Ritual Combo in 2014?

[Hrishi]

You might be surprised to find how many decks are ill-prepared to deal with Inkwell Leviathan.

I second this. While most decks are prepared to deal with a Blightsteel, Inkwell Leviathan is a different story. The only answer is often Hurkyl's to Inky. It's also actual damage rather than poison counters, so you can often follow up with a mini-tendrils to finish the job.

[WhiteLotus]

I can see the similarities to the circa 2007 Grim Long lists. It's amazing to me that Dark Ritual-based storm decks have remained mostly the same after 10 years (with Burning Wish's printing, restriction, and then un-restriction being major exceptions). I was simply pointing out older lists to hopefully give you some new ideas and perspective. When switching decks, I almost always revisit old lists as a jumping off point.

You are correct that Rebuild can be used as a cantrip but only from your hand. You cannot cycle Rebuild off Yawgmoth's Will or Mind's Desire. I've learned both the hard way. Game one versus hatebears, Repeal might be better if they're not running Gaddock Teeg. Postboard, you should consider siding out Memory Jar.

If your metagame has a lot of combo decks, Sadistic Sacrament is a good answer. I'm not of fan of getting into counter wars with this deck. I'd much rather go over the top with a card like Sacrament or go around with Defense Grid.

You can't unequivocally say that Thoughtseize is good versus Shops. I'd argue that it's only good versus Forgemaster versions while you're on the play. Other versions will laugh at your Thoughtseize and thank you for the life loss.

If you want single-target creature removal, I'd recommend Smother or Doom Blade. Snuff Out is fine in a deck like BUG Fish, but this deck does not want even more life loss and another dead card versus Gaddock Teeg. I'm not sure you even need targeted removal since you're already running two Toxic Deluge. Now that you're running Force of Will, go back and test a Tinker robot. You might be surprised to find how many decks are ill-prepared to deal with Inkwell Leviathan.

The Dredge matchup is dependent on what version they're playing. You can certainly outrace the version without Dread Return that is more disruptive but slower. The versions with Dread Return can be problematic if they're on the play. That said, I've found that Dredge hate is not necessary in this deck.

Yes very true I guess that the Cards in the original lists are just so strong that there's no chance we'll ever see something to replace them especially with wizards current mentality reguarding design. The only card that was able to make the cut is Gitaxian probe but that's because it just synergizes so well with the deck's gameplan and because brainstorm was restricted.
Burning wish has certainly made for very different builds, but in the end I don't think It was ever the right card for the deck, especially since Imperial seal and Grim tutor became legal. The fact that it can no longer retrieve cards from exile just make it pretty bad.

I guess you are right the sacrament/ defense grid fits a lot more the "focus on what's important" philosophy of the deck.

I've noticed that snuff out is to much life loss against ws as well, also Ingot chewer is just way better. Thoughtseize is still good when it cuts them off Lodestone golem or Kuldotha.

Yeah my thoughts exactly for the dredge matchup, good thing most versions today are Cagebreaker since they are more resilient to hate while still faster than most decks in the current metagame.

I've noticed that 27 mana sources pushes me to mulligan a bit more some times. I've considered adding another cabal ritual or putting back LED, but the problem with led is that you cannot use it unless you already have mana to use a bomb and led in response so most of the times it's just a win more.

You might be surprised to find how many decks are ill-prepared to deal with Inkwell Leviathan.

I second this. While most decks are prepared to deal with a Blightsteel, Inkwell Leviathan is a different story. The only answer is often Hurkyl's to Inky. It's also actual damage rather than poison counters, so you can often follow up with a mini-tendrils to finish the job.

Where would you bring Leviathan in? The only matchups where I would want a bot are Workshops and Lovebears. In any other case I'd rather Tinker for Jar or Lotus. Althouh I guess it can be helpfull to play around Null rod/stony silence as well.

Leviathan seems clumsy against shops since it's slow and doesn't go around metamorph. Maybe it's worthwhile against Bears though.

I guess i"ll just have to test it to decide which Bot suits me best.

[A.-1.]

I said Dark Ritual-based storm decks not TPS decks. Long with Burning Wish was always an interesting wrinkle to an otherwise very stable archetype. Yes, the legalization of Portal cards helped improve Long decks after its key cards were restricted, but I guess you never had the chance to play when Burning Wish and Lion's Eye Diamond were legal as four-ofs. Those early versions of Long were amazingly powerful. Anyway, enough of these trips down memory lane. I'm not sure my shoddy memory is 100% accurate.

I bring Inkwell in versus blue-based control decks, such as Grixis Control, Bomberman and its variants, Landstill, etc. It ignores Jace and, like HrishiQQ pointed out, it islandwalks straight to the face. I also bring it in versus Hatebears. If they're not running Islands, they can try to race you. This can be problematic, but Trample combined with also running Tendrils and Time Walk usually give you the edge.

[WhiteLotus]

Yeah so the force of will build seems very strong against Workshops but it's actually pretty bad against blue decks or other combo decks, the loss of velocity is just too much also the deck becomes inconsistent and mulligans as hell often for unkeepable hands. I think Fow is just bad in the deck, the balls to the wall style fits the deck a lot better. Even though you'll loose games because you were unable to interact, at least you're playing a deck that's pure Rocket fuel so it can just blast right past a deck that should normally make your life a living hell like landstill.

So I'm going back to my previous list, which doesn't make me work as much for the wins even though it will have a harder time against workshops and co. It's able to attack the grindy/midrange decks in the format a lot better with it's regular turn 2 wins.

I've reached the conclusion that Force of will cannot be played in that deck without 4 brainstorms to fix it's draws.

It's pretty weird to explain exactly why since you keep the same threat density and just -1 mana source, but the hands you get become just so awkward you have to mulligan like a madman and end up loosing a fair amount of games because of it, also the more you mulligan the worse your force of wills get. Being able to push a Key threat through or counter a Null rod/ early tinker will make the difference once in a while but it just doesn't make up for what the bastardizing does to the deck.

The only real difference Fow makes is that it makes the workshop matchup better since basically you sit there with the fow in hand building up your ressources towards the hurkyl plan and use it to counter key threats like lodestone golem, smokestack or kuldotha, and with the Ingot chewers out of the side It makes it a really decent matchup. But you can't push the deck so much to gear it towards 1 matchup that's "only" about 15-20% of the field, it's not a realistic approach.

[Tammit67]

The only real difference Fow makes is that it makes the workshop matchup better since basically you sit there with the fow in hand building up your ressources towards the hurkyl plan and use it to counter key threats like lodestone golem, smokestack or kuldotha, and with the Ingot chewers out of the side It makes it a really decent matchup. But you can't push the deck so much to gear it towards 1 matchup that's "only" about 15-20% of the field, it's not a realistic approach.

Completely agree on the Force of will points.

Are Ingot chewers really good in a deck like this? I can kill one thorn effect but still be severely hindered by two more, or by revokers, or by chalice. Aren't more recall/rebuilds better since they answer everything and can be used as storm engines in a pinch?

It has been my experience that by the time I am set up to go off in the face of their disruption that I often need to answer 2-4 permanents and trying to 1 for 1 them with chewers leaves other artifacts untouched. Sometimes Chalice at 2 happens, but I have 2 rebuilds and 1 chain of vapor or tinker bot to mitigate the impact. It isn't fantastic, but it has been good enough for around 30% on the draw preboard (no tinker bot main, 2 H recall, 1 chain) and i think i am comfortable with that.

[Soly]

Are Ingot chewers really good in a deck like this?

This question is actually much deeper than I think you anticipated when you asked.   The answer comes down to how strong of a storm player you are.  I have won many games with various storm decks through chalices and spheres and 2 or 3 different hate pieces without bouncing them, but I think the shop decks have become much more resilient than in the past.    I wouldn't play Ingot Chewer in a deck like 5c Combo because my plan is to Shattering Spree/Hurkyl's you out of the game.   However, I would (and have/did) play 4x in a Doomsday shell or a Force of Will/Fetchland shell.

[WhiteLotus]

The only real difference Fow makes is that it makes the workshop matchup better since basically you sit there with the fow in hand building up your ressources towards the hurkyl plan and use it to counter key threats like lodestone golem, smokestack or kuldotha, and with the Ingot chewers out of the side It makes it a really decent matchup. But you can't push the deck so much to gear it towards 1 matchup that's "only" about 15-20% of the field, it's not a realistic approach.

Completely agree on the Force of will points.

Are Ingot chewers really good in a deck like this? I can kill one thorn effect but still be severely hindered by two more, or by revokers, or by chalice. Aren't more recall/rebuilds better since they answer everything and can be used as storm engines in a pinch?

It has been my experience that by the time I am set up to go off in the face of their disruption that I often need to answer 2-4 permanents and trying to 1 for 1 them with chewers leaves other artifacts untouched. Sometimes Chalice at 2 happens, but I have 2 rebuilds and 1 chain of vapor or tinker bot to mitigate the impact. It isn't fantastic, but it has been good enough for around 30% on the draw preboard (no tinker bot main, 2 H recall, 1 chain) and i think i am comfortable with that.

