This article will give a short overview of Oath of Druids decks since the printing of Forbidden Orchard, and then present an optimal build for a 5-10 proxy environment complete with card explanations, sideboarding plans, and rationale.
When Forbidden Orchard was printed, everyone was nigh immediately reminded of Oath's potency and ability to cheat the casting costs of large creatures. Team Meandeck dominated a Top 8 shortly thereafter with the following build:
MeanDeck Oath
4 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
2 Impulse
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Mana Leak
2 Misdirection
4 Oath of Druids
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Spirit of the Night
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Gaea's Blessing
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Tropical Island
4 Polluted Delta
5 Island
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Black Lotus
1 Strip Mine
2 Wasteland
Phil Stanton confirmed this as the consensus build in his Premium (now non-premium) article here. The consensus sideboard is listed below.
Sideboard
1 Pristine Angel
1 Iridescent Angel
1 Platinum Angel
3 Energy Flux
3 Ground Seal
2 Arcane Laboratory
2 Back to Basics
2 Control Magic
Since this was a high profile tournament, with a high profile team winning, players everywhere adopted this build as the standard. It has everything - fun reusable draw spells, (Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge) lots of counters, (including Misdirection and Mana Leak) and a quick win condition (Akroma, Angel of Wrath and Spirit of the Night). Who wouldn't want to play such a deck for the next year?
Well, the answer might be "someone who wants to win in the current metagame." The mono-Blue shell was great for its simplicity and hate resistance, but it also left the deck slightly under-powered. The lack of Black makes the combo pieces (Oath of Druids and Forbidden Orchard) harder to find, it misses the occasional proactive solution, (Duress) and most notably does not abuse the best card available in Vintage Magic: Yawgmoth's Will.
The solution to a few of those problems was addressed in Team BHWC's Oath build dubbed D.O.A. a.k.a. Duress Owns All. It features the same general engine, but splashes Black for the aforementioned Black beats: Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and Duress. (missing Yawgmoth's Will) In the conversion to three colors however, a subtle yet amazing thing happens to your draw engine. It goes from 6-7 cards (2-3 Intuition / 4 Accumulated Knowledge) down to 3 Skeletal Scrying. At least 1-2 Intuition in the Meandeck build is used for tutoring, so they don't count toward this reduction. Skeletal Scrying is the most compact, resilient, powerful draw engine in current Vintage. With 3 cards, you can completely outdraw your opponent, and use the extra 3-4 maindeck slots toward winning. Team BHWC used those extra slots to run 2 Cunning Wish, Demonic Tutor, and Vampiric Tutor. Which would you rather have? (Note: other changes include -2 Impulse, +2 Daze and -4 Mana Leak, +4 Duress for the early game)
If the answer were not already clear, I can make it easy for you when you add Yawgmoth's Will. BHWC abstained from its inclusion because of the negative synergies between it and Gaea's Blessing, but TWL's build has taken away that pain. I win about 1/3 - 1/4 of my games with Yawgmoth's Will because a single Oath activation turns the Yawgmoth's Will in hand into a combo finisher, something the creature version of Oath has been lacking.
The last thing you may have noticed about the Black build is that it runs five Stripmine effects. The biggest key to the mirror match is Forbidden Orchard dominance. If you combine Meandeck's three Strip effects with the inefficient draw engine, you get a mirror matchup that heavily favors the Black versions of Oath.
Duress Owns All (DOA)
4 Oath of Druids
2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Spirit of the Night
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
2 Misdirection
2 Daze
4 Duress
4 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
3 Skeletal Scrying
1 Demonic Tutor
2 Cunning Wish
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Polluted Delta
2 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
1 Library of Alexandria
To this point, I have simply covered the last eight months of Neo Oath of Druids decks. Where are we now? What is the best build? Can it survive the hate, and does it matchup well against the field?
