Overview
Ritual Spellslinger is a deck designed to mimic the fun of playing Storm in the Pauper format. While Pauper does have one card with the actual Storm mechanic on it in the mildly popular Vinestorm deck, it is challenging to build around and ends up requiring a manabase that can be countered or destroyed easily and a perfect combo turn. The deck also folds the entire game to a single counterspell. With the actual Storm mechanic out of the picture, the question becomes, "how can a deck get as close as possible to Storm while still remaining fun and decently competitive?"
Enter my creation, Ritual Spellslinger. This deck uses a two-card combo to draw and play most of itself on one turn, burning the opponent out spell by spell. The combo can be assembled in many ways, including in one turn and at instant speed. It is also resilient, being able to use lots of cantrips to find more combo pieces if the first attempt is denied. It is able to go off as early as turn 3. If this interests you at all, you may find yourself picking up a Ritual Spellslinger build soon.
Combo
In order to actually pull off the combo, you need to have two cards on the battlefield. Card A can either be a Firebrand Archer with or without summoning sickness or a Thermo-Alchemist without summoning sickness. Card B can either be a Tandem Lookout with or without summoning sickness or an Ophidian Eye. Once you have these conditions met, either enchant your damage-generating creature with the Ophidian Eye or pair it to the Tandem Lookout via Soulbond. Now all you have to do is tap your Thermo-Alchemist or play a single noncreature spell while controlling your Firebrand Archer and you will begin to burn your opponent one point of damage at a time while you combo off and draw your deck out.
Gas
Now, you may be wondering, "That's great, but how do I play enough spells in one turn to deal enough damage to end the game? Won't I run out of mana long before that point?" Good question. That's where the rituals and the free spells come in. This deck runs a total of 17 different spells that should not cost you any mana to play, and 9 of those spells will actually add mana to your mana pool after you play them. In addition, not only do the other 8 of those spells not cost you any mana at all, they actually still draw you a card, in addition to the card your combo draws for you! Absolute value!
Assembling the Combo
In a perfect world, you will just start the game with both combo pieces in hand, play them at your own pace, and your opponent will not interact with either of them. However, this is obviously unlikely to happen. While it is a good idea to mulligan until at least one of the combo pieces is in your opening hand (which shouldn't be difficult, as there are 13 potential combo pieces in the deck), it is easy to find the missing piece. In addition to the 8 free draw spells mentioned in the previous paragraph, this deck runs 7 other spells that can easily draw you into what you need very quickly. Besides, once you do combo off, you will either draw and play enough spells to win the game or you will draw into more combo pieces (should you need to replace your current set before you go off again).
Winning the Game
Once you have an active combo rolling, all you need to do is remember your triggers and draw and play enough cards to burn out your opponent. I've found that playing rituals conservatively until you know you are going to win on the current turn is the best strategy. It is better to play your free draw spells first so you have more options and lines of play available before spending your mana. In a pinch, Manamorphose can also change the color of your mana mid-combo if you need to play Ponder to set up draws or add another draw-enabler to your active combo. Lastly, don't be afraid to drop another Firebrand Archer or Expedite a Thermo-Alchemist if you have lots of floating mana but fear you are going to run out of available spells and want to finish the game faster. It's also almost always correct to spend extra mana playing more draw-enablers mid combo, and you're going to commonly end up drawing 2 or even 3 spells off of each and every noncreature spell you play until you win the game.
Card Choices
Here is each card in the deck and the reasoning behind them:
MAIN BOARD
Creatures
4 Firebrand Archer: This is the better of your two combo damage pieces, able to go off the turn it comes down and triggering off of Ophidian Eye in addition to instants and sorceries. It can also attack to get in finishing damage if need be.
3 Thermo-Alchemist: This is Firebrand Archer number 5-7, however it cannot go off the turn it comes down unless it is hit with Expedite and it will not trigger Ophidian Eye or attack. It does dodge 1 damage triggers and Disfigure, Electrickery, and
Shrivel
, though, so it does have some upside in certain scenarios.
