Bob Tendrils (and Dark Ritual) in the Aftermath of 2011 Champs

[Onslaught]

Why play Dark Rituals?

This is a good question. They suck against Shops (and this matchup has gotten even worse lately, more on this later). They are inferior to a Gushbond engine, which acts as both a mini-Ritual and Mini-Ancestral at the same time. They fuel a mechanic that is perhaps at it's lowest point (Flusterstorm, Mindbreak trap, Workshop decks with a fast clock, non-combo focused decks that still win faster than storm thanks to Tinker/BSC or Vault/Key). To be honest, there's not much appeal here. Maybe that's why the Ritual based combo forums have been pretty much dead for the better part of a year. It's not all gloom and doom of course, as Ritual is still one of the most broken cards in the game...it just needs to find the right home.

Recent Metagame Trends

It's easy to pinpoint the initial decline of Dark Ritual decks, just go back to the printing of Lodestone Golem. That's old news though, so let's examine two recent developments that have managed to put Ritual in an even worse position.

Mental Misstep: This card is on the rise right now, and it just completely wrecks you. Besides outright countering Ritual, it also stops Duress from clearing the way. Even more annoying is when it's used for tempo to counter a Mystical Tutor, or the worst case scenario: your Ancestral Recall.

Slash Panther: Workshop decks were already a huge pain in the ass for Rituals when they just had a 5/3 clock. You could no longer rely on slowly building up basic lands into an endstep Hurkyl's to win the game. Adding a 4/2 piece of trash with haste just exacerbates this issue, and I'm kind of left floundering for an answer.

Recent Top Cutting Ritual Decks

Off the top of my head, your Ritual archetypes include ANT, Bob Tendrils, Dark Depths, and various Control builds. Here are some decks that have made T8 in the last three months (minimum 30 people):

Creatures [3]
  3 Dark Confidant

  Instants [11]
  1 Ancestral Recall
  1 Demonic Consultation
  1 Extirpate
  1 Hurkyl's Recall
  1 Vampiric Tutor
  2 Cabal Ritual
  4 Dark Ritual

  Sorceries [23]
  1 Demonic Tutor
  1 Imperial Seal
  1 Yawgmoth's Will
  2 Grim Tutor
  2 Tendrils of Agony
  4 Cabal Therapy
  4 Duress
  4 Gitaxian Probe
  4 Night's Whisper


  Enchantments [1]
  1 Necropotence

  Artifacts [6]
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Lion's Eye Diamond
  1 Lotus Petal
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Mox Sapphire
  1 Sol Ring

  Lands [16]
  1 Library of Alexandria
  1 Strip Mine
  2 Bloodstained Mire
  2 Underground Sea
  2 Wasteland
  4 Polluted Delta
  4 Swamp

Creatures [8]
  4 Dark Confidant
  4 Vampire Hexmage

  Instants [9]
  1 Demonic Consultation
  1 Snuff Out
  1 Vampiric Tutor
  2 Diabolic Edict
  4 Dark Ritual

  Sorceries [11]
  1 Demonic Tutor
  1 Imperial Seal
  1 Yawgmoth's Will
  4 Duress
  4 Thoughtseize

  Enchantments [5]
  1 Necropotence
  4 Leyline of the Void


  Artifacts [6]
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Crucible of Worlds
  1 Helm of Obedience
  1 Lotus Petal
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Null Rod

  Lands [21]
  1 Phyrexian Tower
  1 Strip Mine
  2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
  3 Dark Depths
  4 Wasteland
  10 Swamp

Instants [22]
  1 Ancestral Recall
  1 Brainstorm
  1 Demonic Consultation
  1 Hurkyl's Recall
  1 Mystical Tutor
  1 Vampiric Tutor
  2 Cabal Ritual
  2 Chain of Vapor
  4 Ad Nauseam
  4 Dark Ritual
  4 Pact of Negation

  Sorceries [13]
  1 Demonic Tutor
  1 Ponder
  1 Thoughtseize
  1 Yawgmoth's Will
  2 Tendrils of Agony
  3 Preordain
  4 Duress


  Enchantments [1]
  1 Necropotence

  Artifacts [11]
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Lotus Petal
  1 Mana Crypt
  1 Mana Vault
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Mox Sapphire
  1 Sol Ring
  4 Chrome Mox

  Lands [13]
  2 Bloodstained Mire
  2 Island
  2 Swamp
  3 Underground Sea
  4 Polluted Delta

Creatures [4]
  4 Dark Confidant

  Instants [18]
  1 Ancestral Recall
  1 Brainstorm
  1 Chain of Vapor
  1 Lim-Dûl's Vault
  1 Mystical Tutor
  1 Repeal
  1 Vampiric Tutor
  3 Hurkyl's Recall
  4 Dark Ritual
  4 Force of Will

  Sorceries [11]
  1 Demonic Tutor
  1 Mind's Desire
  1 Ponder
  1 Time Walk
  1 Timetwister
  1 Yawgmoth's Will
  2 Tendrils of Agony
  3 Duress


  Enchantments [3]
  1 Necropotence
  2 Mystic Remora

  Artifacts [11]
  1 Black Lotus
  1 Lotus Petal
  1 Mana Crypt
  1 Mox Emerald
  1 Mox Jet
  1 Mox Pearl
  1 Mox Ruby
  1 Mox Sapphire
  1 Sol Ring
  2 Sensei's Divining Top

