You might have seen Ral popping up more and more. Should you build a Ral deck? Oh…well, maybe you just want to beat Ral after the tenth loss to a very lucky lightning storm; or maybe some losses to turn 1 Thing in the Ice, followed by a list of spells that was longer than my last Brooklyn hipster coffee order. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By now, a good portion of the community has dubbed Ral the most consistent and powerful deck in the meta. The buff from four mana to three to his signature spell Magnum Opus, with each spell definitely did him a favor. The addition of a major offensive and defensive player in Thing in the Ice, plus 1 or 2 cheap cards like Warding flame, Delver of Secrets and Extract Sample, has truly taken the deck from A or B to straight to S tier. The nerfs to Jace have paved the way for another blue spellslinger to take the top spot.

    

 

I have a soft spot for Ral. We old-school Magic: the Gathering players remember Storm decks, and my heyday was when Dragonstorm was a thing (I’ll go back to bed like a good grandpa as soon as I’m done writing this.) It’s a very unique playstyle in Magic. Even when I was building without the heavy hitters it was a lot of fun. 

 

The best opening hand on turn 1 for the aggro build would be Delver of Secrets (flip on turn 2), turn 2 Thing in the Ice, Turn 3 Magnum Opus, into Mana Surge, with a spell that can interact with the board or life total like Unsummon, Warding Flame or Shock.

 

What you’ll be looking at is likely not much on your board, while facing down a 2/2 flier, 6/5 that may have stunned something just to rub salt in the wound, and at BEST, a 7/3 Monstrosity (and this is best because at least maybe you can trade with 3 toughness). A draw like that one is pretty hard to beat. 

 

Let’s take a look at two builds. Let’s start with the one I know the most. Without Wizard class and in the face of Jace pre-nerf, I was much more interested in the most aggressive build possible and the list you see, after a few iterations, is as explosive as you can get. There are some games where you can even use several burn spells in concert to do half of someone’s life total, not to mention incidental passive damage after playing three spells each turn which adds up to somewhere in the ballpark of 5-7 damage per game.

 

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But the real killer is slamming a Thing in the Ice as early as possible, alongside Magnum Opus. Tempo is the name of the game, as well as board presence and removal; and this deck has it all at a premium. Big creature in your way? Why not bounce it or stun it? Cheap creatures beating you down? Cast a series of Shocks, Warding Flame, and throw in a Firemind Bolt for good measure. And all the while your creatures like Thing in the Ice and Mizzium Monstrosity are benefiting immensely. Honorable mention to Young Pyromancer, although I’m still on the fence if he is a consistent and effective enough threat. You can only play him on 4 or 5 mana to ensure instant value but against control, he is a worthy threat. 

For a different flavor, you can run School of the Wizard, removal and other interaction to sail smoothly toward a victory of zapping your opponent with your passive, and smacking with unblockable Water Elementals. You can even run Tolarian Academy for extra value on Scalpers Stand and Isochron Scepter. Or be a maniac like me and run the Rooftop Laboratory! Finally, you can run a regular land to go big, Active Volcano to burn them out, Fountain of Magic for some more spells or Molten Monastery for card advantage. Not to sound like too much of a mogg fanatic here but, you really can build him in so many different ways and still make things go boom!

 

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Ok, ok, I’ll stop gushing about him…fine. Let’s show some love to the band of Spellslingers that are trying to throw some water on all these lit fuses. Maybe you think Kaya is quick and evasive enough to knock him down a peg. With green having access to both Grudge Match and Blindside, they might be able to take that chunk of ice and Mizzium…robot thing, down. Drizzt has some strong legendaries to work with that scale. Teferri has some useful traps and counterspells. Serra has lots of life gain and some solid late game. Finally, Domri has had some welcome additions as well, and has been rampaging all over the ladder with Craterhoof Behemoth and some efficient werewolves. Honestly, I think most of the planeswalkers I mentioned have some game. Although, Kaya has to get luckier than most. I would recommend starting with a Domri list that generates mana, beats down and goes over the top. I truly think green, including Vivien and Kiora, have efficient creatures and those green fight spells to wipe those monsters into the next game. If you can stop the early momentum, or blank a Mizzium Monstrosity with Serra’s Judgment, you have a real shot. 

