# Strategy Specifications
## Deck Name And Archetype

- Deck identity: `Storm` is a Modern Izzet ritual-combo strategy built around cost reduction, spell density, graveyard recursion, and storm-count conversion into `Grapeshot` or a sideboard `Empty the Warrens` plan. The registered main deck is exactly 60 cards and the registered sideboard is exactly 15 cards, so the deck-count contract passes for Modern construction.

- Format and seat model: The active format is Modern, with no commander and no command-zone object for this strategy. Commander-tax, commander-recast, and commander-zone policies are not applicable; runtime should treat every registered card as library/hand/graveyard/battlefield/stack/exile material according to normal Modern game objects exposed by the rules engine.

- Registered color identity and mana posture: The deck is functionally UR, with blue selection and `Gifts Ungiven`, red rituals and storm payoffs, and fixing from `Spirebluff Canal`, `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, `Fiery Islet`, `Island`, `Mountain`, `Otawara, Soaring City`, and `Manamorphose`. Mana decisions are high-risk because the deck must track floating mana, reducer effects from `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer`, graveyard access through `Past in Flames`, and color conversion through `Manamorphose` without inventing hidden resources or assuming future legal actions.

- Archetype tags: The active tags are `storm count`, `ritual sequencing`, `mana pool tracking`, `graveyard flashback`, `edge-case`, and `draft-only`. These tags should bias Veles toward exact spell-order reasoning, explicit mana accounting, and fail-closed behavior when the bridge cannot verify storm-copy logging, flashback legality, or current Modern legality for this exact registered list.

- Stock/rogue/hybrid status: This is a hybrid list: the main deck resembles classic Modern UR Gifts Storm with `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, and `Grapeshot`, but the strategy is registered as an edge-case draft-only seed rather than a public stock recommendation. Treat it as a testable combo specification, not proof that the current metagame, ban list, or optimal stock configuration endorses the list.

- Main-deck role validation: The maindeck has 8 cost reducers, 12 one-mana cantrip/selection spells, 8 ritual effects, 4 color-fixing cantrip rituals, 4 engine tutors, 2 graveyard engine cards, 2 primary storm payoffs, 2 stack-interaction tempo cards, and 18 lands. The role mix is coherent for a spell-chain combo deck, but it is fragile if early reducers die, if graveyard access is constrained, or if `Gifts Ungiven` piles are chosen without validating available mana, graveyard state, and remaining library contents.

- Sideboard role validation: The sideboard contains card-advantage rebuild tools in `Pieces of the Puzzle`, creature/removal pressure answers in `Lightning Bolt`, artifact and small-permanent interaction in `Abrade`, alternate storm payoffs in `Empty the Warrens`, mana-denial pressure in `Blood Moon`, broad bounce in `Echoing Truth`, stack interaction in `Mystical Dispute`, and artifact-focused pressure through `Shattering Spree`. Every executable sideboard plan must add only these registered sideboard cards and remove only registered main-deck cards.

- Legality and support concerns: The supplied validation result says the deck passes active Modern format validation, but the unresolved contract explicitly requires validating current Modern Gifts Storm legality and storm-copy logging. Until card-reference metadata and runtime proof confirm exact handling, Veles must not claim public-proof quality from this list and must mark any storm-copy, flashback, or `Gifts Ungiven` pile behavior as rules-engine-dependent.

- Opponent information status: No opponent deck, matchup, sideboard configuration, hidden-card information, or live board state is supplied in this batch. The pilot guide must therefore avoid assuming specific opposing hate cards or removal names unless they later appear as `opponent:` examples in policy contexts or are observed through legal public game information at runtime.

## Thesis

- Assemble a reducer-plus-ritual spell chain: `Storm` wants an early `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer`, enough lands or floating mana to start casting `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, and `Manamorphose`, and a verified engine path through `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or dense cantrips. The default priority is not raw card count; it is the exact mix of mana, color, storm count, and graveyard access that lets the next legal spell keep the chain alive.

- Win by converting spell volume into a registered payoff: the main-deck kill is `Grapeshot`, usually after the pilot has built storm with cantrips, rituals, `Manamorphose`, and flashback lines from `Past in Flames`. Sideboard games may also win through `Empty the Warrens` when a token wave is tactically safer than waiting for a lethal `Grapeshot` line, but that plan must account for the opponent's visible battlefield and known post-board answers.

- Treat `Gifts Ungiven` as the high-leverage engine, not as a casual value spell: before committing to it, Veles should verify available mana, reducer status, graveyard contents, library contents if known to the engine, and whether the resulting pile still leaves a legal continuation after the opponent's choice. If the bridge cannot verify pile legality, storm-copy logging, or flashback access, the pilot should fail closed rather than assume the classic line works.

- Do not play this deck as a fair UR tempo deck: `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` are combo infrastructure first, not primary attackers; `Remand` is tempo/protection/card-flow support, not a plan to counter everything; and `Grapeshot` should not be spent as routine small removal unless survival, a deterministic setup, or a rules-engine-visible line justifies it.

- Prioritize exact runtime accounting: every combo decision should track current mana pool colors, cost reductions, storm count, cards in hand, graveyard spell access, land drops, and whether `Manamorphose` is needed for color conversion or card flow. The deck rewards waiting when waiting adds a missing engine piece, but punishes waiting when the opponent's visible clock or known interaction makes the current legal window the best available commitment point.

## Role Package

- Threats: `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` are battlefield engines that threaten a future combo turn by reducing spell costs and enabling higher-density ritual chains. They can chip in combat only when doing so does not expose a needed reducer to unfavorable blocks or distract from preserving the combo turn.

- Payoffs: `Grapeshot` is the main-deck storm conversion card and should be aimed according to lethal math, survival needs, and visible targets. `Empty the Warrens` is the sideboard alternate payoff for games where many Goblin tokens are more reliable than assembling immediate lethal damage.

- Engines: `Gifts Ungiven` is the primary tutor/engine card and must be used with card-zone awareness because the opponent's choice and the graveyard result matter. `Past in Flames` is the graveyard-recursion engine that turns spent `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, and other eligible spells into a second chain when rules metadata confirms legal flashback access.

- Velocity: `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions` find reducers, lands, rituals, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, and `Grapeshot` while raising storm count during the combo turn. Use them early to sculpt when mana is constrained, but preserve one-mana spells for the combo turn when the hand already contains the required engine and mana shell.

- Mana acceleration and fixing: `Desperate Ritual` and `Pyretic Ritual` are the red ritual base, while `Manamorphose` converts colors, replaces itself, and adds storm count. `Spirebluff Canal`, `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, `Fiery Islet`, `Island`, `Mountain`, and `Otawara, Soaring City` must be sequenced to support blue setup and red ritual chains without assuming untapped mana the rules engine has not exposed.

- Interaction: `Remand` protects the combo window, buys a turn, and can interact with stack timing, but it should not be hoarded if using it now preserves a reducer or prevents a decisive opposing play. Sideboard interaction expands this axis with `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Echoing Truth`, `Mystical Dispute`, and `Shattering Spree`.

- Protection and resilience: Main-deck protection is light and mostly tempo-based through `Remand`, so the best protection is often sequencing: avoid exposing a lone reducer without follow-up when the opponent has visible untapped interaction pressure, and prefer combo attempts where a removed reducer still leaves enough mana to continue. Post-board resilience comes from `Pieces of the Puzzle`, `Blood Moon`, and selective interaction rather than from hard shields.

- Recursion: `Past in Flames` is the named recursion package and should be treated as a commitment card, because it consumes a major resource window and depends on the graveyard. Do not assume graveyard lines through visible graveyard hate or after cards have been exiled by rules-engine actions.

- Sideboard modules: `Pieces of the Puzzle` supports rebuild/card-flow plans; `Lightning Bolt` answers pressure or contributes reach; `Abrade` covers creature and artifact pressure according to legal modes; `Empty the Warrens` changes the win condition; `Blood Moon` attacks mana when this deck can still cast its spells; `Echoing Truth` is broad bounce; `Mystical Dispute` is stack interaction; and `Shattering Spree` is artifact-focused sideboard pressure.

## Primary Win Conditions

- Primary kill: `Grapeshot` converts a verified high storm count into lethal damage after `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` reduces the cost of setup spells. Prioritize this line when the rules engine shows enough legal mana, cards, and spell casts to make `Grapeshot` lethal or to clear blockers while preserving a second payoff; do not fire it as small removal unless survival or deterministic setup requires it.

- Setup for the main chain: deploy `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer`, keep blue access for `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, and `Gifts Ungiven`, and build red mana through `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, and `Manamorphose`. The preferred pre-combo state is reducer plus at least one ritual effect, one velocity spell or `Gifts Ungiven`, and enough untapped lands or floating mana to continue if a card draw misses.

- Execution through `Gifts Ungiven`: cast `Gifts Ungiven` only when the resulting legal pile can still continue after the opponent's choice. The usual engine objective is to assemble access to `Past in Flames`, ritual mana, color fixing through `Manamorphose`, and a payoff path to `Grapeshot`; Veles must use actual visible hand, graveyard, mana pool, library availability if exposed, and legal pile-selection output rather than assuming a stock pile is present.