I think you are missing the point of the ingot chewer tech, it's not meant to clear the way for you to go off, it's a tempo play. It will happen quite often that you are holding hurkyl's recall and nothing to follow it up with but your workshop opponent has something that needs to be dealt with immediately such as a smokestack, Lodestone golem, kuldotha or whatever and in these cases Ingot chewer will be invaluable to let you get back in a game you would of lost just with hurkyl's.  Also it's happened to me a few times that I hardcasted it and killed the opponent with a pair of chewers and a few goblin tokens or a mini tendrils through lock pieces. With my Workshop sideboard plan I'm around 50% of winning, strongly depending on the Coin toss usually (simple reality of the matchup that cannot be changed), so I'd say it's working pretty well (considering i've been playing this deck for like 2 months or so).

[Tammit67]

Are Ingot chewers really good in a deck like this?

This question is actually much deeper than I think you anticipated when you asked.   The answer comes down to how strong of a storm player you are.  I have won many games with various storm decks through chalices and spheres and 2 or 3 different hate pieces without bouncing them, but I think the shop decks have become much more resilient than in the past.    I wouldn't play Ingot Chewer in a deck like 5c Combo because my plan is to Shattering Spree/Hurkyl's you out of the game.   However, I would (and have/did) play 4x in a Doomsday shell or a Force of Will/Fetchland shell.

I've beaten varied hate before, just not yet in this format. When I was on doomsday, the chewers were good because of the more controlling nature of the deck and engine: I could take the small hole I opened and Gush my heart out.

Git R Done Long feels different and I was wondering if others feel the same

[Soly]

Git R Done Long feels different and I was wondering if others feel the same

I feel like the deck doesn't want Ingot Chewers, but I feel like having Shattering Sprees are a big deal for a deck like this.  

I really wish they would have amde a Shatter in the Force of Will series instead of Pyrokenisis.

[WhiteLotus]

Are Ingot chewers really good in a deck like this?

This question is actually much deeper than I think you anticipated when you asked.   The answer comes down to how strong of a storm player you are.  I have won many games with various storm decks through chalices and spheres and 2 or 3 different hate pieces without bouncing them, but I think the shop decks have become much more resilient than in the past.    I wouldn't play Ingot Chewer in a deck like 5c Combo because my plan is to Shattering Spree/Hurkyl's you out of the game.   However, I would (and have/did) play 4x in a Doomsday shell or a Force of Will/Fetchland shell.

I've beaten varied hate before, just not yet in this format. When I was on doomsday, the chewers were good because of the more controlling nature of the deck and engine: I could take the small hole I opened and Gush my heart out.

Git R Done Long feels different and I was wondering if others feel the same

Ok so I'll explain my approach of the Workshop matchup with 2.5c Long In an attempt to illustrate where Ingot chewer comes into play. Whether you be a well seasoned Storm pilot or not, mathematics are mathematics.
My plan is to build up a stable permanent mana base with basic lands and the artifact acceleration while at the same time sculpting my hand to find a Hurkyl/Rebuild and a reliable winning path. Then, when I get an opportunity, slip my bounce on their end step and go for it on my next turn. I'll assume you are familiar with this plan of course.
But the workshop decks has a number of tools that can deny you ever the opportunity of getting to this point, wether it be by a fast clock (Kuldotha/Lodestone) or a Hardlock (Online Smokestack, Crucible + strip mine). This is when Ingot chewer comes into focus, he will either let you break free from the Heavy lock situation, which would bleed you slowly and deny you the opportunity to ever get the opening you seek ; or Kill their fast clock, buying you the time you need to get to the point where you can bounce them and go for it.
It's use is meant to be extremely targeted and focussed only on what actually matters the most (Following the "focus on what's important" philosophy). It must be used in tandem with the bounce plan not as an alternative.

Shattering spree can be used to do the same thing, but the reasons Ingot chewer is better in my opinion are: a) the deck does not produce a lot of red mana so the scenarios where you'll be able to replicate it are probably pretty marginal. b) Ingot chewer evades Thorn and also Chalice at 1 without having to pay an extra red mana. c) Ingot chewer is versatile since it can be casted as a creature to destroy something while keeping one of their threats at bay (Lodestones, revokers, man lands) or can swing to help the Empty or mini tendrils plan.

Once it gave me the win by killing a hellkite that would of fucked up my empty the warrens plan big time.
On another occasion my opponent was playing 5c color stax and had choke on board locking me out of all my islands and preventing me from Chain of vaporing it, I was able to hardcast a pair or chewers and an empty warrens for 2 storm count and 4 goblins that I rode to victory.
These are both extreme situations that underline it's importance, but believe me the list of scenarios where it made the difference goes on ...
I've found it to be invaluable to ensure my success in this matchup.

[Tammit67]

Ok so I'll explain my approach of the Workshop matchup with 2.5c Long In an attempt to illustrate where Ingot chewer comes into play. Whether you be a well seasoned Storm pilot or not, mathematics are mathematics.

As a critique, there is no mathematics in this post, just theory crafting and anecdotes.

My plan is to build up a stable permanent mana base with basic lands and the artifact acceleration while at the same time sculpting my hand to find a Hurkyl/Rebuild and a reliable winning path. Then, when I get an opportunity, slip my bounce on their end step and go for it on my next turn. I'll assume you are familiar with this plan of course.
But the workshop decks has a number of tools that can deny you ever the opportunity of getting to this point, wether it be by a fast clock (Kuldotha/Lodestone) or a Hardlock (Online Smokestack, Crucible + strip mine). This is when Ingot chewer comes into focus, he will either let you break free from the Heavy lock situation, which would bleed you slowly and deny you the opportunity to ever get the opening you seek ; or Kill their fast clock, buying you the time you need to get to the point where you can bounce them and go for it.
It's use is meant to be extremely targeted and focussed only on what actually matters the most (Following the "focus on what's important" philosophy). It must be used in tandem with the bounce plan not as an alternative.

Once it gave me the win by killing a hellkite that would of fucked up my empty the warrens plan big time.
On another occasion my opponent was playing 5c color stax and had choke on board locking me out of all my islands and preventing me from Chain of vaporing it, I was able to hardcast a pair or chewers and an empty warrens for 2 storm count and 4 goblins that I rode to victory.
These are both extreme situations that underline it's importance, but believe me the list of scenarios where it made the difference goes on ...
I've found it to be invaluable to ensure my success in this matchup.

I have not once hard cast chewer, but I'm rarely imagining a scenario where I can hard cast it but I can't resolve any number of tutors or cantrips or other bombs. I will, however, try it. What does your sideboard look like, how do you bring them in?

[WhiteLotus]

Ok so I'll explain my approach of the Workshop matchup with 2.5c Long In an attempt to illustrate where Ingot chewer comes into play. Whether you be a well seasoned Storm pilot or not, mathematics are mathematics.

As a critique, there is no mathematics in this post, just theory crafting and anecdotes.

My plan is to build up a stable permanent mana base with basic lands and the artifact acceleration while at the same time sculpting my hand to find a Hurkyl/Rebuild and a reliable winning path. Then, when I get an opportunity, slip my bounce on their end step and go for it on my next turn. I'll assume you are familiar with this plan of course.
But the workshop decks has a number of tools that can deny you ever the opportunity of getting to this point, wether it be by a fast clock (Kuldotha/Lodestone) or a Hardlock (Online Smokestack, Crucible + strip mine). This is when Ingot chewer comes into focus, he will either let you break free from the Heavy lock situation, which would bleed you slowly and deny you the opportunity to ever get the opening you seek ; or Kill their fast clock, buying you the time you need to get to the point where you can bounce them and go for it.
It's use is meant to be extremely targeted and focussed only on what actually matters the most (Following the "focus on what's important" philosophy). It must be used in tandem with the bounce plan not as an alternative.

Once it gave me the win by killing a hellkite that would of fucked up my empty the warrens plan big time.
On another occasion my opponent was playing 5c color stax and had choke on board locking me out of all my islands and preventing me from Chain of vaporing it, I was able to hardcast a pair or chewers and an empty warrens for 2 storm count and 4 goblins that I rode to victory.
These are both extreme situations that underline it's importance, but believe me the list of scenarios where it made the difference goes on ...
I've found it to be invaluable to ensure my success in this matchup.

I have not once hard cast chewer, but I'm rarely imagining a scenario where I can hard cast it but I can't resolve any number of tutors or cantrips or other bombs. I will, however, try it. What does your sideboard look like, how do you bring them in?

The mathematics are not explicitly stated but what I meant to say is you may well play this deck like a god you will not be able to beat the "mathematics" the workshop deck is imposing on you. For example a continual smokestack will never allow you to produce more mana then you already have, same holds for a lodestone golem backed by a tangle wire that will hardly let you have enough mana or time to hurkyl's EOT. In the last scenario, Chew the lodestone and you make it so that they are unable to exploit the tempo they've created with the other lock pieces, and you'll end up getting the opening you need if they can't topdeck another threat.

Hardcasting Ingot chewer will not happen all the time clearly but having the possibility to do it will be relevant in a number of scenarios. Obviously things do not always go the way planned. It will happen when you have mana on board but nothing to go off say you don't have hurkyl's yet and have a bomb that needs setting up like Ywill or Desire that you cannot use immediately.