2 Tandem Lookout: This is one of your two combo draw pieces, along with Ophidian Eye. Not being able to be played on the opponent's end step and being much easier to remove thanks to all the 1 damage spells and triggers in the Pauper format make this the one I've chosen to run only 2 of. In a pinch, you can attack with them or draw cards from their combat damage, but this doesn't happen often enough to run them over Ophidian Eye in most games.
Enchantments
4 Ophidian Eye: This is the better of the two combo draw pieces. This can be played at instant speed, including during your opponent's end step as a trick, and triggers Firebrand Archer for extra card draw or damage.
Instants and Sorceries
4
Rite of Flame
: The best ritual in the deck, costing only one mana and getting progressively better with each additional casting.
3 Seething Song: Another really good ritual, 3 mana isn't hard to get and 5 is enough to cast quite a few other spells in order to hit more even more rituals. In certain cases, this is also enough mana to Manamorphose into both of your combo pieces at once or drop your missing piece and then drop another ritual to start to go off.
2 Desperate Ritual: Sometimes you only have two mana and no
Rite of Flame
, so this has been added for safety. In the event that you have both in hand, you can also use the Splice onto Arcane ability to get extra mana out of them, which makes them marginally better than Pyretic Ritual as the last two rituals.
4
Gitaxian Probe
: Everyone knows Phyrexian mana is good. This is essentially a free spell that either helps you find your combo, check your opponent's hand, or draw two or more cards for 2 life during your combo turn.
4 Manamorphose: The other "free" spell in the deck, these cost two mana to give you two mana and can filter your colors mid-combo or just draw you an extra card. They are also useful to filter ritual mana into extra copies of Ophidian Eye or Tandem Lookout to combo out more securely.
3 Ponder: Slightly more reach than Preordain, but can still get you out of a bad three cards unlike Brainstorm. Even if one of the top three cards in your library is a dud, you can often just draw over it and keep going.
2 Faithless Looting: Costs one very relevant red mana and digs through two cards. This deck doesn't want the set because it can be awkward to cast as the last card in hand, and sometimes you don't want to discard anything, but it is a very good spell to help combo and having Flashback is nice.
2
Dangerous Wager
: This is the replacement for the other two Faithless Looting copies. The wager is far less dangerous when this is the last card in your hand or you have a hand full of mana you don't need. Costing only one more colorless mana and getting the deck out of tight spots makes this a better include (I've tested it both ways quite a bit).
2 Expedite: It's not great, but one red mana for one card is often all this deck needs, and this one can at least let a Thermo-Alchemist go off the turn it comes down or help a Firebrand Archer or Tandem Lookout attack for that last bit of damage.
2
Flame Jab
: This is the ace up our sleeve during our combo. There will absolutely be times you combo into a mana pocket and end up with a ton of ritual mana but no spells. Being able to spend all of that mana while making use of dead lands in hand, AND doing an extra point of damage each time, for as many times as you want is insane. This card is one of the reasons why you don't have to worry about drawing into bricks as much as other combo decks do.
2 Mizzium Skin: This is the best protection spell available for us. Instant speed, can either protect a single creature or the team, AND makes the team dodge 1 damage sweepers that don't have targets like
Shrivel
or format-favorite Electrickery. It can also be cast super easily during the combo when it isn't needed, drawing more cards that are relevant.
Lands
4 Swiftwater Cliffs: Standard two-color lifegain land. We don't want bouncelands so this is the best multi-color land available.
4 Mountain: We have red in our deck, so we run Mountain.
3 Island: We have blue in our deck, so we run Island.
3
Saprazzan Skerry
: This is a neat land. It lets us combo off one turn earlier and since we're not really worried about using it for more than one or two turns the depletion counters don't really matter. The extra blue mana is also relevant with half of the combo pieces and Ponder, as well as our protection spells.
2
Sandstone Needle
: This is the red version of
Saprazzan Skerry
. Also useful, but we run less as we can get red mana easier and sometimes having an untapped red source on our first turn is relevant to digging for pieces, using rituals in the event of a Christmasland draw for a one or two turn win, or getting our combo pieces in early.
1 Evolving Wilds: This can fetch what you need in a pinch in response to the opponent's turn or shuffle your library in a fringe case. It also thins the deck by one card, which is mainly why it's used over another tapped multi-color land.
