@nungnum Allow me to say that they are joking with your post.

Now, about the post's main topic, I feel like people shouldn't have permission to question your permission issue's.

About the secondary topic, I think there's nothing better on vintage than winning a counter war for a draw-3, or a planeswalker or a mentor. I allow myself to run tons of permission.

Right, haven't thought about cascading. Still, I'm not sure the spirit guides would be good as it's kinda bad when comes to hand (I don't see a lotus petal in this kind of deck being really good, but maybe it is), and is speeds a little bit the clock when cascaded. I agree with you as to accelerants density, but I think the upside of being reusable overcomes the downside of being a bad cascade target.

About acceleration, I don't think BBE is acceleration, since it's very overcosted for a 3-2 haste, I don't think we should consider as if the second spell is free. I'd say the second spell costs 2 mana in terms of card power/cost (3/2 haste seems like something we'd want for 2 mana tops). It's card advantage, but not acceleration IMO.

In regards of tarmogoyf, tbh I was just trying to go another route to not have to spend a lot in 3 or 4 (since BBE's unban in modern it's really gotten overpriced), maybe even find something better. Pyromancer sounds kinda bad in this deck due to instant/sorcery density, goyf seems really betterthan it at least.

It's really hard to get an oppinion of the deck without playing it, as it's so different from what we are used to see in the format. But still, I think scab-clan berserker sounds too amazing in vintage. It's not worth very much when not cast on T0 against shops, and against dredge at any point, but against blue decks it's just awesome when it sticks. I think with 6 0mana accelerants and 4 DRS we can rely on it for turn 2 most of the times, and it sounds enough to consider running 2.

I wish I had the resources to play it now (as tarmogoyf seems really necessary for the deck), I think I'll have it soon and then have a more concrete oppinion about it.

First of all, thanks for sharing this idea for such a nice deck!

I've got questions about 2 points (beside the hymn-kitesail which was already addressed):
Is tarmogoyf big enough most of the time? I'm not sure he would help catching up with value decks.

Also it seems to me like the deck relies a lot on few moxen and deathrite shaman (which is the best target for misstep of the deck). Is the null rod that valuable for the deck? I mean, you don't even run additional copies sideboard. Wouldn't it be better to cut it and put more moxen? I think it would help a lot the deck to cast more than 1 spell each turn.

I think I'll give this deck a shot, sounds fun.

I started testing tonight, and there are some bizarrely predictable problems that I didn't consider:

*3 grove instead of 1 USea and 2 fetches are really... punishing. I realized I had only 13 instead of 16 blue mana, and it came down to bite me a few times.

*With 4 orchards as part of my manabase, it's really common to have 2-4 tokens applying pressure against me, and what have I just done? Increased the planeswalkers count

With those changes I improved a little the matchup against shops (which was already good for me), and the others got worse. I think maybe even the control matchups.

As always, there were a few times I casted inferno titan, where I wouldn't be able to cast griselbrand. The only time I missed the oath activation for grisel was against storm, the other matches I would rather have it activated on inferno titan, or at least it would win or still lose the game anyways. I will still make that change (grisel for the 3rd titan), and the others I will have to try better later.

About the walkers: I ended up trying +1 chandra main e +1 Xenagos sideboard. I think Xenagos can help you when you are getting pressured and won't just die to 2 or 3 tokens that were generated along the way, also it has a nice clock and can be though to beat in some situations. Chandra just wins when it ults, but it's +1 will usually just be a 2 damage spell, as it can grab lots of lands, counters, or cards that are too expensive to be cast at that time. It's kinda fast to ult (3 turns after it was cast), but I think it's not enough to deserve a spot. Arlinn is good both as value and to increase the power of oath. It's not as good for value as Xenagos, as Xenagos can make tokens every turn and is good at killing PWs since the tokens also have haste. That being said, I think Xenagos is too much on the "good when not comboing" side of the things, so I think it wouldn't be really good mainboard, maybe sideboard (when we are more ok about not comboing off). And as for Chandra, I don't think I will try her in this shell anymore.

It was still only 1 league, but it was enough to see the biggest mistakes (I guess).

At tomorrow's challenge I will try the original with +1 slice and dice(main) +1 inferno titan +1 sol ring -1 griselbrand -1 ponder -1 mox pearl, and sideboard -1 slice and dice (brought it to main) +1 Xenagos.