My List + Sideboard:

3 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy

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

1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain

4 Dark Ritual
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Repeal
1 Flusterstorm
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Hurkyl's Recall

4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Grim Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Ponder


SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 3 Ingot Chewer
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 1 Island
SB: 2 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Blightsteel Colossus

Workshop plan:

+ 3 Basics
+ 3 Ingot chewer
+ 3 Hurkyl/rebuild
+ 1 BSC
+ 1 Empty
- 1 Necro
- 1 Bargain
- 1 Fluster
- 1 Repeal
- 1 Ritual
- 4 Probe
- 2 Duress

My idea of this deck is that It needs to interact more than the old versions did, it's simply facing too much hate to blindly make it uninteractive, sure you can play around hate, but IMO you need to be able to interact, the other decks are a lot faster than they used to be while this one has remained pretty much the same. That's why I believe Flusterstorm suits it better than defense grid against control decks and Ingot chewers are needed in the workshop matchup.

[Tammit67]

Thanks for the info

[Tammit67]

After talking with Oshkoshhaitsyosh on Facebook, he's convinced me that cutting red all together is perhaps worthwhile. The idea is you get a sturdier mana base without losing the sideboard options. Wheel of fortune was a hit as was Empty but hopefully the following can fill their shoes

Work in Progress List:

1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained mire

5 Moxen
1 Sol ring
1 Mana cryot
1 Black lotus
1 Lion's eye diamond
1 Lotus petal
1 Mana vault
1 Mox opal
1 Memory jar

4 Dark ritual
1 Cabal ritual
1 Mystical tutor
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Ancestral recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain of vapor
2 Hurkyl's recall

1 Yawgmoth's will
4 Gitaxian probe
1 Imperial seal
1 Demonic tutor
1 Grim tutor
1 Timetwister
1 Mind's desire
1 Tinker
4 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Timewalk/Doomsday (not sure which I like)
1 Ponder
2 Preordain

1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's bargain

SB:
3 Defense grid
1 Blightsteel colossus
2 Tormod's crypt
1 Island
1 Chain of vapor
2 Hurkyl's recall
1 Rebuild
3 Dismember
1 Toxic deluge

Matchups:
Shops:
- necropotence, bargain, 3 duress, 3 gitaxian probe
+ Blightsteel colossus, island, 2 hurkyl's recall, rebuild, 3 dismember

Oath/control:
- 2 Hurkyl's recall, 1 chain of vapor
+ 3 Defense grid

Dredge:
-1 Hurkyl's recall, necropotence
+2 Tormod's crypt

Hatebears:
- Necropotence, 2 2 hurkyl's recall, duress/probes?
+ Blightsteel colossus, 1 chain of vapor, 3 dismember, 1 toxic deluge

RUG/BUG aggro control:
-2 Hurkyl's recall, grim tutor
+3 defense grid

Thankfully before judging the midnight release at my local store, I should be able to get in a number of games to smooth out what I want before the Top deck event on Saturday. Any help would be greatly appreciated

[WhiteLotus]

After talking with Oshkoshhaitsyosh on Facebook, he's convinced me that cutting red all together is perhaps worthwhile. The idea is you get a sturdier mana base without losing the sideboard options. Wheel of fortune was a hit as was Empty but hopefully the following can fill their shoes

Work in Progress List:

1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Underground Sea
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Bloodstained mire

5 Moxen
1 Sol ring
1 Mana cryot
1 Black lotus
1 Lion's eye diamond
1 Lotus petal
1 Mana vault
1 Mox opal
1 Memory jar

4 Dark ritual
1 Cabal ritual
1 Mystical tutor
1 Vampiric tutor
1 Ancestral recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Chain of vapor
2 Hurkyl's recall

1 Yawgmoth's will
4 Gitaxian probe
1 Imperial seal
1 Demonic tutor
1 Grim tutor
1 Timetwister
1 Mind's desire
1 Tinker
4 Duress
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Timewalk/Doomsday (not sure which I like)
1 Ponder
2 Preordain

1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's bargain

SB:
3 Defense grid
1 Blightsteel colossus
2 Tormod's crypt
1 Island
1 Chain of vapor
2 Hurkyl's recall
1 Rebuild
3 Dismember
1 Toxic deluge

Matchups:
Shops:
- necropotence, bargain, 3 duress, 3 gitaxian probe
+ Blightsteel colossus, island, 2 hurkyl's recall, rebuild, 3 dismember

Oath/control:
- 2 Hurkyl's recall, 1 chain of vapor
+ 3 Defense grid

Dredge:
-1 Hurkyl's recall, necropotence
+2 Tormod's crypt

Hatebears:
- Necropotence, 2 2 hurkyl's recall, duress/probes?
+ Blightsteel colossus, 1 chain of vapor, 3 dismember, 1 toxic deluge

RUG/BUG aggro control:
-2 Hurkyl's recall, grim tutor
+3 defense grid

Thankfully before judging the midnight release at my local store, I should be able to get in a number of games to smooth out what I want before the Top deck event on Saturday. Any help would be greatly appreciated

List seems solid but I'd argue you are missing on threat density, you need something to replace Wheel and Windfall, Fact or fiction is very good in this deck.

I don't know why you wouldn't want it, the 2.5 c mana base seems pretty solid to me. Basically you're a UB deck that has acess to red when it needs it. Sure you can get scenarios where you get screwed over with red mana, but the Red fits the deck so well. Empty the warrens is very strong against denial decks, wheel of fortune is the bomb and I already touched down on my opinion about Ingot chewer. IMO Red is the only reason you have a fighting chance in your worst matchups.

Don't underestimate Hatebears in your sb, that matchup can be so much worse than workshops. Workshops will just attack your mana. Hatebears attack a lot more angles at once, they can basically turn off your whole deck (Dryad Militant/RIP> Ywill; Spirit> Draw 7s + bargain; Mindscensor/arbiter> tutors, fetches; Stony silence> Jar, Mind's desire; just fuck your gameplan completely with Canonist and they have a lot more answers to Blightsteel colossus) You really need Empty the warrens and at least 2 toxic deluge, and even then it will be the most uphill battle you have to face if you are unable to win on turn 1 or 2.
The only things going for you are that Hatebears are a lot slower to establish a lock situation then Workshops, they are far less broken and have a much slower clock, you can also play around most of their hate with a different angle that they are hating on and they usually don't have more than 1 sphere effect meaning you will have more room to maneuver and more openings. I also would Keep necro in that matchup, it's basically the only enabler they can't shut off, and turn one/two ritual necro should win you the game no doubt whether you use it to find answers, a win, empty plan or blightsteel plan.

I'd point out Defense grid is awkward against BUG and RUG with ancient grudges and abrupt decay. That is one of the main reasons I prefer the Flusterstorm plan. Also fluster gives you the edge in combo mirrors (how ever rare those may be) and let's you interact with the control opponent to stop brokedness like Tinker, Ywill or an early ancestral in an almost uncounterable way.

I tried 2 Preordain as well, but it felt Meh to me, I ended up cutting them for Top and Repeal, that are more versatile. They also make Mind's desire and Mox opal stronger. If you go back a few pages in this topic you will see that is was pretty much agreed on that Preordain was not the right card for this deck.

Timewalk> Doomsday.
Time walk may seem like an explore some times but it can open up a lot of lines of play. It's pretty much the best cantrip ever printed and in a deck with so many powerfull topdecks, getting that extra draw and land drop can make a huge difference. Turn 1 land mox time walk can open you up to turn 2 Draw 7 without your opponent ever having a turn. It can turn on Top deck tutors. It is extremely powerful with Necropotence, memory jar and Bargain. It lets you set up a win next turn after an inconclusive Draw 7 or Mind's desire.

Sure you can make lethal doomsday piles with the deck but at that point you are shifting focus too much into doomsday and not into what this deck is trying to accomplish. Also this deck has very limited protection and Doomsday is all in. There is no other enabler in this deck that is all in to that extent, and those that are all in (Necro and to a lesser extent Bargain) can bounce back to another enabler at any time which gives you a lot of resilience. Doomsday pretty much has only one line of play once set up, what makes this deck strong is that it always has lots of different options and it can/wants to be doing so many different things to overwhelm any interaction plan your opponent might have and often trick them into making the wrong decision. It's not meant to be linear but rather unpredictable and highly flexible.

My two cents from playtesting quite a bit with this deck. I hope you have success with it at your next tourney, show them that Long is to be feared so much more than dredge =P

[WhiteLotus]

It would seem that the deck saw a decent amount of play at the bom, when looking at the metagame breakdown you can see 4 decks listed as Grim Long, that's more than burning longs and only slightly less than Bombermans which is pretty cool.

Anyway I was wondering what people who play this deck (since it now appears to see some reasonable amount of play) think about Windfall in the deck? It has felt underwhelming for me, so I was wondering if another enabler could be tried.
Draw 7s in general (even the good ones such as Wheel of Fortune) can sometimes be very dangerous and have lead me to a fair amount of game losses (against mana drain decks especially), either by refilling my opponent's hand with counters either by enabling them to go broken, this is especially true when not played in the early turns.
Add to that the fact that windfall can be a total blank makes it a poor choice of an enabler in my opinion, it's certainly not something you'd want to topdeck when this deck is built to have and rely on amazing topdecks.

