@ribby said in Oath: I just am not feeling Preordain specifically in Oath. There's not an Oath curve that I see Preordain being a great fit in. Oath is defined by its marquee two-drop and really appreciates off-color mana. Preordain is really best utilized by decks with low curve that will often have a single spare on-color mana on some of the game's critical turns. Either to cast the Preordain, or more importantly to be able to cast the Swords or Pyroblast or second Preordain that you Preordain into. In Oath I just see Preordain adding a lot of air. I can't see the upside to Preordaining with your Forbidden Orchard into X with a Mox Pearl open, and no second land in hand. You just waste an entire turn then I think? I think any deck that isn't a Xerox variant or an Ancient Tomb variant (where it is easy to use up all your mana every turn) really needs to understand how it will curve out in both Mox and non-Mox situations. Given that the current best decks have fractional mana curves, I would really like to take Oath in a different direction so as to not just become a worse version of something else. Just jam threats, they don't have to be super expensive but they probably should cost more than half a mana. I dunno. Maybe I'm crazy. I'm turning my attention to Oath soon and will think through this some more. It's about finding the cards you need man. If that doesn't make sense in an Oath deck, where does it ever make sense? In particular the strength of Preordain over the oft-considered more-powerful Ponder expresses itself most coherently in this strategy. Just like Dig Through Time can put valuable cards on the bottom of your library, protecting them from being oath'ed away and giving you a crucial few turns after a nasty amount of self-milling, Preordain puts two cards on bottom quite often with it's scry ability. In contrast, Ponder may leave you needing to shuffle, which can be detrimental. I always play one Brainstorm, and either three or four Preordains, but sometimes one Ponder in place of a single preordain. The shuffling can be nice with Jace, the Mind Sculptor, and that's the only real reason I would prefer it in an Oath deck.

I prefer the more resilient versions for several reasons. Though I haven't been able to join as many Dailies this month as I was in May, June, and July, I had a lot of success then with lists that walked the line between Paradoxical control and Cantrip Gush-Delve. The main reasons I've preferred the Paradox lists with a Mentor win-con that are not "Opal Soup" are: Lower frequency of hideous mulligans. Less games auto-lost due to inactive Mox Opal(s). Better equipped to win despite Stony Silence/Null Rod. Monastery Mentor is the best answer to Monastery Mentor Able to change roles, particularly post sideboard. For instance, when an opponent can be expected to overboard v. Paradox with Null Rods and artifact hate, I board out Mana Vault, sometimes EE, and 1 or 2 Outcomes, morphing into more of a straight up Mentor deck. Paradoxical Mirrors. The control/resilient versions have been substantially more favorable in matches v. the combo lists.

@walsh (17 days later) I've played some matches with Spyglass. I'm ... pretty medium on it. Turn one Spyglass on the play hasn't been the backbreaker I was worried it might be, it's almost always been worse than a Sphere or Chalice for me. However, with a limited number of Spheres and Chalices available, it's not like you have to cut them to fit a few Spyglass maindeck. I've liked the card more than I expected in the mirror and against Eldrazi decks (name Eldrazi Displacer most often). The extra boost the card gives in the Drege matchup is notable, too. My personal conclusion? I like the idea of running 1 or 2 maindeck ... but I wouldn't run 4, and I wouldn't value it too highly as far as mulligans and turn 1 sequencing is concerned.

In the actual meta (see the last vintage challenge) it could make sense to maindeck Containment Priests. Dredge and Oath are stronger than ever and the Ambush Viper mode of the Priests make them even usefull in almost any matchup but Storm and Paradoxical.