I like the list Shawn.

3 win conditions MAY be too much however people are complaining that all the life loss will add up. Mini tendrils are perfect for this.

The only thing that jumps out at me is the chromatic spheres. I tend to think they benefit the most in a deck with burning wish, where you might need to filter a colorless or black mana into red for Wish. That slot might be better as preordain or ponder or a mystical. I'm sure there's a reason you have it in there, this isn't your first rodeo.

I have a long list in a different thread that's recent and proven, however it plays burning wish which you specifically said you don't want to play so that probably won't help much. And my current list I'm testing is back to grim tutors, which you also don't want to play. So it sounds like TPS is where you want to be. TPS is a fine choice. I've played that too. They're just different decks with different advantages/disadvantages. TPS is a slower deck and usually picks a bomb that you're trying to protect and clear the way first. Long can have the same approach however the deck is designed to win off any draw 7 and any time and just keep casting bombs until one resolves/wins the game. I really like 2-3 cabal rituals in long, where as most tps lists play 1ish.

Long can definitely support force of will...it's been proven. Pitchlong is a real deck, as well as Steve's burning long oath deck with force of will.

I can definitely get behind playing long because of its speed, that's why I'm playing long at the moment. However saying it's good in a field of shop decks is pretty absurd. If I knew I was going into a field full of workshops, long would not be my deck of choice. I understand the speed argument, however losing the die roll can be the difference in winning the match and losing the match. Especially if force of will is not in the deck. Also Long has a reputation of beating blue decks. If I was going into a field of blue decks, long would be my deck of choice. Hands down. It's almost unfair how good the blue matchup is, force of will or no force of will. That matchup isn't won on the back of force of will/duress. They help, but you just keep throwing bombs at your opponent until they're dead.

Sword or fire and ice is certainly worth testing over the flamespeaker. Don't know that it's better or not. Decks like this don't usually generate an advantage by drawing more cards like a control deck, they generally get an advantage from the effects the creatures have on your opponent. (Josh) you seem to be very quick to dismiss any input towards the deck. At that point why bother even writing about it? Sword of fire and ice seems like it would be very good at the moment. Also, there's plenty of times you either already have Batterskull in your hand or something else would be more beneficial at the moment.

Im working on a new spicy list for the current meta. I will post it in the next few days.

I can definitely get behind adding more bounce spells to the main deck to combat shops and pesky creatures whose abilities get in the way of winning.

Im still a little confused as to why you want to build the deck around resolving memory jar as your primary path to victory. Don't get me wrong, I like memory jar, but its one of the last bombs I would try and win with if i had a choice(tutoring for a bomb)

I understand your concern for giving your opponent 7 new cards with a draw 7. However if your list is built right, I think you would find you win far more games by casting a draw 7 then your opponent does because you gave him 7 new cards. Lists packing more disruption, whether it be counters or bounce spells, tend to fizzle draw 7s more frequently. The key is finding a balance. Sometimes you will just fizzle a draw 7, its in the nature of playing a storm deck.

Maybe I'm misunderstanding your post, but your primary goal is to set up memory jar? Why "memory jar" over other bombs in the deck?

Ingot chewer and shattering spree are affected by spheres. Even when evoked you just add the sphere to the evoke cost. Thorn doesn't affect chewer obviously. With shattering spree you pay the spheres in the original casting cost, but you don't add the spheres for the replicate. It's been some time since this has come up but I'm pretty sure if you cast shattering spree into chalice, the original copy is countered but the replicated copy's still resolve.

I've personally found that in a combo deck such as long or tps, a mass bounce spell is much more affective rather than spot hate cards like chewer or shattering spree.

This was a great report to read. Congrats on the finish, Rob.

Mother of ruins is a lot better than it looks on paper. It requires your opponent to have two removal spells. One for the mother and one for the card you really want to get rid of. Unless of course you're running deluge.

Leonine arbiter is probably worth including, however I think it would depend on your metagame. Spirit of the labrynth is pretty good, as most blue decks want to draw cards, including Jace. After testing vs the deck, stoneforge definitely belongs. Batterskull speaks for itself, but if you can equip it on flame speaker it's just insane. And with mother you can give him protection from whatever color creature your opponent is able to block with.

I never had an issue with the manabase. However when I played this deck there weren't a ton if hate bear decks with wasteland in addition to shops. One if the most popular shop decks was expresso which ran crucible Maindeck as well as catstax. I still can't imagine the manabase being that awful since gush negates wastelands. You don't fetch out red/green lands until you need them etc. The only basics I ran were obviously island, but also a mountain in the sb. No forest or swamp. Trop is only for fastbond or flashback on grudge/claim.

