#Pyretic Ritual

[mtg-art-daily]

Pyretic Ritual

"Sometimes, students, rite makes might." —Mother Luti

Artist: Svetlin Velinov

[markrosewater]

Is there a chance we ever get a no-strings-attached ritual through Standard again? It looks like the last one that was just "add more mana than this cost" was Pyretic Ritual in Magic 2011.

Rituals have historically caused a lot of play balance issues, so I'm skeptical.

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[devoid-of-love]

i wish mardu had more non-ritual 3-mana-turn-2 options but it's kinda just ragavan and jeweled amulet :/ i just want that consistent alesha on turn 2 soooo bad. if alesh was green i'd be playing every 1 drop mana dork i could but alas im considering playing at least one of the depletion lands... probably the red one

maybe lotus petal is worth it maybe rite of flame/desperate ritual/pyretic ritual are worth it

[heirtocragflame]

How possible do people think it is for wizards to print a pyretic ritual clone for commander that you can have any number of in your deck (or maybe up to six copies) for the storm commander precon for outlaws at thunder junction?

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Pyretic Ritual by Svetlin Velinov

[radramblog]

A handful of hot cardboard takes

So due to having assignment work to do and a relatively busy day tomorrow, I’m going to be writing both today and tomorrow’s blog articles tonight. Unnnnfortunately, it’s approaching 11PM, and I haven’t even figured out what I’m writing this one about- it has to be relatively short, since I don’t have that much time, and I want the tomorrow one to be an album, and that always takes time, and ehhhh…

I guess it’s been a hot second (read: a week exactly) since I talked about Magic, so that’ll do. But what specifically?

I mean, I guess there’s these new spoilers to go on about. I guess I’m hotting some takes.

First of all, we have the D&D set, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. I feel like this set’s creation was inevitable. WoTC has had D&D and Magic for decades now, and the only crossover we got was the Un-Card Sword of Dungeons and Dragons? And yet fucking Walking Dead got a whole-ass secret lair? Yeah no way this wasn’t happening. So far we only have 5 cards, so one by one I suppose.

Tiamat was obviously going to be a thing, but she feels exceptionally underwhelming. Admittedly, cramming her massive list of abilities and flavour into one 2.5 by 3.5 inch card was going to be difficult, but this is just meh. She finds five dragons, whoop de fucking do. This is never going to see any play outside of Commander, and I can’t imagine picking her to lead your 5-colour Dragons deck above The Ur-Dragon, it’s Scion, or even Morophon. And, I’m all for underrated jank commanders, but I also don’t like tutors, and if you’ve ever resolved Conflux (which this kinda feels like) you know it can be a huge pain. A solid Meh/10. I do like that they didn’t give her an epithet, though.

The Vorpal Sword is actually pretty sick. Not only is it a cheap coloured equipment that slots great into Black/X Voltron Commander lists, not only is it an alternative wincon that isn’t complete shit but also requires going all in and is very interactable, but I actually think this has a slot in cubes interested in Black Aggro, Black Artifacts, or both. The arts for this card look sick aas hell, and I’m extremely interested in seeing in snicker-snack someone to death.

I was wondering whether or not Halfling was going to be a creature type, and that question got answered fairly quick. Citizen on the typeline is interesting considering it’s only been seen on 4 token producers so far (and also Mobilized District becomes one), and the recent Edgewall Innkeeper being a peasant. I guess this guy is too prosperous for the peasantry.

Oh, the card itself? Well, I was never a fan of Wily Goblin, but I don’t really think that’s why we’re here. This charming fellow is a second Green Soul Sister, supporting the Witherbloom lifegain archetype from Strixhaven, and it’s nice to see colours other than White (and occasionally, Black) get to do life things. It’s always been secondary (tertiary? They don’t get lifelink) in green, or only on shite cards, so it getting pushed is an interesting twist.

It is an utter tragedy that you can put a Bag of Holding in a Portable Hole in Magic now, and it doesn’t even do anything. I get the feeling this is going to be either everywhere or nowhere, though I’m leaning towards the latter. Any permanent type is really nice, but 2 or less is restrictive enough that this misses way more often than you’d like. But, if it ends up being good, you’re going to see a lot of Portable Holes exiling Portable Holes, and that’s just kinda funny.

Isn’t there supposed to be a colon in there? This is just a more splashable, flavour-twisted variant of Victim of Night- though that card ends up being one of the best Terrors Mono-Black gets to run, out of a long long list. This, unfortunately, is a bit worse than that is in competitive formats, and considerably worse in EDH where giant Angels, Demons, and Dragons are often the targets you want to tell to die. I’m just going to stick with Doom Blade. And Go for the Throat. And Snuff Out and Hero’s Downfall and Victim of Night and Heartless Act and

So, I actually really like these basics, but specifically for this set. Box text is an essential part of D&D, and putting it on the basics is just a lovely bit of flavour. I don’t know if they’ve said whether every basic variant is going to have this, but I kinda hope they do. The art for these is top fucking notch, too. I’m not convinced this should be a permanent thing though.

