AggrOath by Kowal, etc.: PTQ viable?

Beyond Dominia: The Type 1.5/1.X Magic Mill: AggrOath by Kowal, etc.: PTQ viable?

-->
By goldenj on Wednesday, January 09, 2002 - 08:34 pm:

One of the more interesting decks at GP Houston to me was AggrOath, a suicide oath variant using Oath of Druids to reach threshold and fetch Mystic Enforcer. It has discard for disruption, running black so that it can deed. Any opinions on whether this is viable for PTQs? Michigan is heavy with aggro control right now, Tradewinds and Miracle-Gro leading the pack.

See the tournament report of Macey v. Shvartsman at the Sideboard , GP Houston, round 6.

The deck:
Bill Macey, Round 6 Feature Match
"Aggroath"
Main Deck


4 Grassland
4 Savannah
4 Bayou
4 Scrubland
4 Treetop Village

4 Mystic Enforcer

4 Duress
4 Tithe
4 Gerrard's Verdict
4 Sylvan Library
4 Oath of Druids
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Vampiric Tutor
1 Abundance
1 Wrath of God
1 Armageddon

Side:

4 Carpet of Flowers
3 Wrath of God
2 Cursed Totem
1 Pernicious Deed
3 Ebony Charm
1 Armageddon
1 Spiritmonger

Should this deck be running sterling groves?

What about Land Grant vs. Tithe? It seems that without counters free is better than one. Especially in an environment where you're going to have more lands than the opponent, 2/3 times.

Should there be more silver bullets to take advantage of vampiric tutor?

Does anyone know what this deck lost to/loses to?

Thanks,
John


By goldenj on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 11:36 am:

OK, I got off my butt and researched. It seems like he lost to Junk and one draw with Walamies Control. I imagine the problem with junk is he is like poor man's junk in the matchup. Junk has lots of ways to kill the oath, then more and better creatures, which are all deed resistant.

Any suggestions on how to side for Junk? Maybe funeral charms instead of ebony to kill boa and lynx?


By Big Kavu on Thursday, January 10, 2002 - 03:17 pm:

I like this deck a lot. It has the tools it needs to beat MG, and it is fast enough to consistently beat the clock, a major weakness of many traditional Oath decks. I'm not so sure about the creature base. If you get out Oath too late, it will not save you from getting ran over. I like the idea of 2 Thorn Elemental/1 Spike Weaver much better. If you run a couple of Scroll Racks (which I think this deck should do to deal with potentially dead cards) drwaing a creature will not be such a major issue. This is what I have at the moment


3 Grasslands
3 Treetop Village
4 Bayou
4 Scrubland
4 Savannah
2 City of Brass
4 Land Grant

4 Duress
4 StP
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Gerard's Verdict
4 Oath of Druids
3 Sylvan Library
2 Scroll Rack
4 Chimeric Idol
3 Pernicious Deed
1 Abundance

2 Thorn Elemental
1 Spike Weaver


At the moment, I feel this version is suboptimal, but with more testing and feedback, I hope to make improvments.


--Big Kavu


By Big Kavu on Monday, January 14, 2002 - 05:17 pm:

Hi again,

I don't think that many people here are interested in this deck, but I figured I'd post this anyway just for reference. I made top 8 with AggrOath last Saturday at the PTQ in Chicago. Largest qualifier I was at this season, 164 people. Big names included Brian Kowal and Adrian Sullivan.

This was the deck I ended up playing

4 Duress
4 Gerard's Verdict
4 Enlightened Tutor
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Oath of Druids
4 Land Grant
3 Pernicious Deed
3 Sylvan Library
3 Chimeric Idol
2 Scroll Rack
1 Overgrown Estate
1 Abundance

3 Thorn Elemental

4 Bayou
4 Savannah
4 Scrubland
3 Grassland
3 Treetop Village
2 City of Brass

Sideboard

4 Carpet of Flowers
3 Diabolic Edict
2 Circle of Protection: Red
2 Gaea's Blessing
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Phyrexian Furnace
1 Planar Void
1 Choke


I didn't have much time to test the sideboard before the tourney, so it ended up being a bit random.

I found that Land Grant was better most of the time than Tithe was, and that Enlightened Tutors were necessary. You need as many ways as possible to get to Oath. The metagame is dominated by Miracle Grow, and you need to go all out to beat it. The decks against which additional tutors are wasted cards are bad matchups anyway, so I didn't worry about it.

Thorn Elementals worked for me better than Mystic Enforcers, especially since you have Scroll Racks to get rid of them if necessary. There were at least two games I would have lost had the Elementals been Mystic Enforcers. The Elementals kill a turn faster than the Enforcers, and that difference is huge.

