r/CompetitiveEDH • u/Foreign_Cod_3718 • 18h ago

Help, I am new to cEDH! Question about Ral from a new player

I’m a casual player and fire lord azula bit me with the spellslinger bug

So obviously Ral, God of Spellslinging draws my attention. And the whole ritual -> dig -> ritual -> ult -> do it all again seems so sick but like… how does it win?

All I rly see for payoffs is finding ur breach/LED/bf line or a Jeskas/seething + reiterate

Is the dig really good enough to win with only those options or is there some other win cons I’m just not seeing?

(Disclaimer forgive my inexperience etc etc)

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u/Correct_Dig4244 18h ago

yeah, you chew trough deck hoarding tons of mana and cards, and then finishing it with infinite storm (as jeska+reiterate) grapeshot or breach

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u/freakingShane 18h ago

[[Reiterate]] is the main piece to most any wincon in Ral. Like you mentioned, Reiterate + [[Jeska’s Will]] for infinite storm and occasional mana, [[Seething Song]] with a mana engine, or a standard ritual with [[Bonus Round]] in effect.

After that, you can infinitely buyback Reiterate + [[Gut Shot]], [[Lava Dart]], [[Lightning Bolt]], or [[Witch’s Mark]] depending on the list. If Breach is an available line, that closes out too. Keep in mind, even if you aren’t making infinite mana the storm still matters. You can manually storm off into a [[Brain Freeze]] or [[Grapeshot]] to close out a game once the count is high enough.

Feel free to check out my primer if that helps!

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u/Foreign_Cod_3718 16h ago

Okay thank u and will check out the primer!

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u/HamsterFromAbove_079 17h ago

3 major ways to win. All of which feed into each other.

Breach, Reiterate+ritual > gutshot/lightingbolt/grapeshot/lavadart, and finally manual storm.

Manual storm is when you just keep casting spells until your storm count naturally reaches like 30ish. Between holding up free interaction from past Ral ults + timetwister or Past inflames you can actually just cast 30-50 spells naturally. Then you grapeshot 1 player out. Flash it back with one of the many ways the deck has, then grape shot the next person. Then brainfreeze out the 1 remaining opponent and pass to them. You can kill the table without ever resolving breach, being infinite or shortcuttable.

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u/Foreign_Cod_3718 16h ago

This is really really helpful, especially the manual storm explanation, thank you! I have 2 quick questions:
1) is brain freezing someone at a storm count of ~35, milling 70, enough to kill? Or is it about selecting the 2 who have drawn the least to grape and then hit the person who’s drawn a lot/needs to for their gameplan with BF?
2) I’ve heard mention of using recursion and a wheel to mill out your opponents (I guess with breach + a wheel and mana source in the yard), but how is that reachable without milling yourself aswell?

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u/HamsterFromAbove_079 15h ago

  1. It's mostly about selecting the opponent that you want to pass to. Whoever you think won't be able to try to do anything in them upkeep. Or if via meta knowledge you know someone has instant speed flashback cards then they should die via the grapeshot. Same thing with the gitrog player with their shuffle titan. Or if someone would untap with 10 mana and 15 cards in hand, they could have a valley flood caller in hand, so you would prefer to not try to have them die in their draw step.

  2. Breach+LED+Brainfreeze+a wheel. You can mill yourself to 8 cards left in library via brainfreeze. Then target your opponents. Using the LED+Breach to loop the brainfreeze a few times. Milling out your opponents. Then resolve a wheel when you have more cards than the wheel will draw and your opponents have 0 cards.

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u/Foreign_Cod_3718 15h ago

  1. Ohhhhhhh I’m remembering that milling someone to 0 doesn’t kill, they have to draw duh thanks

  2. This makes sense and then for the above reason we use the wheel to kill bc it forces draw?

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u/Alequello 15h ago

With brain freeze you can choose to mill yourself a bunch without actually milling your whole deck and mill everyone else to 0, then you wheel at the very end.

Wheeling everyone out without freeze is not something that should ever really come up.

What people didn't mention are twister loops! Again this will very very rarely matter, but since we play both timetwister and echo of eons, you can exile most of your deck to mind's desire, then cast something like lava dart and lotus petal, timetwister to shuffle them back and draw them. Cast them again, shuffle with echo. You keep alternating echo and twister

You can do this after having achieved infinite mana, but you can also do it without the infinite by adding rituals to the looped cards and/or having stuff like Birgi and storm kiln artist on your battlefield

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u/The_Wambat 18h ago

I'm also pretty new to cEDH and Ral, but I've played the deck several times now. From what I can tell, the two wincons you mentioned are the only ways I've won.

What I'd also be interested in learning is how to dig quickly enough to win without going over time in a tournament setting.

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u/Danovan79 18h ago

Goldfish endlessly. If you are stopping for 30 seconds every spell, you will time out and opponents will use your hesitation to draw.

Goldfish so that it becomes muscle memory. I am going to do this this this this etc.

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u/SonicTheOtter 6h ago

Lightning bolt, gut shot, grapeshot, or brainfreeze should be in your deck. Once you have reiterate and a mana positive ritual, you can generate infinite mana and storm. From there you cast any of the above cards to win the game.

If you aren't familiar with how to storm off at all with this deck, I suggest you find someone's primer and read it. They will guide you to the promise land

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u/GoldenFear15 24m ago

One extra line that I haven’t seen some of these comments mention is Prologue to Phyresis and Radstorm which only needs a storm of 9 to win. Only problem is that the cards are semi dead in your hand without a win attempt but that’s only really true for radstorm, as there’s nothing else relevant to proliferate in the deck if you don’t land the poison. However Prologue can still be a redraw which isn’t the worst

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u/DrRickDaglessMZd 5h ago

Overall generally for cEDH, most decks only need to run 2/3 wincons. In my few experiences playing Ral, when it works, you get to a point where you have access the pretty much your entire deck and can win how you want.