I think the deck is better off with some advantage/ hand sculpting enabler at this point, something totally asymmetrical. So I cut the Windfall and at first put Gifts ungiven in that slot but it didn't feel right for the deck, gifts piles were pretty complicated and harder to control without Snapcaster/recoup, basically gifts was only good when you had already another reliable way to find Ywill, it also hurt the good stuff density of the deck too much when things didn't work out.
So I pushed it out and am now trying Fact or Fiction at that slot, fact has been amazing for me, much more than I could ever have anticipated, it's basically never dead and it's much trickier for the opponent since they cannot deduce what's in your hand from the cards (like Gifts piles can do against good players). It should rarely fizzle in a deck with such a high density of bombs and restricted cards and even if it doesn't lead directly to the victory, digging deep + card advantage should win you the game most of the time. Fact is so good at setting up the two major bombs of the deck (Ywill and Mind's desire) or just giving mana for a Yawgmoth's bargain, it also makes cabal ritual a reliable play. If any deck is meant to abuse Fact or fiction, it's probably this one.

I haven't touched my list at all in a little while, I haven't felt like anything was out of place and the flow of it has seemed pretty strong and right, must be a good sign, the deck is properly tuned to my playstyle and general metagame at this point. The only thing I'd change at this point would be the sideboard due to metagame calls.

3 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
1 Badlands
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy

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

1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain

4 Dark Ritual
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Repeal
1 Flusterstorm
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Hurkyl's Recall

4 Duress
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Mind's Desire
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Grim Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Ponder

SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 3 Ingot Chewer
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 2 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Blightsteel Colossus

[rologa]

Hi everybody,

I have played ritual combo since years but the last two years it was so difficult to play against MUD that I desisted and try more control oriented decks. But lately I started to think about return to ritual combo as metagame turns into more creature base decks and is not well prepared to combat fast combo.
I used to play in Liga Catalana of Vintage every month but after the birth of my second daughter I didn't have enough time and I decided to retire from competition and only play with friends once a week.
So I have not tested the deck against all the meta, only a few decks but probably the worst pairings of this deck (MUD and hatebears).

For me the most important thing when I started building the deck was that it has to be competitive against MUD without sideboard so it needs to interact with this deck. With this in mind I automatically opted for Force of Will instead of Duress/Thoughtsize. Another important thing is to have enough lands to survive to some wasteland and/or chalice of the void.
And obviously the best option to beat MUD is to cast Hurky's/Rebuild and have enough good cards to win just after. So threat density is very important and also to have enough bouncing cards to see then often.

With this premises in mind I pass to write down the list directly:

// Lands

4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
2 Underground Sea
2 Volcanic Island
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Island
1 Swamp

// Fast mana

1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual

// Draw

1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Gitaxian Probe
1 Time Walk

// Bombs

1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Windfall
1 Tinker
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Memory Jar
1 Mind's Desire
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain

// Tutors

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor

// Defense

4 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm
2 Hurky's Recall
1 Rebuild

// Win conditions

1 Tendrils of Agony


Comments:

One of the things that surprise me more about the deck is the capacity to win after a draw seven. Everybody that plays combo knows that to play a draw seven is not always definitive and time to time the deck flooded. But with this version you usually see 3 o 4 more cards after draw seven and this is very important and together with threat density they make you win instead of flooded.

Sensei's Divining Top is important for that because it is permanent and it has synergy with other cards of the deck (mox opal or sometimes with bouncers).

Bouncers has a lot of synergy in the deck, they help you to combat artifacts, to increment casting spells, to up the number of cards in hand and decrease fast mana from opponent before casting a draw seven, etc.

The only thing perhaps I will change from main will be the inclusion of a Chain of Vapor to have a universal solution to any problem but I am not sure is required. If I need it it will replace one of the Fluterstorm I suppose.

The deck is fast, very fast, against opponents without disruption you can win in turn one or two very often. You can use this speed to avoid lot of hate and this is the cause that decks based on hate like null rod aggro or hatebearer are not difficult.
And it is consistent, probably the more reliable ritual combo deck I have played. It has a consistent mana base, it has lot of threats, lot of synergy between cards, disruption to control early game, etc.

I have obtain good results against MUD, including at draw position. After sideboarding it will be easier of course but it has a change to compete against them during first match at draw, not like other ritual combo decks.

I didn't create a sideboard because it depends on metagame. Obviously against MUD 2 more Hurkyl's and 2 Ingot will help, and some Toxic Deluxe or Pyroclasm will help against bears. Nothing different that sideboards we have seen in this thread.


What do you think about the deck?

Cheers

[Tobi]

First question that came up after reading the decklist was: why red?
Wheel is a good card, and red offers some interesting sideboard options, but as you specifically mentioned MUD and Hatebears as problematic matchups I think it makes sense to think about cutting red for a more stable manabase.
You should be able to address any problematic issues in your sideboard with blue and black cards. I think you don't really -need- red.
Wheel could be replaced with Grim Tutor for example.

My second question is, are the 2 Flusterstorm that good in this deck? They will not help with your problematic matchups (although blue has become a very problematic matchup, being the main reason for combo being essentially dead, IMO), and will not help counter opposing Flusterstorms in most cases. Duress effects are better at preparing for your combo turn, and I would always play at least one that I can tutor.
Also, Mental Missteps are probably more useful than Flusterstoms.

Chain of Vapor is a card I would always include in any combo list. Enabling storm and handling almost any permanent are enough reasons.

[rologa]

First question that came up after reading the decklist was: why red?
Wheel is a good card, and red offers some interesting sideboard options, but as you specifically mentioned MUD and Hatebears as problematic matchups I think it makes sense to think about cutting red for a more stable manabase.
You should be able to address any problematic issues in your sideboard with blue and black cards. I think you don't really -need- red.
Wheel could be replaced with Grim Tutor for example.

Red is present because Wheel of Fortune. There is no real replacement for this card, not as good and as fast at it is. As I comment before the threat density is very important and to have a card that can replenish your hand at 3cc is too good to be ignored. Blue or black alternatives are much slower and have less quality. Grim Tutor for example is very slow compared with Wheel.
And mana base is very stable as it is at the moment, with 3 basic lands and 14 lands in total, 2 more than usual in this kind of decks. What allow you to have this kind of mana base is the quantity of bombs and draw cards, avoiding you been mana flooded.

My second question is, are the 2 Flusterstorm that good in this deck? They will not help with your problematic matchups (although blue has become a very problematic matchup, being the main reason for combo being essentially dead, IMO), and will not help counter opposing Flusterstorms in most cases. Duress effects are better at preparing for your combo turn, and I would always play at least one that I can tutor.
Also, Mental Missteps are probably more useful than Flusterstoms.

Chain of Vapor is a card I would always include in any combo list. Enabling storm and handling almost any permanent are enough reasons.

Well, I haven't tested too much against blue decks with this deck but in my humble opinion what the deck needs is something to protect your bombs in the early turns and Mental Missteps is very limited for that, only useful against opposite Duress or Missteps. Missteps is better in a control deck, for ritual combo it doesn't do enough.

Duress can be useful but with the quantity of Missteps present in the metagame it has lost some effectiveness and also sometimes it forces you to fetch black to early.

Current control decks plays a lot of counters but they are circumstantial counters and current draw engines are slow so they are very vulnerable at the first turns and this deck try to exploit it.

I agree with you about Chain of Vapor, probably it deserves a slot.

Thanks for your comments.

[WhiteLotus]

First question that came up after reading the decklist was: why red?
Wheel is a good card, and red offers some interesting sideboard options, but as you specifically mentioned MUD and Hatebears as problematic matchups I think it makes sense to think about cutting red for a more stable manabase.
You should be able to address any problematic issues in your sideboard with blue and black cards. I think you don't really -need- red.
Wheel could be replaced with Grim Tutor for example.

Red is present because Wheel of Fortune. There is no real replacement for this card, not as good and as fast at it is. As I comment before the threat density is very important and to have a card that can replenish your hand at 3cc is too good to be ignored. Blue or black alternatives are much slower and have less quality. Grim Tutor for example is very slow compared with Wheel.
And mana base is very stable as it is at the moment, with 3 basic lands and 14 lands in total, 2 more than usual in this kind of decks. What allow you to have this kind of mana base is the quantity of bombs and draw cards, avoiding you been mana flooded.

My second question is, are the 2 Flusterstorm that good in this deck? They will not help with your problematic matchups (although blue has become a very problematic matchup, being the main reason for combo being essentially dead, IMO), and will not help counter opposing Flusterstorms in most cases. Duress effects are better at preparing for your combo turn, and I would always play at least one that I can tutor.
Also, Mental Missteps are probably more useful than Flusterstoms.

Chain of Vapor is a card I would always include in any combo list. Enabling storm and handling almost any permanent are enough reasons.

