I think the most interesting part of this card for me is the potential to encourage a new archetype, and have that archetype be focused around a color with a pretty singular identity.
I am certainly considering this more given the discussion but I do see both sides. I frequently am excited to add a cantrip to the blue deck I am drafting. But my blue decks have things like delve, important answer cards, snapcaster, young pyromancer, delver etc....They also don't have turn one plays, needs cheap spells to leave mana open, worry about hitting land drops etc.
Don't get me wrong I have put cantrips in creature heavy U/G decks but there are nothing like when they appear in my U/R counter burn deck featuring the twin combo. I have 0 enchantment maters effects vs. tons of instant and sorcery and graveyard effects.
I can see the argument that blue often does not have any plays to make on turn one where green more often does.
But you are also talking about the specific decks where the blue cantrips are better than on average (Spells Matter, Counterburn). Yes, the blue cantrips does play well with many cubeworthy cards, but so does Oath of Nissa. wtwlf mentioned these on his post on the second page (Kor Skyfisher, Flickerwisp and friends).
I like the card parity here but my green decks are more excited by finding a specific toolbox creature. Are those considering this card playing Worldly Tutor, Sylvan Tutor, and Green Sun's Zenith? Green also features very interesting selection stuff like Sylvan Library and Cream of the Crop as well as Survival of the Fittest. How much room do we have for all these things? For me that is a big question when I think about adding a 'mediocre' card.
I am already playing all of those cards in my cube, except Cream of the Crop which I think is leagues behind the other cards you mention.
I am actually considering to replace Sylvan Tutor with Oath of Nissa. Sylvan Tutor is a great tool for a control deck trying to find a finisher, but I think the average green midrange deck would value Oath of Nissa higher to find lands in the earlygame and midrange creatures later in the game.
My biggest fear is when I am flooding out. Blue cantrips almost always find me some gas(a spell of some sort) when I have lots of land. What happens to the numbers when land is no longer something I want to hit? Sure I cantrip but to what end?
In that same deck:
Oath will have a 23.99% chance of finding = 0 creatures/planeswalkers.
Oath will have a 76.01% chance of finding ≥ 1 creatures/planeswalkers.
Oath will have a 30.20% chance of finding ≥ 2 creatures/planeswalkers.
Oath will have a 04.32% chance of finding = 3 creatures/planeswalkers.
With 14 hits available for gas spells, 3/4 times you'll be able to replace Oath with a random body. And roughly 1/3 of the time you'll have a choice between two threats. 1/4 chance of missing on a threat is big, BUT if you factor in the times that you'll need to find land with this card and it would've been a gas spell instead, it should more than balance itself out numbers wise.
So you have a better shot to be picking from 2 options than hitting none. And those times where you're looking for gas and hit 3 targets (albeit it's like 1/20, but still) it'll be so sick. But the vast majority of the time (over 75%) you will be able to replace OoN for a body even if lands are a bad hit.
My biggest fear is when I am flooding out. Blue cantrips almost always find me some gas(a spell of some sort) when I have lots of land. What happens to the numbers when land is no longer something I want to hit? Sure I cantrip but to what end?
"gas" can depend on the context of the situation. In a blue deck there are many times where gas is a specific answer, and in that case, any spell won't do.
If you are playing blue in a proactive deck, and are digging for threats, any spell is not really gas.
The number of hits are probably similar to a creature/planeswalker in a green deck for oath of nissa.
My biggest fear is when I am flooding out. Blue cantrips almost always find me some gas(a spell of some sort) when I have lots of land. What happens to the numbers when land is no longer something I want to hit? Sure I cantrip but to what end?
A utility creature or planeswalker to create an immediate board impact. That's kind of what green does. This seems great in G/B for example. Find a 187 or something.
I find the 2nd ability to be less relevant, especially in a color that has access to 5 colors easily. As for the first ability, I dunno. Seek the Wilds was never even noticed even for pauper decks, so I feel this is not too relevant. Though admittedly the difference between 2 mana and 1 mana changes it.
I feel like a "ponder" in green goes against the board presence that green needs as a strategy. Wasting tempo (albeit 1 mana only) is not what green needs. Ot could have been a 3 drop threat on turn 2 or a 4 drop threat on turn three.
Conclusion is that it needs testing for larger cubes, but for 450 I cant find anything to remove for it.
I for one am excited about Gideon's. White has the enchantment tutor, blink, and the most planeswalkers, so has the best chance of more interactions. Hope it is a better power level than the other two.