Well, all the while the other teams (Meandeck and BHWC) were tuning their respective versions, a team new to Star City Games, Team White Lotus (TWL), has tuned an Oath of Druids build which has stood the test of time over here on the west coast. For the past six months, our team has piloted this deck to a Top 8 appearance at every tournament pre- and post-Trinisphere restriction. Though these are not the 100+ size tournaments that exist on the East, they are fully powered 30+ person tournaments, which is about as large as they consistently get on the West Coast. Without any further introduction, I present the unchanged deck list from late 2004 followed by analysis and commentary:
TWL's Oath of Druids 2005
Combo
4 Oath of Druids
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Spirit of the Night
Counterbase
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
4 Annul
2 Misdirection
2 Duress
Draw/Utility
3 Skeletal Scrying
3 Cunning Wish
4 Brainstorm
Broken
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Time Walk
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Manabase
1 Strip Mine
4 Wasteland
4 Polluted Delta
1 Tropical Island
1 Underground Sea
2 Island
1 Swamp
1 Lotus Petal
4 Forbidden Orchard
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
Sideboard:
3 Arcane Laboratory
2 Energy Flux
1 Pristine Angel
1 Tinker
1 Darksteel Colossus
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Oxidize
1 Krosan Reclamation
1 Echoing Truth
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Coffin Purge
1 Hurkyl's Recall
Since most of the deck is well known from previous articles and discussion above, I will delve right into the controversial choices, and how this deck plays differently from the previously mentioned builds.
No Gaea's Blessing
This deck does not need a maindeck recycle because the deck is able to protect its creatures if it has successfully activated Oath of Druids. This also allows you to run Yawgmoth's Will because you don't ditch your library 1/3 of the times you oath.
The fear of decking yourself is a valid one, which is one reason the deck runs 3 Cunning Wish with Krosan Reclamation in the sideboard. This is actually both a saving play and a combo play. If you need to get either of your creatures back, then you can use Krosan Reclamation regularly to re-stock your library. If you have out one or two creatures though, you can wish for your Krosan Reclamation, then simply activate oath again, ditching your whole library. Using Krosan, you can put back Yawgmoth's Will and Time Walk to take an extra turn and seal the game. If you draw Yawg, then flash Krosan putting another two back, cast a Brainstorm to draw the Time Walk. If you draw Time Walk, cast it, and use Yawg the next turn to replay the Walk and take another turn. Both of these situations end up being game in most cases.
Counterbase
All Blue-based vintage decks run the minimum 4 Force of Will and Mana Drain. To out control those decks, one must be able to win counter wars, thus the inclusion of 2 Misdirection and 2 Duress. Misdirection protects your creatures against targeted removal (okay mainly Swords to Plowshares). It also helps win the tail end of more counter wars than you may imagine. Duress is a pure bomb that can force through key spells and snag problematic bombs early. We chose 2 Duress over 4 for manabase considerations which will be discussed below.
The most interesting maindeck card has to be 4 Annul. It has been catching on a bit more nationally, but I know a lot of people who still can't handle seeing 4 in the maindeck. Why is this card so amazing? Well, it stops very problematic cards in every matchup, and is simple to cast at U. Against Worldgorger Dragon decks, it stops all their enchantments (Animate Dead and the family of re-animators). Against Fish, it stops Null Rod, Standstill, and Curiosity. Against Slaver, you can stop all bombs from being hardcast, and sometimes, you can prevent them from getting any artifacts in play to weld. (depending on the situation of course) In the Oath mirror, Annul allows you to dictate when you want an Oath to be played, a major strategic advantage. Against Sensei, Annul stops every single one of their combo pieces. I challenge you to find a good deck this is bad against. It has been nothing but gold for my team and me.
The biggest reason there are 4 Annul, 2 Duress, and 0 Mana Leak is for manabase considerations. Duress presents a tricky situation if you want to have Mana Drain mana up on turn 2. You can either fetch an Underground Sea and risk losing it before you have UU open to counter on their turn, or you must fetch a basic Swamp and be prevented from UU until turn 3 for sure. This really slows down the deck and is counter-intuitive to what the deck wants to do: win fast. If the opponent doesn't play an artifact or enchantment you feel is dangerous, then you still have the option to Brainstorm on their end of turn to setup a good turn 2 play. We still play 2 Duress because it is so strong and you don't need to have Mana Drain on turn 2 if you drop your Oath of Druids with Force of Will backup. Mid to late game, Duress also becomes a bomb in control matchups, stealing precious counters.
