Historic best of 1 has a problem. This is that problem:
Deck
4 Ruby Medallion (MH3) 295
17 Mountain (SLD) 66
4 Manamorphose (2XM) 208
4 Pyretic Ritual (SOA) 46
3 Wish (AFR) 166
3 Storm of Memories (TLE) 126
4 Jeska's Will (SOA) 44
4 Ral, Monsoon Mage (MH3) 247
4 Wrenn's Resolve (MOM) 173
4 Reckless Impulse (VOW) 174
4 Pinnacle Monk (MH3) 246
4 Strike It Rich (MH2) 143
1 Past in Flames (SIS) 43
Sideboard
1 Grapeshot (STA) 39
3 Suplex (FIN) 164
1 Underworld Breach (THB) 161
1 Alchemist's Gambit (VOW) 140
1 Galvanic Relay (MH2) 127
1 Empty the Warrens (DMR) 118
1 Past in Flames (SIS) 43
1 Tendrils of Agony (STA) 34
1 Storm of Memories (TLE) 126
1 Stormscale Scion (TDM) 123
3 Blast Zone (EOS) 2
And of course, here’s what I did with it last month:
The measure of the “degree of problematic” a combo deck is centers around three elements:
· How fast can the deck go off?
· How consistently can the deck go off?
· How resilient is the deck to efforts to stop it from going off?
I’d give an honorable mention to “do any of the deck’s components break the rules of Magic?” but more on that in a moment. First, what does this deck do?
The Combo
You’re a red rituals deck. Play a card that lets you cheat the mana cost on your spells (Ruby Medallion or Ral, Monsoon Mage). Then chain rituals (Pyretic Ritual, Manamorphose, Jeska’s Will) into card draw into more rituals until you can cast Wish to kill your opponent with a storm spell (Grapeshot or Tendrils of Agony). To help you accomplish the above you have some “free” spell options powered by flipping Ral into a planeswalker and using his ultimate or casting Storm of Memories.
You very consistently kill on the third turn. You can kill on the second turn. Killing any time after the third turn would be considered a colossally poor game except in a circumstance where you’re playing against a “fair” deck that affords you lots of time to go off and you choose to go slow. Your second turn kills usually follow one of two paths:
· Turn 1: Mountain, Strike It Rich
· Turn 2: Mountain, Ral/Ruby, sac Treasure token to cast Pyretic Ritual/Manamorphose, begin going off
OR:
· Turn 1: Mountain
· Turn 2: Mountain, Pyretic Ritual, Jeska’s Will for 5-7 mana, go off
This deck breaks the rules of combo decks too consistently to not have action taken on it. Let’s look back at those three principles of evaluating combo decks:
How fast can the deck go off?
Turn three and as early as turn two. Magic is supposed to be a turn four or turn five game, so this is too fast. It’s not fun to play a land and then lose with no interaction with your opponent’s game plan. (What is this Yugioh?) Of course, going off this early isn’t necessarily the death knell for a combo deck unless…
How consistently can the deck go off?
Nearly every game at the aggressive pace in which you want to go off at. Ruby Storm is scary consistent, particularly as you develop your competency in playing it, and by now playing ranked matches I only occasionally mulligan on a clunky draw with too many copies of “Wish” in hand to not go off scary fast. Can anyone do anything about it? So glad you asked…
How resilient is the deck?
Any time you can threaten going off on turn 2 you’re pretty resilient. A lot of “fair” cards meant to disrupt your game plan simply take too long to come online. I’ve successfully gone off against handkill, on-board graveyard hate, Surgical Extraction, and all the meaningful things people can play maindeck to stop something like this. It becomes clearer the higher you climb the ladder that more and more players are biasing their game plan against this archetype and it just doesn’t matter. The Wish sideboard also gives you flexibility to fight back against these plans if your speed and varied game plan isn’t enough. Did a player manage to get The One Ring off somehow and give themselves protection? Go off and Wish for Stormscale Scion, make a bunch of Dragons, then Wish again for Alchemist’s Gambit and cast it. Take an extra turn, attack with your dragons, and watch as even Sauron is not strong enough to stop the damage from the Smaugs. (Note: Gambit also prevents damage prevention, stopping The Ring’s protection on the extra turn).
