Serra's Emissary Oath

Marland_Moore

I built this deck as soon as I could play it, here is the list

4 Serra's Emissary
4 Oath of Druids
4 Oko, Thief of Crowns

4 Force of Vigor
4 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm
2 Swan Song
2 Force of Negation

1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Time Walk
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Dig Through Time
1 Ponder
4 Preordain
2 Abundant Harvest

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire

2 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Forbidden Orchard
3 Tropical Island
3 Island

2 Dispel
2 Natural State
3 Null Rod
3 Ravenous Trap
3 Soul-Guide Lantern

This is not quite the list posted on mtggoldfish and the Mythic Society, but it is the one I played the most.

This deck went 3-2 or 2-3 in the leagues (during 4 leagues after tuning). The deck does well against Bazaar decks, and Workshop decks, and so so against combo decks and horrible against BUG and Control.

The meta has been shifting and I am not very familiar with the meta before I played this deck. BUG decks have a lot of tools against this deck and I am not very good at playing against those decks. Bazaar decks cannot do anything against to a Serra's Emissary naming creature.

I think this deck can be tuned to do better but I gave up because I had a really bad time playing it in the Mythic Society. I may return to the deck when I have patience to tune it a bit more or I can find people to help me.

IamActuallyLvL1

@moorebrother1 I think it typically makes sense to have a standard oath package in game 1's (usually 1 grieslbrand, 1 nivmizzet) and then you board into the anti shops/dredge tech of serra in postboards that it applys. That is what i used to do with my build of combo oath with blazing archon in the sideboard. 4 is also alot of oath targets when u have blessing.

https://youtu.be/aoa1ui6Da44

Marland_Moore

@iamactuallylvl1 I agree with you especially when you are most likely to play against a somewhat balanced field.

If I were to play in a Shops or Bazaar heavy meta similar to Eternal Weekend I would probably try a deck like the one I posted.

John Cox

@moorebrother1
Have you thought about moving some number of null rods main?

BlindTherapy

4 emissaries seems like too much, at least without something like show and tell to make copies in hand not dead cards.

Serracollector

How good were the two Abundant Harvest? How often did you keep a 1 land hand with Abundant? I am aware it's probably needed for green count for Vigor, I just wanna know how you feel it compares to other cantrips? Thank you

Marland_Moore

@blindtherapy I did try 3 but you need to at least get 2 into play to end the game. One normally names creature and the other names instant or planeswalker depending on the match up. Naming instant is normally lights out if you already have one naming creature.

I also tried Show and Tell and it was not good. 3 is probably the right number.

Marland_Moore

@serracollector Artifacts were not the issue. I did try Chalice of the Void main and that worked well. I added the Swan Song to sure up my combo matches and that also helped a lot.

The BUG match up is just bad, and I think it is a learning curve issue not an issue with the deck.

The combo match up is not that bad, and the Shops and Bazaar match ups were very favorable.

The core issue here is control decks. The control decks just wreck me and I think the issue was more to do with me than the deck itself. I've played Oath over the years and I do not like "control" mirrors with while playing Oath and I usually do not play Oath in control heavy metas.

I thought the meta was going to be Bazaar heavy with the new toys from MH2 and it was at first but it is also Urza's Saga heavy. Once I learned how to beat those decks I thought this deck would be good but the Control decks did not go away. The Witch decks and now the new UR Aggro Control decks are very strong, in addition to the Planeswalker control decks are still there but not played much.

Going back to @IamActuallyLvL1 point from earlier, if I added black tutors and some of the standard Oath tools then you can fight those decks with Veil of Summer and such but you make the match ups against Shops and Bazaar much worse.

I would rather play this deck in a Bazaar and Shops heavy meta and do well overall that way rather than trying to make a catch all style deck. The current Oath list does the catch all thing really well.

Serracollector

@moorebrother1 Think you were replying to John Cox, not me lol. He asked about Rods, I asked how Abundant Harverst worked out for you overall as a cantrip (vs other blue cantrips I suppose) and how often it was need to either pitch to FoV, or how often you used it in a one land opener to find that 2nd mana source?

Marland_Moore

@serracollector Sorry about that. The Abundant Harvest was awesome. It was very useful in finding lands or I pitched it to Force of Vigor. The mode to find non-land was not great.

Marland_Moore

@marland_moore https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDg8YhNFqQc&t=30s

This deck is still not great but happy to see it played.