 But of course, that’s not the only set we have spoilers for, because Magic Spoiler Season is a sine wave of hype now and it will never end. Modern Horizons 2: because the first one didn’t fuck enough formats up. That’s not very fair, that set was cool as fuck, but in my eyes that’s for the kookier designs rather than the bonkers powerful shit. More Throes of Chaos, less Hogaak. Anyway, we’ve got 3 new cards and some reprints, so let’s get into them.

I’m really not sure how to feel about this art, but hey, that’s just my opinion. Brainstone is a solid role-player in all sorts of artifacty, eggsy decks, probably the best Egg we’ve seen in a while. It’s going right in my Radha deck, I’ll tell you that much. Considering how expensive the worst card ever made, Sensei’s Divining Top, is getting, having a colourless topdeck manipulation option that’s likely not too spenno is nice, even if it’s a oneshot. I like it.

Oh, haha, it’s Lion’s Eye Diamond but they drew the rest of the fucking Lion. While this looks absolutely gorgeous, it doesn’t go into Cat tribal, and I’m not that much of a degenerate, so meh. For real though, this doesn’t actually look broken to me- LED is powerful because it’s a lotus, whereas this takes that and makes it a slow, multi-turn Pyretic Ritual. I also don’t think having an LED effect in Modern does much for the format, so. Eh?

Ok, here’s the one everyone’s talking about. Urza’s Saga is such a slam-dunk on a meta level. It’s a card named after a set, a fun reversal of Time Spiral block all being named after cards, and considering Modern Horizons was basically Time Spiral 2 I wouldn’t be surprised if MH2 was TSP3. It’s also an Enchantment Land but doesn’t look like it, referencing the fact that Urza’s block was actually Enchantment Matters but no-one remembers that because basically none of those cards were the good ones. This card is blatantly powerful, and I wouldn’t be shocked to see it pop up in a loooot of decks in various formats. In commander, this is a land for 3 turns that then turns into a Sol Ring, while also maybe making you a token or two and maybe even finding a weird hate piece or combo machine (…or Top) instead. In Modern or Legacy, it tutors for all sorts of nonsense, while making potential threats for artifact decks in the land slots. This card, while slow, has potential to be patently absurd, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it was banned in at least one format by the end of the year. We’ll see which ones.

Counterspell in modern is something a very specific group of people were counting for. Personally, it’s not the vintage spell I would have been hyped for, I was wanting Swords, but here we are. I almost feel, however, that Counterspell’s potential in Modern has been wasted at this point. Like, how many decks are even running Mana Leak these days? And how many of those decks want to be holding up UU on turn 2? Because in a fast format like this, Mana Leak might as well be Counterspell most of the time. The new art is baller, ill give it that.

I…don’t know enough about how this card is in Legacy Death and Taxes to know how well it would be in Modern Death and Taxes. It seems pretty good? I like that they’re doing old-border reprints again, though, that was like the only good thing behind Time Spiral Remastered.

Fucking Finally. With that said, I’m not convinced that finally reprinting these fetches is going to keep the price down much, and for long- the Horizon lands from MH1 see a fair bit less play, and they are creeping up to $20 a pop for some of them at this point. I guess if you need them, buy them now, because they aren’t going to stay low. It’s going to take more than a single reprint in a premium product before I’m satisfied in the reprint quality.

 Anyway, that’s the lot of them. My takes on these cards was probably a bit chiller than what you’d see from someone who’s actually in the know of competitive formats these days, but if you came here for serious analysis, then I’m not sure what to tell you. More well-thought-out Magic talk, uhh, next time I talk about Magic.

[suraira]

Torbran, Doubler

Decklist: Torbran, Thane of Red Fell *CMDR*36 Lands: 36 Dwarven Mine Mountain (x 31) Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx Reliquary Tower Rogue’s Passage Temple of the False God25 Creatures: 20 Angrath's Marauders Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence Bedlam Reveler Bonecrusher Giant Chandra's Spitfire Consulate Skygate Dragonmaster Outcast Efreet Flamepainter Electrostatic Field Fiendish Duo Fortune Thief Guttersnipe Heartless Hidetsugu Magus of the Wheel Malignus Runaway Steam-Kin Satyr Firedancer Smoldering Egg Young Pyromancer38 Non-Creatures: 38 Anger of the Gods Annihilating Fire Blasphemous Act Browbeat Chaos Warp Conjurer's Bauble Crimson Wisps Demonfire Descent of the Dragons Desperate Ritual Disintegrate Dragon Fodder Empty the Warrens Expedite Flame Javelin Gratuitous Violence Insult // Injury Jaya Ballard Lightning Bolt Lightning Greaves Lightning Strike Magma Jet Mizzium Mortars Overblaze Overmaster Punishing Fire Pyretic Ritual Pyromancer's Goggles Quietus Spike Risk Factor Ruby Medallion Scytheclaw Skullclamp Shock Sol Ring Spikefield Hazard Swiftfoot Boots Thought Vessel