Both Mana Leak and Annul allow you to fetch basic islands early, which is really good. Neither allow you to choose what you counter, but the Mana Leak requires an extra Mox and is not a hard counter later in the game. Annul is simple to cast, and most decks play problematic artifacts and enchantments in the very early game so there is no lack of good targets. Perhaps the biggest reason to run Annul over Mana Leak is that if I have an opening hand that contains a Mox and a land, then I would rather spend my first turn casting Oath of Druids and see what happens rather than leave it open to possibly counter their threat with Mana Leak. This is where there is a distinction between the Meandeck build and the TWL build. Meandeck can only really play the control role, whereas TWL's build is ready to play beatdown or control based on what is best for the deck in a particular matchup. DOA has the opposite problem: it can't play control nearly as well. It is ready to go for the throat from the opening die roll, but ask it to survive a drawn out match, and it will lose.
Manabase
Nothing too special here. We have the standard 4 fetchlands with 5 lands to fetch. There are five Strip effects for the mirror and Mishra's Workshop, Bazaar of Baghdad, and Library of Alexandria. The basic Swamp and 2 Islands are protection against Blood Moon, Back to Basics, and Wasteland/Crucible of Worlds locks.
This deck runs full power, sans Mox Ruby. Lotus Petal makes the cut instead of it because it allows for more first turn Mana Drains, and has better synergy with Yawgmoth's Will. The deck wins so quickly, the fact that Lotus Petal doesn't stick around isn't as large of a drawback as in other decks.
Broken
Adding Demonic Tutor and Yawgmoth's Will maindeck is more than just a two-card change to any deck. It gives the deck much more flexibility, an "Oops, I win" factor, and inevitability. In a deck that consistently dumps 10-40 cards into the graveyard to fuel Yawgmoth's Will, it is an even bigger deal. I cannot over-emphasize the excellent synergy between Oath of Druids and Yawgmoth's Will. Only recently have other teams begun to catch on...
Draw
Brainstorms are standard. The Skeletal Scrying draw engine has been discussed above.
Utility / Sideboard
The 3 Cunning Wishes are critical to this deck's success. It gives you maindeck outs for a number of problems including Chalice of the Void for two. The sideboard has a bunch of goodies to fetch including:
1 Vampiric Tutor (for searching out combo pieces and Yawgmoth's Will)
1 Oxidize (for artifact kill, a.k.a. Chalice at 2)
1 Krosan Reclamation (to prevent decking or to combo out)
1 Echoing Truth (reset the spirit token battle, bounce Goblin Welder, Decree of Justice tokens, Meddling Mage naming Oath of Druids, Platinum Angel, etc)
1 Fact or Fiction (for draw)
1 Coffin Purge (to hose dragon/welder/combo up to 6 times)
1 Hurkyl's Recall (cast on their EOT against heavy artifact decks)
3 Arcane Laboratory - stops/annoys combo
2 Energy Flux - stops/annoys stax
1 Pristine Angel - stops/annoys removal (Swords to Plowshares)
1 Tinker - comes in for alternate win plan
1 Darksteel Colossus - comes in with Tinker
The sideboard takes care of all matches fairly well, although I would not say a single matchup is easy post board because Vintage is filled with such great hate. All explanations below are based on 100+ (no joke) games against the following decks with at least 5 (usually 10-20) against each deck coming in actual tournament play.