Well, I haven't tested too much against blue decks with this deck but in my humble opinion what the deck needs is something to protect your bombs in the early turns and Mental Missteps is very limited for that, only useful against opposite Duress or Missteps. Missteps is better in a control deck, for ritual combo it doesn't do enough.

Duress can be useful but with the quantity of Missteps present in the metagame it has lost some effectiveness and also sometimes it forces you to fetch black to early.

Current control decks plays a lot of counters but they are circumstantial counters and current draw engines are slow so they are very vulnerable at the first turns and this deck try to exploit it.

I agree with you about Chain of Vapor, probably it deserves a slot.

Thanks for your comments.

Imo wheel alone doesn't justify including red to the deck, Red is included in my list mainly for the sb option of Ingot chewer and Empty the warrens and because it doesn't hurt the manabase at all to include 1 badlands that you'll fetch when you need red and otherwise act as UB deck. I don't think workshops are the real thing holding this deck back (which if rough in games 1, is easier to beat with a reasonable sideboard plan for this deck than it is for mana drain decks), i'm more inclined to follow Tobi here and say that it's in fact the Drain decks that have made it hard for this deck since they have a lot more efficient wincons(Time Vault, better oath and tinker targets) and their counter suite is a ton more hard to play around (Misstep, Flusterstorm and the occasional Mindbreak trap) compared to what they used to be.

There are a lot of other enablers for rituals deck than draw 7s, Fact or Fiction is pretty hot. Your deck looks a lot more like TPS than Long anyway so I question you even want draw 7s in there. Duress is a must have for any storm deck and while flusterstorm is not bad, it doesn't allow you to actually compete in counterwars on it's own.

2 hurkyl + 1 rebuild maindeck is good against workshops but you are not going to face workshops all day and there are a ton of non artifact permamnents that can still give you a hard time (Thalia, Gaddock teeg, Spirit, Stony silence,...) Personally my bounce suite is composed of 1 hurkyl, 1 repeal and 1 chain of vapor for maximum flexibility/utility.

I'm off the opinion that Force of will is bad for long decks and good for Tps decks, so i would suggest that either you gear your deck towards one approach or the other but bastardizing the deck usually ends up making it worse rather than better.

Since you're running Gifts ungiven, you should probably add Noxious revival since It works well with a number of cards in the deck on it's own (lotus, ancestral, countered bomb,...), and makes gifts piles a lot easier.

My 2 cents.

[rologa]

Imo wheel alone doesn't justify including red to the deck, Red is included in my list mainly for the sb option of Ingot chewer and Empty the warrens and because it doesn't hurt the manabase at all to include 1 badlands that you'll fetch when you need red and otherwise act as UB deck. I don't think workshops are the real thing holding this deck back (which if rough in games 1, is easier to beat with a reasonable sideboard plan for this deck than it is for mana drain decks), i'm more inclined to follow Tobi here and say that it's in fact the Drain decks that have made it hard for this deck since they have a lot more efficient wincons(Time Vault, better oath and tinker targets) and their counter suite is a ton more hard to play around (Misstep, Flusterstorm and the occasional Mindbreak trap) compared to what they used to be.

Well as you say red doesn't hurt the manabase and he provides good sb options, so why no include Wheel that it always has been one of the best cards in combo?

I don't agree about that drain decks being so hard with ritual combo. It is true that the counter suite is now more big and powerful but it is also true that his draw engines are less powerful, slow and less consistent that before, specially in the early turns so Drain decks cannot maintain a counter wall consistently.

There are a lot of other enablers for rituals deck than draw 7s, Fact or Fiction is pretty hot. Your deck looks a lot more like TPS than Long anyway so I question you even want draw 7s in there. Duress is a must have for any storm deck and while flusterstorm is not bad, it doesn't allow you to actually compete in counterwars on it's own.

I don't think you have play enough storm combo if you have these firm opinions about draw seven or duress. Pitch long was some years ago the best ritual combo deck to the point that Grim long almost dissapear. The basic difference between both was to use pitch counters (FoW and Missdirections) instead of Duress. The restriction of Brainstorm was his dead but we don't have to forgot how it works and what made the deck strong.
By the way, Misstep is a very circumstantial counter, it doesn't hurt any of the bombs of the deck, only a few enablers like tutors or rituals, so I think the deck can play around it easily.
And not, Fact or Fiction never has been a pillar of combo and never will be, is too slow and not enough powerful compared with draw seven. If it wasn't played in Tps that was the more controlling approach for ritual combo much less in a faster deck.

2 hurkyl + 1 rebuild maindeck is good against workshops but you are not going to face workshops all day and there are a ton of non artifact permamnents that can still give you a hard time (Thalia, Gaddock teeg, Spirit, Stony silence,...) Personally my bounce suite is composed of 1 hurkyl, 1 repeal and 1 chain of vapor for maximum flexibility/utility.

1 hyrky'ls and 12 lands is not enough to win consistent to workshop decks, not also nullrod decks, basically if they have a good start against you you are dead. Repeal is bad in combo, very expensive and little effect, worst still if you only have one.
In my deck you have Force of Will to protect the first creature hate casted and lot of times this is enough as the deck can win just after. Perhaps a Chain of Vapor can be necessary but the bouncer suite with 2 hurky'l and 1 Rebuild (recyclable) has lot of synergy with the deck.

I'm off the opinion that Force of will is bad for long decks and good for Tps decks, so i would suggest that either you gear your deck towards one approach or the other but bastardizing the deck usually ends up making it worse rather than better.

Since you're running Gifts ungiven, you should probably add Noxious revival since It works well with a number of cards in the deck on it's own (lotus, ancestral, countered bomb,...), and makes gifts piles a lot easier.

Obviously I disagree with you at this point. Force of Will is more flexible and give the deck the capacity to interact with enemy decks. Tps is slower and in the current metagame is difficult for it because is not enough fast to play the aggro role and not enough consistent to play the control role. But playing with Force of Will doesn't imply that the deck is Tps, it is pitch long that has to be played more aggressive and try to go off very quickly.
By the way, Gifts ungiven doesn't need Noxious revival to have win piles, I almost always finish the match just after casting Gifts with a good selection of cards.

I think people need to play the deck aggressively and see what happens. It is better that it seems over paper. I haven't played a deck as fast and consistent has this since Ritual Gifts.

Thanks for comment

[WhiteLotus]

Imo wheel alone doesn't justify including red to the deck, Red is included in my list mainly for the sb option of Ingot chewer and Empty the warrens and because it doesn't hurt the manabase at all to include 1 badlands that you'll fetch when you need red and otherwise act as UB deck. I don't think workshops are the real thing holding this deck back (which if rough in games 1, is easier to beat with a reasonable sideboard plan for this deck than it is for mana drain decks), i'm more inclined to follow Tobi here and say that it's in fact the Drain decks that have made it hard for this deck since they have a lot more efficient wincons(Time Vault, better oath and tinker targets) and their counter suite is a ton more hard to play around (Misstep, Flusterstorm and the occasional Mindbreak trap) compared to what they used to be.

Well as you say red doesn't hurt the manabase and he provides good sb options, so why no include Wheel that it always has been one of the best cards in combo?

I don't agree about that drain decks being so hard with ritual combo. It is true that the counter suite is now more big and powerful but it is also true that his draw engines are less powerful, slow and less consistent that before, specially in the early turns so Drain decks cannot maintain a counter wall consistently.

There are a lot of other enablers for rituals deck than draw 7s, Fact or Fiction is pretty hot. Your deck looks a lot more like TPS than Long anyway so I question you even want draw 7s in there. Duress is a must have for any storm deck and while flusterstorm is not bad, it doesn't allow you to actually compete in counterwars on it's own.

I don't think you have play enough storm combo if you have these firm opinions about draw seven or duress. Pitch long was some years ago the best ritual combo deck to the point that Grim long almost dissapear. The basic difference between both was to use pitch counters (FoW and Missdirections) instead of Duress. The restriction of Brainstorm was his dead but we don't have to forgot how it works and what made the deck strong.
By the way, Misstep is a very circumstantial counter, it doesn't hurt any of the bombs of the deck, only a few enablers like tutors or rituals, so I think the deck can play around it easily.
And not, Fact or Fiction never has been a pillar of combo and never will be, is too slow and not enough powerful compared with draw seven. If it wasn't played in Tps that was the more controlling approach for ritual combo much less in a faster deck.

2 hurkyl + 1 rebuild maindeck is good against workshops but you are not going to face workshops all day and there are a ton of non artifact permamnents that can still give you a hard time (Thalia, Gaddock teeg, Spirit, Stony silence,...) Personally my bounce suite is composed of 1 hurkyl, 1 repeal and 1 chain of vapor for maximum flexibility/utility.

1 hyrky'ls and 12 lands is not enough to win consistent to workshop decks, not also nullrod decks, basically if they have a good start against you you are dead. Repeal is bad in combo, very expensive and little effect, worst still if you only have one.
In my deck you have Force of Will to protect the first creature hate casted and lot of times this is enough as the deck can win just after. Perhaps a Chain of Vapor can be necessary but the bouncer suite with 2 hurky'l and 1 Rebuild (recyclable) has lot of synergy with the deck.