Tallies: High Cost: 15/20 Angrath's Marauders Descent of the Dragons Efreet Flamepainter Empty the Warrens Fiendish Duo Fortune Thief Gratuitous Violence Heartless Hidetsugu Jaya Ballard Junktroller Malignus Overblaze Pyromancer's Goggles Scytheclaw Torbran, Thane of Red FellProtection: Lightning Greaves Swiftfoot BootsDraw/Tutor: Bedlam Reveler Conjurer's Bauble Crimson Wisps Disintegrate Overmaster Risk Factor SkullclampRecursion: Conjurer's Bauble Junktrolle MayberBoard Wipes: Anger of the Gods Blasphemous Act BrowbeatSpot Removal: Descent of the Dragons Disintegrate Lightning Bolt Lightning Strike Magma Jet ShockFlying: ORamp/Rituals: Pyromancer's Goggles Ruby Medallion Runaway Steam-Kin Sol Ring Spikefield Hazard Thought VesselExile: Annihilating Fire Spikefield HazardHidetsugu Backups: Malignus Quietus Spike ScytheclawGratuitous Violence Backups: Angrath's Marauders Fiendish Duo Insult // Injury OverblazeSpell Slinging: 22 Anger of the Gods Annihilating Fire Blasphemous Act Browbeat Crimson Wisps Demonfire Descent of the Dragons Disintegrate Dragon Fodder Empty the Warrens Expedite Flame Javelin Insult // Injury Lightning Bolt Lightning Strike Magma Jet Mizzium Mortars Overmaster Punishing Fire Risk Factor Shock Spikefield Hazard

Maybe: -Aethersphere Harvester-Bitter Feud-Blood Moon-Bolt of Keranos-Brainstone-Brash Taunter-Burn Trail-Burning Earth-Chain Lightning-Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh-Chandra's Phoenix-Command Beacon-Curse of Bloodletting-Custodian of the Trove-Dangerous Wager-Desperate Gambit-Dictate of the Twin Gods-Embereth Shieldbreaker-Embermaw Hellion-Fire Servant-Flare-Fork-Furnace of Rath-Goblin Goliath-Goblin Offensive-Goblin Rally-Hedron Archive-Hordeling Outburst-Incendiary Flow-Infiltration Lens-Invoke Calamity *-Koth of the Hammer-Koth, Fire of Resistance-Kuldotha Rebirth-Magmatic Insight-Mana Geyser-Needle Drop-Nesting Dragon-Nyx Lotus-Past in Flames-Pillar of Flame-Play with Fire-Quest for Pure Flame-Reliquary Tower-Reverberate-Searing Blood-Seething Song- Solphim, Mayhem Dominus-Sunbird's Invocation- Uncivil Unrest-Valakut Awakening-Vandalblast-Violent Eruption-Wall of Torches-Wheel of Fate-Warlord's Fury

[blogging-phelddagrif]

Modern Deck Tech: Electric Wizards

[you can see every deck tech here]

Okay okay, I know I said I would do a Kerfuffle deck tech this week but honestly I’ve been trying hard to brew some decks and I’m just not satisfied with the results’ most of the time it’s too tempting to build around Contraptions since they’re really strong, and a lot of the cards from Unglued & Unhinged and too gimmicky and not actually good...so I need more time. In the meantime, we’ll go over Modern for a really sweet deck, that may or may not be called what I like to call it; people usually just call it Storm, but I prefer Electric Wizards. The deck has been good for quite a while now and recently saw a surge of play; it puts out great results and is one of the top decks of Modern. It might get hit hard by Dampening Sphere in Dominaria, but I’m sure they’ll find a way to still make it work. In any case, enough babble, let’s get into it.

Why that Name?

This is the reason why I call it Electric Wizards, because Goblin Electromancer, as well as Baral Chief of Compliance are the heart of the deck. The goal of the deck is to stick one of these cost reducers down (and hopefully 2 for a smoother time) and then cast a WHOLE LOT OF SPELLS. That’s really it, the deck is not really interactive in that sense, all you want to do is cast a ton of spells in the same turn for a big payoff and hopefully your opponent doesn’t disrupt you.

the Payoff

This is the reason you want to cast a ton of spells. The plan is to cast around 20 spells in a single turn and then hit your opponent with a Grapeshot. Now, if you haven’t seen my deck tech for Legacy ANT or EDH Kess Storm you might be wondering “but Phelddagrif, how can you realistically cast 20 spells in a single turn?” and this means you’ve never played against a Storm deck before, and you are lucky for that, but fear not, it’s ENTIRELY possible, and quite easy to do honestly. Actually let’s talk about this right now.