  Lands [14]
  1 Swamp
  1 Tolarian Academy
  2 Flooded Strand
  2 Island
  4 Polluted Delta
  4 Underground Sea

Broad analysis: I hate all of these decks, sorry ;[

Focus on Bob Tendrils

I don't think a Ritual based deck can beat a Workshop deck without the added resilience of Dark Confidant, so it seems utilitarian to focus on maximizing his strengths. Well, he can swing...that's good I guess. This automatically makes me inclined to run a high Tendrils count, aiming to win with a mini Tendrils in the middle of the game. So following this GWSx style path, the biggest problem is still beating Workshops. There are tons of options for bastardization of the deck: wasting slots on a shitload of artifact bounce, playing too many basic lands, eschewing stuff like Tolarian Academy and Mind's Desire for stability reasons, etc.

Running Hurkyl's x3 isn't overwhelmingly annoying, as it does hardcounter Tinker and interrupt Vault/Key. But overall the deck is sacrificing so much explosiveness to just have a fighting chance against Workshops, and honestly it still isn't even sniffing 50% wins game 1. What's the point of hurting your matchups against blue in order to strengthen your deck against MUD if you still outright lose to it? I guess that's the reason why nobody is playing Rituals right now. Hrm.

Anyway, moving on from a broader view of Rituals to my personal deck...

Dark Confidant x4

Dark Ritual x4
Cabal Ritual x2

Lotus
Moxes x5
Lotus Petal
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt

Thoughtseize x4
Duress x1

Mystical Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Demonic Consultation
Demonic Tutor

Ancestral Recall
Brainstorm
Ponder
Sensei's Divining Top x1
Time Walk

Hurkyl's Recall x3
Chain of Vapor x1
Rebuild x1

Timetwister
Wheel of Fortune
Necropotence
Yawgmoth's Will
Yawgmoth's Bargain
Tendrils of Agony x3

Polluted Delta x4
Scalding Tarn x1
Underground Sea x3
Swamp x3
Island x2
Badlands x1

Sideboard: Massacre, Sadistic Sacrament, Tinker, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Leyline of the Void x4, Yixlid Jailer x1, Emissary of Despair x2, Phyrexian Negator x4

I've opted to not run FOW and keep Tinker in the board. My sideboard is constantly evolving, but I'm pretty attracted to the Negators right now. I've been toying with the idea of adding an Imperial Seal. The ability to go turn 1 Seal, Turn 2 Duress + Ancestral is a huge boon. My early game hierarchy of ideal opening draws is something like:

Unrealistic ideal: Lots of acceleration into a bomb
Ideal: Ritual, a Duress Effect, Bob
Solid: Turn 1 Duress effect, turn 2 Bob
Acceptable: Land, Mox, Bob, backup threat or tutor for T2

I think adding an Imperial Seal gives you your "fifth copy" of Bob, because T1 Seal T2 Duress is similar to the T1 Duress T2 Bob line of play. Since I have an unorthodox sideboard that transforms into a pseudo-beatdown deck, I'm still wary of cutting SDT. Sometimes I like to sit back with this deck and reach a critical mass, allowing for a guaranteed win turn of like Mox, Ritual, Ritual, Tendrils, Tendrils. SDT is very useful in games like this, but I guess since I don't run FOW I don't really have the luxury of playing this style very often.

[desolutionist]

I don't think a Ritual based deck can beat a Workshop deck without the added resilience of Dark Confidant

You don't think?  That is a mistake.  Your decklist is based on you not thinking something; crazy!  I know from playing real games against real opponents that Ritual based decks can beat Workshops without Dark Confidant.  And you're opting to "not run FoW and leave Tinker in the board" why exactly?  This is improvement forum magic.

[XxtSundaybxX]

I completely agree with Des. Ritual based decks have always been able to beat workshops. Although most lists were running fow. I personally think rituals are in a good position right now. Shops is playing quite a few cards that you don't care about. Slash panther is not a sphere effect, neither is revoker. And if you have a hand full of rituals null rod can be rather irrelevant as well. Hurkyls recall is your best friend.

Tps is just as fast if not faster than any gush deck, especially if they don't have fastbond in play.

It also depends on what your trying to target by playing rituals. Vinnie forinos deck is really strong against gush decks. I didn't talk to him about his shops matchup but he's very comfortable with his blue matchups.

[Onslaught]

You don't think?  That is a mistake.  Your decklist is based on you not thinking something; crazy!  I know from playing real games against real opponents that Ritual based decks can beat Workshops without Dark Confidant.  And you're opting to "not run FoW and leave Tinker in the board" why exactly?  This is improvement forum magic.

Yea look at all these Ritual decks without Bob that have been tearing up the meta...you're right, Bob sucks vs. Workshops. I'm glad in your "real games against real opponents" that you've beaten Workshop decks without Confidant. In my real games against real opponents, I haven't.