I'm off the opinion that Force of will is bad for long decks and good for Tps decks, so i would suggest that either you gear your deck towards one approach or the other but bastardizing the deck usually ends up making it worse rather than better.

Since you're running Gifts ungiven, you should probably add Noxious revival since It works well with a number of cards in the deck on it's own (lotus, ancestral, countered bomb,...), and makes gifts piles a lot easier.

Obviously I disagree with you at this point. Force of Will is more flexible and give the deck the capacity to interact with enemy decks. Tps is slower and in the current metagame is difficult for it because is not enough fast to play the aggro role and not enough consistent to play the control role. But playing with Force of Will doesn't imply that the deck is Tps, it is pitch long that has to be played more aggressive and try to go off very quickly.
By the way, Gifts ungiven doesn't need Noxious revival to have win piles, I almost always finish the match just after casting Gifts with a good selection of cards.

I think people need to play the deck aggressively and see what happens. It is better that it seems over paper. I haven't played a deck as fast and consistent has this since Ritual Gifts.

Thanks for comment

Well depends on the mana drain deck, I'll agree that Grixis Control and bomberman that are more midrange and can't usually assume full control until they get some kind of incremental card advantage engine online (Bob/Jace) and have lesser bomb density + creature removal slots are ill prepared to take on a deck that will throw a lot of must counter spells at it in the first three turns, but in my post I was more referring to decks like Tezzeret Control and Oath that usually pack 14 counters and are very quick to flip the script from control to combo via a high density of oops i win bombs.
 
If you think misstep doesn't hurt this deck, I think it's you that have not played this deck enough in the current metagame... I don't think you can say that people don't play this deck aggressively enough since it's as agressive as it gets and it can't play any other way, at least with 4 probes and 4 duresses you have the perfect hand information you need at all times to play as aggressively as possible without going all in when you don't need to. Force of will hurts the deck a lot, I tried running it and while it makes the deck better against workshops, you loose a lot of consistency and you are forced to pitch cards you need to the fows and they just make you clunkier when going off, also fow is a 2 for 1 when this deck can't afford to have dead cards or spend too much of it's resources to deal with 1 thing.

12 lands is the right balance for this decks speed, your list lacks a lot of the fast mana, meaning it will fizzle a lot more off the draw 7s, when i'll get 1 land and 2 accelerants you'll get 2 lands and 1 accelerant meaning you'll have to wait next turn to conclude after refilling your control opponent's hand. I wonder how you can thing your deck is fast and not a tps approach when you want to play controlish(counters) and have less explosive mana to deploy your threats quickly.
Of course 14 lands are better for the workshop game 1, but workshops are less than 20% of the field, so making your deck worse against other decks just to slightly improve one matchup is not a good idea.

Repeal and chain of vapor can deal with Null rod too you know ? but they can also deal with other stuff that your bounce suit can, you'll just loose if opponent lands a Stony, leyline of sanctity, gaddock teeg ... etc Assuming you'll be able to counter hatebears is also not good enough since we live in a world with Cavern of Souls.
Hurkyl etc have great synergy with the deck but so do my bounces, I can set up desires with far less ressources than your deck can. You have 3 artifacts bounces main deck, which is almost the bounce density I have for games 2/3 against workshops, are you playing in a 50% workshop field?

Your deck is trying too much to beat workshops and worsening it's matchups against the rest of the field, I wonder how you can consider it to be the one of your worse matchups when your deck is completely devoted to beat it, my deck isn't that much and I'm still a lot more comfortable with that matchtup than with certain control decks.
My approach is to have a flexible maindeck across the field and use my Sideboard to address each specific problem related to each matchup.

While you say Fact has never been a staple of the ritual pillar, I'm comfortable saying that is outranks windfall by a mile in most matchups and most of the draw7s against control decks. It's not slower than gifts, bargain or jar are so I don't see where you get the idea that it's slow from?

I didn't say you needed noxious revival to win with Gifts, I just said it makes it a lot easier, I stopped playing gifts because when it doesn't work out, you've just taken too much good stuff density out of your deck and a good opponent will know what you are holding by the way you make your gifts pile. It becomes less obvious for them with Nox and at the same time nox adds a lot of potential lines of play that weren't possible before such as: Lotus, noxious revival lotus, probe, lotus, Desire,...

Also Pitch long without brainstorm sucks and back then the counters it was facing were very different then the ones we are facing today, how does fow interact with flusterstorm? How does Misdirection interact with Mindbreak trap? are you going to force of will a mental misstep on your ritual because you need the mana to cast Necropotence?

I think you are playing this deck too much in the past and not enough in the current metagame, Card choices should be adapted to the environment the deck is facing and not blankly consider stuff to be auto includes or just bad for a given archetype.

[rologa]

If you think misstep doesn't hurt this deck, I think it's you that have not played this deck enough in the current metagame... I don't think you can say that people don't play this deck aggressively enough since it's as agressive as it gets and it can't play any other way, at least with 4 probes and 4 duresses you have the perfect hand information you need at all times to play as aggressively as possible without going all in when you don't need to. Force of will hurts the deck a lot, I tried running it and while it makes the deck better against workshops, you loose a lot of consistency and you are forced to pitch cards you need to the fows and they just make you clunkier when going off, also fow is a 2 for 1 when this deck can't afford to have dead cards or spend too much of it's resources to deal with 1 thing.

Misstep can annoy you and sometimes make you lost but the majority of the bombs of the deck cannot be stopped by misstep and it can play against one or two without problems. FoW counter always the spell you need to counter meanwhile Duress only take off the best spell he has on his hands at the moment, this is a big difference.
Another problem to use 4 Duress is mana base. It forces you to fectch black to early and sometimes you have inconsistencies because you haven't fetch an island first and you don't have second fetch and one wasteland to your underground can destroy you. I prefer to fetch always an island first because the engine is almost blue. Only to play a bomb like necro or bargain can justify to fetch black first.

12 lands is the right balance for this decks speed, your list lacks a lot of the fast mana, meaning it will fizzle a lot more off the draw 7s, when i'll get 1 land and 2 accelerants you'll get 2 lands and 1 accelerant meaning you'll have to wait next turn to conclude after refilling your control opponent's hand. I wonder how you can thing your deck is fast and not a tps approach when you want to play controlish(counters) and have less explosive mana to deploy your threats quickly.
Of course 14 lands are better for the workshop game 1, but workshops are less than 20% of the field, so making your deck worse against other decks just to slightly improve one matchup is not a good idea.

Well, you have additional Lion's Eye Diamond, Mana Vault and Cabal Ritual, three accelerators that are very circumstantial and don't have to many synergy with your deck. Lion's without draw seven is like one win more card and Cabal Ritual is slow and clunky.
By the way, 12 lands make you that every mulligan is a risk. You cannot mulligan aggressively, you can be happy if you have 1 land with six or less cards. Consistency is also the capacity of the deck to not need to mulligan too much or in case of necessity not be scared to mulligan.
Also with 12 lands your mana base is very exposed to a lucky Wasteland and current metagame is full of them.
To avoid fizzle my deck has 2 Sensei's Divining Top, 3 Probes and usual 1 cc blue draw so instead of seeing 7 cards lot of time you see 10 or 11, thing that makes the difference.

Repeal and chain of vapor can deal with Null rod too you know ? but they can also deal with other stuff that your bounce suit can, you'll just loose if opponent lands a Stony, leyline of sanctity, gaddock teeg ... etc Assuming you'll be able to counter hatebears is also not good enough since we live in a world with Cavern of Souls.
Hurkyl etc have great synergy with the deck but so do my bounces, I can set up desires with far less ressources than your deck can. You have 3 artifacts bounces main deck, which is almost the bounce density I have for games 2/3 against workshops, are you playing in a 50% workshop field?

I admit that 1 Chain of Vapor will be good in my deck, perhaps I can replace 1 Flutterstorm with it. But the 2 hurkyl's are lot of synergy with the deck and sometimes you need to sacrifice it to FoW so you need to have to possibility to find another one. Rebuild can be cycled easily in case of necessity and have also synergy with the deck. They can increase spell count, can be played at the end of turn to play a draw sever just after and made lost to opponent all his acceleration.
What do you think is better, to have chain and repeal to combat any hate or to have chain, 3 artifact bouncers and 4 FoW to counter possible problems before going off?

Your deck is trying too much to beat workshops and worsening it's matchups against the rest of the field, I wonder how you can consider it to be the one of your worse matchups when your deck is completely devoted to beat it, my deck isn't that much and I'm still a lot more comfortable with that matchtup than with certain control decks.
My approach is to have a flexible maindeck across the field and use my Sideboard to address each specific problem related to each matchup.

To have 1 additional hurkyl's I dont think is to have a deck devoted to beat Workshop decks. And in a field full of Wasteland to have more lands is necessary to survive and not to lose to one lucky wasteland.

While you say Fact has never been a staple of the ritual pillar, I'm comfortable saying that is outranks windfall by a mile in most matchups and most of the draw7s against control decks. It's not slower than gifts, bargain or jar are so I don't see where you get the idea that it's slow from?

If your plan against control is to play Fact to race it you will lost to it. When Fact is online it has also Jace and will race you without problems. 1 mana less can be cast 1 or 2 turns earlier and this is the difference between win or loss.
Obviously a good combo player will not play draw seven all the time against control decks, he has to wait to a good moment, specially after first turns.

I didn't say you needed noxious revival to win with Gifts, I just said it makes it a lot easier, I stopped playing gifts because when it doesn't work out, you've just taken too much good stuff density out of your deck and a good opponent will know what you are holding by the way you make your gifts pile. It becomes less obvious for them with Nox and at the same time nox adds a lot of potential lines of play that weren't possible before such as: Lotus, noxious revival lotus, probe, lotus, Desire,...

What makes noxious revival a subpar card is the necessity to have a good card in your graveyard. I dislike cards that are circumstantial and no good  by themselves.

Also Pitch long without brainstorm sucks and back then the counters it was facing were very different then the ones we are facing today, how does fow interact with flusterstorm? How does Misdirection interact with Mindbreak trap? are you going to force of will a mental misstep on your ritual because you need the mana to cast Necropotence?

Well now we don't have brainstorm but we have Probes and Divining Tops that can help a lot in what brainstorm make good the deck. Obviously Misdirection is not used anymore, they has been replaced by Flutterstorms that can combat opponent Flutters or Mindbreak trap.
What makes this deck good is the capacity to find bombs and not fizzle often, and Divining Top and Probes are an important part for it.
And of course if I have Necropotence I will force the misstep, but if I only cast ritual to generate mana because I am planning to play a draw seven then I don't have problems to left misstep resolve. Your opponent has to play it without knowing how important to counter it is and you can use it to your advantage.

I think you are playing this deck too much in the past and not enough in the current metagame, Card choices should be adapted to the environment the deck is facing and not blankly consider stuff to be auto includes or just bad for a given archetype.

Perhaps you are right but I have seen lot of combo decks similar to your deck in tournaments with 12 lands, duress and stuff and none made something important a part from an occasional top 8. Perhaps thinking different and try different things will find something better.

Grettings

[WhiteLotus]

Duress is not a liability imo, this deck is supposed to be more black than blue, in fact having fetches that can't fetch basic swamps for that turn 1 ritual or duress has been a liability for me far more often than not being able to fetch an island.
Missteps have cost me more than one game, getting an ancestral, a brainstorm, a tutor or a ritual/solring/manavault misstepped can really set you back sometimes. I'm usually more concerned with playing around misstep than any other card when planning against blue decks (my list has 23 spells with a cmc of 1).

LED has synergy with Ywill, Ybargain, draw 7s, any tutor, top,...; I'll agree it can be dead at times but turns out having a second black lotus is just that good, don't forget it's responsible for the most broken storm deck of all time and the only one that ever warranted any restrictions.
Cabal ritual is one of your best weapon against null rod, it's better than dark ritual very often especially in a deck that has a lot of ways to fill it's grave very quickly, and even without threshold it's a ritual that doesn't get misstepped to play your necropotence, it's not slow or clunky at all imo.
Mana vault is one of the best accelerants to play an early bargain, desire, gifts or tinker, it's also a great misstep bait.
I'd argue Mox opal is in the same situational mana category as LED and more situational then cabal ritual or mana vault, yet it's less broken than any of them.

Cantrips are not going to avoid fizzling if you draw a bunch of lands and no fast mana off your draw7. I don't understand what you mean by "it makes the difference", my list has the same cantrip density: I have 4 probes,1 repeal and 1 top. But I still find draw 7s to be the most unreliable enablers in the deck.
They are great to get turn 1 wins or act as a one sided card advantage outburst but they can so easily backfire against drains. They obviously still belong in this type of deck of course but Windfall just doesn't outweigh it's drawbacks imo.

Top is good in this deck but 1 is plenty enough, it's not going to be very useful in a number of situations/ matchups for this deck imo.

Hurkyl is good ofc and the king against workshops for sure, but I find repeal and chain of vapor to be more versatile (they can target whatever like thalia, stony, Jace...)  and better in tight mana situations.
Hurkyl is great when you have 3+ artifacts, but chain of vapor starts to be good with 2, it's not unusual using it's downside as an upside with tolarian and will, you can also use it to disrupt your opponent and still use it on your moxen at the same time.
Repeal is good with any artifact mana, and draws 2 cards with top or is a mana fixer in any scenario, it's sweet to setup a tight mana Ywill with any topdeck tutor, and it's more tempo oriented since you can bounce an oath of druids while seeing an extra card at the same time, effectively acting as a double time walk in that situation.

There is no way the mana drain deck is having 2UU to tap down in it's turn before the combo deck has 3U to play fact, it's pretty easy to play fact on turn 2 in this deck. the plan with fact is that you play it on end step to force them to counter something in their turn (which they don't like doing) and when it resolves if it doesn't give you the tools to immediately win the game, it will just put you so far ahead on card advantage that you eventually win (while getting you damn closer to more brokenness by it's digging power).
Comparing their jace to your fact on the same turn they drop, Jace = ca = + 0 see 3 cards, Fact = ca +1/+2 (+ 4-6 with will) see 5 cards. Jace is like bob against this deck, you shouldn't be concerned too much about him because you can limit his impact buy winning shortly after they drop him, but if he sticks around you've likely lost the game.
It's happened to me more than once, that opponent hands me the game by tapping down too much for jace thus giving me the opening I needed to win. More often than not, the good player will drop jace once they're already in control of the game and you're out of gas, at which point you have probably already lost anyway so he's usually just the nail in the coffin.

This deck always has good cards in the grave so noxious revival is rarely bad. What makes it good imo is that it's very versatile, you can use it as a mana accelerant with your lotus/ ritual, an additional land drop with a fetchland, replay your countered threat, and it makes some Gifts piles easier, it also has great synergy with any cantrip to build up storm.

Well the deck is underplayed because it's perceived has a weak deck, it's requires a lot more investment than drains to pull off a win, it can be very unreliable, and the most important reason imo is that this deck is very mentally taxing to play/unforgiving especially in the harsh environment it faces today so people don't want to take it to a tournament knowing that they are going to have to endure mental battling for 4-6 rounds and then the top8.
The deck has a lot of tools and flexibility to win in any given matchup, but every match is going to be a difficult battle, and you can't count on the deck winning the game for you, you'll have to stay focussed all day long, when a lot of the other decks have oops i win lines of play and don't have to fight hate like madmen. When you add all that up it's easy to see why the deck doesn't put up much results anymore, at this point only dedicated people play it.
By the way Reid duke did top 4 at the last Vintage worlds which is the biggest vintage tournament in the us, so It has put up at least one significant result recently, contrary to what you stated in your post.



I don't think that 3 tutors is remotely close to being enough for a storm deck, you should add imperial seal and grim tutor or merchant scroll.

the real "flaw" i see in your list is that you are bastardizing the deck too much between two completely different approaches. You either want to have the fast, balls to the wall deck that overwhelms opponent with it's high velocity and bomb density (Long) OR you want the slightly slower, more resilient deck with a defense/control mode that just want's to resolve a key threat and ride it to victory (TPS).
Every pillar of the format shows this kind of nuance between two decks (Kuldotha vs Espresso; Dread return vs Cagebreaker ...). If you start putting metalworker in espresso stax or Karn in kuldotha shop it's easy to see why the deck is not going to be as good as it would be with a "standard" list.
To better illustrate my point, i'll give you two of my lists, the first one is a long shell and the second one is a TPS build, they may share many similarities to the eye but they in fact play very differently.
You'll notice that your deck really falls in between the two of them.

2.5c Long:

Mana:
3 Polluted Delta
1 Badlands
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Island
1 Swamp
2 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
4 Dark Ritual
1 Cabal Ritual

Misc/Cantrips/Tutors:
1 Noxious Revival
1 Time Walk
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Brainstorm
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Grim Tutor
1 Imperial Seal

Combo enablers:
1 Memory Jar
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Timetwister
1 Tinker
1 Mind's Desire
1 Yawgmoth's Will

Protection:
4 Duress
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Repeal
1 Hurkyl's Recall

Win condition:
1 Tendrils of Agony

Default Sideboard:
SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Mountain
SB: 3 Ingot Chewer
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 1 Blightsteel Colossus
SB: 3 Defense Grid


TPS:

Mana:
4 Polluted Delta
2 Underground Sea
2 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Island
2 Swamp
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
4 Dark Ritual
1 Cabal Ritual

Misc/Cantrips/Tutors:
1 Time Walk
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Ponder
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Brainstorm
1 Preordain
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Merchant Scroll

Combo enablers:
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Mind's Desire

Protection:
4 Force of Will
2 Flusterstorm
4 Duress
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall

Win condition:
1 Blightsteel Colossus
1 Tendrils of Agony

Default Sideboard:
SB: 2 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 2 Pithing Needle
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 3 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 2 Ravenous Trap
SB: 2 Island
SB: 2 Steel Sabotage

[rologa]

In general I agree with you in much of your comments, sometimes is a matter of personal taste to choose one or other option. But I don't agree with you in your vision about Force of Will making the deck more controlling and Duress more direct. Duress is slower, the majority of the time you lost first turn casting it and waiting to next turn to try to go off. Force is faster, you don't use it as a control card, it is only to protect your bombs, nothing else. Obviously against Workshop or hatebears that you don't need to protect your spells you can control a little the field but only to avoid decisive cards. Pitchlong was better than Grimlong because of that flexibility and this capacity to start direct since the first turn.
Imagine you have Necro, ritual and duress against a control deck, you will cast first duress and second turn, ritual necro, but if you have Force instead of Duress then you will start casting Ritual, Necro protecting it with FoW.
Another advantage of FoW over Duress is that it cannot be stopped by Misstep. I don't understand how you fear Misstep and your only real protection is 4 cards that can be countered by it.
I don't say that Duress is bad, it will always a good card for combo, but in a field full of Missteps and hate creatures is not as effective as it used to be.
If you replace the 4 Duress in your long list with 4 Forces it continue being very fast and you can play in a very similar way.

