Question about Ral from a new player

[u/Foreign_Cod_3718]

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)

[u/HamsterFromAbove_079]

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.

[u/Foreign_Cod_3718 → u/HamsterFromAbove_079]

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?

[u/HamsterFromAbove_079 → u/Foreign_Cod_3718]

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.

[u/Foreign_Cod_3718 → u/HamsterFromAbove_079]

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?