Casting Many Spells

Most of the deck is going to be cards like these, rituals. So you want to be playing cards like Manamorphose, Desperate Ritual & Pyretic Ritual. I’ve also seen some decks play some Seething Song or Rite of Flame, so those are also some options, but the first 3 are the best ones. Why rituals you get to keep casting spells because you’ll never run out of mana, especially when you have one of your Wizard on the battlefield, then your rituals grant you so much more value out of your plays. But now you might be thinking “what about when I’ll run out of cards to play?” but fear not, that’s not going to happen.

Recycling is Important

If you’re able to resolve a Past in Flames there is usually no way you can lose the game. The usual turn will consist of you casting a few rituals & whatnot, bringing your storm count up, then casting a Past in Flames to then recast ALL of your rituals & stuff to basically double your storm count. With this card it’s really easy to get to 20 spells in a turn, I’m still surprised this card was never banned in modern to be honest, but I guess Storm decks are not dominant enough in the format to warrant a ban, but the card is still busted as hell.

Finding Your Things

Another card I’m surprised isn’t banned (though I think it was at some point) this card is what let’s you go off. The turn before you start your combo you’ll want to cast a Gift Ungiven to go find your pieces, usually it’s going to be 2 different rituals, a Past in Flames & a Grapeshot; it doesn’t matter what goes to your hand and what goes to your graveyard since Past in Flames has flashback so technically your just straight up fetching for 4 cards. Plus, when you do go off with Past in Flames, you can cast this again to go get 4 more cards to keep your combo going. This card is ridiculous honestly.

Cantrips All Day

The first few turns are simple, you play some cantrips, then stick a Wizard on the battlefield, then combo off. The decks will usually play between 8 & 12 cantrips, probably depending on the meta & personal preferences; if you’re running 8 you’ll be running more rituals. If not, you’ll be running cards like Opt, Serum Visions & Sleight of Hands (sadly Gitaxian Probe isn’t an option anymore...). You really want to make sure you have the cards you need to combo off, plus you can still cast some cantrips during your combo to bring your storm count up.

Always Use Protection

EVERY COMBO DECK NEEDS COUNTERSPELLS. It’s simple, if your deck is reliant on a very specific interaction, you need to protect the cards that win you the game. Usually the deck will only run like a playset of Remand, but in control heavy meta it’s not rare to see some Spell Pierce or even Pact of Negation; you really need to protect your combo.

Situational Cards

While the deck is really explosive and is doing very well right now, there are quite a few cards that hit you hard, like the previously mentioned Dampening Sphere, or any graveyard hate to be honest. The sideboard of Storm decks usually consist of alternate win conditions like Young Pyromancer or Empty of Warrens to build an army instead of burning your opponent, as well as some answers like Echoing Truth. You just need to diversify and have answers really, and it depends on your local meta.

Wrap-Up

That’s it for the deck! I hope you guys enjoyed this deck tech as much as I did! Keep in mind that Storm decks, while very powerful and extremely fun & rewarding to play, require A LOT of practice. Those aren’t the decks that you pick up right before a tournament and expect to do well with; you need to know every interaction your opponent might have, every outs you have, what cards to tutor in which situation, what colour of mana to generate when combo-ing off, etc. There are a lot of things to think about and it requires A LOT OF PRACTICE. But if you are willing to put in the practice, Storm decks are really fun & rewarding, I highly recommend playing them whether it be in Modern, Legacy or EDH. In any case, if I missed anything please let me know. I’ll see you guys next week for a Legacy deck tech!

[diegrootkrokodil]

The Russell Report - UR Gifts Storm - 27th at GP Birmingham

Although it has been a bit late coming, I have finally got around to writing a report from my Top 32 12-3 finish at GP Birmingham earlier this year. I had started out 8-1 and managed to run moderately well Day 2 to cash my first event and make a good start to the Pro season for 2017/8. 

Although it has been a bit late coming, I have finally got around to writing a report from my Top 32 12-3 finish at GP Birmingham earlier this year. I had started out 8-1 and managed to run moderately well Day 2 to cash my first event and make a good start to the Pro season for 2017/8.

Background

Prior to the event I had managed to roundly 2-3 two MTGO Competitive leagues and go 3-1 at a friendly mid-week paper event down at Dark Sphere in London. Although my results were far from stellar, I more or less understood why I was losing games and was making steady progress to knowing how the deck is supposed to play. My closest corollary thus far in Modern is UG Infect.

Infect requires you to be able to do two things; the first is a tight balance of composed and patient play, amassing a critical number of cards and forcing through the win over a long and drawn out game. The other is having a good read for the situation and knowing when to go “all in” on a turn and be stone dead if they have the right card, with the prize usually being winning the game on the spot. Storm more or less plays the same way, with the debate on playing a turn 2 cost reducer usually being matchup dependent and/or how critical the Baral/ Electromancer is to your ability to win.

Why Storm?