- Execution through `Past in Flames`: commit `Past in Flames` when the graveyard already contains enough eligible spells, mana can cover the spell and the flashback chain, and exiled graveyard resources do not invalidate the line. Recasting `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, and eventually `Grapeshot` should be treated as storm math plus color math, not as generic card advantage.

- Disruption response: if the opponent can remove the only reducer, pressure the graveyard, or interact on the stack, prefer a combo window where floating mana, redundant reducers, `Remand`, or a naturally castable chain keeps the turn alive. Prioritize the main kill now over waiting when life total, board pressure, or known interaction makes the next turn materially less reliable.

## Secondary Win Conditions

- Sideboard token kill: `Empty the Warrens` becomes the preferred payoff when many Goblin tokens are more reliable than reaching immediate `Grapeshot` lethal. Choose this plan when the opponent's visible board cannot race or profitably answer the token wave, and when the current hand can generate a meaningful storm count without consuming all rebuild resources.

- Reduced-spell value chain: `Pieces of the Puzzle` after sideboarding supports a slower win by finding more spells and rebuilding toward `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, or `Empty the Warrens`. Use it when the game has shifted from one-turn combo to attrition, especially after removal has answered `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer`.

- Combat pressure is incidental, not the plan: `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` may attack only when doing so is legal, does not risk a needed reducer in combat, and does not interfere with holding mana for setup or protection. Chip damage matters because it lowers the required storm count for `Grapeshot`, but losing a reducer for minor damage is usually a failed exchange.

- Post-board reach and clearing pressure: `Lightning Bolt` can shorten the `Grapeshot` requirement or remove a creature that would otherwise end the game before the combo turn. `Abrade`, `Echoing Truth`, `Mystical Dispute`, and `Shattering Spree` support the win by opening a window, not by becoming the main plan.

- `Blood Moon` is a lock-support route only when this deck can still cast its blue setup and red rituals afterward. Prioritize it when opponent mana is the visible bottleneck and the Storm pilot has enough basics, lands, or existing board to continue progressing.

## Emergency Lines

- When behind on life, reduce the required clock first: use `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Echoing Truth`, or `Remand` to survive only if that creates another draw step or a combo window. If survival requires spending `Grapeshot`, confirm whether a second `Grapeshot`, `Past in Flames`, or `Empty the Warrens` path remains before losing the only payoff.

- When behind on board, prefer a fast combo attempt over fair trading unless visible legal interaction makes the attempt impossible. `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` should block only when life survival is more important than preserving cost reduction for the next turn.

- When behind on cards, use `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, and sideboard `Pieces of the Puzzle` to find a real engine rather than spending rituals into an empty hand. A ritual without a follow-up spell is emergency mana only when it enables an immediately legal stabilizing action.

- When behind on mana or missing colors, protect `Manamorphose` as the bridge between red ritual mana and blue engine spells. Do not assume `Spirebluff Canal`, `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, `Fiery Islet`, `Island`, `Mountain`, or `Otawara, Soaring City` produce the needed color unless the rules engine exposes that source and timing as legal.

- When graveyard recursion is unavailable, shift from `Past in Flames` dependency to natural storm, `Gifts Ungiven` for fresh resources, or sideboard `Empty the Warrens`. If graveyard cards are exiled or inaccessible, do not count them in storm-chain planning.

- When win conditions are removed or unsupported by logging, fail closed into rebuild mode. If `Grapeshot` storm copies, `Empty the Warrens` tokens, or `Past in Flames` flashback cannot be verified by rules-engine output, choose legal cantrip, mana development, or defensive interaction instead of inventing a lethal result."}

## Resource Model

- Core conversion: this deck converts hand size, untapped lands, reducer permanents, and graveyard access into one explosive turn. `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` turn every instant and sorcery into more efficient mana and storm count; protect their presence as a mana resource, not as combat material.

- Life is a spending buffer, not a plan: use life to preserve speed through `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, and `Fiery Islet` when the extra colored mana enables a reducer, cantrip chain, `Gifts Ungiven`, or combo turn. Conserve life when the opponent's visible clock makes a later shock, pain-land activation, or `Fiery Islet` sacrifice unsafe.

- Hand converts into velocity only when each spell has a follow-up: `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions` are early sculpting tools before commitment and storm-count fuel after commitment. Do not spend rituals into an empty or nearly empty hand unless the rules-engine output shows an immediate legal `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, or sideboard `Empty the Warrens` line.

- Mana is the main bottleneck during combo turns: `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, and `Manamorphose` must be tracked as exact floating mana, not as generic acceleration. `Manamorphose` is the bridge from red ritual mana into blue for `Gifts Ungiven`, `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, or `Remand`; avoid spending it before knowing which colors the chain needs.

- Board presence is mostly engine infrastructure: `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` are worth more alive than attacking or blocking unless life survival is at stake. Losing the only reducer changes the cost of nearly every spell in the deck and can invalidate a line that looked legal one action earlier.

- Graveyard is a second hand only after `Past in Flames` is legal and supported: count only graveyard cards that the engine exposes as castable with flashback or otherwise legally usable. If graveyard access is disrupted, shift to natural storm, fresh `Gifts Ungiven` selection, or sideboard `Empty the Warrens` rather than pretending spent rituals still exist.

- Exile is depletion: cards exiled after flashback or by opposing graveyard effects should be removed from future storm-chain assumptions. Do not count exiled `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or `Grapeshot` as rebuild resources.

- Lands convert into colors, velocity, and late-game reach: `Spirebluff Canal`, `Steam Vents`, and `Shivan Reef` are primary untapped UR sources; `Fiery Islet` is colored mana early and a sacrificed redraw later; `Otawara, Soaring City` is a blue source with a utility channel line only if the rules engine exposes it as legal. `Island` and `Mountain` reduce damage exposure and improve post-board `Blood Moon` games.

- Sacrifice fodder is almost absent: do not invent artifact, creature, or token sacrifice lines. The real sacrifice conversion is `Fiery Islet` into a card when mana is no longer the limiting resource or when flooding threatens to miss a combo window.

- Tempo converts into one more draw step or a protected combo window: `Remand` buys time on the stack and can replace itself; sideboard `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Echoing Truth`, `Mystical Dispute`, and `Shattering Spree` exist to remove blockers to execution, not to turn this into a fair control deck.

- Information is valuable before committing: cantrip ordering, known opposing mana, visible graveyard hate, and stack interaction determine whether to pass, build, or go now. `Gifts Ungiven` piles must be selected from actual visible zones and legal names, with the opponent's choice treated as hostile.

- Sideboard bullets convert matchup pressure into time or alternate payoff: `Pieces of the Puzzle` rebuilds resources, `Empty the Warrens` changes the kill axis, `Blood Moon` attacks mana, `Lightning Bolt` and `Abrade` answer pressure, `Echoing Truth` answers a problematic permanent or token cluster, `Mystical Dispute` fights blue stack exchanges, and `Shattering Spree` pressures artifacts.

## Mana Guide

- Opening mana must cast blue setup and reach red rituals: keep hands with a credible sequence into `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, or `Goblin Electromancer` plus enough red access for `Desperate Ritual` or `Pyretic Ritual`. Mulligan hands that have spells but no legal early blue source or no path to red mana before the combo turn.

- Prioritize untapped UR early: `Spirebluff Canal` is strongest in the first three land drops; `Steam Vents` should enter untapped when it enables a turn-one cantrip, turn-two reducer, or combo setup; `Shivan Reef` supplies either color at a life cost when speed matters. Do not describe `Fiery Islet` or `Shivan Reef` as free color fixing when life total is under visible pressure.

- Sequence basics for post-board plans: `Island` keeps blue cantrips and `Gifts Ungiven` available through damage concerns or `Blood Moon`; `Mountain` supports rituals and red sideboard cards. When planning to cast `Blood Moon`, confirm the deck can still produce blue afterward through already deployed lands, basics, or current hand sequencing.

- Play land before draw when the known line needs immediate mana: if the current turn requires casting `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or multiple rituals, make the land drop before cantrips unless a legal scry/surveil/selection choice clearly needs land-drop information. Play land after draw when `Serum Visions`, `Consider`, or `Sleight of Hand` can choose between lands and spells and no immediate mana is required.

- Use `Manamorphose` as exact color correction: choose colors based on the next legal spell, commonly blue for `Gifts Ungiven` or cantrips after red rituals, or red to continue `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Grapeshot`, `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Empty the Warrens`, or `Shattering Spree`. Do not cast it just to draw when the current floating colors are already fragile.

- Reducers change mana math but do not replace colored requirements: `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` reduce generic costs on eligible spells while the rules engine still enforces colored mana. Recompute after every reducer removal, every spell cast, and every `Manamorphose` color choice.

- Utility-land timing should be conservative: keep `Otawara, Soaring City` as a blue land when mana development matters more than its channel utility, and sacrifice `Fiery Islet` only when the extra card is worth losing a mana source. In combo turns, prefer lands that maintain both blue and red access over speculative redraws.

## Mulligan Guide

- Strong keep: keep two lands including `Spirebluff Canal`, `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, or `Fiery Islet`, plus one reducer from `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer`, one blue cantrip from `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, or `Serum Visions`, and one engine card from `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or multiple rituals. This hand has setup, color access, and a turn-three or turn-four commitment path.

