bUg Control Oath

I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with a suitable topic for another blog, but my creativity goes way down when I don’t play very often, so I’m going to go ahead and blame that.

I bought Oath with my tax return money. It’s a deck that I’ve always wanted to play, especially because it’s a deck that I really hate to play against. More so than Stax; more so than first turn combo. (I’d like to say more so than Control Slaver but I haven’t really played against that ever. The one time I did play against that, my opponent played no Slaver and I didn’t see much control.)

Anyway, I bought Oath and I’m looking forward to sleeving it up later today.

I’ll be playing what I’m calling bUg Control Oath, which uses Duresses, Wastelands, Null Rods, and Mana Leak rather than Mana Drain to keep the game under control until the broken enchantment hits play.

I have a feeling that Oath may actually be more broken than Necropotence and Yawgmoth’s bargain. Think about it. Necro and Bargain both cost life to move cards around, you don’t get your draw step for free, and they’re prohibitively costed. Oath of Druids, on the other hand, is ludicrously cheap, has the potential to move upwards of forty cards around at one time (thus setting up a possibly broken Yawgmoth’s Will or other combo win), still gives you a draw step, and lets you put whatever card you draw into play for free. And if that card is a hasty angel that attacks for six, all the better.

The only reason Oath isn’t restrictable is just that, it only lets you play creatures, which everybody knows are easy to handle.

Anyway, my list will be something like this:

4x Oath of Druids
4x Forbidden Orchard
1x Razia, Boros Archangel
1x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1x Time Walk
1x Gaea’s Blessing

4x Force of Will
4x Mana Leak
4x Duress
3x Null Rod
2x Muddle the Mixture

4x Brainstorm
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Ancestral Recall
5x Moxen
1x Black Lotus
3x Wasteland
1x Strip Mine
2x Flooded Strand
3x Polluted Delta
4x Island
1x Swamp
2x Tropical Island
2x Underground Sea

I’m really looking forward to this because, even though I really love Vintage, I really really love attacking with creatures.

Why would I rather play Oath or Fish than, say, Ichorid or Workshop Aggro? Because I’m a retarded Bruce who refuses to play the best deck in hopes of coming up with something new or winning with something sort of “out there.”

Okay, really, I think there’s lots of room to work with in Oath. Pretty much only the top twelve slots are definite. That leaves so much room to work in artifact or graveyard hate, even more counters or search if you need to go the absolute combo route.

I haven’t played this deck a lot yet, but in a few test draws on Apprentice and in three games against Jeff last night, I really see what Anthony was saying about always drawing crap with Oath. Except for the one game on Apprentice when I mulliganed to five into a mox, Forbidden Orchard, Oath, Force of Will, and a blue card. It was awesome. I wasn’t playing anyone, but I assumed I won.

However, for as good as that felt, it did not feel so good mulliganing to five and counting on Ancestral Recall to fix everything, which it didn’t really.

Plus there were bunches of times that I ended up with one angel in the opening grip, or Gaea’s Blessing, or both, and that’s just lame.

Oh well, based on the laws of probability, I’m sure everything will work out most of the time and I’ll be able to go on making hot, angry, violent Angel love to people’s faces over the course of three or four turns until they die in a quivering pile of holy vengeance and justice.

I haven’t gotten to the sideboard yet, but I’m sure it will include some number of Tormod’s Crypt higher than two. Also some artifact bounce, since I hear that’s pretty good against Stax. Really, though, I’m not sure about the matchups at all, and the mirror especially. Echoing Truth, maybe? Powder Keg? Things that get rid of all tokens so I can give them one and Oath up a legend?

Ooh, what about Extract?! I hear that’s pretty good against Oath. I wish I hadn’t traded mine back to the Hero Zone. It was a terrible deal on my part, especially since it turns out I have decent instincts on cards and suddenly Extract is getting pretty hot as a Fish sideboard against Oath. You’ve only got two Angels to pluck.

Of course, against me, they’ll only have two angels to pluck too.

I’m just getting started. Hopefully I’ll be able to write a little bit more on this as I play it. I’m excited, though.

There’s so much rich, creamy goodness to be found in Oath. Like haste, vigilance, protection from red, protection from black, flying, trample, first strike, etc.

Good times. Good times.

Good game.