About Fact, if you need to waste your one use accelerants like rituals or vault to cast it faster then it doesn't deserves the investment. It will be 2 cards and 4 manas for 2 or 3 cards.

When I build a deck I try to minimize the number of conditional cards that are included to avoid hands with 2 or 3 conditional cards that can make you lost irremediably. This is the reason I don't like cards like noxious and lion's eye diamond that can be useful at times but other times will remain in your hand without utility.

I think Top is very useful in this deck. To see 3 cards more with 1 generic mana in a deck full of bombs and the option to draw it at the moment is too good. I think 2 are a very good number, so you have 5 cards that with 1 mana you can see 3 more cards after a draw seven (ancestral, brainstorm, ponder and 2 tops). Playing with them you will see that the difference to play two is big, you fizzle much less.
The same with Windfall, it has is drawbacks but I found that I need a draw seven (or similar) more with low cost (3 or less) to not fizzle often and with bouncers to increment my opponent hand at the same time that I make him lost acceleration, it makes Windfall a good option.

I don't like Grim Tutor to much. Two blacks force you sometimes to cast ritual before and it is slow, forcing you often to concede turn before cast the bomb you search for.
Imperial Tutor is different, sometimes I include it, sometimes not, but being a sorcery makes it not flexible enough for my taste. Too many loses after casting it and search for something that becomes useless after opponent turn.

[jamestosetti]

I have been testing TPS with and without Force of Will. I did not test Long because there are a number of things that can ruin the decks lines of play. I would not consider playing TPS without the Force of Will/Misdirection package, but I would only play 3 Fows. I have a list posted in the TPS thread, and I would only use 1 Chain of Vapor and 1 Hurkyl's Recall in the main deck. I would also not use the Lim-Dul's Vault. I would use Wheel of Fortune, but not Windfall as well. I also have an entirely different s/b, but it is nothing out of the ordinary.

I think high level players who opt for Long over TPS are looking for various factors in the meta that make it more playable. I personally do not think a meta heavy with Workshop or Hatebears is going to cause someone to say I think I should play ritual combo. I also think there are some more factors at play here. Many newer players are still missing many lines of play with either deck. I have just started playing Vintage again, but I am able to recognize what I am supposed to be doing much better than I used to be. Playing lots of Legacy and Modern helped me get better at approximating the outcome of plays based on resources, or the potential for something to be countered or drawn. That said, I think Long players have the role of estimating a lot of the time. When is the optimal time to go off, what is the potential for a counter here, how good are various win conditions in this meta.

TPS gets to choose alternate lines of play including very efficient kills, or gaining advantage though Misdirection. Misdirection on Recall, and possibly tutoring for your own Recall based on the potential for it actually happening is nearly as good as having a Necropotence in play. With TPS, and probably Long as well I think it is very important to stay up-to-date on what other decks are using. I also think it is important to be able to play most other strategies because it will give you a better understanding of their potential plays as well as estimating probabilities.

So, after my testing I would opt for TPS in a meta not heavy with Shops.

[desolutionist]

Right now I'm in the opinion that FoW limits what I can play; my deck is based on black accelerants, yet FoW needs blue cards.  So with a bit of conflict there, I'm going to instead play cards better suited in a black deck.  I don't think fast combo can be all over the place with protection/disruption.  I have to pick my battles and make sure I can win first with extreme precision.

[jamestosetti]

How many Cabal Rituals are you playing? Long and TPS are two different decks, so I wouldn't even consider Fow in a Long Deck. Long, like you stated, requires fairly accurate judgment calls. Fow in TPS generally helps you go off as opposed to playing it to stop say Time Vault, or something. While it can be good for that, I am playing them because of the increased number of Mental Missteps. I wouldn't argue that one deck is better than the other. I would just run some numbers, and try to decide which storm variant I might want to play. If more decks decks were running 2 Mental Missteps on average then I might opt for Long. I am sure some storm experts could add some insight into their decisions on which variant to play, and I am always looking to hear this kind of information.

[desolutionist]

I'm currently playing 4 to help get around Mental Misstep. My deck needs an overhaul though.  I'm thinking about the possibility of playing 4 Tendrils of Agony with some quick beats; Pack Rat comes to mind. He's been cool out of the board

[WhiteLotus]

In my opinion TPS, Long and Gush are all playable, It just depends on the metagame since each deck is different and has different strengths and weaknesses.

Long is best if you are going to face a lot of dredge and workshops, since It's a turn 2 deck it can race dredge with 0 hate and has a lot of room in it's sideboard to face workshop decks, it's the best deck to make use of the hurkyl plan against shops as it can easily win on the spot, and since it usually splashes red it can use Ingot chewer tech to avoid falling to far behind on tempo and/or blow up chalices. It usually doesn't like blue decks too much and has serious difficulties when confronted with heavy control decks that have a fast clock (Oath, Tezz control). Hatebears are problematic when they are on the play and have a lot of pressure.

Gush is the best going in to any blue heavy field since it's faster than most blue decks, can support a nice control package and has better deck manipulation/ draw engine. It's also pretty strong against aggro control decks since it can't completely trump that strategy with Talrand. The only real problem for it is that it can't reliably race dredge and really has a hard time against workshops due to the light manabase the gush + cantrips enable, It's also light on the artifact mana meaning that it has a harder time establishing it's manabase through multiple spheres. In my opinion the best  plan to address the workshop matchup for a gush deck is a transformative sideboard into oath (this will cut you from having dredge hate, but you should be able to win the turn you activate oath into griselbrand with tendrils kill).

Although I haven't really played that deck a lot against current decks so my experience and analysis are limited, I'd say TPS sort of falls in between them both. It has a better blue matchup than Long due to it being able to play Force of will and flusterstorm and a better workshop matchup than Gush since it has a very stable manabase and can better use the hurkyl plan. The only problem it has is that it really has a hard time sculpting it's hand without brainstorm and so it can get really weird hands while not really being faster than gush.

Long just cannot support Force of will with brainstorm restricted in my opinion. It will just make the deck clunky and worse against blue decks. However 4 duress + baiting bombs is kinda light against decks with 13+ counterspells that require little to no investment, I think a number of thoughtseizes maindeck + defense Grids in sideboard are mandatory.

I think the notion that Workshops are somehow holding Long back is a BIG misunderstanding of that matchup. Oath and Hurkyl's recall have the same Converted mana cost, and Long packs way more mana sources than most Oath decks so If there is one deck that can play a 2 cmc spell through lock pieces, it's probably this deck (Although Long doesn't have Force of will to mitigate the effect of being on the draw). But Long get's to have a very strong sideboard to face workshops since it can get away with 0 dredge hate. I think that more than anything the Cointoss really has a strong influence on the outcome of the match due to both decks being 100% proactive.

I'd like to share a long and gush decklist, Hopefully you'll be able to input and/or find some ideas you like.

Gush Storm:
1 Library of Alexandria
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Island
2 Tropical Island
3 Underground Sea
2 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
1 Fastbond
1 Future Sight
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
4 Gush
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Brainstorm
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
2 Mana Drain
2 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
3 Mental Misstep
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Time Walk
1 Regrowth
1 Tendrils of Agony
3 Preordain
1 Ponder
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Imperial Seal

SB: 1 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 3 Nature's Claim
SB: 4 Oath of Druids
SB: 3 Forbidden Orchard
SB: 2 Griselbrand
SB: 1 Flusterstorm
SB: 1 Abrupt Decay


2.5c Long:
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Badlands
2 Underground Sea
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Polluted Delta
2 Bloodstained Mire
1 Black Lotus
1 Lion's Eye Diamond
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Opal
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Sol Ring
1 Memory Jar
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Necropotence
1 Yawgmoth's Bargain
4 Dark Ritual
1 Cabal Ritual
1 Chain of Vapor
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Repeal
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Duress
2 Thoughtseize
4 Gitaxian Probe
1 Ponder
1 Grim Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Tendrils of Agony
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Mind's Desire
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Tinker

SB: 2 Hurkyl's Recall
SB: 1 Island
SB: 1 Rebuild
SB: 1 Empty the Warrens
SB: 1 Toxic Deluge
SB: 1 Swamp
SB: 3 Defense Grid
SB: 1 Blightsteel Colossus
SB: 3 Ingot Chewer
SB: 1 Mountain