Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
hjalte
Also, Oath of Druids is a 1-card combo
Yeah, not sure how you can have a combination of one card. I'll have a Big Mac combo . . . just a Big Mac. :confused:
Oath will never be unbanned because of the ridiculous creatures being printed. When Oath consisted of Pheldagriff, Spike Weaver and Morphling it was still good, but nowadays it would be nuts. Oath of Druids is my all time favourite card and I would jizz my panties if they ever unbanned it, but it's not going to happen while they're making game-breaking, environment-warping fatties like Iona and Eldrazi.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
denial
Did you just seriously, legitimately, ask that ? Cause thats fucking funny.
Oh look, you have nothing to add to the discussion. Quit being an ass and actually address my entire point. Oath isn't a 2-mana GG as even in Vintage, kills can take 2-3 turns depending on the hand. Since we are in Legacy, the Oath player would first need to drop an oath and then somehow make the other player have a creature. Oath also needs to resolve through lots of potent crap, like Counterbalance or an active Pridemage.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
(nameless one)
So, its official that the next Judge Promo would be
Land Tax (alongside with
Thawing Glaciers).
Is there a possibility that the creepy little taxman will see the tabletops of Legacy events? (In fairness, the Promo alt-art looks gorgeous)
It's no more likely now than it ever was, considering that Balance, Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor, and Hermit Druid have all been printed as judge promos and they are all still banned. And just to head this off: obviously Balance, Ring, and Tutor would never be unbanned - however, arguments can be made in favor of Hermit Druid coming off, so...
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
DragoFireheart
Considering that Wizards has just allowed
Entomb to be unbanned recently, what are the chances that
Oath of Druids would be unbanned?
It does not have issue of graveyard hate that Entomb has, but it's vulnerable to
Qasali Pridemage. Oath is also somewhat weak to storm decks without the aid of Forbidden Orchard.
No, Oath of Druids > Legacy format. I'll pretend you didn't ask that.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
MMogg
Yeah, not sure how you can have a combination of one card. I'll have a Big Mac combo . . . just a Big Mac. :confused:
Oath will never be unbanned because of the ridiculous creatures being printed. When Oath consisted of Pheldagriff, Spike Weaver and Morphling it was still good, but nowadays it would be nuts. Oath of Druids is my all time favourite card and I would jizz my panties if they ever unbanned it, but it's not going to happen while they're making game-breaking, environment-warping fatties like Iona and Eldrazi.
Yet Entomb remains unbanned. Technically, Oath is a two card combo since it needs your opponent to have a creature or it needs Forbidden Orchard. Maybe a few years ago I wouldn't even consider Oath, yet when one sees how rampant Zoo continues to perform and Reanimator continues it's poor showing, I believe some are overestimating the power of Oath.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
lordofthepit
No, Oath of Druids > Legacy format. I'll pretend you didn't ask that.
Now explain why.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Oath of Druids is actually kind of slow, given the lack of Moxen and the most broken tutors found in Vintage.
I'm not saying it would be safe if unbanned, but I tested a Bant Oath Counterbalance build a while back and it was fine. Not getting Oath on turn one meant you could be raced a lot of times (unless you hit Terastodon). Krosan Grip and Pridemage also really hurt because the deck didn't have any way to actually cast its creatures, so losing Oath meant it was out a win condition. A Landstill-esque control build might be better because the increased land count would allow for Mishra's Factories (and you wouldn't have to worry about screwing up your curve for Counterbalance), but it would make it harder to protect Oath and you'd lose percentage versus combo decks.
A disruption-oriented build might be strong, but it would not have as much setup power as Reanimator does because you'd need to be in white for Enlightened Tutor, blue for counters, green for Oath, and possibly black for discard, and four color speed Oath seems really bad without a million "tap for any color" lands. Using those makes you vulnerable to Wasteland, etc.
Activating Oath into Iona means you run into all the same anti-Iona hate that Reanimator runs into, including Karakas and assorted blue bounce spells. If your guys die, you also have no way to get them back (unlike Reanimator, which could in theory just reanimate again).
It's not immediately clear to me that Oath is better than Reanimator. Their setup gets disrupted by different types of hate, but once they've "gone off" they get hit by all the same hate cards. The only benefit I see is that Oath would be better at getting full value out of Terastodon.
I would love to have it unbanned, but someone would probably do something ridiculous with it that I overlooked and then the format would be sad.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Because it's a 1 card combo in a format where every deck plays 8+ creature that use 6 slots in your deck compared to reanimate 2-card combo that uses 16+ slots of your deck? And isn't hated by grave hate ? And cost less? And make you able to play Emrakul that reanimator can't run? And maybe just no?