Really great arguments all around and I think this Oath cycle among other things is making this set decently exciting for a small set. To answer the slew of responses.
Altaurus321: What archetypes do you have in mind? Anything besides blink? Does anyone run any enchantment matters cards besides Academy Rector?
Tactuz: Blue cantrips play well with many top tier cube cards. OoN plays well with Skyfisher and fringe blink cards. And having a high ceiling as well as a good average case makes me excited. Being always ok with an ok ceiling does not get me excited about a card. I wish the second ability was more interesting. Maybe sacrifice OoN to add one mana of any color to your mana pool, can only be used to cast planeswalkers.
Cream is of lower power but it is one of many card selection green enchantments that could be more impactful and drive an archetype better than OoN even if OoN is a better card on average. Sylvan tutor is one I have wanted to add because worldly tutor is so good. My green decks usually have ample and powerful threats to make up for card disadvantage. Finding the right one of in a toolbox green deck is huge, maybe you should add both of these as they would be complementary. And my midrange decks don't need dedicated support, they can leech enough cards from aggro and control to always be there when someone wants to draft that style.
WTwlf123: Thanks for the numbers, that certainly makes it more encouraging. I may just have to cut something a little sexier to see how this pans out. Then draft it a bunch to convince my playgroup. I will be interested to see it in a less dedicated deck (ramp or fatty cheating).
Lucidvision: Maybe it is just me but the green midrangy decks where I see this have many quality replaceable threats. Blue decks really like to have card velocity due to the larger variety of cards and effects I play in those decks. But maybe it is just me.
Happyjosiah: I was worried about that a huge percentage of the time you hit land, land, spell, or such late in the game or when you are heavy on lands making this primarily compete with ramp spells which also help you hit your mana. Wtwlf's numbers make that the case more rarely than I thought.
I think the most interesting part of this card for me is the potential to encourage a new archetype, and have that archetype be focused around a color with a pretty singular identity.
Are we talking about the monogreen Nicol Bolas deck?
As has been said, the second ability is too unreliable to change how you build your mana base or what planeswalkers you can run. So if you've built a deck correctly, the second ability *must not* come up often, just once in a while it will be randomly good.
The first ability is more interesting, and while my gut initially said "not good enough", the numbers suggest it may be a reasonably good green cantrip in an average deck. This is still a reason why I like this less than most blue cantrips: they are good independent of your deck composition. Cantrips are already only good in certain decks (where they are great), and Oath of Nissa is even more narrow, only good if you don't run too many non-creatures. So the question becomes if you want a cantrip specifically for those decks?
This and the fact that this can (and will, although very rarely) completely miss, I don't think it will be quite good enough.
The other thing to consider here is how good the card is when it hits all the way. When it's picking from all 3 cards, it's probably the best cantrip in the cube (outside of pairing Brainstorm or Ponder with an immediate shuffle effect) because you see all three before deciding, and it bottoms the other two for you. So while the typical green deck will only get that mode about half the time, there will be deck compositions that see that mode even more reliably. I think the ceiling of potentially being the best cantrip outweighs the ACS of it playing more like a Sleight of Hand. Especially since it's an off-color effect for a 1-mana card.
During our draft on Sunday, I drafted a deck where this would have been perfect: GUw midrange with 4 planeswalkers and only 5 or 6 cards that were neither creature, land or planeswalker. The white splash was for Restoration Angel and Venser, the Sojourner, two cards that I would be happy to pick up with the first ability. And the second ability could have acted as another white source for Venser without the need to replace another green or blue source with a white source.
I was not so sure about this card before, but after that draft, I strongly consider trying it out.
I think it gives players a little nudge towards making a super friends deck. A very good roleplayer in that deck because it does fix mana (not just the 2nd ability) and helps search for an early play. I don't think the green deck having perfect mana should be taken as a given as it's hard to balance drafting duals and planeswalkers perfectly.
I don't really see it doing enough for other decks to drop a pro active green card though.
So overall a thumbs down but I want to grab a copy for potential expansions/rotations if I need to mix it up in the future.
Looking at people's inclusion lists, Oath of Nissa seems pretty popular with the masses but few of you run Satyr Wayfinder. The satyr provides a body and self mill while the oath can grab a land, creature or planeswalker instead of just land. Did people forget about the satyr or do you guys think the oath is that much better?
