Telling Time - Oath Ramp vs Oath Thopters
With all the meta shake-up approaching in April, I find it helpful to get a head start and try out some of the cards that I am confident will be in the Oath of the Gatewatch set when it finally releases in April.
Today I used my paper card collection to build Thopters and Ramp, adding popular and probable Oath cards to each, and I played five games with them, and I want to tell you about my findings. I don’t want to go into too much debate over what will or won't be in the Duels expansion, I tried to only use cards that seem like sure things to me. Let’s meet the decks -
Oath Gruul Ramp

2 x Oath of Nissa
3 x Jaddi Offshoot
3 x Rolling Thunder
2 x Radiant Flames
1 x Kozilek's Return
2 x From Beyond
2 x Outland Colossus
2 x Reality Smasher
1 x Oblivion Sower
2 x Nissa's Renewal
1 x Kozilek, the Great Distortion
1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 x Evolving Wilds
2 x Cinder Glade
2 x Rootbound Crag
2 x Wastes
1 x Swamp
4 x Mountain
8 x Forest
Gruul Ramp rose out of the Gruul Monsters shell of Origins to become the big bad guy in Battle for Zendikar. With the replacing of Acid-Moss and the arrival of Oath, the deck needs a small rework to stay on top of the food chain. This version uses Natural Connection, Evolving Wilds and Explosive Vegetation, along with Nissa’s Renewal, to fix up the colorless requirement for the diamond Eldrazi in the list.
Oath Izzet Thopters

3 x Runed Servitor
4 x Twin Bolt
3 x Pilgrim's Eye
3 x Thopter Engineer
3 x Vile Aggregate
3 x Whirler Rogue
1 x Akoum Firebird
2 x Reality Smasher
4 x Evolving Wilds
2 x Sulfur Falls
6 x Mountain
6 x Island
1 x Wastes
Thopters proved itself strong enough to survive the first wave of the Eldrazi invasion when Battle for Zendikar dropped? Can they survive the second wave? Unlike the B4Z expansion, this time Thopters actually gets some cards it can use. The deck still really needs some quality two-drops, and a one-drop or better removal spell would be welcome, but the deck’s core is in the quality three and four drop creatures that are hard to answer directly with blockers or removal - Thopter Engineer, Whirler Rogue, Vile Aggregate, Pia and Kiran Nalaar. To make the Thopter deck better I am adding the Reality Smasher package on top, along with Chandra, Flamecrawler. Diamond mana comes from Foundry of the Consuls and Wastes, which is fetchable with Pilgrim’s Eye or Evolving Wilds.
I played five games, and Ramp edged out a 3-2 victory. All five games where pretty intense, and both decks ran smooth and felt great. Some observations -

I am so glad that Acid-Moss is gone. Not having to sweat my land sequencing at all times, and knowing that I can fetch up my one or two-of Wastes safely made a huge difference. To be honest, I never missed Acid-Moss in my Ramp deck, and Explosive Vegetation being able to fetch Wastes or Mountains or the one-of Swamp for the Radiant Flames was important.

Thopters didn’t miss Perilous Myr very much. There was never a game that came down to two life or less that Thopters could have won if Myr was on the battlefield when a sweeper happened. Instead, the deck seemed to relish the extra power on the top end, since we swapped Myr for cards like Reality Smasher and Chandra.

Speaking of Chandra, she is in both of these decks, and she is great in both. From the ramp side, getting to wipe the board and or cycle a hand of land and useless ramp spells was awesome. From the Thopters side, getting to add six hastey power was awesome, and it survived a sweeper too so you didn’t overextend to the board when casting her. Chandra is big game in both decks.

Another card doing double duty in this match was Reality Smasher. The card is bananas! In Thopters, it follows a board wipe or any type of would-be stabilizing play from the opponent and either ends the game on the spot or puts them way behind. My favorite game from the Thopter side involved Ramp keeping a hand with multiple Radiant Flames. Good against Thopters right? Well, the Thopter deck played Vile Aggregate, Vile Aggregate, Reality Smasher, Reality Smasher, and those Radiant Flames never got cast. It gives the Izzet deck a whole other plan of attack - going big instead of wide when wide isn’t working. In Ramp, Reality Smasher helped turn the corner quick. When it came down on turn four (because of Natural Connection for Wastes), the opponent had to put any aggro plans on hold. When it was followed by a Chandra’s Ignition, well, that was that! This card is the real deal.