EDIT: k aggro did a better job of explaining himself. The fact the combo uses effectively 5/6 slots (4 oaths + creatures) make it just too strong and usable in many kind of shells. You don't even need tutors, you can play just 4 brainstorm + 4 ponder and 4 intuition, cards that you would use anyway (except int) in any control shell. Add lots of fows, dazes, ee+ruins to get with intuition, maybe a couple of loams... hell you could easily add 4 oath +1 emrakul to land just to have a faster clock and it would work.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
Gheizen64
Because it's a 1 card combo in a format where every deck plays 8+ creature that use 6 slots in your deck compared to reanimate 2-card combo that uses 16+ slots of your deck? And isn't hated by grave hate ? And cost less? And make you able to play Emrakul that reanimator can't run? And maybe just no?
Emrakul is worse than running Iona, Terastodon, and maybe Inkwell Leviathan. I mean, you can run him, but the other guys are better. Also, Oath isn't really significantly faster than decks that just Show and Tell Emrakul into play, but it does have the benefit of not giving your opponent a Tarmogoyf or whatever.
Not every deck in the format runs creatures. Combo doesn't, nor does Lands (its "creatures" won't actually be creatures when Oath would trigger). Blue decks already have efficient answers to Oath in the form of Spell Snare and Spell Pierce, which slows you down (as the Oath player) against blue because you need to have the ability to trade disruption and come out on top. If you have to find Oath AND Orchard, you're even slower since the tutors for each don't overlap (unlike Mystical Tutor in Reanimator, which finds Entomb and reanimation spells), and you end up using lots of slots on setup. Losing Oath means you're not doing anything until you find another, which is harder to shrug off when Reanimator's higher concentration of reanimation spells means it has a better chance of just drawing another one. An aborted reanimation attempt is pretty bad for Reanimator; it's similarly bad for Oath to not actually be able to trigger Oath against any sort of clock at all, especially when you have to wait a full turn cycle to get a benefit out of Oath.
Not getting hit with graveyard hate is sort of irrelevant, since Oath gets hit by enchantment hate (which every deck should have in its 75 anyway). I mean, yeah, there's no Leyline of the Enchantment or Relic of Enchantmentgenitus, but Grip and Pridemage are pretty damn prevalent and could conceivably race Oath if you don't have a turn-one land, Chrome Mox, Oath play (or if you have to use Enlightened Tutor to find Oath on turn one). The format has the tools to adapt to Oath, although I don't know all of them given that the optimal build of Oath is unknown right now: like I said, Oath Counterbalance was actually surprisingly fair.
I will admit that Oath might actually be better than Reanimator simply because it's hard to fuck up. It's basically the same reason why people hate Jund in Standard: cascade and Oath operate in many of the same ways in that you play your spell and then just lucksack into the Blightning/Terastodon every time. Your game plan with Oath basically never changes, so people with no experience with the format could potentially pick up Oath and do better than they would with Reanimator. Either way, it's pretty irrelevant; Oath won't be unbanned because people freak out about an archetype-defining card in Vintage without actually trying to see if it would work the same in Legacy.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, tempo Oath might actually be pretty good. It has an "Oops, I win" factor that tempo decks generally don't have, but it's got all of the same disruption...
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
Aggro_zombies
Either way, it's pretty irrelevant; Oath won't be unbanned because people freak out about an archetype-defining card in Vintage without actually trying to see if it would work the same in Legacy.
I've looked at the Vintage variants of Oath and if there was something I thought that our current Legacy couldn't handle, I'd be far more adamant against Oath.
As it stands, Legacy will soon be ready for unbanned Oaths.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
Aggro_zombies
Either way, it's pretty irrelevant; Oath won't be unbanned because people freak out about an archetype-defining card in Vintage without actually trying to see if it would work the same in Legacy.
I've looked at the Vintage variants of Oath and if there was something I thought that our current Legacy couldn't handle, I'd be far more adamant against Oath.
As it stands, Legacy will soon be ready for unbanned Oaths.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
DragoFireheart
Now explain why.
It That Betrays / dragon breath
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DragoFireheart
I've looked at the Vintage variants of Oath and if there was something I thought that our current Legacy couldn't handle, I'd be far more adamant against Oath.
As it stands, Legacy will soon be ready for unbanned Oaths.
Well, my assumption is that I did it wrong, since the deck wasn't nearly as broken as people are claiming it would be. It could actually be kind of clunky sometimes, so I'm thinking there's a better shell for it.
Either way, Land Tax will get unbanned before Oath.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
denial
Krosan Grip / Qasali Pridemage
Now actually try and use a little bit of clarification instead of acting cute and posting a couple of cards that don't see play or almost no play at all.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Aggro_zombies
Well, my assumption is that I did it wrong, since the deck wasn't nearly as broken as people are claiming it would be. It could actually be kind of clunky sometimes, so I'm thinking there's a better shell for it.
