All B/R update speculation.

[FoolofaTook]

Oath has the same problem as Flash; it's cheap, splashable, and requires very few dedicated slots in your deck. It has the weakness of not being blue, or instant, and of only giving you Progenitus instead of the instant kill. However, it's still almost certainly too powerful to unban. There's a dozen or two dozen less contentious cards that should get a trial in the format before Oath is even seriously discussed.

It's a permanent with summoning sickness, since it has no effect prior to your following upkeep. It's Spell Snare-able. It's Krosan Grip-able. It's EE-able. It's Vindicate-able. In other words most of the commonly played answers in the meta hit it. If it actually was as good as it seems like it might be then Diabolic Edict would make a comeback in a hurry and be there also. It's no answer against fast aggro because fast aggro probably already has you too low for Progenitus to matter much, given he can block only one creature, arrived a turn late and doesn't help you out against burn at all. It's of no value against creatureless decks. It would be played not just with Progenitus but probably also with Tarmogoyf, for defensive purposes if nothing else, meaning that it would function as a slow Tarmogoyf in many cases (4x Goyf, 1x Progenitus).

Basically the broken in the card is not as broken as just drawing and playing a Tarmogoyf in most instances.

Could people put together decks to heavily abuse it? Sure, and that's true for Painter's Servant and Grindstone, it's true for PD and Stifle, it's true for Natural Order and Progenitus, it's true for Ad Nauseum and whatever and it's true for Ichorid's circus. Oath of Druids isn't substantially more broken than any of the above and really it's not as broken as Stiflenought. Once you get into a meta where a control deck can put a 12/12 trampler on the board on turn 2 you've kind of exhausted the fear that any creature based combo that does not kill instantly evokes.

[Nihil Credo]

It would be played not just with Progenitus but probably also with Tarmogoyf, for defensive purposes if nothing else, meaning that it would function as a slow Tarmogoyf in many cases (4x Goyf, 1x Progenitus).

Basically the broken in the card is not as broken as just drawing and playing a Tarmogoyf in most instances.

It's kind of amazing how you spelled out in the very same sentence why putting Tarmogoyf in Oath would be a bad idea and still totally missed it.

Also, please think a bit more about your comparison of Stifle/Nought and Oath/Progenitus.

[Elfrago]

Legacy is still a format dominated by creatures, and oath decks simply pwns them. Having a combo that most of the time is just a 1 card combo is absloutely not good for the format.

[DragoFireheart]

It's a permanent with summoning sickness, since it has no effect prior to your following upkeep. It's Spell Snare-able. It's Krosan Grip-able. It's EE-able. It's Vindicate-able. In other words most of the commonly played answers in the meta hit it. If it actually was as good as it seems like it might be then Diabolic Edict would make a comeback in a hurry and be there also. It's no answer against fast aggro because fast aggro probably already has you too low for Progenitus to matter much, given he can block only one creature, arrived a turn late and doesn't help you out against burn at all. It's of no value against creatureless decks. It would be played not just with Progenitus but probably also with Tarmogoyf, for defensive purposes if nothing else, meaning that it would function as a slow Tarmogoyf in many cases (4x Goyf, 1x Progenitus).

Basically the broken in the card is not as broken as just drawing and playing a Tarmogoyf in most instances.

Could people put together decks to heavily abuse it? Sure, and that's true for Painter's Servant and Grindstone, it's true for PD and Stifle, it's true for Natural Order and Progenitus, it's true for Ad Nauseum and whatever and it's true for Ichorid's circus. Oath of Druids isn't substantially more broken than any of the above and really it's not as broken as Stiflenought. Once you get into a meta where a control deck can put a 12/12 trampler on the board on turn 2 you've kind of exhausted the fear that any creature based combo that does not kill instantly evokes.

Except that PD dies to everything and the combo to bring it out is highly vulnerable. Counter the Stifle or discard it or blow up the PD with a gazillion spells. Hell, Shatter kills the damn thing.