- Medium keep: keep two or three lands with multiple cantrips and either `Gifts Ungiven` or a reducer, even without rituals, if the hand can cast blue spells on turn one and a reducer or selection spell on turn two. This hand is acceptable because `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions` can find `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, or missing payoff.

- Risky keep: keep one-land hands only when the land casts a turn-one blue cantrip and the hand contains at least two of `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions`. A one-land hand with `Mountain`, only red rituals, or no turn-one selection is not a real keep.

- Automatic ship: mulligan hands with no land, no blue source, only `Island` plus red-heavy spells and no cantrip chain, or payoff-only mixes such as `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Gifts Ungiven`, and rituals without enough mana to start. Also ship hands that rely on `Fiery Islet` sacrifice or `Otawara, Soaring City` utility before producing normal mana.

- Matchup-dependent keep: against fast creature pressure, value hands with `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` plus fast combo access over slow cantrip-only hands; after sideboard, `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, or `Echoing Truth` can justify a slower keep only if the rest of the hand still develops toward storm. Against blue interaction, hands with `Remand`, extra cantrips, or post-board `Mystical Dispute` are stronger than single-threat all-in hands.

- Play/draw adjustment: on the play, prioritize a turn-two reducer because untapping with `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` can force the opponent to answer immediately. On the draw, prioritize redundant mana and selection because the opponent has one more chance to present discard, removal, graveyard hate, or lethal pressure before the combo turn.

- Trap hand: do not keep land, land, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Grapeshot`, `Past in Flames` unless the lands and draw step create an actual way to generate storm and graveyard resources. Rituals plus payoff are not enough when the hand lacks `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, or `Goblin Electromancer`.

## Turn Arc

- Turn 1: lead with an untapped blue source for `Serum Visions`, `Sleight of Hand`, or `Consider` unless holding a clear turn-two reducer that requires preserving life with a different land. Prefer selection that finds the missing category: land, reducer, ritual, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or `Grapeshot`; do not burn `Manamorphose` as a random redraw before the combo turn.

- Turn 1 deviation: play `Spirebluff Canal` early while it is untapped, use `Steam Vents` untapped when the cantrip matters, and avoid treating `Fiery Islet` as expendable. If the only land is `Mountain`, the hand should already have been questioned at mulligan because it cannot cast the blue setup spells.

- Turn 2: cast `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` when the opponent cannot immediately punish it or when passing gives away too much tempo. If no reducer is available, cast another `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, or `Serum Visions` to assemble reducer plus `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, and `Gifts Ungiven`.

- Turn 2 deviation: hold `Remand` when the opponent's next spell is likely to stop the combo, create lethal pressure, or remove the only reducer. Post-board, cast `Lightning Bolt` or `Abrade` only when the visible threat meaningfully shortens the clock or blocks a safe setup turn.

- Turn 3: attempt the combo only when mana, reducer state, storm count, and legal hand/graveyard actions show a real path to `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, and `Grapeshot`, or to sideboard `Empty the Warrens` when that plan is present. If the chain is not deterministic, continue sculpting and pass with `Remand` when possible.

- Turn 3 deviation: if `Gifts Ungiven` is legal but floating mana cannot support the hostile opponent choice, wait unless waiting loses to visible pressure or disruption. If `Manamorphose` is needed, choose exact colors for the next spell rather than defaulting to red or blue.

- Turns 4-5: treat this as the normal kill window: untap with a reducer, chain `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, and `Manamorphose`, resolve `Gifts Ungiven` for a pile that remains functional after the opponent chooses, then use `Past in Flames` and `Grapeshot` only when the rules engine exposes the casts and storm output. If storm-copy logging or legality is unclear, prefer a line with visible legal actions over assumed lethal.

- Turns 4-5 deviation: post-board `Blood Moon` is a setup play only when it constrains the opponent more than it constrains this deck's blue requirements. `Pieces of the Puzzle` is a rebuild spell when the first wave is answered, not a reason to ignore immediate lethal or survival windows.

- Late game: conserve every live draw and graveyard resource because exiled flashback spells and spent rituals reduce future storm ceilings. Use `Fiery Islet` as a redraw only after mana is surplus, use `Otawara, Soaring City` as a land unless its legal channel action answers a blocking permanent, and consider `Remand` on your own `Grapeshot` only when the engine exposes the stack line and storm copies still achieve the intended result.

## Card Roles

`Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` are the deck's cost reducers, so protect their untap value more than their combat body. Cast one early when it enables a next-turn `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or ritual chain; avoid exposing the only reducer into obvious removal if the hand can keep sculpting.

`Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions` are setup tools, not filler storm count. Use them to find the missing category, and sequence their different information patterns carefully: `Serum Visions` draws before scrying, `Sleight of Hand` chooses from two seen cards, and `Consider` can load the graveyard for `Past in Flames`.

`Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, and `Manamorphose` are combo-turn resources. Do not spend them as casual cycling unless the line has a visible purpose; `Manamorphose` fixes exact colors for `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Remand`, or sideboard cards while also drawing exactly one card.

`Gifts Ungiven` is the main engine commitment. Build piles that survive the target opponent choosing two cards for graveyard, and do not assume a pile works unless the current hand, graveyard, floating mana, and reducers make both outcomes playable.

`Past in Flames` is the graveyard conversion spell. Cast it when the graveyard contains enough legal instants and sorceries to rebuild mana and storm; flashing it back for `{4}{R}` is expensive and should be planned around reducer discounts only when the engine confirms applicable costs.

`Grapeshot` is the primary kill card. Use it as a lethal storm payoff or as emergency removal only when doing so does not strand the combo; track that the original spell and storm copies deal damage separately as the rules engine exposes them.

`Remand` is tempo interaction and a combo tool. Use it on opposing stack threats when it buys the winning turn; consider targeting your own `Grapeshot` only when the stack action is legal and the existing copies plus recast line are visibly sufficient.

### Card Hover Notes

#### Baral, Chief of Compliance
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, core reducer creature and combo infrastructure.
- Role type: engine piece; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Makes instant and sorcery spells cost `{1}` less, turning `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Remand`, `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions` into cheaper storm-chain pieces.
- Timing: Cast early when untapping with Baral makes a turn-three or turn-four combo realistic; preserve it over chip combat unless life survival forces a block.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{U}` and a battlefield slot; outputs repeated generic-mana reduction and, when `Remand` counters a spell, optional draw-then-discard filtering.
- Partners / packages: Best with `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, and `Remand`.
- Role peers: `Goblin Electromancer` is the direct cost-reducer peer; Baral is legendary and has the counter-trigger filtering upside.
- Failure modes: Extra Baral copies are constrained by the legend rule; losing the only Baral before the combo turn can invalidate mana math.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Higher priority against fast decks when speed matters; more fragile against removal-heavy decks where a second reducer or more mana may be needed before committing.
- Low-skill guidance: Treat Baral as mana infrastructure, not an attacker; protect the first copy unless blocking prevents lethal damage.

#### Goblin Electromancer
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, core reducer creature and nonlegendary combo infrastructure.
- Role type: engine piece; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Reduces instant and sorcery spells by `{1}`, letting `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Remand`, `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions` chain with lower mana requirements.
- Timing: Prefer turn two when the hand can untap into rituals, `Gifts Ungiven`, or a protected setup turn; avoid exposing it into obvious removal if the hand can keep sculpting.
- Inputs / outputs: Requires `{U}{R}` exactly; outputs repeated generic-cost reduction but no card filtering.
- Partners / packages: Stacks with `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and additional `Goblin Electromancer` copies to make expensive spells like `Gifts Ungiven` and `Past in Flames` much easier.
- Role peers: `Baral, Chief of Compliance` is the direct peer; Electromancer avoids legend-rule conflict and can stack with itself.
- Failure modes: A 2/2 body is not worth trading away unless survival requires it; without red and blue access it can be stranded.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against decks that cannot remove it immediately; fragile against open removal or damage-based pressure.
- Low-skill guidance: Cast it to set up the combo, then keep it alive unless blocking buys the only extra turn.

#### Consider
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, role player instant-speed card selection.
- Role type: card selection; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Surveil 1 lets the pilot look at the top card and may put it into the graveyard before drawing, which helps find missing lands, reducers, rituals, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or `Grapeshot` while stocking flashback material.
- Timing: Use early when digging for a missing role; use at instant speed when holding `Remand`; use mid-combo when one more spell and one deeper card are worth the blue mana.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{U}` and one card; outputs one draw, one storm count, and optional graveyard fuel for `Past in Flames`.
- Partners / packages: Supports `Past in Flames`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, and `Grapeshot` by finding or loading them.
- Role peers: `Sleight of Hand` selects one of two immediately; `Serum Visions` draws first then scries 2.
- Failure modes: Do not put the only visible payoff into the graveyard unless `Past in Flames` or another payoff path is available.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Better than sorcery cantrips when preserving stack interaction with `Remand` matters.
- Low-skill guidance: If the top card fills the missing role, keep it; graveyard placement is useful only when the flashback plan is live.

