In Modern, Birthing Ritual has emerged as a prominent value engine. Being able to cheat creatures with elite enters-the-battlefield abilities into play or dig for combo pieces without investing much mana is a huge luxury to have.
Now, the powerful enchantment is even starting to show up in Legacy. A unique Simic value deck managed to go 5-0 in a Magic Online Legacy League, utilizing a multitude of cards that don’t see much Legacy play at all! For anyone looking for an off-the-wall strategy to play at your next FNM, this deck delivers.
Setting Up Birthing Ritual
The main goal behind this archetype is to get Birthing Ritual into play and abuse it. Birthing Ritual provides a lot of flexibility, letting you look at seven cards on each of your end steps and then you may choose to sacrifice a creature to put another creature from among them into play that meets the mana value requirements. Given how important this card is to your strategy, you need ways to consistently find it during the game and maximize it once it’s in play.
Luckily, this deck checks both boxes. To help find the enchantment, a full playset of Shardless Agent makes an appearance. With no other cards of mana value two or less in the maindeck, Shardless Agent reliably Cascades into Birthing Ritual. Then, Shardless Agent serves as fuel for Birthing Ritual, enabling you to go grab a more powerful four-drop if you see one.
To accelerate you towards Shardless Agent or any other threat to start taking advantage of Birthing Ritual, four copies of Elvish Spirit Guide also show up in this decklist. Without access to cheap interaction, Elvish Spirit Guide and Force of Will are necessary elements to speed up your gameplan and keep other archetypes in check.
Interestingly, this shell does a great job abusing the new Warp mechanic, too. Both Quantum Riddler and Anticausal Vestige are present here. The goal is to Warp these creatures into play. From there, at the beginning of your end step, before they would enter exile, you can use Birthing Ritual’s ability to sacrifice them and put into play a huge haymaker.
Of course, Quantum Riddler is a strong card in its own right. Between Elvish Spirit Guide, Ancient Tomb, and Wood Elves, hard-casting Quantum Riddler is very realistic.
A Wealth of Options
Once you have your engine rolling, you’ll need strong cards to put into play with Birthing Ritual. The four-drop slot is especially important, as Shardless Agent and Wood Elves act as strong sacrifice fodder.
Your best hit at four mana is Undermountain Adventurer. Landing Undermountain Adventurer on an empty board will pull you super far ahead. It dodges Lightning Bolt, and if it lives until your next turn, you’ll have tons of mana to work with to cast any of your expensive spells.
Other cheap utility cards to select include Glen Elendra Archmage as an anti-combo card and Harbinger of the Seas to punish greedy manabases and decks using Gaea’s Cradle.
In games where you’re able to Warp Quantum Riddler or Anticausal Vestige, there are a handful of six-drops and seven-drops in the deck. Cards like Marang River Regent and Consecrated Sphinx threaten to take over games on their own. Then at seven mana, Agent of Treachery can set your opponent back significantly.
Managing Inconsistencies
When looking at the decklist, it may seem a bit concerning how many mana-hungry cards there are. In a format ruled by Wasteland, Daze, and powerful efficient plays, it isn’t always easy to get off the ground and set your engine up in the first place.
The good news, though, is that you have ways to maximize your expensive cards even when you draw them and can’t cast them. Right away, it’s important that nearly all of your big bombs are blue. So, if you draw them, pitching them to Force of Will or Force of Negation out of the sideboard is always an option.
Additionally, against blue decks, you get to add in four copies of Carpet of Flowers for games two and three. Not only does Carpet of Flowers make soft Counterspells such as Daze less concerning, but it also gives you a better shot at jamming your beefy threats ahead of schedule. The sideboard is very simple in its design. Carpet of Flowers, Force of Negation, and Endurance all appear in playsets.
The deck still has its inconsistencies. Not finding Shardless Agent or Birthing Ritual in game one makes your gameplan much slower and more vulnerable to Wasteland. Nonetheless, this deck is capable of some incredible draws, and Birthing Ritual provides inevitability when it lands and sticks around. We’re excited to see if the Quantum Riddler+Birthing Ritual package can continue to make a splash in Legacy moving forward.
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