Having established that I wasn’t doing very well in my initial testing, you might very well be wondering what ponderous set of decisions led me to registering what most people consider to be a challenging deck to play at a GP. Well, let me reveal a little secret to you about Storm in Modern: it isn’t that hard to play.

While I don’t put it into the category of Titanshift or EldraziTron which both genuinely have very few meaningful decisions and whilst the Storm deck has a lot of sequencing optimisations to consider, it really only requires you to be able to do basic maths and and count to something like 20. Or at least, I think that is true for the in game decisions, which are typically only truly interesting with the second Gifts pile you make. The “hard” decisions I believe are mostly made in sideboarding and mulliganing, where experience in the matchups comes to play an extremely important part of the decision making process. Many decks while sideboarding are not necessarily boarding into hate for your opponents sideboard cards. You are also typically not pivoting in a totally different way or even removing what might appear to be your slam dunk namesake card, something that is quite unintuitive to some players.

Storm is fundamentally good for the following reasons:

1. It has a reliable Turn 3 goldfish kill. Speed and consistency are everything in Modern, the format where dying on T4 is usually guaranteed.

2. It can kill on Turn 2 with the perfect hand using grapeshot and pseudo kill on Turn 2 /3 with goblins a greater percentage of the time. Even the bad matchups can sometimes be won, meaning that you’re never truly cold when you sit down to play.

3. The deck is very redundant with 8 cost reducers, 12 rituals and 8 cantrips. Most hands with a Bear, Cantrip and some Rituals are a keep.

4. Two colours and many basics means you take minimal damage from lands/ the coloured requirements are quite good. This allows us to sometimes play Blood Moon and register 3 basic islands in our deck.

5. Most decks don’t have good graveyard hate game 1, meaning that they have very few axis to interact with you on.

6. The opponent tilt value from playing storm.

The Event

Started 2-0 with byes, a critical aspect to success at Grand Prix.

R3 Titanshift 2-1

R4 Elves 2-0

R5 Eldrazi Tron 1-2

R6 GB Tron 2-1

R7 GW Company 2-1

R8 4C Shadow 2-1

R9 Jeskai Control 2-0

R10 Bant Eldrazi 0-2

R11 Eldrazi Tron 2-1

R12 Abzan Coco 1-2

R13 Abzan Midrange

R14 Eldrazi Tron 2-0

R15 Burn 2-0

My List

Maindeck

4 Baral, Chief of Compliance 4 Desperate Ritual 1 Empty the Warrens 3 Misty Rainforest 4 Gifts Ungiven 4 Goblin Electromancer 3 Grapeshot 3 Island 4 Manamorphose 1 Mountain 2 Past in Flames 4 Pyretic Ritual 4 Remand 4 Scalding Tarn 4 Serum Visions 4 Sleight of Hand 4 Spirebluff Canal 3 Steam Vents

Sideboard

1 Negate 2 Dismember 2 Dispel 1 Echoing Truth 2 Empty the Warrens 3 Lightning Bolt 2 Pieces of the Puzzle 2 Shattering Spree

There are a few rules in Modern and one of the main ones is that you have to be as proactive as possible. The inherent variance of the format mostly comes in your match-ups which means that you often have lost the round when you sit down to play. A good example of this is Titanshift against most fair green midrange decks. As the fair deck you are something like sub 20% to curve out and kill them fast enough before the inevitable Primeval Titan or Scapeshift kills you all whilst you are busy durdling about.

Storm bucks this trend and has the ability to more or less win against anyone given that you have the speed and resiliency necessary to beat even your tough matchups. Landing a turn 2 Baral or Goblin Electromancer puts them to the test immediately and usually means they have to respect the possibility of dying the next turn.

My Sideboarding Guide

Storm is the kind of deck where sideboarding is very important to get right, as you aren’t bringing in your generic haymakers and the rest of the maindeck is a finely tuned engine meaning you can’t start cannibalising all the parts whilst still expecting it to function.

Without further ado:

Grind through their heavy removal and kill with Goblins matchups (Abzan, Jund, Grixis Death’s Shadow etc.)

The philosophy here is to transition to a more value orientated deck that is probably not going to go off early and instead try to slog through their removal. You can pivot your win condition from Grapeshot to Empty the Warrens and make their spot removal suffer as you offer them a paucity of good targets. Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push don’t line up very well to lots of Goblins and you can usually hold onto the mana bear until such time where it is actually useful in play. Do not run them out into certain death for no value, you must be a patient Peter.

Pieces is great against graveyard hate and lets you dig for the right pieces whilst also filling up the yard for future Past in Flames. Empty is the backup win condition and is generally quite hard to beat for these sort of spot removal heavy creature decks. I personally like Dismember against the Angler/ Tasigur/ Goyf decks as a way to stop you randomly dying to creature beats. I might cut these on the play in favour of leaving in a few Remands, especially against the Delve threats or sweepers.