Both of these decks tried out the strategy of splashing the new, most likely over-powered Eldrazi by fetching Wastes, and the strategy was consistent. Only once did I want to cast a Thought-Knot on four and have to wait until turn five because I lacked Wastes (Vegetation took care of that).

Adjustments I would make include taking Hedron Network out of Thopters, it never produced the blowout I was looking for. In Network’s place I would add a Thought-Know Seer, and I would try to find room for the second copy. I like the idea of taking the opponent’s Rolling Thunder, Chandra’s Ignition or Ramp spell on turn four, I doubt ramp could recover from that. Aside from that small switch, I thought both decks were fantastic and would wreck any existing deck in the field because the new cards add so much power.
Obviously we don’t have much knowledge about Shadows Over Innistrad and what it could bring to the table, but the Oath cards alone look like they will bring an impact. My greatest hope for Shadows is that it makes some new deck archetypes viable, but they will need a lot of power to compete with these Thopter and Ramp decks.
What decks should I test next? I need ideas, leave me comments!
<3 CGB
The End Credits -
Bookmark - http://www.hauntedflower.com/blogs/duels-diaries
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About Duels Diaries - http://www.hauntedflower.com/blogs/duels-diaries/79645700-what-is-duels-diaries
Awesome Duels resources and recommendations -
Magic Duels Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/magicduels/
No Goblins Allowed - http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewforum.php?f=38
Hakeem928’s YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8mBGuYP99vIwDJpof7nawQ
Mobius’s YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCay_JnLWpWhfz8pV-EqnSZQ
Nighthawk233’s YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHkyvV-IbA3_udD0M3wiQ3g
Legenvd’s YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/user/LegenVD
Twitch Magic Duels - http://www.twitch.tv/directory/game/Magic%20Duels
auunj
Imo the most important thing about colossus is that it costs 5 mana, which just fits perfectly after casting nissa’s pilgrimage on t3. That’s the big difference between 5 and 6 mana. Additionally on t5 it’s still bigger than a zendikar incarnate, which is troublesome too.
Kryder
Having played and tried many different cards in that slot, I came to agree with CGB on Outland Colossus in that slot. Before I ran with Oran Rief Hydra. The difference between 5 and 6 mana is actually pretty huge when you are trying to survive long enough to stabilize the board. Also, Colossus stops Reality Smasher, Thought-Knot Seer dead in their tracks, and trades with a max’d out Woodland Wanderer, and that cannot be understated.
Kryder out…
CGB
arcM128 – I am worried about Crats, because I don’t feel like it gets too many new cards. Kaletas and Nissa look great, but both are mythic. I do think I will test Crats next and see if we can find anything, but yeah, losing Myr hurts.
StepUp – While I love a good trampler, and you may be right about Colossus in the long run, I believe in the power of Outland vs other ramp strategies which I expect to remain popular. Using Ignition, Thunder, Flames and Kozilek’s Return, it isn’t hard to clear away chump blockers, and once you have a 12/12 your opponent has very few options if they are relying on Rolling Thunder or Fiery Impulse to kill things. The cost-to-power-and-toughness ratio on Colossus beats a lot of things in the game, including Reality Smasher who I expect to see everywhere, so I believe decks would be wise to keep Outland around.
StepUp
Hey CGB,
Good job on the testing, nice to see decks in advance.
Re the ramp deck, curious on the outland colossus, why did you stick with that? Just the pure size and being in the five slot?
I feel trample will be huge – can’t waste time being chump blocked, so my initial thoughts go towards maxing out a woodland wanderer or even a walker of the wastes.
Hope to hear what you think.
arcM128
Hey CGB, I’m curios what you think Crats will look like with the assumed additions from Oath (and Shadows I guess). Its seems to me that removing Myr hurts Crats more than any other archetype, because Myr was an effective early removal spell, and good value from the 2-drop spot.
Is the answer adding early removal? Or just ignoring your opponents board state outside of Bone Splinters in Sultai and Treason/Ignition in Jund?
I’m holding out hope that Shadows offers some quality 2 drop for Crats.