There’s always been a fun tension in Vintage Oath of Druids decks. You want to have compact packages of threats that minimize the number of dead cards in your deck. You also want to try to win the game on the spot when you get to resolve an Oath trigger. We’ve seen builds that just Oath up a Griselbrand or Blightsteel Colossus and assume it’s good enough. Some have gone as far as to add Dragon Breath to those decks in order to speed up the clock. Other decks have gone in the opposite direction, playing Tidespout Tyrant or Rune-Scarred Demon to set up storm kills or Time Walk chains to end the game. All of these plans share the same issue in a format where Brainstorm is restricted: you can’t cast the

“>threats:

Sun Titan Oath - Vintage | ChubbyRain, 3-1 Vintage Daily Event

• Creatures (2)
• 2 Sun Titan

• Planeswalkers (7)
• 3 Dack Fayden
• 3 Saheeli Rai
• 1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

• Spells (34)
• 4 Force of Will
• 4 Oath of Druids
• 3 Gush
• 3 Sensei's Divining Top
• 2 Mental Misstep
• 1 Ancestral Recall
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Balance
• 1 Black Lotus
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Brainstorm
• 1 Detention Sphere
• 1 Dig Through Time
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 1 Mox Emerald
• 1 Mox Jet
• 1 Mox Pearl
• 1 Mox Ruby
• 1 Mox Sapphire
• 1 Pyroblast
• 1 Repeal
• 1 Sol Ring1 Time Walk
• 1 Treasure Cruise

• Lands (16)
• 1 Island
• 2 Forbidden Orchard
• 2 Misty Rainforest
• 2 Scalding Tarn
• 2 Tropical Island
• 2 Tundra
• 2 Volcanic Island
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Strip Mine

• Sideboard (15)
• 1 Ancient Grudge
• 1 Flusterstorm
• 1 Pyroblast
• 1 Mindbreak Trap
• 2 Monastery Mentor
• 1 Ravenous Trap
• 1 Steel Sabotage
• 1 Sudden Shock
• 2 Swords to Plowshares
• 4 Tormod's Crypt

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This particular take on Oath of Druids is exciting for me because Sun Titan is the Oath target of choice, and there are few things I love more than a good Sun Titan deck. The core of this deck is similar to many other Oath decks. Blue cantrips and counterspells, Black tutors, Oath of Druids, and Forbidden Orchard. The strength of the mana bases in Vintage, particularly ones powered by Forbidden Orchard, allows you to splash the likes of Pyroblast, Ancient Grudge, and Balance if you’re so inclined.

The key here is the mechanism for winning the game. This deck is, above all other things, a control deck. You can Oath into Sun Titan and buy back answers like Detention Sphere or Dack Fayden or mana acceleration like Black Lotus to help deploy your answers more efficiently. That’s not really what you want though. What this deck really wants is to Sun Titan into Saheeli Rai to try to end the game on the spot.

The way this combo works is by using Sun Titan to get back one copy of Saheeli Rai. You can then use Saheeli Rai to make a hasty copy of Sun Titan. That Sun Titan also gets a trigger, which can get back a second copy of Saheeli Rai, which kills of the first due to the Legend rule. You can then rinse and repeat, making as many copies of Sun Titan as you want and threaten lethal damage. The best part is that you don’t even need to hit two Saheeli Rais on your Oath trigger, because you can just cast her with relative ease.

It’s possible and even likely that we find that Griselbrand is just a better Oath target in an open metagame. But if you expect a lot of Workshop decks, then Oathing into a Sun Titan plus Dack Fayden is a pretty exciting option. Add to that the ability to just win the game on the spot with Saheeli Rai, and I think this is a fine variant to continue exploring.