Cutting gifts might not seem very intuitive but as many decks board into Leyline of the Void, Rest in Peace or Surgical Extraction you are usually incentivised to reduce your vulnerability to those cards. The third Grapeshot is less essential given the newly diversified threat base and Remand isn’t very good at stopping the cards we really care about in these matchups (it also sucks against Inquisition or Thoughtseize).

-          + 2 Pieces of the Puzzle

-          +2 Empty the Warrens

-          +2 Dismember

-          - 4 Remand

-          - 1 Grapeshot

-          - 1 Gifts Ungiven

Kill them as fast as possible matchups (Burn, Tron, Affinty, Titanshift, Elves, Ad Nauseum, and Infect etc.)

Other combo decks frequently feature Artifacts that we care about. Even Titanshift will usually board into a mix of Relic of Progenitus, Grafdigger’s Cage or Chalice of the Void. We are really looking to go as fast as possible and try to race them, which usually means not playing around things too much apart from stuff we cannot beat or want to try and head off. Most of these decks also don’t have a plethora of removal for our bears, which means that we can often keep hands with only one and even board down to 6 in favour of more meaningful interaction such as Shattering Spree or Echoing Truth. The plan is to be prepared for their interaction and also prepared to beat them on a slightly different axis. Having access to lightning bolts against decks like Infect, Elves and Affinity allows us to win on the draw and slow down their fastest possible starts. Often T3 with no interaction on the draw against Affinity spells doom. Burn is sometimes called an unwinnable matchup, which is usually true in the face of an Eidolon game 1, but is quite beatable in post board games. Lean on your bolts and be careful using them. That Goblin Guide might kill us in the long run, but if you can’t take an Eidolon off the table then it’s game over my friend.

-          + 2 Shattering Spree

-          + 3 Lightning Bolts

-          +1 Echoing Truth

-          - 2 Electromancer

-          -1 Empty the Warrens

-          - 2 Remand

-          -1 Gifts Ungiven

Patience and knowledge of the stack matchups (UW, UWR Control etc.)

The name of the game here is once again becoming patient Peter and forcing them to interact on one of their main choke points, which is usually either mana or cards. What this means practically is waiting, playing out land and then finally going over the top of their counter magic using our Remands (which are great on our own spells) and making use of Past in Flames / Gifts to grind them out of cards over the course of a longer game. Spell Queller can be a pain, so be careful not to walk into that one. I typically find this matchup to be favourable if you don’t run Gifts or another crucial spell into counter magic for no gain.

N.B. This is not an exact guide but more following general themes. Please do not bring in Shattering Spree against Elves or Lightning Bolt against Titanshift.

A quick matchup rundown of the Top 10 decks on MTG Goldfish:

Storm: It’s the mirror. Don’t mess up.

Affinity: Great for you on the play, still probably favoured on the draw.

Jeskai Tempo: Moderately favoured.

Eldrazi Tron: Draw dependent for them, probably a slight dog if they draw averagely.

Titanshift: The unlosable matchup.

GDS: Not good. Can storm them out if they go low enough. The critical mix of disruption, stubborn denial and removal makes this tough.

Tron: Moderately favoured.

Eldrazi and Taxes: The bears can help overcome Thalia, otherwise a moderate dog.

Burn: You’re going to die. Can maybe win if they don’t land Eidolon T2.

CoCo Decks: Favoured. They can’t usually interact with the combo Game 1 and Game 2 they are relying on a small list of cards to interact meaningfully (Eidolon of Rhetoric, for which we have Dismember/ Echoing Truth and precious little else).

A few more closing points regarding UR Gifts Storm:

1.       Try to play around graveyard hate by boarding into Pieces and away from Gifts/ PiF.

2.       Try not to expose yourself to Surgical Extraction if possible, this should be done by not putting your Grapeshots in the graveyard unless absolutely necessary. Try to draw them naturally if you suspect a Surgical. You can set up Gifts piles with cantrips and more Gifts to do this.

3.       The magic number for mana left over after a Gifts is 3. With 3 red mana they are dead and it doesn’t matter which two cards they put into your hand from the classic “ PiF, Desperate, Pyretic, Manamorphose” pile. You will always have enough to cast PiF and keep going off.

4.       Early Goblins can often do the trick, you need the stomach to go in hard on what can appear to be quite risky. Know when it is a good idea and when they are likely to just have a Ratchet Bomb to make your day go south quickly

5.       Shattering Spree is very good against Chalice. The copies can go through the trigger and blow up multiple annoying artifacts.

6.       Remanding your own Grapeshots is an easy way to generate more Storm without using the graveyard.

7.       Don’t forget your loots from Baral when countering spells. This is also a good reason to hold excess lands.

8.       The god hand is a Turn 2 kill. “Land, land, Baral, Desperate, Desperate, Manamorphose, Gifts” can often turn into a win if you draw a second ritual off a manamorphose or a cantrip you find along the way.