I'm not running FOW because the addded Workshop hate means you have room for protection or disruption, not both. In your dream world where you're beating Shops without using Bob, I guess you don't have to make that distinction. Good luck fitting Force of Will in a Tendrils deck running 14 lands. It also currently has 11 blue cards, so you'd have a long way to go to fit in enough blue for FOW to be viable. Have you really never seen a Tendrils deck without FOW? Similarly, sideboarding Tinker in this kind of deck is nothing new. You seem pretty offended by it though, so allow me to explain further. Slots are tight here from the space devoted to beating Workshops. Tinker requires two slots, and wins the game the turn after it is cast. I'd rather have the third Tendrils to enable a mini-sized Tendrils after Bob does work, or to cast double Tendrils (probably your main path to winning against control), and for all the other little consistencies it gives you with Demonic Consultation/your draws in general.

Your knowledge of GWSx is lacking, and your reply in general sucked - no wonder these boards are dead.

Ritual based decks have always been able to beat workshops.

Before Lodestone Golem, sure. Now? I'd be glad to play you on Cockatrice with a Slash Panther list against your non-Bob Ritual based deck. I'm not being sarcastic, I mean that I'd like to see what I'm doing wrong.

[Cruel Ultimatum]

Your understanding of old outdated decks is good i guess. Yeah gwsx didnt play tinker, blightsteel collosus also wasn't a card. You say you are looking to beat workshop decks, but you arent playing forces, which is basically your best card in the matchup. I dont quite understand how having the plan of mini tendriling is good against shops either.

Good luck fitting Force of Will in a Tendrils deck running 14 lands.

Maindeck:
3 Dark Confidant
2 Tendrils of Agony
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Rebuild
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
4 Dark Ritual
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Necropotence
4 Force of Will
3 Duress
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Mind’s Desire
4 Polluted Delta
2 Misty Rainforest
2 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Swamp
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Underground Sea
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Emerald
1 Sol Ring
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault

Sideboard:
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Mental Misstep
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Duress
1 Thoughtseize
1 Pithing Needle
1 Extirpate
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Slaughter Pact

4th place at the top deck games grudge match-82 players

EDIT: I actually think the move to slash panther stax is good for tps, I would rather play against it any day of the week then espresso stax, Nick Detwilers red stax deck, or even metalworker.

Unlike Des and Sundayb though, i do think bob is good for tps in the current meta, however i do think you can play tps without it.

[Onslaught]

I like that list a lot as far as FOW builds go, especially with just the one Cabal Ritual (the weakest link in my deck for sure). It has Academy too, which I've missed a lot. I'm probably too attached to Wheel of Fortune, because an otherwise obvious change would be to swap Yawgmoth's Bargain out for Mind's Desire and change the Badlands to an Academy.

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

Broad analysis: I hate all of these decks, sorry ;[

Focus on Bob Tendrils

I don't think a Ritual based deck can beat a Workshop deck without the added resilience of Dark Confidant, so it seems utilitarian to focus on maximizing his strengths. Well, he can swing...that's good I guess. This automatically makes me inclined to run a high Tendrils count, aiming to win with a mini Tendrils in the middle of the game. So following this GWSx style path (...)

This might be why you get responses like "this is improvement forum". Let me elaborate:
- you dismiss three decks in one sentence without providing any reasons, nor discuss them. Why did you start your thread with those lists?
- not thinking (as desillusionist said, his username actually being pretty accurate here), guessing and automatically being inclied to something is not the way successful deckbuilders work. Deckbuilding is not "following a path". It is thinking about the metagame and how to beat it. It is thinking about strengths and weaknesses of your own strategy, of your card choices etc.
 
Responding to a comment like that (yes, he did not explain you everything like I do it now) the way you did, let me quote again here, certainly does not help either: (bolded mine)

You don't think?  That is a mistake.  Your decklist is based on you not thinking something; crazy!  I know from playing real games against real opponents that Ritual based decks can beat Workshops without Dark Confidant.  And you're opting to "not run FoW and leave Tinker in the board" why exactly?  This is improvement forum magic.

Yea look at all these Ritual decks without Bob that have been tearing up the meta...you're right, Bob sucks vs. Workshops. I'm glad in your "real games against real opponents" that you've beaten Workshop decks without Confidant. In my real games against real opponents, I haven't.

I'm not running FOW because the addded Workshop hate means you have room for protection or disruption, not both. In your dream world where you're beating Shops without using Bob, I guess you don't have to make that distinction. Good luck fitting Force of Will in a Tendrils deck running 14 lands. It also currently has 11 blue cards, so you'd have a long way to go to fit in enough blue for FOW to be viable. Have you really never seen a Tendrils deck without FOW? Similarly, sideboarding Tinker in this kind of deck is nothing new. You seem pretty offended by it though, so allow me to explain further. Slots are tight here from the space devoted to beating Workshops. Tinker requires two slots, and wins the game the turn after it is cast. I'd rather have the third Tendrils to enable a mini-sized Tendrils after Bob does work, or to cast double Tendrils (probably your main path to winning against control), and for all the other little consistencies it gives you with Demonic Consultation/your draws in general.

Your knowledge of GWSx is lacking, and your reply in general sucked - no wonder these boards are dead.

Your reply in general sucked, too - no wonder these boards are dead. Do you like me telling you that?

Let me try to do some analysis:

You opt for tinker in the SB – it's one of the best ways to win magic games, especially against shops, where sometimes you cannot execute the plan of playing many spells followed by a tendrils. Yes, even if they run metamorph.