This deck is a problem, and while you could dedicate sideboard strategy to beating it in a best of three scenario, it should grow to warp the Historic Bo1 metagame until action is taken because you can’t sideboard to stop it. That means Bo1 Historic will soon be Ruby Storm, decks built entirely to beat only Ruby Storm, and decks that can’t win. It’s not a healthy metagame, and that’s in a world where people are already maindecking Surgical Extraction which is never a sign of health.
What Needs to Go
There are 2.5 cards that need to be examined for errata or banning and they are in order:
1. Ral, Monsoon Mage
2. Storm of Memories
3. Jeska’s Will
Ral is the primary villain here. A long time ago Mind’s Desire was a problematic card because it let you play a lot of free spells. The “balancing” act for Mind’s Desire was that you had to spend the effort to get to 4UU to cast it. Ral is both your Mind’s Desire and the mana engine that lets you cheat casting costs to go off. The second balancing element for Mind’s Desire was that you could whiff: flip only lands or irrelevant cards and it didn’t matter that they were free. Ral takes a different approach, flipping coins for damage that could kill you, but let’s be real: you always have 10-15 life to give because of how fast you go off, so much as “flipping all lands” was such an edge case that Mind’s Desire still got banned in a number of formats, so too does “flip coins and potentially take damage” minimally impact things such that it’s a non-factor.
Storm of Memories is the second problem child, and you can tell because it costs 5 mana and says “storm” on it. Frankensteining Yawgmoth’s Will and Mind’s Desire together doesn’t in fact solve either card’s problem but instead creates a whole new class of them. And if you have two Ruby Medallions on the battlefield? You can Will/Desire for RRR. Here’s what I spent my lunch money on to RRR my opponents with when I was your age:
(JK, no one younger than us is reading long-form text on the internet…)
Jeska’s Will is the honorable mention here. The “exile three” is comically not a problem because enough redundancy exists in that space to make it irrelevant; you could easily replace the functionality. The mana ritual part, however, is batting above its weight. Seething Song netted you 5 mana for 2R and had to be banned in several places. Will is setting up stupid turn 2s in which you Pyretic Ritual into Will for as much as seven mana. Even without Ruby/Ral, you can cast something like Wrenn’s Resolve and still play Storm of Memories on the second turn.
If you nuke problems #1 and/or #2 here, you may find you can get away with Will in the format. To fix things, however, any of the above three cards are the ones that need to see action taken against them.
Tips and Tricks
I didn’t optimize this deck very much. There are for sure better versions out there. You probably want some number of Gemstone Caverns to allow yourself the ability to go off on the first turn when on the draw. The sideboard features a lot of options for sideboarded games, not just Bo1. I’m not playing Birgi, God of Storytelling. Some people seem to like her, but I just didn’t find the need. Artist’s Talent also feels like a “win more” card, and every time someone in a mirror has played either of these cards I won so take that for what it’s worth. Here are some interesting plays:
· To cast Tendrils you need to have two treasures from Strike it Rich or a Manamorphose that made BB.
· You can deal with “protection” or “damage prevention” effects from things like The One Ring or reanimation targets by making a bunch of dragons and then using Alchemist’s Gambit to take an extra turn in which damage is not prevented. I had to do it to beat The One Ring several times.
· If you’re playing the mirror and could maybe go off on Turn 2 on the draw, give it a shot. They’re going to kill you on Turn 3, so it might be your only chance even if you may fizzle out.
· Galvanic Relay is a great option for when you attempt to go off and start fizzling out. It sets up a great next turn.
· Don’t lose sight of getting a non-lethal Grapeshot, “wrathing” an opponent’s board, and killing them later if that’s the option available to you. In one match against the Light-Paws enchantment deck they exiled my Ruby Medallion with an Oblivion Ring type effect. I could storm for just enough to kill off all their creatures, then re-comboed the next turn for lethal.