Side Board
2
Annul
: This is good at stopping Affinity early or blanking decks that use enchantments like Journey to Nowhere to deal with creatures.
2 Dispel: Bring in the classic cheap answer to Control when you play against it.
2 Gut Shot: This is decent removal for decks like Elves with Wellwisher or some of the other problem cards with one toughness, like Delver of Secrets
or Firebrand Archer in a mirror match. It also catches opponents off guard if played after tapping out and can be used to keep the combo alive for free.
2
Hydroblast
: Format all-star answer to decks that run red.
2
Pyroblast
: Format all-star answer to decks that run blue.
2
Elusive Spellfist
: This is good for upping the threat count against Control decks with tons of removal or getting in a last little bit of damage against them.
1 Mizzium Skin: Bring this in if you need another copy against a lot of targeted removal or sweepers.
1 Tandem Lookout: Some green or white decks answer Ophidian Eye with tons of enchantment hate. If you play one of these decks, it's not a bad idea to switch the fourth Ophidian Eye for this.
1 Relic of Progenitus: Every once-in-awhile you'll come up against a graveyard-based deck. Hose them with this and enjoy the card you drew.
Matchups
Aggro: Very favorable. Just ignore them, they're not really going to be able to interact with you with super high creature counts and you'll be going off on turn 4 or 5 most of the time for the win. Bring in Gut Shot if you're really worried.
Midrange: Favorable. These decks are often jack-of-all-trade, master-of-none types that need a few turns to get rolling, and that often costs them the game against this deck. Bring in a few relevant counters if needed, otherwise just focus on going off and let them use turn 1-3 to set up while you get ready to combo out.
Ramp: Very favorable. Once again, these decks are two slow for us and we don't have to worry about getting chump blocked. Bring in counters if you need to against Tron, otherwise don't really bother worrying.
Tempo: Even. Sometimes these decks can answer everything we do, sometimes we can hold them off. These games often become grindy and long and just come down to whoever pilots their deck better and who has the better draws.
Control: Unfavorable. We can win, all is not lost against control, but it's much more difficult. You will be playing a long, grindy game, waiting for the moment to strike. You need to assess what turn you can get your whole combo off, or you need to make the choice to slug damage out a bit at a time. Bring in the
Elusive Spellfist
, and bring in the counters. Most importantly, don't get greedy and make plays that allow them to blow you out with removal on an unprotected creature that you tapped out for while they have a hand full of cards.
Combo: Very favorable. They're often slower than we are and less resilient, and because they're trying to combo they aren't really going to be interacting with us early on, which allows us to hit an early combo. Bring in counters if you feel the need. Bring in Gut Shot against Elves to remove problem creatures.
Play This Deck If
-You like Storm
-You like Combo
-You like "Johnny" strategies
-You like unique decks / rogue brews
-You like complicated turns / sequences
-You like to really go hard on opponents while they can only sit back and watch
-You like decks that are decently competitive / Tier 2
-You like the idea behind Izzet Blitz, but find it boring
-You like to surprise opponents
-Most of your meta is Aggro / Combo / Midrange and you are a "Spike"
Do Not Play This Deck If-You do not like Storm
-You do not like Combo
-You like Control
-You like creature-based Aggro
-You like quick turns that don't require much thought
-You don't have a mouse / don't like clicking much on MTGO
-You want to play the same way consistently every game
-You want to play long, grindy games with lots of creature beatdown
-You can only have fun if you play a Tier 1 deck
-You want to grind leagues as fast as possible on MTGO
-Most of your meta is Control and you are a "Spike"
Conclusion
Ritual Spellslinger is a fun, decently competitive combo deck that gets you as close as you are going to get to playing Storm in the Pauper format of Magic: the Gathering. Feel free to copy my build exactly or tweak it to your liking, and if you do please comment and let me know! I'd love to see this deck start pauping up.
Special thanks to the good folks on www.redit.com/r/pauper for giving me advice on tuning it and to all the opponents I've played on MTGO who've enjoyed it, given suggestions, asked for deck lists, or built it to play.
Enjoy casting those spells and drawing those cards!