I haven't played in some time, though I just started testing again for champs so I was unaware of what Dack did. After looking it up if sounds great on paper but like you mentioned getting the mana can be tough. Jace costs even more and probably isn't even very good in the meta anymore. I would be strongly considering just cutting plane walkers altogether for the moment and add in some utility cards that can shore up a range of decks. Some creature hate would do wonders. Towards the end of playing the deck, I was playing Maindeck engineered explosives. It was insane. But that depends on how prevelant null rods are at the moment.

I really like Shawn's proposed list above with Burning wish. However I've found in the past, it looked really cute on paper but didn't translate to results on the table. I was often holding it with no really impact flu targets to tutor for. The 4x tinker thought is obvious, I'm just not sure I would want to slow that line of play down. Often times 1 extra turn is enough to make the different between winning with tinker and getting it answered. And by this I mean having to use turn 1 to wish for tinker then cast it on turn 2. Or even turn 2 and turn 3. In addition your opponent has atleast 1 full turn to try and formulate a game plan to stop/answer your tinker. After all is said above, I'm also pretty sure tinker->guy is pretty bad right now unless it's a certain guy. The metagame has changed so much now that it's extremely diverse. Which may result in burning wish being a better card right now than before.

@Chris...I would be interested in seeing what variation you've been working on.

I didn't know anyone was still playing ECW out there! Glad its working well for you. What does your metagame look like?

Shops was actually a very strong matchup for this deck, so I'm a bit surprised to hear you say that about the deck. However if you cut ancient grudge and hurkyls recall I would imagine the deck would have a hard time beating workshops, at least game 1. The newer shops lists with forge master, etc require a little more spot hate to deal with their large threats. But the main deck can certainly be adapted to beat workshops. Fish decks weren't very popular at the time this deck was in its prime, but again some of the same cards that can answer workshop threats can answer fish creatures, as well as kill creatures like bob and welder.

This decks two best match ups were workshops and Blue control decks. I wouldn't argue that the workshop matchup got a bit harder though.

Necropotence is probably the best bomb in any ritual based storm deck. Its very often the first card I will tutor for if its pretty early in the game. The reason I feel this way is because when you consider everything about necro, its the best all around bomb. It doesn't require a ton of resources invested(a single ritual vs 2+ for bargain). It allows you to see as many cards as you have life meanwhile your opponent sees no cards(from necro). I also can't recall a time where I lost a game because i had to pass the turn after i resolved necro(except a storm mirror). Again most of these examples are based on the early game, Which is when I would want my best bomb.

From briefly looking at the current meta deck choices, Empty the warrens seems like a card to try and keep you in the game(giving you blockers or getting you a few guys who will be blocked by better creatures your opponent has) rather than a win now card. As a storm pilot i prefer to play the offensive role, rather than spend all of my resources to "stay in the game" unless of course its absolutely necessary.

Nice article. I think Stoney silence was mentioned above, which would be a beating for this deck. There are no ways in the Maindeck to remove/bounce a Stoney silence. Maybe some repeals instead of thoughtseizes?

Rebuild has been really good for me, including casting it against shops when he had a witchbane orb out. The fast mana really does help out. I'm also playing 13 lands, not 11 like oath lists. The problem with rebuild is finding space for it in the Maindeck. Finding room for preordains,repeal,rebuild, and timewalk is really hard to do. It pretty much comes down to what you think you'll see at each given tournament. Those few slots might always be changing.

Thanks for the input!

Windfall does seem like the obvious cut for preordain, but I've since cut the windfall. I mentioned I've made some changes and that was one of them. Just not going into detail about all the changes until I try them out. But yeah, ideally 2 preordain/1 ponder would be perfect. So I'm still working on that.

I've been pondering opal/chrome/spirit guides since the day after the tourney, but I can't justify cutting a threat to play another mana source. But if I can find the room it would be nice to get atleast 1 in the deck. Need more roooom. Another thing I was concerned with was getting destroyed by chalice @0 and null rod(by adding in 2 more moxes)

Repeal is good too. I've been wanting another answer to Stoney silence/Thalia and the like. Maybe this could be that card. It's also never dead. I liked it in Elias' list alot, just didnt think about it in this list. Ill have to try it out.

Dropping a Xantid and a land for 2 spirit guides might be worthwhile out of the sb.