Satyr Wayfinder and Oath of Nissa are very different cards and I didn't mean to imply that they are necessarily competing for the same slot. I was trying to ask a question to the posters who expressed a desire for Oath of Nissa to either: A) Be a creature or B) Put the bottomed cards in the graveyard instead. If those posters want a card that fits that role Satyr wayfinder has been doing a lot of work in my B/G decks.
But they're completely different cards. The role of Oath is to find a land when you need one OR find a threat when you need one. Being one mana with this kind of effect is enormous, and the creature you find being better than a 1/1 is also clutch ...since what you're looking for is a threat. Not to mention the value that Oath has later on in the game too, where Wayfinder is bad, Oath is a great draw. It's like comparing Preordain to Augur of Bolas.
The potential value and role of Wayfinder is completely separate from all the reasons you might be playing Oath.
I agree they are different cards that do different things. Some posters wanted Oath to act more like Satyr Wayfinder so I was was just curious why they were not playing the satyr.
Satyr Wayfinder and Oath of Nissa are very different cards and I didn't mean to imply that they are necessarily competing for the same slot. I was trying to ask a question to the posters who expressed a desire for Oath of Nissa to either: A) Be a creature or B) Put the bottomed cards in the graveyard instead. If those posters want a card that fits that role Satyr wayfinder has been doing a lot of work in my B/G decks.
+1 I ran satyr way finder as an experiment long ago and it over performed. I've played it dozens of times and its no where near the chopping block
Wayfinder is a perfectly find card, and in the right deck he's super key to digging through and getting what you need. If you can play out of the GY a little bit, Wayfinder is fairly excellent.
I wonder if many of the naysayers on this card also don't play much with Ponder/Preordain. It seems if you consider these to be good cards you have to be willing to give Oath a shot. I think an understanding of Ponder/Preordain is necessary to properly evaluate this card.
If you don't think Ponder/Preordain are good you should force them into some decks and see if your mind changes. I had to do this myself to come around on them. Otherwise I only played them if there was nothing else. It is easy to play another counter, removal, utility creature or finisher instead. But this is basically the 23rd of the same stuff - the marginal utility is much less. Ponder/Preordain will make your other 22 much more potent than one more of the same stuff.
If Oath hits as often as expected it will be a welcome addition to green.
(CubeTutor & MTGS)
360 Peasant Cube!
Custom Cube
RWU Miracles RWU
But you are also talking about the specific decks where the blue cantrips are better than on average (Spells Matter, Counterburn). Yes, the blue cantrips does play well with many cubeworthy cards, but so does Oath of Nissa. wtwlf mentioned these on his post on the second page (Kor Skyfisher, Flickerwisp and friends).
I am already playing all of those cards in my cube, except Cream of the Crop which I think is leagues behind the other cards you mention.
I am actually considering to replace Sylvan Tutor with Oath of Nissa. Sylvan Tutor is a great tool for a control deck trying to find a finisher, but I think the average green midrange deck would value Oath of Nissa higher to find lands in the earlygame and midrange creatures later in the game.
In that same deck:
Oath will have a 23.99% chance of finding = 0 creatures/planeswalkers.
Oath will have a 76.01% chance of finding ≥ 1 creatures/planeswalkers.
Oath will have a 30.20% chance of finding ≥ 2 creatures/planeswalkers.
Oath will have a 04.32% chance of finding = 3 creatures/planeswalkers.
With 14 hits available for gas spells, 3/4 times you'll be able to replace Oath with a random body. And roughly 1/3 of the time you'll have a choice between two threats. 1/4 chance of missing on a threat is big, BUT if you factor in the times that you'll need to find land with this card and it would've been a gas spell instead, it should more than balance itself out numbers wise.
So you have a better shot to be picking from 2 options than hitting none. And those times where you're looking for gas and hit 3 targets (albeit it's like 1/20, but still) it'll be so sick. But the vast majority of the time (over 75%) you will be able to replace OoN for a body even if lands are a bad hit.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
"gas" can depend on the context of the situation. In a blue deck there are many times where gas is a specific answer, and in that case, any spell won't do.
If you are playing blue in a proactive deck, and are digging for threats, any spell is not really gas.
The number of hits are probably similar to a creature/planeswalker in a green deck for oath of nissa.
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
A utility creature or planeswalker to create an immediate board impact. That's kind of what green does. This seems great in G/B for example. Find a 187 or something.
I feel like a "ponder" in green goes against the board presence that green needs as a strategy. Wasting tempo (albeit 1 mana only) is not what green needs. Ot could have been a 3 drop threat on turn 2 or a 4 drop threat on turn three.