#### Sleight of Hand
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, role player sorcery-speed selection.
- Role type: card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Looks at the top two cards, puts one into hand, and bottoms the other, making it the best cheap cantrip when the current hand needs one exact role now.
- Timing: Strong on turn one or turn two to find a land, `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or `Grapeshot`; weaker when holding up `Remand` is important.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{U}` and sorcery timing; outputs one chosen card, one storm count, and no graveyard fuel.
- Partners / packages: Finds `Spirebluff Canal`, `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, `Fiery Islet`, `Island`, `Mountain`, reducers, rituals, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, and `Grapeshot`.
- Role peers: `Consider` has instant speed and graveyard setup; `Serum Visions` improves future draws more than immediate choice.
- Failure modes: Bottoming a needed land, reducer, or payoff for generic spell count can stall the deck.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Trimmed more often post-board when slower cards like `Pieces of the Puzzle` or interaction replace pure velocity.
- Low-skill guidance: Take the card that fixes the current missing role, not the flashiest future payoff.

#### Serum Visions
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, role player sorcery-speed draw and top-deck setup.
- Role type: card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Draws one card first, then scries 2 to shape future draw steps or set up combo-chain draws after `Manamorphose` and other cantrips.
- Timing: Best early when the deck needs to plan the next turn; during combo, cast it when the immediate draw plus scry can keep the chain alive and blue mana is not needed elsewhere.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{U}` and one card; outputs one drawn card, one storm count, and top-library control from scry 2.
- Partners / packages: Helps find `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, or sideboard `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Echoing Truth`, and `Mystical Dispute`.
- Role peers: `Sleight of Hand` gives immediate choice between two seen cards; `Consider` can put a card into the graveyard before drawing.
- Failure modes: The scryed cards are not in hand yet, so do not count them as available for the current spell chain.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in slower games; less useful when sorcery speed prevents holding `Remand`.
- Low-skill guidance: Draw first, then keep cards on top only if they solve the next missing role.

#### Desperate Ritual
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, core ritual and storm-turn mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Adds `{R}{R}{R}` and increases storm count, usually converting reducer discounts from `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` into net red mana for `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, or more rituals.
- Timing: Save for a committed combo turn unless it directly casts `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Empty the Warrens`, or a necessary sideboard answer this turn.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{R}` before reductions and adds `{R}{R}{R}`; with one reducer it costs `{R}` and nets two red mana.
- Mode map: Normal cast adds `{R}{R}{R}`. Splice onto Arcane `{1}{R}` can reveal Desperate Ritual while casting an Arcane spell, but this registered list has no other Arcane card, so splice has no practical deck line here.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Empty the Warrens`, `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, and `Goblin Electromancer`.
- Role peers: `Pyretic Ritual` is the closest peer without splice text.
- Failure modes: Red mana alone does not cast blue `Gifts Ungiven`, `Remand`, `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, `Echoing Truth`, or `Mystical Dispute`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: More valuable when racing; risky into hate that stops graveyard or storm payoff resolution.
- Low-skill guidance: Do not fire this just to raise storm count unless a payoff or engine spell is already reachable.

#### Pyretic Ritual
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, core ritual and storm-turn mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; mechanic enabler.
- Deck-specific job: Adds `{R}{R}{R}` and supplies the red mana needed to chain into `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Empty the Warrens`, or more ritual spells.
- Timing: Best after `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` is on the battlefield; cast before expensive engine spells only when the mana has a confirmed use.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{R}` before reductions and adds `{R}{R}{R}`; produces storm count but no card replacement.
- Partners / packages: Pairs with `Desperate Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Empty the Warrens`, `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, and `Goblin Electromancer`.
- Role peers: `Desperate Ritual` is the direct peer; `Manamorphose` fixes colors and draws instead of producing net red without reductions.
- Failure modes: Casting it into an empty hand or without a reachable engine can waste the deck's main burst resource.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Critical against fast pressure; less valuable if post-board games become attrition-heavy with `Pieces of the Puzzle`.
- Low-skill guidance: Treat this as combo fuel, not a setup spell.

#### Manamorphose
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, core fixing ritual and card-flow piece.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Turns available mana into two mana in any combination of colors and draws a card, bridging red ritual mana into blue for `Gifts Ungiven`, `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Remand`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, `Echoing Truth`, or `Mystical Dispute`.
- Timing: Cast when the next spell's color requirement is known; avoid early random cycling if it is the only way to turn red mana into blue.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{R/G}` before reductions, adds two mana in any combination of colors, draws one card, and increases storm count.
- Partners / packages: Enables `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Empty the Warrens`, `Mystical Dispute`, and `Echoing Truth`.
- Role peers: `Desperate Ritual` and `Pyretic Ritual` make red mana; Manamorphose is the only main-deck spell here that fixes into exact colors while replacing itself.
- Failure modes: Choosing colors without mapping the next legal spell can strand `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or `Grapeshot`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Especially important through `Blood Moon` plans or pain-sensitive mana where exact colors are constrained.
- Low-skill guidance: Pick mana colors for the next named spell, not for abstract balance.

#### Gifts Ungiven
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, core engine tutor/search spell.
- Role type: tutor/search; engine piece.
- Deck-specific job: Searches up to four cards with different names, reveals them, lets target opponent choose two to put into your graveyard, and puts the rest into your hand, making both hand and graveyard part of the same plan.
- Timing: Cast only when both opponent-choice outcomes advance the turn or rebuild; end-step Gifts is good only if the next turn can use the split resources.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{3}{U}` before reductions; consumes library access and gives two cards to hand plus two to graveyard when four names are chosen.
- Partners / packages: Common targets by need are `Past in Flames` for graveyard engine, `Desperate Ritual` and `Pyretic Ritual` for red mana, `Manamorphose` for color conversion, and `Grapeshot` for payoff.
- Role peers: `Pieces of the Puzzle` finds only instant and/or sorcery cards from the top five after sideboarding; it is not a deterministic tutor.
- Failure modes: A pile that works only if the opponent gives specific cards is a bad pile; visible graveyard hate can make the graveyard half unusable.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against slower decks; risky against active graveyard denial or stack pressure.
- Low-skill guidance: Build piles where `Past in Flames`, rituals, Manamorphose, and payoff remain useful no matter which two cards the opponent chooses.

#### Past in Flames
- Deck role: Main deck, 2 copies, core graveyard engine and combo commitment card.
- Role type: engine piece; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Gives each instant and sorcery card in your graveyard flashback until end of turn with flashback cost equal to its mana cost, letting spent `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Remand`, and `Grapeshot` become usable again.
- Timing: Commit when the graveyard has enough rituals, cantrips, and payoff access to continue after paying `{3}{R}` or its own flashback `{4}{R}`.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes four mana including red from hand, or five mana including red from graveyard; outputs temporary flashback access until end of turn, and spells cast with flashback are exiled after resolution.
- Partners / packages: Best with `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Grapeshot`, `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions`.
- Role peers: No direct peer; closest role overlap is `Gifts Ungiven` setting up the graveyard and `Pieces of the Puzzle` stocking spells post-board.
- Failure modes: Casting into graveyard hate or with too little mana can spend the turn without producing a payoff.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Weaker when opponents show graveyard pressure; sideboard `Empty the Warrens` and `Pieces of the Puzzle` reduce dependence on it.
- Low-skill guidance: Do not cast until the graveyard already contains castable spells and the mana to use them.

#### Grapeshot
- Deck role: Main deck, 2 copies, primary storm payoff and occasional emergency interaction.
- Role type: combo finisher; reach/finisher; interaction-removal.
- Deck-specific job: Deals 1 damage to any target, then storm copies it for each spell cast before it this turn, usually converting `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, cantrips, `Gifts Ungiven`, and `Past in Flames` into lethal damage.
- Timing: Cast for lethal when original plus storm copies can deal enough damage to the opponent; use as removal only if a creature prevents combo execution or threatens immediate survival.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{R}` before reductions; consumes storm count and a scarce payoff slot.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, `Past in Flames`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, and sometimes `Remand` if the original spell can be legally returned to hand while storm copies still matter.
- Role peers: `Empty the Warrens` is the sideboard storm payoff; `Lightning Bolt` is sideboard reach but not a storm finisher.
- Failure modes: Nonlethal opponent damage wastes the deck's cleanest kill; storm-copy targeting must be verified by the rules engine.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Prefer over `Empty the Warrens` when tokens are weak to blockers or sweepers.
- Low-skill guidance: Count opponent life and storm copies before casting; if it is not lethal, ask why spending a payoff is necessary.

#### Remand
- Deck role: Main deck, 2 copies, role player stack interaction and combo-tempo card.
- Role type: interaction-stack; card selection; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Counters target spell on the stack, returns it to its owner's hand instead of the graveyard if countered this way, and draws a card; it buys a turn or creates a legal self-`Grapeshot` recast line when the stack supports it.
- Timing: Hold for spells that stop the combo, remove the only needed reducer, create lethal pressure, or fight over `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or `Grapeshot`.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{U}` before reductions; consumes a card and stack window; outputs a draw and temporary disruption.
- Partners / packages: Triggers Baral's optional draw-then-discard when a spell or ability you control counters a spell; can pair with `Grapeshot` only when the original spell is still a legal target on the stack.
- Role peers: `Mystical Dispute` is sideboard stack interaction that taxes instead of bouncing the spell.
- Failure modes: Does not answer resolved permanents; weak if the opponent can immediately recast the same spell and no combo window follows.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Stronger against expensive spells, blue stack fights, and combo mirrors; weaker against cheap creature swarms.
- Low-skill guidance: Use it to buy the exact winning turn, not to counter the first spell available.