Discussion about Dark Rituals has been relatively non-existent lately. Despite Burning Oath posting results, discussion still has not snow-balled. I took a fairly long break away from the game, I was very unimpressed with the format. In addition, I found myself rather doing anything else, other than playing magic. But after an extended break, the format really opened up, and I started to regain interest. I really wanted to play a gush deck, since I had been playing them up until the point I "quit". I was working on a list with a friend, with promising results, but I knew I wanted to test some other ideas out. When I first got into vintage, I instantly fell in-love with tendrils of agony. Something about killing my opponent before they got to draw a card seemed thrilling. I've since had a long last relationship with dark rituals, playing decks like bob-tendrils,grim and pitchlong, meandeck gifts, and TPS. However, as of the last few years, there weren't really any ritual decks doing well consistently. Sure, you could rely strictly on play skill and top 8 a tournament with rituals, but they really weren't well positioned. Lodestone golems were everywhere. Then Burning Wish was unrestricted. Steve brewed up a list involving Oath of Druids, which gave a combo deck a higher percentage chance against workshops, as well as making you more threat dense. Something long decks lacked since the restriction if brainstorm. However, if you are anything like me, and you despise Oath of Druids as a card and a strategy, it wasn't enough to make me sleeve up some rituals. So I started brainstorming and messing around with some ideas but I wasn't satisfied. So I sat the deck aside and sleeved up a ECW deck and played some games. It just wasn't the same. I could see my dark rituals taunting me. I decided to play in my first tournament since "retiring" and I needed a deck. I decided I would rather lose every game and have a blast casting dark rituals all day, rather than play a gush deck I really didn't want to play. Another train of thought I had was, rather than play a gush deck that still had a mediocre win % against workshops(without tweaking the Maindeck drastically) why not play Long, and just kill them before they get a turn. Seems logical right? Maybe, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Here's what I settled on:

Allen Fulmer
5th place
"4C Pitch Long"

4 Burning Wish
4 Dark Ritual
4 Force of Wil
2 Cabal Ritual
2 Duress
2 Mental Misstep
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Memory Jar
1 Mind's Desire
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Necropotence
1 Ponder
1 Rebuild
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Windfall
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain

4 City of Brass
3 Underground Sea
3 Volcanic Island
2 Flooded Strand
1 Tolarian Academy

1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring

SB:
4 Xantid Swarm
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Tormod's Crypt
2 Tropical Island
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Duress
1 Pyroclasm
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will

The first thing I decided, I wanted Force of Will. It theoretically makes the deck faster(1/2 turn) which is something I was aiming for. Being able to cast a game winning spell before my opponent was able to sit on mana drain was important. The bigger reason was it gives you a better chance against workshops on the draw.

Next, I knew without brainstorm, the deck had to be threat dense. If my opponent could stop my opening hand, I had to feel like I could draw adequate pressure without a real draw engine. Therefore, as much as I dislike windfall, I opted to include it. It's an okay card, I just am not thrilled with paying 3 mana to draw 4-5 cards, allowing my opponent 4-5 new cards. I would much rather play infernal contract in this circumstance. However, I needed to be conscious of my blue card count for FoW. So Windfall got the nod. I also included gifts because, well if you've ever resolved gifts, you already know why. I felt since I was looking to make the deck as threat dense as possible, there's no better blue bomb(that's not already in the list ie twister/desire) than gifts. The rest of the bombs are pretty standard.

The protection:
As stated above, I definitely wanted FoW. Next I didn't want to get blown out by opposing missteps on my rituals, etc so they were included. They're also free. After they were in, I debated leaving it with just those spells but I was worried about flusterstorm. So I had two options. I could either play duress, or I could play my own flusterstorms. They each have their ups and downs. Flusterstorm is blue and it gives you the last say, where as if you duress and then they mystical/gush/top etc. however Duress is castable off ritual. I was finding that when going off, I didn't have a random U floating on turn 1 or 2 to have flusterstorm backup. However I did have small amounts of B floating. So I added 2x duress. They have been everything I hoped they were. They don't slow the deck down like I was worried they would, like a TPS deck.

No Time Walk? "You're cray". I've never been a huge fan of time walk in a long style deck. It's too frequently 1U, draw a card.

I was unsure of how many workshop decks would be in the field, even though they have been on the decline. So I decided rather than concede game 1, Ill play 3 MD bounce spells. Rebuild, hurks, CoV. Worst case rebuild cycles, also adds storm for tendrils and desire.