 

Let’s go over a few more specific interactions. As you may notice in your research, white has quite a few spells to address Ral with. Although I’m not generally a huge fan of Serra’s Judgment (for its cost and the fact that you leave a blocker on board) it is an effective answer to Mizzium and Thing. The traps like Vindictive Shot and Immolating Glare can help; although with Vindictive, you save a mana, but take some potentially enormous damage, which is a risk. Generally, incidental life gain is a game changer when it comes to Serra specifically, or anyone who can employ the life gain land, Sacred Sanctum. As a Ral player, I’ve also come to dread Lightning Helix which can be a huge tempo swing. 

 

The key is consistency. Ral’s build’s are highly synergistic and efficient. As long as your deck has a curve that can address cards like Thing and Monstrosity, and preserve your life total as much as possible, you won’t be in the red. Take a hard look at what decks and planeswalkers you have access to and if you’ve got any of the green ones, crack open a nice eight-dollar oat milk latte, with cinnamon and an extra shot and see what you can come up with (it’s still early). For convenience, here are the best answers I can recommend, and this is from someone who clearly loves Ral.

 

Good Spells versus Ral:

 

Grudge Match, Blindside, Fatal Infection, Vindictive shot, Immolating Glare, Silvermoon Shackle, Unsummon, Serra’s Judgement, Retaliate, Path to Exile, Flame Coil, Take Down, Lightning Helix, Repulse, Sorin’s Feast 

 

Good creatures versus Ral:

 

Runeshell Crab, Ulvenwald Tracker, Hermit of the Flock, Soul of the Wood, Snapshell Turtle, Rotting Baboon, Elvish Archer, Channeler of Might, Elvish Infuser

 

Now let’s look how green decks can combat a Ral deck. Turn 1, Channeler of Might with ability so it’s a 3/3. Ok I take two damage… but I Grudge Match your Thing in the Ice and crack back for four damage. Turn 3 you bounce my Channeler but I replay it and play Krosan Tusker. Hypotheticals aside, this scenario would have a good shot of addressing the best opener from Ral. The key is trying to figure out their sequencing and matching it with your best line. 

     

 

After reading some of these, yes, ideal scenarios, I hope what this conveys is how immeasurably lucky you would have to get playing cheap aggro into this spell-slinging machine. Angrath, Nahiri, Chandra and Kaya can punish clunky draws, but this has not been a likely scenario in my experience. Ral will stomp most aggro matchups (and that’s even without Pyroclasm), and although he has a rougher time into Teferi, an experienced Ral player will know how to play around traps at certain times or bait out others. From my experience the best answer to Izzet has got to be those green fighters who hang with the big beasts; or specifically Nissa and Domri’s penchant for going far over the top in accelerating their mana early. I’m currently 68 on the mythic ladder so feel free to take it with a grain of skepticism, and hopefully, some curiosity. 

 

There seems to be a bogey man in each patch meta (Drizzt and Ashiok anyone?) I personally would take Ral over a guaranteed 6 or 7 turn loss that deletes midrange from the meta and, subsequently, erases much motivation to play anything other than hyper-aggro, or the worst control mirrors I’ve personally experienced as a sixteen-year magic veteran. Yes, I’m looking at you Laboratory Maniac. I may have adopted your lab to try and rank up, but I’ll never employ you in this doctoral program – your thesis was more than broken. 

 

For those who may not have as much time/gems for the top cards to choose from I’ll sign off with an accessible budget build!

 

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May you dodge every Chaos Lightning or may your opponents be zapped multiple times in the same, exact, spot.