Oath of Trumpets

[Mikeymike]

Creatures 4
4 Thorn Elemental

Permanents 13
4 Oath of Druids
4 Angel's Trumpet
3 Arcane Laboratory
2 Winter Orb

Spells 17
3 Gaea's Blessing
3 Intuition
4 Counterspell
3 Dissapate
2 Force of Will
2 Dismiss

Lands and such 24
2 Sky Diamond
1 Sol Ring
2 Cities of Brass
1 Rishidan Port
2 Undiscovered Paradise
10 Islands
8 Forests

Here is the idea. Oath out a Thorn Elemenatal, and drop the trumpet shortly thereafter. Attack, defend, repeat. They attack to get eaten by Thorn or sit back to take 2 damage. Winter Orb is in there to slow them down after a Thorn comes out.

This is my first attempt at an Oath deck, so if there are any glaring errors, let me know. Bounce? More creatures? Different Mana Set up?

 

[Spiderman]

The only thing I could see is that if you're using a Sol Ring, you might as well use the Dual land: Tropical Island.

 

[Mikeymike]

I would, but I don't own any. I do have skyshroud forests but, well, they suck. Do you think Gemstones are better in here than the Cities or Undiscovered Paradise. One reason I kind of like them is because on a whole, the deck is very inexpensive. Maybe a Mox Diamond also (our group plays the Type 1 restriction rules). Well the Thorns cost 7 but I hope to be oathing them into play.

 

[Spiderman]

I wouldn't know about the Gemstone Mine offhand; you'd probably just have to substitute it for either City or Undiscovered and see how it works out <shrug>

If you're using Port to deny a land, Strip Mine might be better (if you have it).

Maybe some Force Spikes or other 1cc counters to help you through the early game (or Snap or something).

 

[Duel]

i'd use undiscovered paradie, because you can use them, and cast them next turn untapped, allowing you an extra mana via winter orb.

 

[Spiderman]

there's only two Orbs so how good of an advantage is that? Maybe he can get away with just 1 Paradise... <shrug> I don't know. I guess it'd come out in playtesting.

Maybe add somewhere that Blue enchantment where you have to pay 2? mana to attack you? If he's locked down with the Orb he'd probably most definitely take the 2 damage from the Trumpet then...

 

[Darsh]

It's called Propaganda Spidey and instead of the force spike use disrupt. (after all you get to draw a card even if they pay 1)

 

[Mikeymike]

I think I'm going to up the count to 1 or 2 more Winter Orbs, and subtract from the Arcane Labs. I like the Labs but they are almost useless with Orbs out (they still slow down ACC trickery).

Duel did bring up a good point with the Paradise. Even without the Orb, they still are strong lands. With the Orb they are just stonger. Using Orbs,

Both you guys are right, I'll need to change my counter base also. I'm kind of torn between Disrupt and Force Spike, I think I'm leaning towards Disrupt b/c the thing I'm most worried about is an early Disenchant on my Oath, might as well draw a card from it.

4 Counterspell
3 Force Spike
2 Force of Will (maybe Thwart, but I think I might have too few islands)
2 Daze (with the Orb)

Lands
12 Islands
6 Forests

The reason I am lowering down on forests is b/c I only need to cast the Oath, and I have 10 sources of green which SHOULD do it, if not I can add more.

Good Idea on the Propagandas, I'll keep 4 on the side for small Chaos games.

Thanks for all your help guys, I appreciate it!

 

[rakso]

What format is this supposed to be, more or less? Type I?

Restricted cards aside, I'd say that Angel's Trumpet is overkill here, since it won't matter when the only creature you expect to have is Thorn Elemental.

Same with Intuition, where you'll just be using it for Gaea's Blessing. Impulse by itself seems better than this.

Arcane Lab doesn't seem to do much, either, and I think an Oath deck with a good number of counters is good enough against combo without having to add this. If this is for Extended, Trix isn't killed by this and neither is Pande-Burst.

I would suggest revising the counter base to include cheaper counters (ex. 2 Force of Will in place of 2 Dismiss).

I'd also fix up the land base. For one thing, I'd add the Treetop Villages and Faerie Conclaves, and fix the land destruction.

 

[Mikeymike]

Type 1, I wanted a little variance from the standard Oath/Thorn decks I've seen to use this deck for Duels, 2-Headed Giant, and smaller Chaos games. This deck isn't going to any tourneys (but it could with some modification).

The trumpet is for fun, but you're right in one-v-one it is unecessary. Propaganda would be a better choice, maybe more counter back up or bounce. However in Chaos and 2 headed giant it makes for some fun scenarios simultaneously giving me an advantage. In chaos, my opponents either don't attack taking 2 or have to attack each other. Chances are if they attack me they are going to be eaten by a 7/7.

The Intuition is actually in there to make sure I find my Oath or Winter Orb (which I upped to 3). The Oath is supposed to take care of the Blessings. If it doesn't, it usually means I don't have an Oath out and I'm not doing to good anyway.

I fixed the counter base, its in my last post, and I was thinking about Man-Lands but with Winter Orb they slow me down big time.

Arcane Lab. is for the Alt. casting cost stuff which has been flying around my group recently. Slows down Forces, Misdirections and the like.

 

[rakso]

Sorry about the counter base. Thought that wasn't you. Force Spike and Daze are not as useful in this deck since you'll want stable counters like Force of Will and Counterspell before these more "specialized" things. In casual play, they're not as effective, too. You're not playing pure blue and can pack some kind of removal instead of packing counters that will be useless after a few turns.

I get the point about Intuition. I'm thinking about better things, though, like Sylvan Library + Abundance. If you use, say, Powder Keg instead of Winter Orb, you could use slower tricks like this.

An alternative to Winter Orb might be Static Orb. You only need so many turns to kill with Thorn Elemental, anyway, and use Force of Will to counter nasty things like Swords to Plowshares at a bad time.

 

[Mikeymike]

As much as I would love to use 4 Forces, I don't have enough blue cards to discard in order to use the ACC. Daze is in there b/c it works very nicely with the Orb (I pull an island, they have very little mana anyway). The Disrupts are cheap, but I think you might be right about the removal. There is a ton of new blue bounce in Invasion I'd like to play around with.

I'm dying to put Fact or Fiction in here b/c it works nicely with Gaea's Blessing backup, but I own zero.

The Sylvan Library/Abundance combo was banned in our group for annoyance reasons (along with Thieves Auction/Fork).

Static Orb would allow them to untap 2 lands a turn, which can in turn allow them to mount an offensive. The Orb slows both of us down but I can work around it a little easier. But Powder Keg is a necessity in here.