In combination with my point above about workshops, I wanted to be able to make land drops for my first 2-3 turns. So I decided on 13 land. 12 seemed light in gold fishing, possibly allowing me to get blown out by only a single wasteland. I also decided on half of the 5c manabase. Partly because I was only able to borrow a few duals, and also it gave me the option of Xantid swarm out of the sb. Which seemed very strong when casting draw 7s repeatedly against decks with FoW,Drain,Misstep,Flusterstorm, etc. It was indeed very strong, and still remains strong in testing. Another reason I liked City of Brass' were for casting a burning wish for another red card, say pyroclasm. Needing to either fetch out two volcs(to cast it in the same turn) or Wish and then pass the the turn(sometimes you don't have this option).

Why play this deck, especially over the burning oath deck? Force of Will. Force of will gives you a better chance against workshops, it gives you an advantage in the mirror match(burning oath), the missteps help with this as well. Your blue matchup is just as good, if not better. Grafdiggers cage is much less effective against a list without Oath of Druids. Can it still be effective? Of course, but not as back breaking as if you were playing oath. Another reason I like this deck better is, I don't like passing the turn after resolving a bomb, like you would with oath. Can you tell I really dislike Oath of Druids?

I've made a few changes since this tournament/list. I'm not going to go through them all, but I will say that I've added Timewalk back into the deck. I'm not certain it's staying in the deck for the next tournament, but we shall see. It's especially nice if you cast bargain, short on mana. Instead of drawing until you "hopefully" hit lotus/petal/ruby/jet, you can timewalk and go off. It's also handy if you cast a draw 7, short on mana. Timewalk, and win with the rest of your draw 7 hand.

My initial worry with this deck was that it would not be consistent. I don't feel this is an issue. It's been very consistent for me. There will be hands you will have to experiment with. For example, hands with lands/rituals/protection, but no bomb. Preordain would really help this out. And I'm working on fitting a couple in.

Thanks for reading

If it looks like it will be a good turnout, ill make it out to this

Joel, didnt you just top 8? Hahaha

As will I.

Congrats to the entire top 8. Despite feeling ill, I had a really good time. Most notably playing against you, Mark. It was an entertaining and enjoyable match.

I was originally referring to The Tropical Storm, but I'm working on both, along with Personalbackfire. I see no reason why they both could not be viable decks at the moment.

Ps. Welcome back, I'm recently back myself.

Maybe we should change that...

Do it, I double dog dare you.

Bomberman actually runs all the counters you mentioned. Having 2x (insert situational counterspell) isn't going to weaken your shop matchup more than it will help out your other matchups. Especially if you have main deck cards against workshops(grudge,hurks,claim)

The way I look at a draw engine vs the given decks in the metagame is, You can't tak FULL advantage of gush vs workshops and bob can be weak as well. You have a creature based draw engine that uses your life as a resource to fuel card advantage. So your shops opponent has a golem and maybe a revoker or a factory attacking you and you want to use your life as a resource? I personally don't. So if neither engine is superb against shops/creatures, why not play the engine that will give you the advantage in the blue matchup?

Good catch, I forgot about that. That's why I play chain of vapor

I could be wrong, but while repeal does serve a purpose as a storm card, I believe it's main purpose it to give you outs to random cards you may run into. Things like null rod/Stoney silence, chalice, gaddock teeg, etc. there's nothing worse than conceding a game you should have won simply because you could not remove something from the board. It's never a dead card either, worse case it cycles.

Nice report. In regards to your line of play against workshops where you figured you should have played empty for 2ish tokens and let your opponent oath up a creature and attack and you would block, if your opponent was competant he probably wouldn't attack into your tokens and let you win the game. So I don't necessarily think that your line of play was wrong/that he empty plan was a better line of play.

In regards to repeal, I haven't played this deck yet but I've watched Elias play many a games and repeal was really really good for him. Maybe it wasn't good for you, or maybe it was just too small of a sample size to make that call. Just an outside observation.

It's hard to believe I'm saying this but...I will be in attendance. And not only will I be in attendance, I will be playing. Yikes.

I actually feel the opposite as most of the people in this thread. I will agree that workshops will negate the advantage that gush give you, it doesn't stop you from winning that matchup. In the past I've always had a very favorable shop matchup. All while still having the best blue matchup. I often played 16 land in the maindeck, but it didn't hurt other matchups because of the higher land count. Now maybe because of that, the advantages of gush weren't fully reached, I still had a better blue matchup than any confidant deck including playing against confidant. In fact it wasn't even close.

All I'm really trying to say is that I think gush is still competable. Very competable. Workshops are in more of a decline than in recent months, and confidant decks are on the rise. I dont think there is a better time to play gush.

Im pretty sure 1 bob is too many