Chimeric Idols were a dead card all day and were always sided out. The blessings were sided in quite often, and surprised opponents who thought I was playing typical Suicide Oath and stocked up on one-for-one removal, attempting to eliminate all my threats. If I could do it over again, I would eliminate the Idols from the deck entirely, and replace them with 2 Blessings and a Powder Keg.

Here is a brief layout of my match results. I'll give more details if anyone is intersted.

Round 1 v. Junk
Win 2-0

Round 2 v. Miracle Grow
Win 2-1

Round 3 v. Black Weenie (Quite good, actually. He ended up 6-2 I believe)
Win 2-0

Round 4 v. Secret Force
Win 2-0

Round 5 v. Super Grow
Lose 0-2

Round 6 v. Super Grow
Win 2-1

Round 7 v. The Rock (variant)
Win 2-0

Round 8 v. Super Grow
ID

Top 8 v. Junk
Lose 0-2


--Big Kavu


By goldenj on Tuesday, January 15, 2002 - 05:10 pm:

I'm quite interested. Tons of questions!

I'm wondering what your general strategy was versus Grow, and how the match went vs. Junk, which has tested badly for me. Plus how did you decide for Thorn Elemental over Mystic Enforcer or Spiritmonger? I've even been wondering about Crosis or Darigaaz as an alternative. Was it difficult to protect your Oaths without Sterling Grove? Was there a lot less enchantment hate with Donate on the wane? What about enlightened vs. vampiric tutor? With only three threats, did you have a problem vs. swords at all?

The blessings would be quite nice to get in. I've found the idols to be necessary vs. Finkel control -- have you tested that at all? What would you side now?

--John

Thanks!


By Big Kavu on Tuesday, January 15, 2002 - 06:04 pm:

Glad to offer any help I can.

I feel AggrOath has an advantage when playing against Junk game one simply because they will think they are playing the mirror, and will walk into Oath by playing a turn two lynx or boa. When you Duress them always take Deed unless they have three swords in thier hand. Even if they swords your creatures twice, you have an easy win as long as you can keep Oath on the table. If they draw into the third, good for them, they get an easy win, but that has never happened to me so far.

The problems happen after sideboarding. Surprising them with sideboarded blesssings help, but the dedicated enchantment removal combined with discard really hurts. The plan is generally to lead with Sylvan rather than Oath. Their hand is probably going to be clogged up with answers rather than threats, so you should settle down and try to play the long game, using sylvan to draw into duress and verdict. It's not going to be easy, though.

I feel Thorn Elementals are the best creatures to use for a couple of reasons. One, they provide the ultimate form of evasion. Mongers can be blocked all day, while enforcers can be held back by skyfolk, birds, morphlings--or opposing enforcers. Thorn Elementals are simply going to deal their damage directly to your opponent, no questions asked. It sucks to draw them, but it's usually not an issue unless you happen to draw two. Scroll Rack helps to negate this problem, along with being a useful card overall.

I also favor Thorn Elemental over Enforcer because they provide a quick and reliable clock. You are not trying to stabalize against aggresive decks--you are trying to beat them at thier own game. As long as they are not removed, Thorn Elementals will allow you to deal twenty one damage to your opponent three turns after you play Oath regardless of what type of creatures they have. Mystic Enforcers can only do eighteen in those same three turns, and even that is conditional. Several of my games versus Grow degenerated into races, and I would not have been able to win them if I wasn't using the Elementals.

When playing against Grow, the best thing you can do is to simply play around Daze. Provided you never play Oath when you don't have an extra land untapped, you will have more threats then they have answers. Don't play too many spells on one turn, as you don't want to walk into Winter Orb. Carpet of Flowers is amazing in this matchup, as their own Orb will end up working against them. Super Grow is a little more annoying than Miracle Grow, as their explosive drawing power can potentially allow them to find three swords, but as long as you can get out an early carpet, you will still have a substantial advantage.

I went with enlightened over vampiric tutor because the three most important cards in this deck are Oath, Sylvan, and Deed, and I want as many ways to get to them as possible. Four Vamp Tutors would hurt too much, and the non-enchantment silver bullets don't really add much to the deck. Why go for Wrath when you could go for Oath or Deed? Armageddon is great versus control matchups, but so is sylvan/abundance.

The Chicago metagame was dominated by Grow variants, so I ended up not facing an enormous amount of enchantment hate. Sterling Grove, however, is an intersting sideboard possibility.

You are right about the Idols being crucial against Finkel control, but there hasn't been much of that in my area. They should be left in if Finkel is a big part of your metagame. On further consideration, I think the blessings should still stay in the side. They really don't do anything versus the Grow matchup or Junk game one. Another maindeck card to consider would also be Funeral Charm.


--Big Kavu


Add a Message


This is a private posting area. A valid username and password combination is required to post messages to this discussion.
Username:  
Password: