I'll analyze card choices between successful and unsuccessful UG Ritual lists across all available data.
Let me try some alternative archetype names:
Great! Found it as "Simic Ritual" in Modern. Now let me analyze card choices between successful and unsuccessful lists:
Based on 183 Simic Ritual tournament entries from August 2024 to November 2025, I found minimal card choice differences between successful and unsuccessful lists. The core engine is identical across all records: 100% of both winning and losing decks play 4x Birthing Ritual, Coiling Oracle, Ice-Fang Coatl, and Flare of Denial. The most significant difference is Quantum Riddler, which appears in 36% of losing records but only 20.7% of winning records, suggesting it may be a weaker flex choice. Winning lists show slightly higher adoption of Dismember (94.6% vs 85.3%) and Force of Negation (98.9% vs 94.7%), indicating that premium interaction spells correlate with better performance.
The uniformity is striking: staples like Abhorrent Oculus, Subtlety, Harbinger of the Seas, and Shardless Agent appear in 93-100% of all lists regardless of record. Even flex slots show minimal variance, with Fblthp and Endurance at 77-93% presence across both groups. This suggests success with Simic Ritual depends more on play skill and matchup variance than card selection, as the archetype has converged on an extremely tight list with little room for innovation.
Sources
Data from 118 tournaments: 66.9% MTGO, 33.1% Melee.
https://www.mtgo.com/decklist/modern-challenge-64-2025-11-1512824420
https://www.mtgo.com/decklist/modern-challenge-64-2025-11-1412824410
https://www.mtgo.com/decklist/modern-challenge-32-2025-11-1212824462