Conclusion is that it needs testing for larger cubes, but for 450 I cant find anything to remove for it.
I for one am excited about Gideon's. White has the enchantment tutor, blink, and the most planeswalkers, so has the best chance of more interactions. Hope it is a better power level than the other two.
Altaurus321: What archetypes do you have in mind? Anything besides blink? Does anyone run any enchantment matters cards besides Academy Rector?
Tactuz: Blue cantrips play well with many top tier cube cards. OoN plays well with Skyfisher and fringe blink cards. And having a high ceiling as well as a good average case makes me excited. Being always ok with an ok ceiling does not get me excited about a card. I wish the second ability was more interesting. Maybe sacrifice OoN to add one mana of any color to your mana pool, can only be used to cast planeswalkers.
Cream is of lower power but it is one of many card selection green enchantments that could be more impactful and drive an archetype better than OoN even if OoN is a better card on average. Sylvan tutor is one I have wanted to add because worldly tutor is so good. My green decks usually have ample and powerful threats to make up for card disadvantage. Finding the right one of in a toolbox green deck is huge, maybe you should add both of these as they would be complementary. And my midrange decks don't need dedicated support, they can leech enough cards from aggro and control to always be there when someone wants to draft that style.
WTwlf123: Thanks for the numbers, that certainly makes it more encouraging. I may just have to cut something a little sexier to see how this pans out. Then draft it a bunch to convince my playgroup. I will be interested to see it in a less dedicated deck (ramp or fatty cheating).
Lucidvision: Maybe it is just me but the green midrangy decks where I see this have many quality replaceable threats. Blue decks really like to have card velocity due to the larger variety of cards and effects I play in those decks. But maybe it is just me.
Happyjosiah: I was worried about that a huge percentage of the time you hit land, land, spell, or such late in the game or when you are heavy on lands making this primarily compete with ramp spells which also help you hit your mana. Wtwlf's numbers make that the case more rarely than I thought.
My cube
My cube on Cube tutor
I'm OP_Forever. I'll be putting this in my signature for a while so everyone know I change my nickname.
The first ability is more interesting, and while my gut initially said "not good enough", the numbers suggest it may be a reasonably good green cantrip in an average deck. This is still a reason why I like this less than most blue cantrips: they are good independent of your deck composition. Cantrips are already only good in certain decks (where they are great), and Oath of Nissa is even more narrow, only good if you don't run too many non-creatures. So the question becomes if you want a cantrip specifically for those decks?
This and the fact that this can (and will, although very rarely) completely miss, I don't think it will be quite good enough.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
I was not so sure about this card before, but after that draft, I strongly consider trying it out.
Uril, the Miststalker RGW -- Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre C -- Vhati il-Dal BG -- Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer RW -- Animar, Soul of Elements URG
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker R -- Maga, Traitor to Mortals B -- Ghave, Guru of Spores BGW -- Sliver Hivelord WUBRG
I don't really see it doing enough for other decks to drop a pro active green card though.
So overall a thumbs down but I want to grab a copy for potential expansions/rotations if I need to mix it up in the future.
Edit: And also, they're completely different cards.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
Interested in Custom Card Creation.
My Cube:Cardinal Custom Cube
A custom version of a third modern masters: MM2019
(filter->rarity to see in set rarity).
https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/3pq
The potential value and role of Wayfinder is completely separate from all the reasons you might be playing Oath.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
+1 I ran satyr way finder as an experiment long ago and it over performed. I've played it dozens of times and its no where near the chopping block
Last Updated 02/07/24
Streaming Standard/Cube on Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/heisenb3rg96
Strategy Twitter https://www.twitter.com/heisenb3rg
Also, follow us on twitter! @TurnOneMagic
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
manSatyr.For Oath, we're talking about card selection that the wayfinder cannot fulfill for creatures and walkers.
But if you're implying that Oath searches for lands most of the time anyway, then I get why you would come to that comparison.
They're fundamentally different cards. In any case, Oath fits into almost any green deck. Satyr, not so much.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
If you don't think Ponder/Preordain are good you should force them into some decks and see if your mind changes. I had to do this myself to come around on them. Otherwise I only played them if there was nothing else. It is easy to play another counter, removal, utility creature or finisher instead. But this is basically the 23rd of the same stuff - the marginal utility is much less. Ponder/Preordain will make your other 22 much more potent than one more of the same stuff.
If Oath hits as often as expected it will be a welcome addition to green.