#### Spirebluff Canal
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, core mana resource and early untapped blue-red source.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Provides `{U}` or `{R}` while entering untapped only if you control two or fewer other lands, making it ideal for turn-one `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, or `Serum Visions`, turn-two `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer`, and early rituals.
- Timing: Play early whenever possible; after the third land, plan around it entering tapped.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes a land drop; outputs blue or red mana with no life payment when untapped.
- Partners / packages: Casts `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Grapeshot`, `Remand`, and `Goblin Electromancer`.
- Role peers: `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, and `Fiery Islet` also provide blue-red access but with life or timing costs.
- Failure modes: Assuming late untapped mana from Spirebluff Canal can break `Gifts Ungiven` or `Past in Flames` math.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent against fast decks because it preserves life while enabling speed.
- Low-skill guidance: Lead with this early; do not rely on it as an untapped fourth land.

#### Steam Vents
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, core mana resource, Island Mountain shock land.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Provides `{U}` or `{R}` and counts as both Island and Mountain, supporting blue setup, red rituals, and post-board `Blood Moon` planning before it resolves.
- Timing: Pay 2 life when untapped access casts a turn-one cantrip, turn-two reducer, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, or key sideboard answer; let it enter tapped when speed is not worth the life.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes a land drop and optionally 2 life; outputs blue or red mana.
- Partners / packages: Casts `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, and sideboard red or blue spells.
- Role peers: `Spirebluff Canal` is painless early; `Shivan Reef` and `Fiery Islet` spend life per colored use.
- Failure modes: Shock damage can lose races; entering tapped can miss critical setup windows.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Against Burn or fast attackers, avoid paying 2 life unless it changes the combo clock.
- Low-skill guidance: Pay life for speed only when the mana casts a named important spell this turn.

#### Shivan Reef
- Deck role: Main deck, 4 copies, core mana resource and pain-land color fixer.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Supplies `{C}` for generic costs or pays 1 life to add `{U}` or `{R}`, giving flexible access for cantrips, reducers, rituals, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, and `Grapeshot`.
- Timing: Use colored pain when exact blue or red mana is needed; use `{C}` for generic parts of `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, `Blood Moon`, or `Empty the Warrens` when colored sources are already covered.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes land drop; outputs colorless without life or blue/red with 1 damage to you.
- Partners / packages: Supports `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Echoing Truth`, `Mystical Dispute`, and `Shattering Spree`.
- Role peers: `Steam Vents` spends life up front; `Fiery Islet` spends life for colored mana and can later sacrifice to draw.
- Failure modes: Repeated pain-land activations can put the deck in range of creature or burn pressure.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Against fast damage, prefer `Island`, `Mountain`, or painless `Spirebluff Canal` when timing allows.
- Low-skill guidance: Take damage only when the colored mana changes the turn.

#### Fiery Islet
- Deck role: Main deck, 2 copies, mana resource and late redraw land.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Produces blue or red at a life cost early, then can be sacrificed for a card when mana is surplus and the deck needs to find `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, rituals, or interaction.
- Timing: Use as mana during setup and combo turns; sacrifice only after confirming losing the land will not strand blue for `Gifts Ungiven` or red for `Past in Flames` and `Grapeshot`.
- Inputs / outputs: Mana ability consumes tap and 1 life for `{U}` or `{R}`; draw ability consumes `{1}`, tap, and sacrificing Fiery Islet to draw one card.
- Mode map: Mana ability fixes colors at a life cost. Sacrifice ability converts the land into a card and permanently reduces available mana sources.
- Partners / packages: Finds or casts `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, and `Grapeshot`.
- Role peers: `Shivan Reef` also spends life for colored mana but cannot cash in for a card.
- Failure modes: Early sacrifice can make `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or sideboard spells uncastable.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Life payment is dangerous against Burn and fast creature pressure.
- Low-skill guidance: Keep it as a land until extra mana is clearly less valuable than one new card.

#### Island
- Deck role: Main deck, 2 copies, strategically important basic mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Provides painless `{U}` for `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Remand`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, `Echoing Truth`, and `Mystical Dispute`.
- Timing: Prioritize when life total matters or when post-board `Blood Moon` is planned; pair with red sources before keeping hands that need rituals.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes a land drop; outputs blue mana without life loss and remains an Island through normal mana planning.
- Partners / packages: Supports `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Remand`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, `Echoing Truth`, and `Mystical Dispute`.
- Role peers: `Otawara, Soaring City` also taps for blue; `Steam Vents` supplies blue or red with possible life cost.
- Failure modes: Island alone cannot cast `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Empty the Warrens`, `Blood Moon`, or `Shattering Spree`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Important against damage pressure and in games where `Blood Moon` would turn nonbasic lands into Mountains.
- Low-skill guidance: Keep Island hands only when red access or blue cantrips can realistically find red.

#### Mountain
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, strategically important basic mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Provides painless `{R}` for `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Empty the Warrens`, `Blood Moon`, and `Shattering Spree`.
- Timing: Valuable in post-board `Blood Moon` games and pain-sensitive races; risky as the only land because it cannot cast the deck's blue setup.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes a land drop; outputs red mana without life loss.
- Partners / packages: Supports `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Empty the Warrens`, `Blood Moon`, and `Shattering Spree` while `Island` or blue-producing nonbasics cover `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Gifts Ungiven`, and `Remand`.
- Role peers: `Steam Vents` can be both red and blue; `Spirebluff Canal`, `Shivan Reef`, and `Fiery Islet` provide red with more conditions or costs.
- Failure modes: Mountain-only openers cannot cast `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Gifts Ungiven`, or `Remand`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong when `Blood Moon` is boarded in and painless red matters.
- Low-skill guidance: Do not keep a Mountain-only hand unless the rest of the hand has a credible blue-access plan.

#### Otawara, Soaring City
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, singleton/flex mana resource and utility interaction land.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; interaction-removal; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Usually taps for `{U}`; channel can discard Otawara to return target artifact, creature, enchantment, or planeswalker to its owner's hand, opening a one-turn combo window against a resolved permanent.
- Timing: Treat as a blue land when mana development matters; channel only when bouncing a visible permanent enables combo this turn, prevents lethal, or removes a hate piece for the decisive window.
- Inputs / outputs: Mana ability outputs blue. Channel costs `{3}{U}` and discards Otawara; the cost is `{1}` less for each legendary creature you control, mainly `Baral, Chief of Compliance` in this list.
- Mode map: Land mode supplies blue mana. Channel mode is an activated ability from hand, not a spell, and targets artifact, creature, enchantment, or planeswalker only.
- Partners / packages: Baral reduces channel cost by being legendary; bounce can clear artifacts or enchantments that block `Past in Flames`, creatures that force bad blocks, or planeswalkers near ultimate pressure.
- Role peers: `Echoing Truth` bounces target nonland permanent plus same-name copies; Otawara cannot hit nonartifact lands and costs a land card.
- Failure modes: Channeling too early loses a blue source and gives the opponent a chance to replay the permanent.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Valuable against resolved hate that `Remand` and `Mystical Dispute` can no longer answer.
- Low-skill guidance: Use as land by default; channel only with a named target and a same-turn payoff or survival reason.

#### Pieces of the Puzzle
- Deck role: Sideboard, 3 copies, role player rebuild spell for slower post-board games.
- Role type: card selection; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Reveals the top five cards, puts up to two instant and/or sorcery cards into hand, and the rest into the graveyard, rebuilding toward rituals, cantrips, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, or interaction.
- Timing: Bring in when games slow down through removal, discard, blue interaction, or graveyard pressure; cast when spending three mana does not miss a lethal or survival window.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{U}`; can put `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, `Remand`, `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Empty the Warrens`, `Echoing Truth`, `Mystical Dispute`, or `Shattering Spree` into hand if revealed.
- Partners / packages: Stocks graveyard for `Past in Flames`; finds sideboard `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Echoing Truth`, `Mystical Dispute`, and `Shattering Spree`.
- Role peers: `Gifts Ungiven` is the main tutor/search engine; Pieces is top-five card advantage, not a pile tutor.
- Failure modes: Cannot put `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, `Blood Moon`, lands, or unrevealed cards into hand.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against control and midrange; too slow against fast creature pressure unless interaction already stabilizes.
- Low-skill guidance: Take castable instants and sorceries that solve the next turn, not just the highest-power names.

#### Lightning Bolt
- Deck role: Sideboard, 3 copies, role player cheap damage interaction and reach.
- Role type: interaction-removal; reach/finisher.
- Deck-specific job: Deals 3 damage to any target, removing one- to three-toughness creatures, pressuring low-loyalty planeswalkers, or reducing the storm count needed for a later `Grapeshot`.
- Timing: Use early only when a creature shortens the clock, threatens a reducer, or blocks the combo plan; save for reach when the opponent is near lethal and storm math is tight.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{R}`; outputs 3 damage to target creature, player, planeswalker, or other legal "any target."
- Partners / packages: Supports `Grapeshot` lethal math, protects `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` from combat pressure, and adds a cheap spell to `Past in Flames` turns when sideboarded.
- Role peers: `Abrade` hits creatures for 3 or destroys artifacts; `Grapeshot` can divide storm damage but is a scarce main-deck payoff.
- Failure modes: Over-boarding Bolt can dilute storm density; firing it at the opponent without a lethal plan can waste needed interaction.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Best against small creature pressure and low-life races; poor against large threats and noncreature hate.
- Low-skill guidance: Kill a creature only if it changes survival or the combo window; otherwise count whether 3 face damage helps lethal.

