About The Deck

Blood Ritual Control Death is a value-packed deck focused on surviving the early game and overwhelming your opponent in the late. As of writing, I have a 91% win-rate with this deck, at 58W-6L, bringing me to second place for last weekend’s event.

Decklist

Mana	Name	# Of Cards
1	Athenian Archer	2
1	Blight Bomb	2
1	Fleshbind	1
2	Fanatic of Khnum	2
2	Pyramid Warden	2
2	Ruined Asp	2
4	Dust to Dust	2
4	Eldritch Demonologist	1
4	Veteran Archer	1
5	Amazon Hearteater	2
5	Raise Dead	2
6	Helian Blademaster	2
6	Reap	2
7	Demogorgon	2
7	Apocalypse Now	1
7	Cerberus, Styx Hound	1
8	Death, Unborn	1
8	End Times	1
9	Echophon, Atlantean Hydra	1

Decklist on Unchainedstats

General Mulligan

Ideally, you'll be looking for Athenian Archer, Blight Bomb, Fanatic of Khnum, Runed Asp, Pyramid Warden and Dust to Dust. I’ll go more in-depth in the match-ups section.

Mana 1-6

Survive. You want to be dropping down your Fanatic of Khnum and Runed Asp in order to ramp your mana ASAP. However, try to make your opponent trade/remove these two creatures instead of you trading them in. If they die on your turn, your opponent will have a bigger mana swing next turn. Of course, there’ll be moments in the game where you should trade/kill off your Fanatic/Runed Asp, e.g. 2 mana locks away from Demorgorgon. Other than that, Blight Bomb, Athenian Archer, Veteran Archer, Dust to Dust are all tools for you to survive the early game.

Mana 7 onwards

You should be out of the woods vs aggro/mid-range by now, as Demogorgon, Apoc Now, Cerberus, Reap should be enough removal till you get to your End Times/Echophon. You basically win because of Echophon + Raise Dead. However, you shouldn’t be afraid to use Raise Dead on other creatures, like summoning a Demonic Skull or maybe even the opponent’s Helian Elite you Reaped. There were times I had to Raise Dead a creature + Fleshbind just to survive too.

God Power: Blood Ritual

The God power is not only useful for leech, but you should also remember that it gives +1 strength to a friendly creature so you can make better trades in the early game. Using it on Echophon also gives it a larger overkill.

Match-ups

• Light
  Easy match-up. Mulligan for Blight Bomb, Fanatic and Dust to Dust. Dust to Dust absolutely wrecks their early game. Their creatures usually don’t have very high strength, so baiting more out to use Dust to Dust will seal the game. Amazon Hearteater cleans out Highborn Knight. Try not to play Pyramid Warden or Runed Asp into Light’s Levy. By mid-game it’s yours to win.
  
  
• Nature
  Easy match-up. Good mulligans are Blight Bomb, Fanatic, Runed Asp, Dust to Dust. Pyramid Warden + Athenian Archer would be a good pair as well, as their main 2 mana creatures are 3 health. They usually don’t have enough damage to kill you by 7 mana, so it’s your game to win.
  
  
• Magic
  Good match-up. Good mulligans are Athenian Archer, Blight Bomb, Fanatic, Runed Asp and Pyramid Warden. If they’re burst magic, a good Fleshblind or Death Unborn undoes a lot of their damage. Aggro is easily dealt with removal + Demogorgon.
  
  
• Deception
  50-50 match-up. Good mulligans are Athenian Archer, Blight Bomb, Fanatic, Runed Asp and Pyramid Warden. The real worry here is them Cutthroat-ing your important cards like Echophon. If they’re unable to Cutthroat your key cards, you should be able to win. Playing around Charm by not having any creatures on your board is also good to keep in mind. They really don’t have any way to kill you late game.
  
  
• Death zoo
  Ez match-up. Dust to Dust and they’re gone.
  
  
• Onslaught War
  ??? match-up. Good mulligans are Athenian Archer, Blight Bomb, Fanatic, Runed Asp, Pyramid Warden and Dust to Dust. I honestly don’t understand why I have a few losses against them, it’s probably a mix of bad draw and them having a few 4-6 mana creatures that are hard to remove. Other than that, your late game value should more than overwhelm them.
  
  
• Slayer War
  Good match-up. Good mulligans are Athenian Archer, Blight Bomb, Pyramid Warden and Dust to Dust. Survive early, win.
  
  

Problems with the deck

Honestly, the glaring problem with this deck is consistency. I have had some games where I don’t draw Death to Death by turn 6, so I just roll over and die. Or sometimes I have a double Raise Dead, Echophon and End Times in my hand at 5/6/7 Mana. Roll over and die. Of course, the deck’s win-rate is at 91%, but those few losses are incredibly frustrating. I’ll talk about card choices in the next section.

Central Cards and Card replacements

The center of the deck is built around theses cards:

Mana	Name	# Of Cards
2	Fanatic of Khnum	2
2	Ruined Asp	2
4	Dust to Dust	2
5	Raise Dead	2
6	Reap	2
7	Demogorgon	2
7	Apocalypse Now	1
8	Death, Unborn	1
8	End Times	1
9	Echophon, Atlantean Hydra	1

The main problem with the deck is surviving the early mid-game and drawing the rights cards, so here are some alternatives:

• Untold Greed – Some draw but with a prerequisite that you have something on the board.
• Rampart or The Portable Fortress – Quite an interesting choice now actually. Stops not only damage but favor generation.
• Duegar Priest – Some heal in the early game.
• Burrowing Scarab – Some draw to increase consistency of the deck.
• Sentient Amphora – Draw.
• Wicked Fae/Ranger Firstbow – Board control.
• Sacred Lore – Some midrange value, but not a good card vs aggro.
• Minotaur Phalanx is a good replacement for Helian Blademaster

I’d swap in these cards with any non-central cards. You can consider cutting one Raise Dead as well.

Closing

If you have any tips, let me know and I'll add it to the guide! This should be quite a fun deck as it’s pretty powerful and not just about hitting face 😊