" Good luck fitting Force of Will in a Tendrils deck running 14 lands. It also currently has 11 blue cards, so you'd have a long way to go to fit in enough blue for FOW to be viable. Have you really never seen a Tendrils deck without FOW?"

You opt for no FoW: This can be viable, but WHY? the reasons to not play Force cannot be that you run 14 lands. Also, you said yourself that something which worked in the past doesn't necessarily work now. So, yes, I think many of us have seen tendrils decks without force. So what?
Do you think force is no good? Or did you try to fit it in and it didn't work out?
Or did you not think, but guess and be inclined not to run force instead?
My experience with force against shops was:
Having force in the opener on the draw usually makes me very happy. It means for me that I have a better chance of being able to cast spells during the game.
If I run something like Tinker, I am happy with force as it counters the few outs left for them.
In my experience, Force is not protection or disruption, it's both.

I have the impression that you assume you will always be able to actually cast your bounce spells against shops, as a great portion of your deck seems only to be working under that assumption.
3x Tendrils, can only be cast for a significant amount when your opponent's game plan is not working, i.e. when there are no spheres on the board.
Yawgmoth's bargain: It is so broken. It makes you win the game when it resolves. It also costs 6 mana and can be countered by any younterspell but flusterstorm, REB and mental misstep. (The other 6drop, desire, while being bad against flusterstorm, is not as easy to counter. It is also blue). Realizing this as you did in your last post is a step in the right direction.
Wheel of fortune (you admitted you "were too attached to it") is NOT a good card against shop: It opens the 3rd color, shops usually have a lot on the board (unless you hurkyls them first / 1st turn on the play) and few cards in hand. On top of that, wheel is horrible against dredge and a 50/50 gamble against blue. Timetwister is different: It is OK against dredge and gives you the chance to "start over" in terms of broken cards already in your grave. It is also blue, so it still has a use when you do not want to cast it. (if you run FoW that is).
Why do you run 2 cabal ritual when you admit it's bad? Because GWSx decks used to and you are following that path?

Let's start over again please, to make this thread better than improvement magic.
Onslaught, I cast "Explain your reasons!".

"Explain your reasons!" 2UU
Sorcery, common

During his next upkeep, target player exiles his hand, sideboard and library unless he or she explains his thoughts about his or her strategy.
If that player hadn't thought about it before, he or she must do it now.
If that player comes up with good reasons, he or she draws 2 cards and becomes a better deck builder.

Your turn.

[Lemnear]

Peter, I guess your opponent draws dead lol

[desolutionist]

Yea look at all these Ritual decks without Bob that have been tearing up the meta

Instead of looking at winning decks as what to play, try looking at them as what you need to beat.

I'm not opposed to the use of Dark Confidant, I just think you're doing so for the wrong reasons.  For example, if you're aiming to win the match against workshops, wouldn't you want to have Force of Wills to be able to stop their first relevant threat?  In the finals of a recent tournament I won, my hand was Black Lotus, Mana Vault, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Force of Will, Gifts Ungiven, Underground Sea.  He led with Ancient Tomb, Thorn of Amethyst.  Can you see how Force of Will is much better than Dark Confidant in this instance?  In a fast combo strategy, why play cards that are suited for the long game?

[hitman]

Instead of looking at winning decks as what to play, try looking at them as what you need to beat.

This is one of the best posts on this site in a long time.

[Commandant]

Instead of looking at winning decks as what to play, try looking at them as what you need to beat.

This is one of the best posts on this site in a long time.

Really? Seems like common sense to me.

Gush and now Ritual moving into the meta; Remora seems to be a better choice everyday.

[hitman]

Forums are basically there to teach newer players.  The post I was referring to was conveying an important piece of information to newer players about how to make good decisions.  I'm sorry if that offends you.

Mystic Remora probably isn't particularly good right now since Dark Confidant is still very prevalent and there's an aggro Workshop deck that top 8'd Champs so it's not unreasonable to expect to face that either.  Ritual decks haven't actually gained much in popularity just because of one thread. 

[desolutionist]

Ritual decks haven't actually gained much in popularity just because of one thread. 

Ritual decks had never been popular so its reasonable to think this trend will continue.  At the most, you'll see the people who are good with rituals playing ritual decks and only a few others.

[Commandant]

Forums are basically there to teach newer players.  The post I was referring to was conveying an important piece of information to newer players about how to make good decisions.  I'm sorry if that offends you.

Mystic Remora probably isn't particularly good right now since Dark Confidant is still very prevalent and there's an aggro Workshop deck that top 8'd Champs so it's not unreasonable to expect to face that either.  Ritual decks haven't actually gained much in popularity just because of one thread. 

It doesn't offend me - just doesn't seem like rocket science, even for new players.

Also I disagree for a number of reasons regarding Remora. It is very strong versus a broad spectrum of Drain based lists which makes up a major % of the current meta. Has no worse of a Workshop matchup then other Blue based control lists and Bob is an overexaggerated reason to not run Remora especially with the presence of Clique in Remora lists.

Sorry for going off topic; to me the meta doesn't seem to be as healthy to Rituals as some feel.

[Onslaught]

Why did you start your thread with those lists?