That’s all for now but I’ll be playing Storm in Madrid on one of the Mana Gaming Teams we send there for the team event. I’ve also been attempting to grind out a few wins with the deck in recent PPTQs to no notable success as yet.

Until next time:

Tom

[markrosewater]

Can mono black still get straight rituals (spells that make you go net positive in mana) without any additional costs? For example could Pyretic Ritual be color shifted to be in pie for Black?

No.

[pearly-plays-mtg]

Hello Yes Plz Help

Hi!

I have a reeeeeally weird modern Storm deck, and I’d like your help and suggestions for what else to put in this deck! But that’s not all! Below that, I have another decklist idea that I’ve been putting together for like a year and I would also like recommendations on that!

STORM:

4x Serum Visions (Draw 1, Scry 2)

4x Sleight of Hand (Scry 2, draw 1 bottom 1)

4x Desperate Ritual (Add RRR, Arcane Splice)

4x Manamorphose (Mana Mana, Draw 1)

4x Pyretic Ritual (Add RRR)

4x Remand (Counter-bounce, Draw 1)

1x Noxious Revival (Bounce gravecard to Library, Phyrexian Mana Only)

2x Gifts Ungiven (Tutor 4 different cards, get 2 of opp choice, toss other two)

3x Past in Flames (Sorceries/Instants gain Flashback eot, Flashback 5)

Weird Choices Time:

1x Baral, Chief of Compliance (Mana effect, Counterloot)

3x Goblin Electromancer (instants/sorceries cost M less)

2x Curious Homunculus (Mana effect, flip Prowess 3/4

2x Grapeshot

Manabase:

4x Sulfur Falls (Innistrad Checklands)

3x John Avon ‘97 Mountain

1x Spirebluff Canal (Kaladesh Fastlands)

2x Shivan Reef (Apocalypse Painlands)

4x DotP Island #100

2x Steam Vents (Dissension Shocklands)

2x Flooded Strand (Odyssey Fetchlands)

SIDEBOARD: Zip. Nothing. Maybe one Echoing Truth. Idk.

As you can see, I’m missing four cards from this list. I’ve made quite a few changes over the past few months/year and I took out:

Past in Flames, Grapeshot, CH x2

CONSIDERLIST: (Things I do not have unless stated, but have thought about)

-Snow Covered Mountain (or Island? Both?): Obviously, I’d wait until Modern Horizons for the price to start dropping, or grab some packs of my own, and put like one in in place of one of the lands.

-More Gifts Ungivens: It seems like the right thing to do.

-Opt: I have them, I just haven’t put in any of them.

-Discovery (of DIS/covery or dispersal): I have two, I just haven’t put in any of them.

-Pyromancer Ascension: I’ve heard this card is just GOOD.

-Blood Crypt, Grapeshot in Sideboard, Mastermind’s Acquisition: In case of Disruption. I have at least one Blood Crypt somewhere. The only problem is that Bloodstained Mires are expensive, and I’d want to get those as well. And it’s not like I can waste time playing Grixis Panoramas or something like that.

-Sacred Foundry: White-Splash sideboard? Possibly one where I’d hit artifacts or enchantments, like Grafdigger’s Cage and RIP.

-Scalding Tarn: If I wasn’t limited by budget constraints.

-Dragonstorm: :^) (would appreciate Dragon suggestions for this card too)

-EDIT: Aria of Flame. Extra mana cost, but also very good in this sort of thing. Requires testing of this vs. Ascension.

-EDIT: Ral, Storm Conduit? Idk how it works with Storm though

Please send in any other suggestions!

Other thing:

Tamanoa! Commander! I’m working on a list. Will hopefully have up soon.

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[magicjudge]

How does grapeshot interact with remand. I see it played in storm decks but im not sure why?

When you cast Grapeshot or any other spell with Storm, the Storm ability triggers and that trigger makes a bunch of copies of the original spell. That trigger and the copies it creates all resolve separately before the original spell does, and the original spell doesn’t need to be on the stack for them to resolve.

When you Remand your own Grapeshot, you’re putting the original Grapeshot back into your hand so that you can cast it again and benefit from the storm trigger twice. The copies created by Grapeshot will resolve normally even if it’s no longer on the stack.

For example, I cast Seething Song, Pyretic Ritual, and Manamorphose, ending up with URRRRR in my mana pool. I then cast Grapeshot. When Grapeshot’s storm trigger resolves, it makes three copies of Grapeshot. I then Remand the original Grapeshot to my hand and then recast it. When the storm trigger from the second casting of Grapeshot resolves, it creates five copies of grapeshot. All in all, 8 copies of Grapeshot and the original Grapeshot resolve here, allowing me to deal 9 damage with the spell.

[goblinelectromancer]

bc u.....

ok u cast the ritual... u pay 2 to copy it.

the first one resolves. u pay 2 to copy......

fuck does this go infinite with pyretic ritual???

edit: NVM IT'S A TAP ABILITY

oo very nice second ability.

