Introduction: Turbo Oracle

Hi! It’s Joseba García (Elfkid) again! Today I’m going to talk about one of the newest decks in Modern: Turbo Oracle!

If you play in Magic Online you might already played against a variant of this deck, now I’m here to explain you how it works!

How the Deck Works

With Theros Beyond Death a lot of combo decks changed their win conditions in form of 《Laboratory Maniac》 to 《Thassa’s Oracle》, since it is cheaper and can win a game even if your opponent kills it in response of the Enter The Battlefield ability!

So basically the idea is to piece together one of the different combos we have in our deck:

As you can see the deck counts with different combos, but we need to have a good shell to fit those cards, now I’m going to show you different decklists and card choices.

Decklists

This is the first list I saw and the one that took my attention, I tried it and the deck felt pretty consistent, but it felt like it had the same problems as the old 《Ad Nauseam》 deck, deck was kinda clunky against 《Field of Ruin》 and 《Blood Moon》 / 《Magus of the Moon》 so I decided to build a very similar version but trying to fix the manabase:

3

1

1

3

3

Here you can notice notable differences, first of all the lack of rainbow lands, this is because I’ve never been a fan of 《Gemstone Mine》 or 《City of Brass》, both are kinda clunky against 《Blood Moon》 / 《Magus of the Moon》 so I decided to cut them and add 《Polluted Delta》, 《Flooded Strand》 and Snow-Covered Basics.

3

After that I added 《Arcum’s Astrolabe》 which has been insane so far, helps with the 4th color in post board games and it’s a cantrip that works pretty well with 《Inverter of Truth》. You might also think 《Polluted Delta》 and 《Flooded Strand》 are kind of a nonbo with 《Inverter of Truth》 but I think it’s a small price to pay to have a good manabase.

Maindeck Choices

Cantrips

4

3

If you’re familiar with Modern you already know both but in case you’re not, 《Arcum’s Astrolabe》 is the new cantrip of the Snow decks, draws a card and fixes the colors and 《Serum Visions》 is probably the most common cantrip of the format since we don’t have access to better cards.

Mana Acceleration

4

2

These are the acceleration of the deck, we’re not playing 《Lotus Bloom》 or 《Simian Spirit Guide》 because those are only for a single use and for example we can use the mana of the 《Pentad Prism》 in different turns.

Combo Pieces

Since there are a lot of combo pieces and enables here I’m going to try to explain them separately.

Win Conditions

4

3

These are the key cards of the deck, the idea and the deck was built around playing 《Jace, Wielder of Mysteries》 or 《Thassa’s Oracle》 and win on the spot, of course we are going to need help from other cards to do it!

Protection

4

4

2

Nothing to explain about 《Pact of Negation》, a free counterspell that allows us to go for the win protected without any extra mana, it can also act as a counterspell on the first turns with the help of 《Angel’s Grace》. 《Angel’s Grace》 and 《Phyrexian Unlife》 are pieces of the combo and also act as protection spells since they give us a lot of time to find the last missing pieces.

Combo Enablers

4

4

These two are one of the most important cards of the deck, both help us to make our deck small (《Inverter of Truth》) or to make it disappear (《Spoils of the Vault》) and then we can end the game with 《Thassa’s Oracle》 or 《Jace, Wielder of Mysteries》! Also remember that you can win attacking with 《Inverter of Truth》, this matters more post board when they sided out all their remove spells.

Value / Tutors

3

4

《Wishclaw Talisman》 helps us to find the last remaining piece the turn we want to go off, be careful using it before that turn since it gives your opponent the chance to have any card!

And my favorite card, 《Shelldock Isle》, this card is absolutely insane in this deck. I can’t really count how many times I won on my upkeep with zero cards in my library activating 《Shelldock Isle》 to put a 《Jace, Wielder of Mysteries》 or a 《Thassa’s Oracle》. It’s also pretty good if you can hide a 《Pact of Negation》 or something else that can help while you’re comboing.

Sideboard Choices

We are a combo deck so the cards we care about are discard spells, hate pieces, counterspells and hatebears, for that reason we need to fit in 15 cards answers for all of them.

Against Discard Spells

4

3

Against discard spells we have 《Leyline of Sanctity》 and 《Veil of Summer》. Leyline protects us since turn 0 which is important on the draw and 《Veil of Summer》 also protects our permanents against cards like 《Abrupt Decay》 or 《Assassin’s Trophy》.

Against Hate Pieces

2

Against different hate pieces we have 《Echoing Truth》, it helps with almost everything, cards like 《Chalice of the Void》, 《Teferi, Time Raveler》, 《Damping Sphere》 and a long etc… it’s also great against hatebears.