As an example of what Ritual decks have been viable, in order to try to find commonalities between them. For discussion on the decks, I dislike how many of the cards are completely dead against Workshops. I'd love to run Misdirection in a Bob Gush deck, but it's dead against Shops. Can't do it. I'd love to run a greedier manabase in Bob Tendrils, but it will lose to Shops. Can't do it. So when I see cards like Grim Tutor, maindeck Remora, Gitaxian Probe, Ad Nauseum, Library of Alexandria, etc - that's why I don't like those decks. In a perfect world, you could make your maindeck to beat blue and make your sideboard to beat Shops. Dredge eats up so much sideboard space though, and Shops (even with FOW) can random you out fairly easily, so I want to have a chance against it in G1.

not thinking (as desillusionist said, his username actually being pretty accurate here), guessing and automatically being inclied to something is not the way successful deckbuilders work. Deckbuilding is not "following a path". It is thinking about the metagame and how to beat it. It is thinking about strengths and weaknesses of your own strategy, of your card choices etc.

In the last three months, I've played at least 1500 matches with Ritual decks. About 50% of those have been against Workshops. You're more than welcome (and encouraged) to disagree with my opinions, but don't make assumptions that basically accuse me of being lazy. Through that testing, I've concluded that I want Bob against Workshops, otherwise the match is essentially unwinnable on a consistent basis.
 

You opt for tinker in the SB – it's one of the best ways to win magic games, especially against shops, where sometimes you cannot execute the plan of playing many spells followed by a tendrils. Yes, even if they run metamorph.

Without FOW, it's good against Shops, and nothing else - hence being in the board. The increased Tendrils count (eating into the space in the deck that can go to Tinker) is more important vs. everything else. I know my maindeck is geared to beating shops, but at least those added cards are useful in other matchups too. The artifact bounce can always get a BSC or bounce your own stuff for storm, the stable mana base is good against Fish, etc. I don't want Tinker in any matchup except Shops and Fish, one of which is fairly niche. I agree that Tinker/BSC is the best and most efficient way to win a game, but only if you can protect it and if it suits the rest of the deck. So other than saying "run a different deck that is better suited to use Tinker" (which is a totally valid observation), I don't see a good argument to include it here. It would be an auto include in any version running FOW, of course.  

You opt for no FoW: This can be viable, but WHY? the reasons to not play Force cannot be that you run 14 lands. Also, you said yourself that something which worked in the past doesn't necessarily work now. So, yes, I think many of us have seen tendrils decks without force. So what?
Do you think force is no good? Or did you try to fit it in and it didn't work out?

I like the added space. Not having to run 18 blue cards to support force opens up some room to try out other things. When I play builds with FOW, it just feels like a worse version of Suicide Jace Vault. Instead of doing the same thing that other decks do (but worse), I'd rather try to see if I can maximize the efficiency of the unique aspects of Ritual - hence a focus on building a reasonable storm count without needing Yawgmoth's Will, and playing an essentially uncounterable Tendrils for game. That's the goal of the deck for now. As I said in the opening post, this doesn't seem really viable. That's what I'm trying to find out. If the answer to improving the Ritual archetype is "Resolve Tinker with FOW backup," then it's pretty clear that Rituals are dead. Recent tournament data seems to back this up.

I have the impression that you assume you will always be able to actually cast your bounce spells against shops, as a great portion of your deck seems only to be working under that assumption.

Your impression is wrong, because I moaned in the original post about watering down the deck with a bunch of bounce and still not even winning 50% against Workshops.

Yawgmoth's bargain: It is so broken. It makes you win the game when it resolves. It also costs 6 mana and can be countered by any younterspell but flusterstorm, REB and mental misstep. (The other 6drop, desire, while being bad against flusterstorm, is not as easy to counter. It is also blue). Realizing this as you did in your last post is a step in the right direction.

Desire vs. Bargain is something I think about a lot, but I still think it's harder to get UU up without Academy.

Why do you run 2 cabal ritual when you admit it's bad? Because GWSx decks used to and you are following that path?

Because when I went to 0, the cards I replaced it with were solid - but a lot of the time I wished I had at least one Cabal Ritual. It's your best midgame play against Blue if you haven't seen their hand in a while, and two copies feels like the right amount for only seeing it once per game. It has other minor synergies too, like being a ghetto Lotus Petal to give you a turn 1 Necro or turn 1 Duress/Bob. Going down to one is an option though, I cant quibble with that.

I'm not opposed to the use of Dark Confidant, I just think you're doing so for the wrong reasons.  For example, if you're aiming to win the match against workshops, wouldn't you want to have Force of Wills to be able to stop their first relevant threat?

I view it as:

In a deck that can consistently Tendrils with Storm 6 or so in the early midgame, what is Bob necessary against - Everything, especially Workshops
In a deck that can consistently Tendrils with Storm 6 or so in the early midgame, what is FOW necessary against - Workshops, and nothing else

Obviously FOW is super powerful and does a bunch of other stuff, but there's only so much space. It feels like I'm just denouncing FOW left and right now, which is crazy. I'm just saying that I am not currently using it in Bob Tendrils, for the reasons outlined above.

In the finals of a recent tournament I won, my hand was Black Lotus, Mana Vault, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Force of Will, Gifts Ungiven, Underground Sea.  He led with Ancient Tomb, Thorn of Amethyst. Can you see how Force of Will is much better than Dark Confidant in this instance?  In a fast combo strategy, why play cards that are suited for the long game?