· Track instants and sorceries manually for Ral so you don’t lose count. You need to cast 6 in order to go ultimate. It is not the same as the storm count!
· Blast Zone is your catch all in the sideboard for any maindeck cards that prevent you from going off and that you must remove before you can win. Just make sure to remember: if you already played your land for the turn, you will not be able to play it after Wishing!
· If your opponent has protection from you, sorceries, red, or anything that prevents you from targeting them with Jeska’s Will you cannot use the ritual option to gain mana.
· You can protect Ral from removal occasionally with instants. The example was that with a trigger on the stack to transform him into a planeswalker my opponent cast Fatal Push. I responded with a Pyretic Ritual, won the flip, and was able to transform him into a planeswalker. It was earlier than I wanted, but better than losing him entirely.
· Esper Sentinel is normally hate against decks like this, but I’ve found that because you want your opponent to have a full hand it’s often better for them to have it than, say, Tundra Wolves because it makes your Jeska’s Will ritual better.
· Related to that: empty your hand as much as you can against the mirror. It really hurts their Jeska’s Wills. Frequently you won’t have time, but it shapes how you sequence playing cards from spaces like exile for Wrenn’s Resolve or from in your hand.
A sideboard breakdown:
· Grapeshot is your secondary win condition, but a great “cheap” option if you’re mana starved and removal for your opponent’s creatures when trying to set up to go off if you need to buy yourself a turn with a “mini storm” for some reason. It also, unlike Tendrils, is eligible for targeting by Storm of Memories.
· Suplex is a 3-of because the version I was inspired by was prepared for sideboard games. This could be a 1-of for Bo1 games. I used this to exile a problematic creature or for artifacts like Tormod’s Crypt and Grafdigger’s Cage if I felt I would need to Storm of Memories to go off.
· Underworld Breach is an emergency option for continuing to go off, though I never needed it.
· Alchemist’s Gambit is a genius bulk rare find, and kudos to whoever came up with it. It buys you an extra turn to finish killing the opponent, but the “damage can’t be prevented” is often the dagger that you’re looking for to counteract something like a The One Ring trigger.
· Galvanic Relay is the card I turned to most when “fizzling.” With Ruby/Ral out and Wish in hand, it’s 2RR to turbo-charge your options for the following turn.
· Tendrils of Agony is your primary win condition, just make sure to structure your Manamorphose and treasure tokens accordingly.
· Empty the Warrens is a backup plan I never needed to rely on. I think usually Galvanic Relay is better because you’re setting up for a “next turn” to be good, and going off to lethal is often better than making a bunch of Goblins.
· Past in Flames is a fine target to turn all your spells in the graveyard active again, though more often you’re going to get…
· Storm of Memories, which is your storm engine you can Wish for. If you can generate mana with Wish in hand this is the spell you get to finish going off.
· Stormscale Scion seemed like a stretch to me at first but came up in enough isolated scenarios that I’m a believer, and I was wrong to hate on the original creator of the deck (again, I don’t have a specific source to cite here as I cribbed my list from a number of decklists floating around the internet and jammed together). Most frequently I got this against opponents who had somehow given themselves protection; combined with Gambit it kills through that situation. Another scenario I relied on it was “not enough storm for Grapeshot to be lethal, but no BB to cast Tendrils.”
· Blast Zone is a 3-of again because this is a “what if I need to sideboard?” version of the deck. It could be a 1-of here, but it should definitely be in the list.
And that’s how Historic best of 1 is busted on Magic Arena. Good luck to all braving the format before action is taken on the deck!
(Note: I finished this piece before the most recent B&R announcement went up. While they referenced keeping an eye on this space because of concerns from fans, and in particular looking at Pyretic Ritual and Will, I believe this is a mistake. Action should be taken in Bo1 because the deck will warp the meta. It is beatable in Bo3. I laid out my case above for what cards I think should be targeted.)