspect none exists but it certainly could be a pice of a fun rouge deck and maybe even steal some wins.

@Thewhitedragon69 I posted my record because of this statement. I told you it wasn't the crux of my argument but apparently you didn't grasp that...

@lienielsen

It won the 100+ person Modern Challenge.

Third in a recent Pioneer Challenge

Adam Yurchick just wrote an article entitled Is Omnath, Locus of Creation the Best Creature Ever?

Spoiler:

Omnath, Locus of Creation might not be the most powerful creature ever, nor the most efficient nor versatile, but it really does seem like the best.

As for creatures banned in Standard and (Modern or Legacy), it's literally Stoneforge Mystic, which is currently unbanned in Modern without an issue (card is only mediocre). Requiring a creature be banned in multiple formats is an absurd criterion for card evaluation. Mentor and Lodestone Golem aren't banned in any formats. Lavinia isn't really even played in other formats.

It's like saying Deathrite Shaman and Golgari Grave-Troll are the only good creatures...