I guess that's our fundamental disagreement, because I don't think the best build of the deck is one that's focused on a fast combo strategy. I don't think a fast combo strategy is viable in a meta where Lodestone Golem exists, outside of ridiculous Lotus/Mana Vault/Gifts/Bargain hands where you FOW an opponent who only plays one sphere effect on turn 1 and then passes.

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

Thanks for the explanations. I think that helps us to see your thought process.

[desolutionist]

As an example of what Ritual decks have been viable, in order to try to find commonalities between them.

How do you know other versions of Ritual decks aren't viable?  Are they even being tried?

In a perfect world, you could make your maindeck to beat blue and make your sideboard to beat Shops. Dredge eats up so much sideboard space though, and Shops (even with FOW) can random you out fairly easily, so I want to have a chance against it in G1.

You've found a good point  I've been allured to Dark Ritual because of its strengths against dredge.  Ritual Tendrils naturally preys on dredge so it can afford additional sideboard slots for fighting shops.  Why have you decided to devote your sideboard to transform into a beatdown strategy?  What matchup is this good against?

In the last three months, I've played at least 1500 matches with Ritual decks. About 50% of those have been against Workshops. You're more than welcome (and encouraged) to disagree with my opinions, but don't make assumptions that basically accuse me of being lazy. Through that testing, I've concluded that I want Bob against Workshops, otherwise the match is essentially unwinnable on a consistent basis.

 1500 matchs @ 50 minute rounds = 1250 hours (52.1 days).  I'm sure you had faster matches than that, but...  You did all this testing for what exactly?
 

I view it as:

In a deck that can consistently Tendrils with Storm 6 or so in the early midgame, what is Bob necessary against - Everything, especially Workshops
In a deck that can consistently Tendrils with Storm 6 or so in the early midgame, what is FOW necessary against - Workshops, and nothing else

Obviously FOW is super powerful and does a bunch of other stuff, but there's only so much space. It feels like I'm just denouncing FOW left and right now, which is crazy. I'm just saying that I am not currently using it in Bob Tendrils, for the reasons outlined above.

In other words you say:
1. Dark Confidant is good against everything
2. Force of Will is only good against Workshops

therefore, I play Dark Confidant in order to have an edge against Workshops

I guess that's our fundamental disagreement, because I don't think the best build of the deck is one that's focused on a fast combo strategy. I don't think a fast combo strategy is viable in a meta where Lodestone Golem exists, outside of ridiculous Lotus/Mana Vault/Gifts/Bargain hands where you FOW an opponent who only plays one sphere effect on turn 1 and then passes.

To a combo-pilot, isnt a Lodestone Golem just an overcosted Sphere of Resistance? (that doesnt even stop most of your fast mana)

[XxtSundaybxX]

I cant think of any situations where I would want Dark Confidant over Force of will specifically speaking against shops. I understand Dark Confidant feeds you cards, for a valuable resource in the shops matchup. Your life total. Your specifically referring to slash panther lists, so you are relying on resolving dark confidant, thats the easy part. Now your opponent resolves slash panther and attacks for 4. Okay you take 4, and then reveal to bob on your turn, How many turns do you think you can keep this up until you die to either the slash panther or the confidant? Now lets say you block the slash panther, so youve effectively payed 2 mana to play a creature just to kill the slash panther, which you could have force of willed. Another way that I look at it is, Confidant slows your deck down considerably. With a TPS style deck you could just let the panther resolve and save your force of will for a sphere effect and then combo out when you have the necessary resources. I cant tell you how many times ive seen workshop decks run out of steam after therye opening 7 gets depleted, not saying this is an accurate way to look at a path to victory but its certainly something that happens frequently.

Three tendrils is alot. I understand your referring back to old gwsx lists, when the best blue deck was tezzeret. Alot has changed since then. Blue decks are faster now. Those tendrils can potentially be dead draws, unless you have enough mana and spells to cast a lethal double tendrils. Also you can count on running into atleast a few flustestorms or mindbreak traps at a tournament these days.

I dont know how long you have been playing rituals but if you played them back when bob tezzeret was the strongest blue deck you would know that a competent TPS player had an advantage in that matchup. I would take that matchup all day long as a TPS player. Above I mentioned that blue decks have gotten faster so it would seem logical that you would want to speed up TPS as well. Playing Bargain and Desire and Tinker/Jar as well as BSC certainly does that.

There are older TPS lists that did not play bob, that did play force of wills and also  played 3-4 maindeck bounce spells. So its certainly possible that you can find room for a solid maindeck against shops.

I am a big fan of wheel of fortune, but as it was mentioned above you need to be careful when to play it. In regards to a "weak" manabase, unfortunately I have to refer back to what Brian Demars said about playing ancient grudge. Basically you need to suck it up and play a real manabase. There are plenty of 4c gush decks dominating right now against workshops so there is no reason you couldnt splash red in your deck, especially if your playing 14 lands, still allowing you to play basic lands.

[Onslaught]

How do you know other versions of Ritual decks aren't viable?  Are they even being tried?