Sideboarding Strategies and Matchup Analysis
Fish variants
This is the hardest matchup by far. Meddling Mage, Swords to Plowshares, uncounterable Ninja of the Deep Hours, and all their tempo cards are very fast and hard to overcome. My pre-board experience is roughly 45/55 depending on the build. (U/W being a tougher matchup at 30/70, U/R being an easier one at 65/35)
Plan: (same of nearly all aggro style decks)
+1 Tinker
+1 Darksteel Colossus
+1 Pristine Angel
+1 Vampiric Tutor
+1 Echoing Truth
-3 Cunning Wish
-1 Spirit of the Night
-1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
You must protect your creatures, and the extra tempo to cast Cunning Wish is not great here. Catch an early Tinker with protection, or an Oath after they drop a non-Mage, and you should be okay. Post board, this matchup improves but is only at 55%-65%.
Control Slaver variants
Again, not an easy matchup, but certainly in your favor at 65/35 game 1. If they maindeck Duplicant or Jester's Cap, you must be cautious to remove them first. Without those two key cards, this matchup is very winnable as their primary method of destruction, an activated Mindslaver, doesn't do much destruction. Against Meandeck Oath, a single Mindslaver ruins the game because they can Intuition out your creatures, your Blessing, and Oath away your library causing a game loss right there. Welder helps you activate Oath, but be careful about letting him resolve because unless you can stop the rest of their plays, he can single handedly wreck you. The proper role in this matchup is clearly defined as the beatdown because they will inevitably lock you out of the game if you are too slow. Figure 4-5 turns or less and you are golden, 5+ and you better be in complete control.
Plan:
-1 Spirit of the Night
+1 Pristine Angel
You don't need to change much because you are more flexible than they are. Your 3 Cunning Wishes allow you to wreck their welding with Coffin Purge, bounce their stuff with Echoing Truth and Hurkyl's Recall, and out draw them with Fact or Fiction and recurring Ancestral Recall with Skeletal Scrying and Cunning Wish. The only change is bringing in Pristine Angel to prevent Duplicant from ruining your day. A quick note: do not ever attack with Pristine Angel if you don't have an instant with the mana to cast it. It is rarely worth the reward, and you will thank me for it later.
Oath of Druids Variants
The DOA version of this deck was designed specifically to win the mirror, the TWL version draws upon enough of those components (Duress, 5 strip effects, more compact draw engine) to share the favorable matchup. By also including major bombs like Yawgmoth's Will to combo out and Annul to dictate when Oath drops, the game 1 is in your favor 85/15. You can lose to any vintage deck right now because of how broken they are, but the general case is pure dominance. Key reminder: do not waste anything that does not say "Forbidden Orchard" or "Wasteland" on it. If they have a Wasteland ready for your Orchard, then wait until you get a Wasteland to clear the way first.
Plan:
-1 Spirit of the Night
-1 Oath of Druids
+1 Tinker
+1 Darksteel Colossus
This sideboarding plan is actually very optional, and you only need to run the Tinker alternative if they run a transformational sideboard or if you just feel more comfortable with more ways to win. Another combination I have used is:
-1 Spirit of the Night
-1 Oath of Druids
+1 Fact or Fiction
+1 Pristine Angel
This gives more draw and is better if you don't expect the need for an alternate kill.
Against the Salvager combo version, you don't need to change a thing, but you can bring in 3 Arcane Laboratory for 3 Cunning Wish if you prefer. Annul is usually good enough to stop them from resolving key artifacts or an Oath of Druids at the wrong time early, and just as you win the orchard war as explained above.
TPS combo
As a deck with 16 counters, you should be able to out maneuver TPS. The deck is extremely potent, but the game plan is simple: Don't let them resolve Black Lotus / Memory Jar / Necropotence / or Yawgmoth's Bargain, and Duress them a couple times to give yourself some breathing room. Once you Oath out a creature, you will need to survive 2 more turns. Most TPS players won't try to go off on the first turn because they want to wait until the last possible moment since the damage you can deal is readily known. Use this time to find Time Walk or Yawgmoth's Will (with Cunning Wish and Vampiric Tutor or other draw). If you can accelerate the clock, you can leave them without another turn and heading to game 2 you are in control. Game 1 is about 50/50.