Now I've been doing some changes, most notably:

Take the tutors off the deck (black cards actually, since with grove for the PFire combo it won't be able to work);
Put 2 pfire in the place of the tutors;
Take the USea and 2 fetches out for 3 groves;
Take out Griselbrand, put the 3rd inferno titan;
Take the 2nd sylvan library out, put a new Chandra;
Take out the maindeck ancient grudge (I think PFire improved the match against robots) and put the 4th preordain.

Change the mox pearl for a Sol ring - I think now the decklist focus more on trying to play the biggest things, and pearl was a colorless mox. I'm not confortable playing mana crypt since games can go long and without outcome or something like that to bounce it, I don't think that's really good. And if they misstep, they missteped I guess.
I think the mox jet can still continue on the deck (even though it's colorless), as we want acceleration. Just don't think it would be wise to spend 6 manas on mox+sol ring. But maybe it would.

On the sideboard, now with PFire I think the deck doesn't want abrade anymore, as ancient grudge is better in this list IMO. I think I will leave the 3rd punishing fire to the sideboard and add another grudge.

I think I still can make some changes to improve the idea of "oathless control" post-sideboard against control matchups (since with the actual configuration I can bring in fluster, 2 pyro and maybe some artifact disruption, which doesn't seem very good to me). I'm thinking about either put more disruption (REB, fluster) or another Arlinn Kord. Arlinn sounds nice as one of my concerns is UW landstill (the 2 matches I lost in the challenge were against it), and it can protect itself against factory (only 1 wolf each 2 turns, but still), can bolt jace or a priest, doesn't die to pyroblast and also obviously can give a titan haste, vigilance and +2/+2 if it ever get to come into play.

I appreciate the attention you gave to this topic, for who reached this far. And as I said, I'm not sure the changes I made are good as I lack experience, but seems worth a shot to me.

Hey everyone! I'm kinda new to vintage, played legacy since 2013 and been playing vintage on MTGO since the VMA drafts made the P9 really cheap, so I guess my text will have some wrong ideas but I'd like some help to get to a new understanding of things here.

I got a concern about oath. Have you ever felt that griselbrand is no longer a good choice of creature for oath? I'm testing a 2 inferno titan 1 griselbrand build now with some conflicting results (been very good at challenges, but poor at leagues). Also, I've tested bryanpk's list on MTGO but got very poor results, probably because there's a lot more of complexity on it (specially for someone new to the format), and I really don't enjoy getting beaten out for 12 dollars each 5 games, so I decided to drop that and go to the more mainstream build of it.

I don't know how to list the deck here in a way that it stays organized, so I'll link the list I got kinda lucky last weekend with so that you have an idea what I've been working with: DECKLIST

One thing I noticed, is that post-board things usually go much slower for our opponents (hate in, business out usually), and oath end up becoming a really good tutor for our fatties with cage in play. I've been very lucky, on my probably 10 "caged oath" activations so far, I've always got to find what I needed (and could cast), the inferno titan. But that's a 33% chance of hitting griselbrand.

Other thing is that most of the times an inferno titan does the trick, and I'd even say that the % chance of winning with a inferno titan getting hit is higher than griselbrand. Maybe I'm taking too long and needing to get rid of the board when oath gets activated. I really don't have enough experience yet to say what's the matter here. But when I get griselbrand in hand that's pretty terrible. Except for the extra-long game or when you have 5 lands/moxen + lotus you just can't cast griselbrand, and it will always be a bad card to have in hand, as well as a bad card to discard to dack fayden (1 less target, as is inferno titan too). But inferno titan is ok to have in hand, because you can get to cast it a lot of times (most of the games, I'd say).

Maybe there's a better option (other creatures, or not doing this), but I guess I'll try dropping griselbrand for the 3rd inferno titan.

Other thing I've tried in the last challenge (which kinda worked out) was to drop the oaths against more controllish matchups. If we resolve a bomb, aka inferno titan or planeswalker, it's really hard to deal with, and sometimes oath does nothing with cage. Maybe it's better to make them have 4 dead cards (probably more, like nature's claim or whatever), and get to a more controlish "bomb-based" game. Maybe get more walkers and manarocks? Something in the sideboard? Have you ever dropped completely the oath plan for something else? Did that work out?

Other thing is, what do you think about punishing oath nowadays in vintage? It seems like a cool idea to get rid of aggro decks, planeswalkers, and to have some (very slow) inevitability, alongside it's card advantage engine with dack fayden and to kill excess of opponent's tokens or yours even when fighting against a oath deck to see who gets less creatures in play.

Sorry for the long and probably hard to understand text, but it's really hard to express myself when there are so many ideas combined with lack of knowledge about the format.