The thing about Oath is that it's power is contain and only needs 5 cards: 4 oath and a creature of your choice (Progenitus most likely, maybe some other beater). The thing is, the combo is so small that you can literally fill the rest of your deck with disruption so that it WILL come out. Oh, and decks that are creatureless are not an issue: say hello to Forbidden Orchard for me, will ya?

[dirtyapes]

Oath would be bad to bring back. It would cause a warp to the format for the whole time that it is legal. Anything that will clearly warp the format should not be considered to bring off the B/R list. I do think there are some cards that could come off and not be bad for the format. Since they can take them put them back on in 3 months if they do mess the format there is some control that they have in case but a card like Oath will not make the format better.

[FoolofaTook]

It's kind of amazing how you spelled out in the very same sentence why putting Tarmogoyf in Oath would be a bad idea and still totally missed it.

Also, please think a bit more about your comparison of Stifle/Nought and Oath/Progenitus.

Not putting Tarmogoyf in a blue deck with a green splash is probably enough of a competitive disadvantage at this point to make the inclusion of almost anything else in its stead indefensible. If you wanted to throw 4x Oath of Druids in instead to make sure you got your combo you'd be breaking even at best if the replacement was 1 for 1 with OoD replacing goyf in the deck.

If the argument is that a slower deck with OoD and blue control would be superior to the currently existing slower control decks, e.g. Landstill, I don't know that I think that would clearly be true. Elspeth makes the Landstill deck pretty ferocious at this point and having her x2 coming out for OoD and Progenitus wouldn't make me see a clear win for them.

Stifle/Nought has advantages that OoD/Progenitus does not. It's faster for one thing. Stifle has very significant value outside of the main combo. The combo is not Spell Snare-able, basically removing something like a quarter to a third of the counterspells used in the meta from consideration. Chump-blocking a nought just doesn't work.

I guess it's dimly conceivable that putting OoD's into a deck to enable the Prgenitus combo would be an improvement over the mechanisms that blue currently has in place to kill the opponent, however I don't see it. I'd much rather face a deck with 4x OoD and 1x Progenitus than a deck with 4x Tarmogoyf and another powerful card as the fifth in the suite.

[DragoFireheart]

If the argument is that a slower deck with OoD and blue control would be superior to the currently existing slower control decks, e.g. Landstill, I don't know that I think that would clearly be true. Elspeth makes the Landstill deck pretty ferocious at this point and having her x2 coming out for OoD and Progenitus wouldn't make me see a clear win for them.

What's to stop a Landstill shell from adopting Progenitus-Oath combo?

Hell, Landstill can even safely wrath/disk away a Progenitus since it will just go back to the Library. They also don't have to worry about it getting hit with StP either.

[FoolofaTook]

The thing about Oath is that it's power is contain and only needs 5 cards: 4 oath and a creature of your choice (Progenitus most likely, maybe some other beater). The thing is, the combo is so small that you can literally fill the rest of your deck with disruption so that it WILL come out. Oh, and decks that are creatureless are not an issue: say hello to Forbidden Orchard for me, will ya?

We already have decks filled with disruption that dominate based on that and win through inevitability. Landstill basically wins a huge percentage of games in which they have have not been beaten by turn 5 or so. Dreadstill wins those games and also can win on turn 2 off of a nuts draw in several different ways.

You need to make Progenitus combo better than those in terms of speed and inevitability in order to make the case that a combo with Oath of Druids would be clearly broken.

Landstill has the inevitability edge and Dreadstill has the speed edge and you can argue that both are competitive with your theoretical deck in the other side of the equation also.

[FoolofaTook]

What's to stop a Landstill shell from adopting Progenitus-Oath shell?

What about the combo would make Landstill better if they chose to do so? The options they have now are pretty ferocious and very effective. You need to make the case that adding 4x Oath and 1x Progenitus would make them more so and given the prevalence of Spell Snare and Krosan Grip in the meta I just don't see it.

