Forbidden Ritual

[Bcopes]

I was looking through the crap box the other day and I stumbled this card. It very well may have the potential to become an annoying winning condition, or a card to build a deck around. I figured that the deck needs to have a bunch of cards that either double permanents, or have some sort of interesting replacement effect. The idea is to have such a retarded amount of permanents in play that the opponent won't be able to sac/discard enough to cope with the Ritual. Of course, any normal person would build a Tendrils deck, since the card deals the same amount of damage in a more so efficient/unstoppable way. But what's Magic without risk? I think it's just as fun to win by sacking all of your permanents as it is to loose by sacking all of your permanents.

Anyway.

here's some ideas so far.

Forbidden Ritual (the new bomb!)
Dark Ritual (gosta have acceleration!)
Wall Of Blossoms (D-FENZ)
Harrow (2 for 1)
Fertile Ground (1 for none)
Breeding Pit (extremely extremely awesome)
Rancor (Comes back fo' more)
Penumbra Creatures (the ones that make tokens when they die)
Squirrel Nest (slightly cooler than breeding pit...but not that much cooler)
Saporling Symbiosis (um...yeah)
Thopter Squadron/Tetravus (Big dude that has many children)
Symbiotic Wurm (Bigger Dude that has even more children)

Any input? Is this completely stupid? I sure hope so.

 

[Mikeymike]

Important: Forbidden Ritual was errated. I now reads...
"Sacrifice a nontoken permanent. If you do, target opponent loses 2 life unless he or she sacrifices a permanent or discards a card from his or her hand. You may repeat this process as many times as you choose."

Its tough to really build a deck around this card because it is a sorcery, meaning to deal 20 damage you need at least 10 non-token permanents in play (but you are probably looking at more like 15-20).

That being said, it could be a strong support card to use to deal that last bit of damage or to wipe out their board.

Cards that can support it and explanations:
Pernicious Deed: You can minimize the amount of permanents at their disposal to sac.
Mindslicer: You can minimize their cards to pitch
Gravepact/Abyssal Gatekeeper: Again, permanent control
Eureka: Empty your hand, then sac like crazy
Mercenary/Rebel builds: Give you lots of critters to sacrifice
Living Death: Bring back any army after a round of sacrifices
Verdant Succession: If you are running green creatures, you can get replacements for them (note that you can't interrupt the Rituals resolution by sacking a critter, getting a replacement, then sacking again).

Its tough, but I suppose its possible.

Also, for discussions like this one in the future use the Single Card Strategy Forum. Not trying to be a board-cop, just trying to make the Mods lives a little easier .

BTW, welcome to the CPA

 

[chunkymonky1053]

I'd say grab a few Mind's Desire for a few quick creatures.

 

[Oversoul]

Don't know why they had to make that stupid errata. It's not like Ritual's broken...

A lot like the stupid errata on Iridescent Drake...

 

[Spiderman]

Probably because there are ways to create a huge number of token creatures where this can be abused with...

 

[train]

Actually - you can run it with something like Aluren and cause some serious hurts - especially if you draw up cards with Yawgmoth's Bargain...

 

[Oversoul]

Show me a deck that can really "abuse" Forbidden Ritual though...

It could be a cool deck, but never a truly dominant one, same as the Drake...

 

[train]

You want abuse... here you go...

Hermit Druid - Replenish...

Forbidden ritual...

and druid replenish was already strong enough - now you don't have to wait to attack... and to make casting it easier - have some celestial dawns in the deck...

"If only the world knew - what existed in my twisted mind..."

 

[Oversoul]

Fun maybe, but not broken...

Now, without the errata, it'd be better, but STILL not broken...

 

[Rooser]

moving back to the point: Trying get good use of the card.

You got me thinking about how to get a bunch of permanents into play. The general mechanical problem is not only mana, but the fact that you have to see a bunch of cards in order to get them out. Even if you loaded up on 0-cost spells, you're still stuck with the fact that you've only got so many cards. Unfortunately, if you devoted mana and cards to card drawing, you end up with little mana for the actual casting of spells.......

What you need is something that puts permanents into play directly from your deck.

What you need, are cards of the "untamed Wilds" family.

Now I know this sounds crazy, but it can work. Play with some mana buddies, some abyssal gatekeepers, and run Primal Growth, Skyshroud Claim, and Explosive Vegetation. Maybe some other land grabbers. Throw in Deeds if you got 'em. When you compound land-grabbers, the results are insane. I think this strategy can work!

 

[DeathMaster666]

What about Wierd Harvest + Eureka? That might be kinda fun.

 

[Bcopes]

Originally posted by Oversoul
Fun maybe, but not broken...

Now, without the errata, it'd be better, but STILL not broken...

Who's looking for broken? I wanted to use breeding pits for chimps sake!

 

[train]

The combo was abusive...

but as with any 3 card combo - it isn't broken... It's actually easy to disrupt - but once you get past the first game, and into the second - your sideboard may win the 2nd or 3rd for you...

 

[Oversoul]

Easy to disrupt and abusive usually don't go together in decks that aren't insanely fast or in situations where they face underpowered opponents. It's definitely fun, but what does it really win against consistently? It's not as though there's some killer deck that the errata kills, it just weakens a very fun card...

What I mean though, is that there's no convincing point for making that errata, unless I missed something (and if I did, I want to know about it)...

 

[train]

I know I haven't, but has anyone else built and run a deck similar to this to see exactly how strong it is?...

 

[Rooser]

I agree, the errata just makes it dumb.

I'll try building a deck with this and see what I get.

 

[train]

The errata doesn't make it dumb - it stops it from being broken...

and Errata is only used when the play concept of the card - due to wording, is not what was intended - or for rules clarification/simplification purposes.

 

[Oversoul]

It was in no danger of being broken...

If they meant nontoken, they'd have said it when it was printed. It wasn't left out in any sense except maybe they realized the card would have some use if it were allowed to use tokens. The errata on Great Whale/etc. was to stop them from being broken. The errata on Iridescent Drake killed a cool combo. The errata on this thing just weakens it to the point where I don't want to try and use it with Carrion or something. It wasn't broken before, so it didn't need fixed...

 

[Spiderman]

If they meant nontoken, they'd have said it when it was printed.

Not true, WOTC occasionally doesn't playtest a card all the way through or think of all the possibilities in the Future League. That's why there's errata and why the cards you mentioned got errata'd - because people used them for purposes other than originally intended, which is why those purposes got by the playtesting dept - they weren't thinking of those possibilities.

 

[train]

But there were mass token generators out there... and the game could have been broken because of them... here's a list of what could've done the job to break it... (just Ice Age-Weatherlight) - This means that perpetual slivers are not included in this list!!!...

Kjeldoran Outpost... in control decks...
Kjeldoran Home guard - ""
Balduvian Dead - massive man = massive creatures...
Spiny starfish - the shields were
Sengir Autocrat
Wall of Kelp
Caribou Range
Serent Generator
The Hive
Tetravus
Carrion!!!!!
Tombstone Stairwell!!!!
Goblin Scouts/Goblin Warrens!!!
Jungle Patrol!!!
Sacred Mesa!!!...
Waiting in the Weeds...
Snake Basket...
Liege of the hollows...

The tombstone was probably the most dangerous with this as it generated mass tokens ecery turn... hasted tokens, and then paying life is probably one of the things that put this on the errata block...

add to that the intruder alarm or slivers that came out in tempest block and it can be extremely broken!!!...