Either way, Land Tax will get unbanned before Oath.
With Wizards logic, that won't happen since Land Tax stalls the game. Oath is a quick search and shuffle a couple times a game.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Aggro_zombies
Well, my assumption is that I did it wrong, since the deck wasn't nearly as broken as people are claiming it would be. It could actually be kind of clunky sometimes, so I'm thinking there's a better shell for it.
Either way, Land Tax will get unbanned before Oath.
It always kind of irritated me the way people would get all of their shit back every time they Oathed, it seemed like people would always hit their Gaea's Blessings and get their whole yard back. I say this without having tried it, but it strikes me that Jace, the Wallet Sculptor could make that even more frustrating.
Also backing Gheizen in that Oath is a 1-card combo, since it puts a dude directly from your deck into play without passing Go or collecting $200, whereas Reanimator is a 2-card combo, since Entombing a dude doesn't do much if you can't find or resolve Exhume or Reanimate. Oath also, as has been said, opens up things like Progenitus and Emrakul that Reanimator doesn't have access to.
In a perfect world, we could just plug Oath and LftL into a list and have a lot of fun, but this world sadly is imperfect.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DragoFireheart
With Wizards logic, that won't happen since Land Tax stalls the game. Oath is a quick search and shuffle a couple times a game.
I was commenting on the likelihood of Oath being unbanned. You have just (helpfully) pointed out that it will never be unbanned, which is probably the correct decision, although one that makes me sad as I would love to play Legacy Oath.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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Originally Posted by
coraz86
Also backing Gheizen in that Oath is a 1-card combo, since it puts a dude directly from your deck into play without passing Go or collecting $200, whereas Reanimator is a 2-card combo, since Entombing a dude doesn't do much if you can't find or resolve Exhume or Reanimate.
And against storm decks? I hear they use many creatures.
Also, Oath will NEVER drop a creature first turn (which would require something like Lotus Petal to even drop the oath first turn) even if it sits there the first turn, while Reanimator can drop a turn-1 creature with Entomb, Dark Ritual, a Black Source and a Reanimate. The fastest Oath can drop a fatty is turn 2 and that is if it also has Orchard in it's opening hand... which is, guess what, a 2-card combo! Sure, it doesn't need the Orchard if the other player is playing creatures... read below in how I address that.
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Oath also, as has been said, opens up things like Progenitus and Emrakul that Reanimator doesn't have access to.
Oath would have access to those more powerful creatures, but it lacks the explosiveness of Reanimator, won't kill in the first two-three turns like Dredge or ANT, and is vulnerable to maindecked cards like Pridemage (which is in Zoo and zoo is all over the place). Also, Oath is dependent on Orchard if it wants to stand a chance against faster combo decks. Merfolk probably wouldn't mind Oath too much as they run counters and wasteland to deal with early Orchards. Zoo maindecks Pridemages to blow up the Oath.
I realize that Oath is powerful, but creature creep and the evolution of our meta has made it less powerful then it was in the past.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
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I realize that Oath is powerful, but creature creep and the evolution of our meta has made it less powerful then it was in the past.
The fact that the general power level of creatures has risen makes Oath stronger if anything. As more decks rely on creatures for a win condition Oath moves farther towards the 1 card combo realm. In a world where no other decks played creature spells (almost Vintage) Oath would be a true 2 card combo deck. In legacy you could win tournaments running Oath without a single Orchard in your deck.
As for the explosiveness of Reanimator balancing the scales. How explosive does Oath need to be? Against any deck that wins through the red zone Oath becomes a game ending threat as soon as they try to apply any pressure.
Consider the number of slots dedicated to the Reanimator strategy, compact as it might be, then realize that Oath needs just six to seven non-lands to function - and only requires one card to actually resolve - it's one of, if not the, most compact combos in magic. I argue Oath would be closer to the power level of Flash than Reanimator - even Flash required that you have another card in your hand, and often people ran spells with the worlds "...or you lose the game" printed on them just to find it.
Also, Oath isn't cold to graveyard hate... yeah it would just be ridiculous.
Re: All B/R update speculation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by
DragoFireheart
Krosan Grip /
Qasali Pridemage
Now actually try and use a little bit of clarification instead of acting cute and posting a couple of cards that don't see play or almost no play at all.
What exactly do you need clarification on ? Are you unable RTFCs ? And really, what is your point about those cards seeing almost no play currently ? How much play did Iona, inkwell, blazing archon, or sphinx of the steel wind see before they unbanned entomb ? Im really curious as to your answer on that one.
Also, what would a turn 1/2 hasted eldrazi fattie really care about a turn 3 grip or pridemage. And what were you planning on casting those with, annihilated lands ? Even then, what would it matter if you blew up the oath, with that beast already on the table ?