By the time you get to the point in the game that Oath/Progenitus is really scary a good Landstill player has either won or lost already, winning most of the time.

[DragoFireheart]

What about the combo would make Landstill better if they chose to do so? The options they have now are pretty ferocious and very effective. You need to make the case that adding 4x Oath and 1x Progenitus would make them more so and given the prevalence of Spell Snare and Krosan Grip in the meta I just don't see it.

By the time you get to the point in the game that Oath/Progenitus is really scary a good Landstill player has either won or lost already, winning most of the time.

I that you keep saying "GRIP! SNARE!" but that can be applied to any 2Cmc spell or artifact/enchantment. That's like saying Goyf is a bad beater because it dies to Terror. You're going to need a better argument than that, since PD can also die to Grip or countermagic (and a lot more things than Progenitus/Oath). Humility can die to Grip or countermagic. Many things die to counter magic and Grip.

Here are some reasons why Pro/Oath is far superior to PD/Stifle.

- Oath doesn't open the window for 2-for-1

- Targeted creature removal and artifact removal have no effect on the Pro/Oath combo.

- Oath doesn't need (or want) Progenitus in hand.

- If Progenitus is somehow killed, Oath can get him AGAIN.

- You can't bounce Progenitus with targeted bounce spells.

- There is no chance of actually blocking Progenitus to survive another turn: it will deal 10 damage as it can not be blocked.

- Pro/Oath is a more favorable splash. You can splash blue for PD/Stifle, but it's generally weaker. On the other hand, splashing for Pro/Oath gets you Grip and other green tools.

[undone]

See people forget that pro is NOT the only insane target for the card, there are many (see sundering titan and sweeper creatures) problematic creatures with it, infact ancestors chosen is NUTS vs the aggro decks you claim its bad against (Which I disagree on.)

Oath is insane, the fact that a vintage deck was based around it should be proof enough of this.

[tivadar]

It's as simple as this: Oath + Progenitus is a 1 card combo, Stifle + Nought is a 2 card combo. OP >> SN. Not to mention everything Drago said above. Nought is even more susceptible because:
* It's an artifact
* It's targettable
* It only costs 1 mana

[Koby]

Oath is a bad idea to introduce. Sure, most people will go with the traditional Maher Oath style deck to get out Progenitus and beatface for 2 turns.

But the more clever among us will realise that there are creatures in magic that provide much better utility if we don't actually have to hard-cast them. Sundering Titan comes to mind, as well as Tidespout Tyrant, Realm Razor (if you're feeling gutsy). Why limit yourself to a 3 turn (4 really, cast Oath:1, Activate:2, Attack:3, Attack:4) kill when you can design the deck to win or dominate the game right now?

[DragoFireheart]

Oath is a bad idea to introduce. Sure, most people will go with the traditional Maher Oath style deck to get out Progenitus and beatface for 2 turns.

But the more clever among us will realise that there are creatures in magic that provide much better utility if we don't actually have to hard-cast them. Sundering Titan comes to mind, as well as Tidespout Tyrant, Realm Razor (if you're feeling gutsy). Why limit yourself to a 3 turn (4 really, cast Oath:1, Activate:2, Attack:3, Attack:4) kill when you can design the deck to win or dominate the game right now?

There's this as well. Oath can used and abused to drop other nasty creatures

[Otter]

Oath is a wildly stupid card. People currently have decklists that involve 10-15 green creatures and 3-4 Natural Orders just so that they can get a Progenitus into play. It's at least decently difficult to work that into a blue shell -- once you've added Ponder, Brainstorm, Force, and Daze or Spell Snare, you're nearly used up your deck space. Oath is five deck slots to get Progenitus into play and the rest of your deck is completely ready to be filled with the best of blue. But why stop at blue? The only land that you're locked into adds any color of mana, between that and your regular fetches/duals, you're free to dip into any color you want for practically any spell you want.