You're right, it was foolish of me to say "here are the decks that have done well with Rituals lately" and then only post a list of decks that have done well with Ritual lately. Next time I want to post a thread, I'll hire a private detective (preferably one who can read minds) to find out which unseen Ritual decks have been doing well in secret underground tournaments.

You've found a good point  I've been allured to Dark Ritual because of its strengths against dredge.  Ritual Tendrils naturally preys on dredge so it can afford additional sideboard slots for fighting shops.  Why have you decided to devote your sideboard to transform into a beatdown strategy?  What matchup is this good against?

I still like Negators vs. Blue, personal preference for sure on that and I'm not even entirely committed to them. Even without Negators/Emissary in the board, I'd be greedy with just five slots devoted to Dredge.

1500 matchs @ 50 minute rounds = 1250 hours (52.1 days).  I'm sure you had faster matches than that, but...  You did all this testing for what exactly?

A three game match is more like 25 mins at most, and of course not everything goes to three games. Are you just looking for stuff to nitpick about now for no reason? Maybe that's a sign that you should stop posting. And I did "all that testing" because I like playing Magic, not too hard to figure out.
 

In other words you say:
1. Dark Confidant is good against everything
2. Force of Will is only good against Workshops

therefore, I play Dark Confidant in order to have an edge against Workshops

In other words? I think you mean in your words. In my words, FOW's overall utility is only necessary for this deck when playing against Shops. Bob's overall utility is necessary for the deck against everything. 

To a combo-pilot, isnt a Lodestone Golem just an overcosted Sphere of Resistance? (that doesnt even stop most of your fast mana)

An overcosted Sphere of Resistance that ends the game in four turns, messes up the best card in your deck, and has single handedly caused Rituals to evaporate from the metagame over the past year. Yeah, I guess that's all he is.

Now lets say you block the slash panther, so youve effectively payed 2 mana to play a creature just to kill the slash panther, which you could have force of willed.

Blocking the Panther with Bob is the likely outcome. Saying that you could have just Force of Willed it is pretty presumptuous since Panther always comes down after the Sphere effects. If you go second, are you really Force of Willing a Slash Panther in a deck with ~24 mana sources? We are miles apart on our thinking here, because you list Bob's blocking Panther as a negative - I consider it yet another checkmark in his favor against Workshops.

Also you can count on running into atleast a few flustestorms or mindbreak traps at a tournament these days.

Agreed, this gives you incentive to run even more Tendrils I think.

[Prospero]

How do you know other versions of Ritual decks aren't viable?  Are they even being tried?

You're right, it was foolish of me to say "here are the decks that have done well with Rituals lately" and then only post a list of decks that have done well with Ritual lately. Next time I want to post a thread, I'll hire a private detective (preferably one who can read minds) to find out which unseen Ritual decks have been doing well in secret underground tournaments.

Innovation is a great thing.  

Shawn's initial point of looking to beat given metagames comes back to what you're saying here.  If you saw that a Workshop deck was winning, you'd be able to innovate something to beat it - you wouldn't have to just search through given reports looking for someone who already has.

When my Shop deck was going .500 against the various Gush lists work was done and I ended up playing something with a significantly better Gush match.  If you're on a Ritual based deck and you're going .500 or worse against a given deck that you feel you need to beat, there are means to innovate a better match.  There are always answers, if you're willing to look for them.  

While there is an answer, it might not be a comfortable one.  Part of it comes down to just what you want - to look right, or to be right.  If feeling uncomfortable, but solving the problem, is an option, take it.  I played four Moxen in my GenCon deck and ran a Workshop deck with no Lotus in it for 18 months.  It felt really uncomfortable at times, but wins are wins.

Regarding Lodestone Golem - if I see a hand that drops a first turn Golem, but doesn't have any real threats/pressure beyond that, I'm shipping that hand back.  Lodestone isn't good enough against those style of Ritual decks for me to keep that hand.

You should check out some of the TPS lists that are floating around - some of them are really, really good.  Some of them really do punish Workshops (especially bad pilots.)  

[XxtSundaybxX]

I'm not advising you fow Slash panther, unless it's going to kill you. I would look to fow something that will prevent you from winning the game. Sphere, tangle wire, etc. What I'm trying to point out is that Fow is stronger than confidant. In every matchup. Your reasoning is logical for wanting to play confidant, card advantage in the blue matchup and card advantage as well as a blocker in the shops matchup but your reason for excluding fow to play bobs is absurd. If you were already playing fow and you were looking to play bobs in addition, a bob tps style deck, you might have a more understanding audience. But your simply implying that fow is not as good as bob in all the matchups except for shops, which is the matchup your looking to beat?

[Onslaught]

You should check out some of the TPS lists that are floating around - some of them are really, really good.  Some of them really do punish Workshops (especially bad pilots.)  

As a diehard Shops player, which cards do you fear the most against a deck packing Dark Rituals?

[Shax]

You should check out some of the TPS lists that are floating around - some of them are really, really good.  Some of them really do punish Workshops (especially bad pilots.)  

As a diehard Shops player, which cards do you fear the most against a deck packing Dark Rituals?

First turn lethal tendrils.

[Prospero]

You should check out some of the TPS lists that are floating around - some of them are really, really good.  Some of them really do punish Workshops (especially bad pilots.)  

As a diehard Shops player, which cards do you fear the most against a deck packing Dark Rituals?