[spicemtg-blog]

#magicthegathering #mtg #magic #mtgmodern #mtgcombo #spicemtg #マジックザギャザリング #スパイスMTG I play UR storm recently. One of the goal is taking these cards by Gifts Ungiven with floating 2manas and playing a Medalion creature. 最近青赤ストーム使ってて、コンボのゴールは メダリオン生物と2マナがある状態でこれらをけちから持ってくることにあります。 (Mnamorphose) (Pyretic Ritual) (Desperate Ritual) (Past in Flames) https://www.instagram.com/p/BrIUCMuhkAi/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1jyr0tx6jcag9

[suraira]

Torbran 8x8

Decklist: Torbran, Thane of Red Fell *CMDR*35 Lands: √ Dwarven Mine Mountain (x 30) Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx Reliquary Tower Rogue’s Passage Temple of the False God28 Creatures: 11 Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence Bedlam Reveler Bonecrusher Giant Fiendish Duo Firebrand Archer Guttersnipe Heartless Hidetsugu Malignus Monastery Swiftspear Runaway Steam-Kin Young Pyromancer35 Non-Creatures: 30 Ancestral Anger Anger of the Gods City on Fire Desperate Ritual Empty the Warrens Gratuitous Violence Insult // Injury Invoke Calamity Koth, Fire of Resistance Lightning Bolt Lightning Greaves Magma Jet Mizzium Mortars Overblaze Overmaster Pillar of Flame Pyretic Ritual Pyromancer’s Goggles Quest for Pure Flame Quietus Spike Reverbrate Ruby Medallion Scytheclaw Seething Song Skullclamp Sol Ring Sunbird's Invocation Spikefield Hazard Swiftfoot Boots Warlord's Fury Tallies: High Cost: 15/20 City on Fire Empty the Warrens Fiendish Duo Gratuitous Violence Heartless Hidetsugu Invoke Calamity Malignus Mizzium Mortars Overblaze Pyromancer’s Goggles Quietus Spike Scytheclaw Sunbird's Invocation Torbran, Thane of Red Fell8x Card Draw: Ancestral Anger Bedlam Reveler Overmaster Skullclamp Warlord's Fury8x Mana Ramp: Desperate Ritual Koth, Fire of Resistance Pyretic Ritual Ruby Medallion Runaway Steam-Kin Seething Song Sol Ring8x Targeted Removal: Anger of the Gods Lightning Bolt Mizzium Mortars Pillar of Flame Spikefield Hazard8x Major Damage (Hidetsugu Alts): Heartless Hidetsugu Quietus Spike Scytheclaw8x Damage Enhancers (Gratuitous Alts): City on Fire Fiendish Duo Firebrand Archer Gratuitous Violence Guttersnipe Insult // Injury Overblaze Quest for Pure Flame8x Spell Damage: Magma Jet Stomp (Bonecrusher Giant)8x Recursion/Copies: Invoke Calamity Pyromancer’s Goggles Reverbrate Sunbird's Invocation Swiftfoot Boots8x Battlefield: Auntie Blyte, Bad Influence Empty the Warrens Lightning Greaves Malignus Monastery Swiftspear Young Pyromancer Maybe: Ramp: Hematite Talisman Chandra, Bold Pyromancer Koth Myriad LandscapeRecursion/Copy: Dualcaster Mage Fork Jaya Ballard Chandra, the FirebrandTargeted Removal: Jaya's Greeting*prioritize trample for Malignus to hit

[mtg-banashi]

赤単ストンピィ（ルナティックチャンセラー）

10:《山/Mountain》 4:《宝石の洞窟/Gemstone Caverns》 4:《ラムナプの遺跡/Ramunap Ruins》 2:《屍肉あさりの地/Scavenger Grounds》

4:《ゴブリンの熟練扇動者/Goblin Rabblemaster》 4:《猿人の指導霊/Simian Spirit Guide》 2:《風雲船長ラネリー/Captain Lannery Storm》 2:《月の大魔術師/Magus of the Moon》 2:《熱烈の神ハゾレト/Hazoret the Fervent》 2:《ラッカ・マー/Rakka Mar》 2:《栄光をもたらすもの/Glorybringer》 4:《絡み森の大長/Chancellor of the Tangle》

4:《捨て身の儀式/Desperate Ritual》 4:《発熱の儀式/Pyretic Ritual》 4:《血染めの月/Blood Moon》 2:《虚空の杯/Chalice of the Void》 4:《反逆の先導者、チャンドラ/Chandra, Torch of Defiance》

サイドボード 2:《月の大魔術師/Magus of the Moon》 1:《熱烈の神ハゾレト/Hazoret the Fervent》 4:《破壊放題/Shattering Spree》 2:《大祖始の遺産/Relic of Progenitus》 2:《神々の憤怒/Anger of the Gods》 2:《粉砕の嵐/Shatterstorm》 2:《虚空の杯/Chalice of the Void》