#### Abrade
- Deck role: Sideboard, 2 copies, role player flexible creature/artifact interaction.
- Role type: interaction-removal; modal utility; sideboard bullet.
- Deck-specific job: Answers either a creature with 3 damage or an artifact by destruction, covering small hate creatures, pressure creatures, and artifact permanents that block `Past in Flames` or spell chaining.
- Timing: Bring in when both creature pressure and artifact targets are plausible; cast before combo if the target blocks the combo, or on the opponent's turn if survival is the bottleneck.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{R}`; consumes one card for either creature damage or artifact destruction.
- Mode map: Damage mode deals 3 damage to target creature only. Artifact mode destroys target artifact and does not target creatures or enchantments unless they are artifacts.
- Partners / packages: Protects `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` from creature pressure; clears artifact hate before `Past in Flames`; pairs with `Shattering Spree` when multiple artifacts matter.
- Role peers: `Lightning Bolt` is cheaper and can target any target; `Shattering Spree` is sorcery-speed artifact-only but can replicate.
- Failure modes: Cannot destroy nonartifact enchantments or answer spells on the stack.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against artifact aggro, artifact hate, and small creature disruption.
- Low-skill guidance: Pick the mode from the visible target: creature for a clock or hate body, artifact for a permanent blocking the combo.

#### Empty the Warrens
- Deck role: Sideboard, 2 copies, alternate storm payoff and post-board win condition.
- Role type: combo finisher; mechanic payoff; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Creates two 1/1 red Goblin creature tokens plus storm copies, converting a medium spell chain into a board that can win without relying on immediate `Grapeshot` lethal or `Past in Flames` graveyard access.
- Timing: Cast when the token count races the visible battlefield and the opponent is unlikely to erase the army before it attacks; prefer it when stack pressure or graveyard hate makes `Past in Flames` worse.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{3}{R}` before reductions; consumes storm count and outputs two Goblins per original/copy.
- Partners / packages: Enabled by `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, and `Goblin Electromancer`.
- Role peers: `Grapeshot` is the main-deck storm payoff that wins immediately when storm count reaches lethal.
- Failure modes: Tokens are slow into sweepers, large blockers, or lethal crackback; casting for too few tokens can give the opponent time to recover.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against graveyard hate and one-for-one counterspell plans; weaker against go-wide blockers and board wipes.
- Low-skill guidance: Count how many Goblins you make and how many attack steps they need before choosing this over Grapeshot.

#### Blood Moon
- Deck role: Sideboard, 2 copies, prison-style mana disruption bullet.
- Role type: hate piece; sideboard bullet.
- Deck-specific job: Makes nonbasic lands Mountains, attacking opponents with greedy mana while this deck uses `Island`, `Mountain`, already-deployed blue sources, rituals, and red spells to continue.
- Timing: Cast when the opponent's nonbasic lands matter more than this deck's need for blue mana; do not spend turn three on it if a combo kill is available.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{R}`; outputs a static mana-denial effect on nonbasic lands while Blood Moon remains on the battlefield.
- Partners / packages: Works best with `Island` and `Mountain`; red rituals `Desperate Ritual` and `Pyretic Ritual` still function after it resolves, while blue spells need planned blue access.
- Role peers: No direct peer; closest role overlap is `Remand` buying time from the stack rather than attacking mana.
- Failure modes: Can shut off blue from `Spirebluff Canal`, `Shivan Reef`, `Fiery Islet`, and `Otawara, Soaring City` by making them Mountains; does not answer resolved hate.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring in against greedy mana and big-mana decks; avoid when the opponent has basics or when your hand needs repeated blue.
- Low-skill guidance: Before casting, confirm how you will cast `Gifts Ungiven`, cantrips, or sideboard blue cards afterward.

#### Echoing Truth
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, singleton/flex temporary bounce answer.
- Role type: interaction-removal; sideboard bullet.
- Deck-specific job: Returns target nonland permanent and all other permanents with the same name as that permanent to their owners' hands, creating a one-turn window through hate permanents, token clusters, or pressure pieces.
- Timing: Use at the last safe point before combo when the permanent must be gone only briefly; use earlier only if survival requires it.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{1}{U}`; consumes a card for temporary bounce and can remove multiple same-name permanents.
- Partners / packages: Clears a resolved nonland obstacle so `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, or `Empty the Warrens` can proceed.
- Role peers: `Otawara, Soaring City` channels to bounce target artifact, creature, enchantment, or planeswalker; Echoing Truth hits any target nonland permanent and same-name copies.
- Failure modes: The opponent can replay the card; it cannot target lands and does not permanently destroy artifacts or enchantments.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against token clusters and resolved hate that must leave for the combo turn.
- Low-skill guidance: Bounce the named blocker right before winning, not several turns before the opponent can replay it.

#### Mystical Dispute
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, singleton/flex stack interaction for blue fights.
- Role type: interaction-stack; sideboard bullet.
- Deck-specific job: Counters target spell unless its controller pays `{3}`, and costs `{2}` less to cast if it targets a blue spell, protecting `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, `Grapeshot`, or `Empty the Warrens` from stack fights.
- Timing: Hold for key blue spells or decisive stack exchanges; do not spend it on low-impact spells unless doing so buys the exact combo turn.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{2}{U}`, or `{U}` if targeting a blue spell; outputs a tax counter effect on a spell on the stack.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Remand` as post-board stack interaction; protects engine spells and payoffs during the commitment turn.
- Role peers: `Remand` always costs `{1}{U}` before reductions, draws a card, and returns the countered spell to hand instead of taxing.
- Failure modes: Does not answer resolved permanents; weak against nonblue spells when the opponent can pay `{3}`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring in against blue control, blue tempo, and blue combo mirrors.
- Low-skill guidance: Save it for a spell on the stack that would stop your win or force through their win.

#### Shattering Spree
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, artifact-removal bullet for clustered artifact problems.
- Role type: interaction-removal; sideboard bullet; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Destroys target artifact, with replicate `{R}` creating additional copies for each extra `{R}` paid, letting one card clear multiple artifact hate pieces or artifact threats.
- Timing: Use before the combo turn when artifacts block mana, graveyard access, spell volume, or survival; wait until enough red mana is available if multiple targets matter.
- Inputs / outputs: Costs `{R}` plus `{R}` for each replicate payment; outputs artifact destruction from the original spell and copied spells.
- Mode map: Base spell targets one artifact. Replicate copies the spell for each time the replicate cost was paid, and copies may choose new artifact targets.
- Partners / packages: Red mana from `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, `Fiery Islet`, `Mountain`, and post-`Blood Moon` nonbasics can pay replicate.
- Role peers: `Abrade` destroys one artifact at instant speed and can instead damage a creature; Shattering Spree is sorcery-speed but scales across artifacts.
- Failure modes: Cannot hit creatures unless they are artifacts, cannot hit nonartifact enchantments, and can be awkward through countermagic on the original spell.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Best against artifact-heavy decks or multiple artifact hate permanents; poor against single low-impact artifacts.
- Low-skill guidance: Count red mana and exact artifact targets before choosing replicate payments.

## Interaction Priorities

- Priority: Counter or bounce hate that blocks the combo before spending card draw on sculpting. `Remand` and sideboard `Mystical Dispute` answer spells only while they are on the stack; once a hate permanent resolves, route to `Echoing Truth`, `Otawara, Soaring City`, `Abrade`, or `Shattering Spree` when the legal target type matches.

- Priority: Protect the engine turn, not every early resource. Let expendable pressure or low-impact setup resolve when the hand can win through it, but fight stack interaction that stops `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, a lethal `Grapeshot`, or the first cost reducer when the hand depends on `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` to make mana work.

- Priority: Remove creatures only when they change the clock, stop setup, or threaten the cost reducer needed for the current line. Main-deck `Grapeshot` can clean up small creatures only when doing so does not spend the win condition before a replacement payoff is available. Sideboard `Lightning Bolt` and `Abrade` take over this job post-board so `Grapeshot` can stay reserved for lethal more often.

- Priority: Bounce first when the answer only needs one turn. `Echoing Truth` and channeling `Otawara, Soaring City` are temporary answers; use them immediately before a combo turn against a resolved nonland blocker, hate permanent, or token cluster rather than as generic tempo unless survival requires it.

- Priority: Destroy artifacts permanently when they constrain mana, graveyard access, spell volume, or lethal targeting. `Abrade` is the flexible low-volume answer, while `Shattering Spree` is the red-mana-intensive answer for multiple artifacts; do not spend `Shattering Spree` into a single low-impact artifact if `Abrade` or a bounce line is enough.

- Priority: Use `Blood Moon` as interaction only when the opponent's lands matter more than this deck's blue requirements. Before casting it, verify visible and hand-based access to blue spells such as `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Remand`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, `Echoing Truth`, or `Mystical Dispute`; locking yourself out can lose a winnable combo game.

- Bait cards: Lead with redundant `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, or cantrips when the opponent is representing interaction and the real commitment is `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or lethal `Grapeshot`. Do not bait with the only cost reducer when the mana math requires it to resolve.