Against Counterspells

3

3

Against counterspells we have access to 《Thoughtseize》 and 《Veil of Summer》. 《Thoughtseize》 is the best discard spell and 《Veil of Summer》 acts as a counterspell making our spells uncounterable.

Against Hatebears

3

Finally against those annoying creatures we have 《Path to Exile》 (with the help of 《Echoing Truth》). I thought about playing 《Fatal Push》 instead but we only have 6 fetchlands to get “Revolt” so it’s worse overall. Also against hatebear decks giving them that land is probably not that important.

Why You Should Play This Deck?

It’s a very consistent deck and the current metagame is pretty favorable for it, I think this deck is an upgrade of the old 《Ad Nauseam》 deck since all the cards are better on their own.

The 《Death’s Shadow》 matchup used to be horrible, but with 《Path to Exile》, 《Inverter of Truth》 (Attacking for six) and 《Veil of Summer》 it got too much better.

This deck is insane against 《Primeval Titan》 decks and red decks that’s basically mostly of the format right now.

It’s also hard to hate, since cards like 《Meddling Mage》 can’t name both of the enablers or both of the win conditions, it also doesn’t care about 《Damping Sphere》 or 《Thalia, Guardian of Thraben》 since it doesn’t need to cast a five CMC card like 《Ad Nauseam》 (Which was also relevant against 《Gaddock Teeg》).

The manabase is pretty good against 《Blood Moon》 / 《Magus of the Moon》 / 《Field of Ruin》.

Sideboard Guide

Amulet Titan

Against Amulet Titan

Out

In

I prefer to have 《Thoughtseize》 over 《Pact of Negation》 since it can hit other cards besides their 《Pact of Negation》 like 《Primeval Titan》. I also like to cut one 《Jace, Wielder of Mysteries》 since I think it is too slow.

Mon-Red Prowess

Against Mon-Red Prowess

Out

In

I don’t want to give them more targets for 《Smash to Smithereens》 so I like to cut a few artifacts. I also don’t like four 《Leyline of Sanctity》 against them because it can dilute our deck and the current plan is good against them so I side in just two. 《Path to Exile》 is against 《Kiln Fiend》 basically.

Bant Snow-Blade

Against Bant Snow-Blade

Out

In

I’m probably not correct here, as a combo player I always switch for the long game in games two and three so I decide to cut all the cards that I think are bad topdecks, I want to build my hand and go off in a single turn protected. Anyways you can also try to cut some 《Phyrexian Unlife》 over the 《Talisman of Dominance》 if they’re on a draw go control deck.

Dredge

Against Dredge

Out

In

I think this matchup is very favorable, but I like to side in 《Echoing Truth》 to get more time against them. Maybe 《Veil of Summer》 is better against 《Thoughtseize》 and 《Abrupt Decay》, feel free to try and tell me how it goes or how you sideboard against them!

Eldrazi Tron

Against Eldrazi Tron

Out

In

In this matchup you only care about 《Chalice of the Void》 so that’s why I prefer to be on the same plan as the game one but with answers for it. 《Echoing Truth》 is also very versatile against creatures or 《Karn, the Great Creator》 hate too.

《Death’s Shadow》

Against Death’s Shadow

Out

In

Since they are going to side in cards like 《Abrade》 or 《Kolaghan’s Command》 I think cutting a few artifacts makes sense. Also. 《Jace, Wielder of Mysteries》 costs a lot of mana against a deck like that, we keep just two of them and pray we can exile one with 《Shelldock Isle》. Here the gameplan is to play an 《Inverter of Truth》 and swing with it! Simple and clean!

Jund

Against Jund

Out

In

Didn’t play this matchup too much but my gameplan was always the same. Cut artifacts that are bad against 《Kolaghan’s Command》 and 《Collector Ouphe》, then try to protect my hand against discard spells with the help of 《Leyline of Sanctity》 and 《Veil of Summer》.

Extra; 《Thassa’s Oracle》 in Legacy!

You might realized that I’m in love with 《Thassa’s Oracle》 so I searched for a Legacy list, and I was expecting cards like 《Doomsday》 to combo with and then I found this list:

It’s super interesting and I think it might be a good deck in the future, don’t sleep on it!! Cards like 《Paradigm Shift》 and 《Thought Lash》 help you to win on the spot with 《Thassa’s Oracle》 or 《Laboratory Maniac》, if you already tried it let me know here in the comments or on my Twitter!

Conclusion

I hope you all enjoyed this article and you give the deck an opportunity, I think it’s pretty good and if the format is favorable it can be easily a tier 1.

If you any questions just ask here in the comments or on my Twitter: @elfkidmtgo .

See you around!

Joseba García (Twitter / Twitch)