Plan:
-3 Cunning Wish
-1 Misdirection
+1 Vampiric Tutor
+3 Arcane Laboratory
Your gameplan is now: find and play Arcane Laboratory. Along the way, you hope to drop an Oath, but if you don't then you should play a second Arcane Laboratory before playing the oath so they must bounce both at the same time (with Echoing Truth) rather than bouncing the single one and going off the next turn. Post board, this match improves to 65/35 in your favor.
Stax variants
This is another difficult matchup all 3 games. The die roll is more important here than anywhere else with the plethora of first turn bombs available: they have Trinisphere, Chalice of the Void at 2, Crucible of Worlds, Goblin Welder, Smokestack, and Tangle Wire, while you have Oath of Druids. By sheer numbers, Stax has the advantage going first at 75/25, but if you go first, you lead 60/40. If you resolve a creature through Oath, look for them to either find Duplicant, Platinum Angel, or to permanent race you with Smokestack.
Plan:
-2 Misdirection
-1 Spirit of the Night
-1 Duress
+2 Energy Flux
+1 Vampiric Tutor
+1 Pristine Angel
Misdirection is terrible against Stax, as Duress going second isn't much better. You need Pristine here so they can't use Duplicant. Sometimes I will leave in as many as four creatures (removing another Duress and Cunning Wish) to prevent myself from being ruined by a single Jester's Cap activation. Basic gameplan again involves going first, and then eventually getting out both an Oath of Druids and Energy Flux. A note of caution: do not give too many spirit tokens if you cannot stop a Smokestack from resolving. They will ruin you if you give them even 2-3 because you cannot match their permanent count. Post board, this is still not an easy match, but it is much closer as both sides have better ammunition for comebacks (you have Energy Flux, they have Spawning Pit). It is probably 60/40 in favor of whomever goes first.
General Sideboarding Strategy
Against artifact-based decks, you want to side out Misdirection for Energy Flux.
Against aggro decks, you want to side out Spirit of the Night and a Wish for Tinker and Darksteel Colossus
Because the deck is geared toward a control based metagame (control/combo and control/aggro), few changes are necessary, but slight tweaks dependent on specific deck are really helpful.
Potential changes based on metagame and playstyle.
Maindeck: -1 Cunning Wish, +1 Mystical Tutor
If you have a faster metagame more based on aggro or combo decks, you may want the flexibility of running an extra tutor. Mystical can still fetch your wish, but at the expense of a card and blue mana. It gives you the ability to tutor up some really big spells like Ancestral Recall, Time Walk, and Yawgmoth's Will but can't find Forbidden Orchard or Oath of Druids.
Maindeck: -1 Skeletal Scrying, +1 Fact or Fiction
Sideboard: -1 Fact or Fiction, +1 Skeletal Scrying
With the recent increase of maindeck graveyard hate (Phyrexian Furnace among others) you may prefer to include less graveyard draw reliance. Fact or Fiction actually solves both problems at once. While it is less flexible, it is still nicely drained into, and fuels larger graveyards for your 2 other Skeletal Scryings. The 3rd Scrying is still available through Cunning Wish while in the sideboard.
Maindeck: -1 Cunning Wish, +1 Gaea's Blessing
Sideboard: -1 Krosan Reclamation, +1 Utility Card
If you absolutely cannot play this deck without a shuffle effect, then go ahead and remove a wish for it. Don't forget you open up a utility spot in your sideboard as you don't need Krosan Reclamation anymore.
Other Sideboard Considerations
Ground Seal - alternative means of shutting down welder and dragon
Rack and Ruin - no question a well placed R&R is devastating, but it was not worth the additional baggage to run red
Red Elemental Blast - same comment as above
Blue Elemental Blast - not enough Food Chain Goblins to warrant a spot
Platinum Angel - some decks have a problem when she is resolved, but generally most decks can handle a simple artifact creature and her services are just not as good in this deck as the other creatures
So there it is! This deck has proven itself time and again, and I feel confident that with a bit of luck and some good playtesting, you can be guiding this deck to a Top 8 near you!