- Ignore list: Ignore nonlethal creatures, planeswalkers, and value permanents when the hand can execute a same-turn or next-turn kill through visible mana. This deck usually wins by spell count, so spending `Remand`, `Lightning Bolt`, or bounce on a card that does not affect the combo path is a dilution error.

- No registered hand-discard or exile-answer plan exists in this list. If the runtime exposes discard or exile choices, treat them as opponent effects or rules-engine artifacts unless they are tied to a visible legal action from an exact registered card.

- Archetype shift: Against fast creature decks, interaction protects life and reducers first; against control, interaction protects the stack window; against artifact or permanent hate, interaction clears the specific blocker immediately before combo; against graveyard pressure, prefer lines that do not rely exclusively on `Past in Flames` when `Empty the Warrens` or direct `Grapeshot` math is available.

## Combat And Trading Rules

- Preserve `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` as engine permanents before treating them as combat creatures. Attack only when the damage is relevant and the creature is not needed to reduce `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Remand`, `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, or `Serum Visions` in the next turn cycle.

- Block with a cost reducer only when survival or a forced race makes the trade necessary. A single untapped `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` can represent multiple mana over a combo turn, so trading it for ordinary damage is usually wrong above a stable life threshold.

- Treat life total as a combo resource, but stop paying it freely when the clock is immediate. `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, and `Fiery Islet` are acceptable costs when they unlock cantrips, reducers, rituals, or lethal sequencing; at low life, prefer painless lines through `Island`, `Mountain`, existing untapped sources, or delayed setup unless waiting is lethal.

- Use removal before blocks when preserving a reducer enables a kill. Sideboard `Lightning Bolt` or `Abrade` should clear attackers that would force `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` into combat, provided the spell is not needed for a more important hate piece.

- Attack with `Empty the Warrens` tokens according to the race, not automatically. When the token wave is the chosen sideboard payoff, attack in groups that preserve enough blockers against lethal crackback; against low-board control, maximize pressure and force them to answer the army.

- Do not trade Goblin tokens from `Empty the Warrens` for low-value blockers if the opponent is not racing effectively. The token plan wins through repeated combat steps, so preserve board size unless the trade removes a blocker that materially accelerates lethal or prevents a counterattack.

- Against aggro, prioritize survival blocks once the hand lacks a deterministic same-turn kill. Use `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, temporary bounce, or `Grapeshot` cleanup to reduce incoming damage before sacrificing reducers, then reassess whether `Past in Flames` or `Gifts Ungiven` can rebuild.

- Against control, combat is secondary unless `Empty the Warrens` is active. Reducer attacks for small damage should not expose the deck to losing its mana engine before a protected spell-chain turn; token attacks, however, can pressure life totals while keeping rituals and graveyard resources for a backup kill.

- Against artifact or permanent-hate decks, combat trades matter less than clearing the blocker to combo. Hold creatures back when their cost reduction helps cast `Abrade`, `Shattering Spree`, `Echoing Truth`, `Gifts Ungiven`, or `Past in Flames` in the same turn.

- Protection in this deck is procedural rather than card-based. Preserve engines by sequencing, stack timing, and selective interaction; do not assume the deck has dedicated creature protection beyond legal stack answers, bounce timing, and removal of threats that would force bad combat.

## Selection And Tutor Rules

- Selection goal: Use `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions` to assemble three distinct resources: a cost reducer, ritual mana, and a payoff path through `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, or sideboard `Empty the Warrens`. A hand with only cantrips is acceptable only when it has lands, blue mana, and enough time to find those resources before the opponent's clock or hate matters.

- Cantrip sequencing: Cast `Serum Visions` earlier when the hand needs future draw shaping, because it draws before scrying. Cast `Sleight of Hand` when the current decision needs one of two seen cards immediately. Cast `Consider` when instant-speed information matters, when holding up `Remand`, or when putting the top card into the graveyard helps a later `Past in Flames` line.

- Graveyard setup: Put rituals, redundant cantrips, and sometimes `Grapeshot` into the graveyard only when `Past in Flames` is already available or realistically reachable. Do not mill or discard the only payoff if the line has no `Past in Flames`, no `Gifts Ungiven`, and no replacement `Grapeshot` or `Empty the Warrens` plan.

- Bottoming rule: Bottom excess lands after the third or fourth functional mana source unless the hand needs land drops for `Gifts Ungiven`, hard-cast `Past in Flames`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, or sideboard interaction plus combo in the same turn. Keep `Island` or blue-producing lands when `Blood Moon` is planned or already constraining nonbasic mana.

- `Gifts Ungiven` is a resilient pile builder, not a guaranteed tutor to hand. It searches up to four different card names, reveals them, target opponent chooses two to put into the graveyard, the rest go to hand, then the library is shuffled; choose piles where both zones advance the same plan.

- Default engine pile: With enough mana and access to `Past in Flames` lines, prioritize combinations of `Past in Flames`, `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Manamorphose`, and `Grapeshot` according to what is missing. If `Past in Flames` is already in hand, use `Gifts Ungiven` to stock graveyard and hand with rituals, `Manamorphose`, and payoff redundancy rather than exposing a second `Past in Flames` without need.

- Cost-reducer dependency: When `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` is required for mana math, selection should find or protect the reducer before chasing a flashy pile. If no reducer is present, favor lands, `Manamorphose`, and rituals that still let `Gifts Ungiven` or `Past in Flames` resolve legally.

- Sideboard selection: `Pieces of the Puzzle` digs for instants and sorceries when games slow down, but it can miss creatures and lands. Post-board, use it to find `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, rituals, `Grapeshot`, `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Echoing Truth`, `Mystical Dispute`, or `Shattering Spree`, while recognizing that `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, `Blood Moon`, and lands cannot be selected by it.

## Priority And Stack Rules

- Combo commitment: Start the ritual chain only when visible mana, reducer status, graveyard access, and payoff math support a kill or a decisive `Empty the Warrens`. Passing with resources intact is better than half-comboing into an empty hand unless waiting exposes lethal damage or a hate permanent.

- Mana tracking: Resolve `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, and `Manamorphose` with explicit floating-mana awareness. Cost reduction from `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` changes spell costs, not mana production, so the pilot must still preserve the correct colors for `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Remand`, `Grapeshot`, and sideboard answers.

- `Manamorphose` timing: Use `Manamorphose` during combo turns to convert surplus red mana into blue when `Gifts Ungiven`, `Remand`, `Consider`, or sideboard blue interaction is needed. Do not spend it early just to cycle if the hand already has velocity but lacks color fixing for the decisive turn.

- `Past in Flames` timing: Cast `Past in Flames` after enough rituals and cantrips are in the graveyard to repay the mana investment. Flashback uses the graveyard spell's flashback permission and normal stack timing; do not assume cards newly drawn later were available for earlier storm or graveyard calculations.

- Storm-stack handling: Cast `Grapeshot` only after the storm count and target assignment produce lethal, necessary creature cleanup, or a setup line protected by another payoff. Storm copies are created from the trigger; assign targets based on visible life totals, damage prevention, and legal targets rather than assuming all damage can go face.

- `Remand` leverage: Use `Remand` defensively on a stack spell that stops the combo or kills a required reducer. Use the `Grapeshot` plus `Remand` line only when the original `Grapeshot` is a legal target on the stack and returning it to hand enables a second cast with a higher storm count.

- Let-resolve rule: Let opposing spells resolve when they do not affect the current combo turn, immediate survival, a required cost reducer, graveyard access, or lethal target availability. Holding `Remand` for a decisive stack fight is stronger than cycling it into low-impact spells.

- Bounce and channel windows: Use `Echoing Truth` or channel `Otawara, Soaring City` at the last safe window before combo when the permanent must be absent for one turn. Because these are temporary answers, avoid giving the opponent an extra untap or replay window unless survival requires immediate action.

- Optional costs and lands: Pay life with `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, or `Fiery Islet` only when the color or card conversion matters. Sacrifice `Fiery Islet` after land drops and color needs are satisfied, not before checking whether blue or red mana is required for the stack sequence.

## Sideboard Map

- Sideboard rule: Preserve the deck's ability to cast many spells in one turn while changing the axis of pressure or interaction. `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, rituals, and cantrips remain the core engine unless the opponent's hate or clock makes a faster `Empty the Warrens` plan stronger.

- `Pieces of the Puzzle`: Bring in for slower blue decks, discard-heavy midrange, and removal-heavy matchups where the first `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` is unlikely to survive. Its job is to rebuild with instants and sorceries, but it misses creatures, lands, and `Blood Moon`, so it is weak against fast creature decks where three mana sorcery-speed selection does not affect survival.

- `Lightning Bolt`: Bring in against creature pressure, small hate creatures, planeswalkers at low loyalty, and matchups where removing a blocker or clock buys the combo turn. Its role changes from defense to storm-count padding only when a lethal `Grapeshot` turn is already underway. It is weak against large threats, graveyard hate artifacts, and decks where every opposing permanent exceeds three damage.

- `Abrade`: Bring in when both creature removal and artifact interaction matter. Prioritize it against artifact decks, graveyard-hate artifacts, creature-based disruption, and boards where killing a creature or destroying an artifact opens the same combo window. It is weak against enchantments, stack interaction, and opponents with few legal artifact or creature targets.

