Hey all! This is my take at a competetive Oathbreaker deck! It is based heavily off of ShaperServant's C-EDH Yisan the Wanderer Bard build. If you are interested in seeing that, it can be found here: Wanderer's Song.
This deck is a mid-range build aswell, that utilizes stax pieces and control aspects to help produce a win through various different means and measures. Let's begin.
The Gameplan
This deck is fairly straight forward. You want to play a turn one mana dork such as a
Llanowar Elves
. Have
Nissa, Steward of Elements
out by turn two or three dependant on the opponents deck. Her +2 to scry 2 ability helps filter our draws to help find the cards we need, and that ability is not affected by
Narset, Parter of Veils
static rule that says it's controllers opponents can only draw one card a turn, specifically. More importantly, having her in play allows us to cast our signature spell
Green Sun's Zenith
. After that, the bare minimal plan is to search out creatures via
Green Sun's Zenith
, or cast from hand a bunch of low cmc creatures that generate mana, then ramp into some big creatures and effects while simultaneously interacting and responding to the opposing player's board state and spells.
The actual game winning plan is to generate "infinite" green mana. You can achieve this by using
Wirewood Symbiote
+
Temur Sabertooth
+ elf + a mana dork that produces 5+ mana. Once this is achieved you can dump as much mana into
Green Sun's Zenith
enough times to search out all of the green creatures in the deck and then attack for the win
Stax Package
This deck uses an assortment of stax effects to slow down other fast decks and to help tip the game into our favor. Since the creatures in the deck for the most part create mana, they work well with the stax pieces that we are running. A well placed
Winter Orb
can change the tides of the match. Since we run a plethora of mana dorks a winter orb rarely has much negative effect since it only effects the untapping of lands and not creatures.
Tangle Wire
is an excellent piece since it itself can tap for it's required upkeep cost. Also, since most of our deck is creature based a
Thorn of Amethyst
doesn't have much of a down side either. Since the deck makes alot of mana quickly. The extra 1 to play a noncreature spell is rarely a concern. Additionally, since the average cmc of the deck currently is sitting at 2.45, the additional 1 to use the signature spell
Green Sun's Zenith
is not much of a concern, because most of the creatures in the deck are equal to, or less than 3 total cmc anyways.
Null Rod
works well in here since there is no artifacts that can be activated in this list.
Tribute Mage
is able to tutor for three out of the four stax pieces we are running.
Control Aspects
Some of the other competetive decks that are being brewed, are focused heavily around control aspects. So this deck does as well. This build comes with a complete, proficient, control package incorporating some of the most efficient counter/removal spells in magic, such as
Cyclonic Rift
,
Force of Will
, or
Mana Drain
. A turn two mana drain to help pay for Nissa to come in with a few extra counters on T3, seems to be a fairily decent play.
Reclamation Sage
and other "utility" elves synergize with
Priest of Titania
/
Elvish Archdruid
aswell.
Imprisoned in the Moon
and
Song of the Dryads
are excellent at taking care of opponent's Oathbreakers since it keeps them on the board as permanents, but null and voids their abilities. This is preferred, since these enchantments prevent our opponents from being able to recast their Oathbreakers because they are never returned to the command zone, since they were only enchanted and never destroyed or removed.
Infinite Mana Combo Explained
Wirewood Symbiote
, Elf,
Temur Sabertooth
, Dork that taps for 5 mana such as
Priest of Titania
or
Elvish Archdruid
with 4 or more other elves. Tap dork, bounce elf to untap dork, play elf, bounce Wirewood with Temur, play Wirewood, repeat. You net one g mana each time because the elf only will cost one g, recasting wirewood will only cost one g, and the temur ability to return wirewood to our hand only costs 1g, with a total cost to operate the "combo" being 1ggg (1 colorless mana and 3 green mana). As long as the dork taps for 5 green mana atleast, you can repeat the process for "infinite" mana. If the elf you are bouncing is
Elvish Visionary
then you have also just drawn your deck.
Mana dorks that can tap for 5+ mana
Karametra's Acolyte
+ devotion of 5 or more towards green
Priest of Titania
+ 4 or more other elves (there is a total of 16 elves in the mainboard, which makes them easy to assemble)
Elvish Archdruid
+ 4 or more other elves
Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary
+ 5 or more forest
Gaea's Cradle + Krosan Restorer
+ 4 or more other creatures
Krosan Restorer + Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
, and threshold (to help pay for the 2 to tap shrine) + devotion of 5.
(if you have a devotion of seven towards green, you do not need threshold to pull the "combo" off)
Synergies with Temur Sabertooth
You can return
Riftsweeper
to your hand with
Temur Sabertooth
's ability, to have multiple chances to pull cards out of exile.
You can return
Eternal Witness
to your hand with temur's ability and recast to get multiple chances of returning cards to your hand from the graveyard.
You can return
Reclamation Sage
to your hand and recast to get multiple chances to remove opponents artifacts and enchantments.
Win Conditions
After infinite mana is achieved you can
Green Sun's Zenith
for all the creatures in your deck. The last creatures to bring out would be either
Great Oak Guardian
, or
Craterhoof Behemoth
. These both pump our creature's attack power. Craterhoof gives trample so it's the preferred option. Then we can bounce either or back to our hands with the temur and recast to pump our creatures up, then rinse and repeat enough times to win no matter what health our opponents may be at.
Additionally, as a back up win-condition. We can use
Ezuri, Renegade Leader
's activated ability to pump up our elves' attack power while also giving them trample aswell.
If you liked this primer, make sure to give it an upvote! Thanks for reading!
