Subject: Deck:Oath of Druids Tech Date: Sun, 2 Aug 1998 21:03:21 -0700 (PDT) From: Julian Michael Buck To: fkusumot@ix.netcom.com OATH OF DRUIDS:The New Power Card of Magic After having read numerous posts about Magic's newest Necropotence, Oath of Druids, I decided to contribute my Oath deck to th he Dojo. This deck doesn't differ much from the original "Oath of Rogues" deck that stormed the U.S. nationals meat grinders, but does have a few cards that I have found useful in an Oath deck that I have not seen in any others. By the way, I don't want people to get the impression that including these cards was my idea, I'm sure many other players have done the same thing. My Oath deck: Oath of Broken-ness The combo: 4 Oath of Druids 3 Gaea's Blessing The kill cards: 1 Spirit of the Night 1 Archangel the Spike engine: 4 Spike Feeders 3 Spike Weavers library manipulation: 4 Impulse 3 Brainstorm 2 Sylvan Library countermagic: 4 Counterspell 4 Mana Leak other: 2 Creeping Mold 2 Propaganda 1 Verdant Touch land: 2 Undiscovered Paridise 3 Gemstone Mine 10 Forest 9 Island In his post on Oath of Druids strategies, Mike Donais mentioned that the "Oath of Rogues" version of the deck had trouble dealing with creatures outside of Propaganda, which serves only to slow creature decks down. This deck has a strong solution to creature decks: Spike Weaver. While not as good as Mike's solution-Wrath of God-, Spike Weaver provides the Blue-Green Oath decks with a good way to stop creatures as well as a way to inflate the kill creatures and to gain more life from Spike Feeders. The problem I have had with the Weaver is getting it out with the Oath too early, as it can take a few turns to burn off the counters. I quickly realised that four was too many, and even three sometimes seems excessive. I might try substituting one or two for more counterspells or some Bottle Gnomes. For those of you who are picky about never going over 60 cards in a deck, try cutting a land and a Weaver or perhaps a counterspell or a Creeping Mold. I have never had a problem running 61 or 62 cards, particularly in a deck with so many library manipulation and card advantage options. The counterspell and land configurations could use some fine tuning, but that's not something to stress over. If you like try using Dissipate or Disrupt instead of some Mana Leaks ( this will often be a metagame decision: use Mana Leak if you expect a fast enviroment, Disrupt if you believe there will be many decks not runnig large numbers of creatures, or Dissipate if you believe you will be playing in a slower enviroment with many recursive cards present ). As for the lands, you might want to try Skyshroud Forest or more rainbow lands if you desire adding more colors to the deck or if you feel that Wasteland/Price of Progress will not be prevalent. The deck needs a fairly large amount of land to run properly, so you do not want to make yourself more vulnerable to cards such these. In conclusion, I believe Oath of Druids is one of the most powerful cards to come along in a while, and could shape the Standard playing field in the same way that cards like Necropotence, Kjeldoran Outpost, Abeyance, and Cursed Scroll have in the past, and still do today. Only time will tell. Until then, make sure you either play Oath of Druids, or run some main deck enchantment destruction. And above all, never dismiss all the green cards in a set with the uneducated remark "Green Sucks!". After Wall of Blossoms, the California Burn Green deck of U.S. nationals success, and now Oath of Druids, by now you should be able to see that "Green Sucks!" is nothing more than an incorrect myth. Everyone Remembers the "Black Summer". Who knows?. We might just be in the "Green Summer" and about to enter the "Green Fall". Take Care, Julian Buck email me at: aa472@pgfn.bc.ca