It's not just the rest of your deck that is wide open, the Oath parts are as well. Natural Order has no other useful targets than Progenitus (okay maaaaaaaaaybe Woodfall Primus or something, but seriously), Oath can just play any creature that suits their fancy. Ancestor's Chosen for absurd life? Sure. Akroma/Hellkite for fast beatdown? Sure. Tidespout Tyrant to wipe their board? Sure. Something weird like Realm Razer or Kederekt Leviathan because it fits your metagame? Go for it!

There's too much freedom to abuse the card and the printing of Orchard even lets you trigger it yourself. The metagame would degenerate into Oath and anti-Oath extremely quickly.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Land Tax is terrible, unplayable trash. I know this from personal experience.

Oath of Druids was crap in 1.5... but that was before Forbidden Orchard and Progenitus. I think it's too powerful now. At any rate, we should clear the list of the less problematic cards before even thinking about trying Oath.

Entomb is fine. I hear people call Entomb a tutor and say it's busted all the time, but they can never really provide examples of super broken plays beyond first turn Golgari Grave-Troll. Which is a great play for a deck that already has lots of ways to dump it's library fast and still loses hardcore to Crypt.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Oath is a bad idea to introduce. Sure, most people will go with the traditional Maher Oath style deck to get out Progenitus and beatface for 2 turns.

But the more clever among us will realise that there are creatures in magic that provide much better utility if we don't actually have to hard-cast them. Sundering Titan comes to mind, as well as Tidespout Tyrant, Realm Razor (if you're feeling gutsy). Why limit yourself to a 3 turn (4 really, cast Oath:1, Activate:2, Attack:3, Attack:4) kill when you can design the deck to win or dominate the game right now?

Because unreliable tricks are worse than reliably killing someone right now.

If I wanted anything over Progenitus (which is never hard cast, so I don't know why you tried to bring that up), it'd be Empyrial Archangel.

[tivadar]

Entomb doesn't seem to be that big of a problem to me either. Sure, maybe if reanimator was already big in the format or Ichorid was DTB. But it's not.

As for Land Tax, I think you might find it has its places once some deck design is done around it. But by no means does it break anything.

[TheRock]

Oath is a nasty card to bring back to Legacy. It takes up less real estate to work with, is a lot less disruptable, and is faster than Aluren and Solidarity, wins much faster than the current Threshold kill package, and can run almost everything a blue-based control shell can run. It doesn't matter if Progenitus exists or not - hell, you can ban every creature with a CMC of 6 or higher and it's still WAY too good.

Before Gush was re-restricted, almost every deck in the format ran the exact same 20 cards (Brainstorm, Ponder, Force, Scroll, Gush). If you weren't blue, you probably sucked. Period. Oath would force Legacy to follow a similar pattern of Oath or anti-Oath.

I would rather unrestrict Time Walk or print a 5/5 for W - at least there would be SOME diversity left.

[Otter]

Because unreliable tricks are worse than reliably killing someone right now.

If I wanted anything over Progenitus (which is never hard cast, so I don't know why you tried to bring that up), it'd be Empyrial Archangel.

I agree that the techy, fun stuff is worse than Progenitus in most situations, but it's still important to note how crazily versatile of a gameplan Oath can run. For instance, the Natural Order/Prog decks and all of their variations are always going to be weak to Perish, Hibernation, CoP: Green, or even just combo strategies that interact on a level above Progenitus. Oath doesn't have that problem, if someone does board in Perishes you can flatten their face with Inkwell or Akroma. If they're playing Storm you can Oath up Platinum or something. Even though those things are usually worse than Progenitus, just 2-3 sideboard slots of different Oath targets can completely change the angle that you're attacking from. That, combined with the ability to dump it in a blue countertop shell makes it sound like a deck that's very hard to hate.