Basic lands, some disruption (i.e. Force of Will) combined with an EOT Hurkyl's Recall to go lethal.

[XxtSundaybxX]

You should check out some of the TPS lists that are floating around - some of them are really, really good.  Some of them really do punish Workshops (especially bad pilots.)  

As a diehard Shops player, which cards do you fear the most against a deck packing Dark Rituals?

Basic lands, some disruption (i.e. Force of Will) combined with an EOT Hurkyl's Recall to go lethal.

Seems better now that your playing maps, I would imagine?

[desolutionist]

A three game match is more like 25 mins at most, and of course not everything goes to three games. Are you just looking for stuff to nitpick about now for no reason? Maybe that's a sign that you should stop posting. And I did "all that testing" because I like playing Magic, not too hard to figure out.

Nawh man, I'm pointing out the flaws in your argument.  No way did you play over 1500 matches in a three month period. period.  Let's put all the facts onto the table and start acting like professionals.
 

In other words? I think you mean in your words.

Or Socrates' words.  Every argument can be simplified into a series of premises and a single conclusion.  That is the argument you've made so far.

In my words, FOW's overall utility is only necessary for this deck when playing against Shops. Bob's overall utility is necessary for the deck against everything.

That's absurd!  What about when your blue opponent goes Black Lotus, Land, Jace!?  Good thing you got that Dark Confidant, eh?

An overcosted Sphere of Resistance that ends the game in four turns, messes up the best card in your deck, and has single handedly caused Rituals to evaporate from the metagame over the past year. Yeah, I guess that's all he is.

The best card in my deck is Black Lotus and Force of Will isn't very far behind.  You're also jumping to conclusions again.  Lodestone Golem did not cause Rituals to evaporate from the metagame, Serum Powder has.  Most good Ritual pilots are not afraid of Lodestone Golem.  They are afraid of a powerful, multi-threat hand.  This could be Thorn, Chalice, Lodestone or Crucible, Strip, Chalice, Thorn.  Serum Powder (through Espresso Stax) helped Shop pilots sculpt powerful openers consistently.  Espresso has had a hard time against Ancient Grudge, so Shop pilots have moved to different strategies for now.

[Gekoratel]

With Ritual variants how you decide to build the deck usually comes down to what you are trying to beat.  If you were trying to grind out decks whether it be Shops or Blue the builds with Dark Confidant were ideal but if you wanted to take advantage of being more explosive then generic TPS is a better choice.  I personally feel that with Mental Misstep gaining so much popularity that playing a traditional build of TPS is simply not an option, you are so reliant on Duress to clear the way of Force/Drain from blue decks and now they have an amazing answer to that + your explosive draws.  It also allows the blue players to play much more proactively which also bad for combo.

I think running a build with Bob is pretty reasonable for most of the matchups in the metagame at the moment.  Against Shops you'll be able to grind out the hands they have which are more controlling with Resistors/Wire if you drop him early and against their more aggressive draws you can get some card advantage from Bob and then trade with Panther or Revoker.  The nice part about them running more creatures means you will rarely need to worry about Bob killing you since you can look to trade at whatever time is convenient.

Now for the million dollar question of Force or not once again comes down to the metagame you are expecting.  If you want to beat Shops on a consistent basis with combo then you need to play Force of Will.  In recent memory I have never seen builds of combo do well against Shops without Force of Will.  I would have to imagine if you are running Force/Bob against the Slash Panther shop builds that you would be favored.  Lodestone is the only creature they have which doesn't trade with Bob so if you keep him off the board you will be able to make the game go later where you can build up a strong manabase and setup hurks/rebuild into a win.  One thing which people haven't really mentioned is that Force of Will is extremely strong against Shops in post-board games because you are generally improving the manabase by adding more lands/basics and mass bounce spells you don't need to burn Force on resistors as aggressively in pre-board games.

All in all I think combo should be fine against the current popular builds of Shops especially with a bit of tuning.  The nice thing about Vintage is the capability to tune just about any deck to beat an expected metagame.  Good luck with the deck.

[Onslaught]

Nawh man, I'm pointing out the flaws in your argument.  No way did you play over 1500 matches in a three month period. period.  Let's put all the facts onto the table and start acting like professionals.

What are we talking about here? Dark Rituals, or your inability to believe how much I play Magic? I'm on Cockatrice every night, playing at least 15-20 matches against my friends and usually 5 or so matches against random people (many of them from this site). On the weekends (especially Sunday) it's not uncommon for me to play 75+ matches in one day. There's the facts.

That's absurd!  What about when your blue opponent goes Black Lotus, Land, Jace!?  Good thing you got that Dark Confidant, eh?

This is like one of the worst scenarios you could have come up with for saying how "bad" Confidant is in the deck.

Lodestone Golem did not cause Rituals to evaporate from the metagame, Serum Powder has.

lmao

[XxtSundaybxX]

If your playing that many games of magic the gathering in a weekly period, you have bigger problems than not being able to beat shops...

[Cruel Ultimatum]

75+ matches in one day...where do you get the extra hours in a day?

How is t1 bob good against t1 jace? they get a brainstorm and triple timewalk you.

Lodestone didn't drive rituals out of the meta, people just stopped playing it for no reason.