- `Empty the Warrens`: Bring in when the opponent overloads on graveyard hate, counterspells, or single-card answers to `Past in Flames`. Use it as an alternate payoff after a medium storm count, especially when the opponent cannot remove many Goblin tokens immediately. It is weak against sweepers, fast combo, large lifegain races, and boards where Goblin tokens cannot attack profitably before the opponent wins.

- `Blood Moon`: Bring in against greedy mana bases and land-reliant strategies when this deck can still operate through `Island`, `Mountain`, `Steam Vents`, `Spirebluff Canal`, `Shivan Reef`, `Fiery Islet`, and rituals. Its role is a prison pivot that buys time, not a combo piece. It is weak when the opponent has basics, when this hand needs `Otawara, Soaring City` utility, or when spending turn three on an enchantment loses to the board.

- `Echoing Truth`: Bring in against hate permanents, token clusters, Leyline-style obstacles, and resolved cards that must leave for exactly one turn. Treat it as a temporary window-maker; use it near the combo turn unless immediate survival requires earlier bounce. It is weak against discard, counterspells, and permanents the opponent can replay before the combo turn.

- `Mystical Dispute`: Bring in against blue stack interaction, blue tempo threats, and blue combo mirrors where one mana interaction protects `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, or the decisive payoff. It is weak against nonblue decks, resolved hate permanents, and creature boards where the important decisions happen on the battlefield rather than the stack.

- `Shattering Spree`: Bring in against artifact-heavy decks and hate-artifact clusters where replicate can answer multiple artifacts through a single card. Its role is artifact clearance before the combo turn; do not treat it as creature removal or graveyard hate. It is weak against enchantments, blue counterspells that can answer the original spell, and matchups with only one low-impact artifact.

Creature Aggro With Small Hate Creatures
Side in: 3 Lightning Bolt; 2 Abrade; 1 Echoing Truth
Cut: 2 Remand; 1 Past in Flames; 1 Gifts Ungiven; 2 Sleight of Hand

Artifact Aggro Or Artifact Hate Cluster
Side in: 2 Abrade; 1 Shattering Spree; 3 Lightning Bolt
Cut: 2 Remand; 1 Past in Flames; 1 Gifts Ungiven; 2 Serum Visions

Blue Control Or Counterspell Midrange
Side in: 3 Pieces of the Puzzle; 1 Mystical Dispute; 2 Empty the Warrens
Cut: 3 Sleight of Hand; 1 Desperate Ritual; 1 Pyretic Ritual; 1 Grapeshot

Greedy Mana Midrange Or Big Mana
Side in: 2 Blood Moon; 3 Pieces of the Puzzle; 1 Echoing Truth
Cut: 2 Remand; 2 Sleight of Hand; 1 Serum Visions; 1 Grapeshot

Graveyard Hate With Slower Clock
Side in: 2 Empty the Warrens; 3 Pieces of the Puzzle; 1 Echoing Truth
Cut: 2 Past in Flames; 2 Remand; 1 Sleight of Hand; 1 Serum Visions

- Against fast creature decks: Add role cards: `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, and sometimes `Echoing Truth`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: slow `Gifts Ungiven` piles, excess `Remand`, and the second `Past in Flames` when survival is the limiting resource. Keep enough cantrips and rituals to still execute a real combo turn.

- Against artifact decks: Add role cards: `Abrade`, `Shattering Spree`, and `Lightning Bolt` when creatures are also pressuring life total. Reduce main-deck emphasis: stack-only interaction and slow graveyard recursion when artifact hate or artifact pressure is already visible.

- Against blue decks: Add role cards: `Mystical Dispute`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, and `Empty the Warrens`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: excess one-mana selection and redundant payoff density when the plan becomes resource accumulation plus one protected window.

- Against graveyard hate: Add role cards: `Empty the Warrens`, `Echoing Truth`, `Abrade` for artifact hate, and `Shattering Spree` when multiple artifact hate pieces are plausible. Reduce main-deck emphasis: graveyard-only dependency. Keep `Past in Flames` only when bounce, artifact destruction, or a slow-game rebuild makes it realistic.

- Against mana-greedy decks: Add role cards: `Blood Moon` and `Pieces of the Puzzle`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: low-impact velocity that does not help cast or find `Blood Moon`. Keep basic-aware sequencing high priority: fetchless hands must preserve `Island` and `Mountain` access when `Blood Moon` is part of the plan.

- Against nonblue spell combo: Add role cards: `Mystical Dispute` only if the opposing key spells are blue; otherwise prefer speed and keep the main engine dense. Reduce main-deck emphasis: creature removal that has no legal or relevant targets. `Empty the Warrens` is acceptable only when token pressure races the opposing combo clock.

- Against sweepers and token punishment: Avoid leaning on `Empty the Warrens` unless the opponent is forced to answer immediately and cannot visibly sweep. Keep `Grapeshot` as the cleaner kill when the game is likely to go long or when the opponent can erase Goblin tokens with one resolved spell.

- Against permanent hate: Match the answer to the card type shown by the rules engine. Use `Abrade` or `Shattering Spree` for artifacts, `Echoing Truth` for temporary access against nonland permanents it can legally target, and `Blood Moon` only as proactive disruption rather than an answer to resolved hate.

## Matchup Guidance

- Aggro: Race by protecting life total just enough to assemble a deterministic storm turn, not by becoming a long control deck. Keep hands with one cost reducer, blue selection, and at least one ritual chain more highly than hands that only answer creatures. `Lightning Bolt` and `Abrade` are role cards when they remove a clock or a hate creature; `Remand` loses value when returning a cheap threat does not buy a full turn. Avoid spending `Manamorphose` or rituals early unless the mana conversion enables a same-turn `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, `Gifts Ungiven`, or lethal setup.

- Burn: Treat life total as a hard resource gate because `Steam Vents`, `Shivan Reef`, `Fiery Islet`, and opposing damage can shorten the combo clock. Prioritize untapped blue access only when the hand needs immediate `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, or `Remand`; otherwise reduce avoidable pain from lands. `Lightning Bolt` can remove a creature clock, but do not over-board into creature interaction if the opponent is primarily spell-based. `Empty the Warrens` is risky when the opponent can race tokens or remove many of them; use it mainly when a medium storm turn creates lethal pressure before the burn player untaps twice.

- Tempo: Force the opponent to commit mana before the decisive spell whenever possible, then use cost reducers and redundant rituals to make one window count. `Remand` is strongest when it protects a key turn, interrupts an opposing tempo spell on the stack, or buys exactly the draw step needed to reach `Gifts Ungiven` or `Past in Flames`. `Mystical Dispute` matters against blue tempo because it can protect `Gifts Ungiven`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, or a payoff fight. Do not walk a lone `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` into visible removal if the hand can wait and combo with more mana or a second reducer.

- Control: Play for resource density and a protected commitment turn rather than maximum speed. `Pieces of the Puzzle` and `Gifts Ungiven` are the best attrition engines because they rebuild after counterspells and removal; `Empty the Warrens` is the alternate kill when graveyard dependency or stack fights make `Past in Flames` fragile. Keep `Grapeshot` lines available when tokens are poor against sweepers or blockers. Sequence cantrips to hide the exact commitment turn until the hand can pay for interaction or use `Remand`/`Mystical Dispute` to force through the key spell.

- Removal-heavy decks: Value redundant cost reducers, graveyard recursion, and draw density over fragile all-in creature reliance. `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` are acceleration, not required permanence; if the opponent spends removal on them, use the time to sculpt with `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, and `Pieces of the Puzzle`. Do not keep a hand that only works if the first reducer survives unless the matchup pressure demands a high-risk line. `Past in Flames` punishes one-for-one removal if the graveyard remains usable.

- Midrange: Beat discard and removal by preserving role diversity: one engine creature, one card-advantage spell, one payoff path, and enough mana to rebuild. `Blood Moon` is strong when the opponent's visible lands show greedy mana and this deck can still cast blue cantrips plus red rituals. Avoid spending `Grapeshot` as removal unless it clearly protects the combo turn or prevents lethal pressure; the deck has only two copies and often needs one as the kill. `Empty the Warrens` is strongest when the opponent has traded resources and lacks a visible board-wide answer.

- Big mana: Prioritize speed plus disruption that changes their mana development. `Blood Moon` is a proactive lock piece when cast before their mana engine dominates, but it is not worth delaying a hand that already has a near-lethal `Gifts Ungiven` or `Past in Flames` setup. `Remand` can buy a critical turn against expensive spells, especially when it also draws into the combo chain. Reduce emphasis on creature removal unless the opposing plan shows creatures that directly end the game or block an `Empty the Warrens` race.

- Combo: Identify whether the matchup is a race, a stack fight, or a permanent-hate fight, then choose the shortest reliable kill. Against noninteractive combo, keep the main engine dense and use `Remand` only when it delays the opponent by a full turn or protects lethal. Against blue combo, `Mystical Dispute` improves the decisive stack exchange. Against combo that uses permanents, `Echoing Truth`, `Abrade`, or `Shattering Spree` matter only when their legal target class matches the visible obstacle; do not assume an answer exists without rules-engine target confirmation.

- Graveyard decks and graveyard hate: Separate attacking their graveyard from playing through attacks on yours, because this list has no dedicated graveyard-hate card. When the opponent pressures your graveyard with artifacts, use `Abrade` or `Shattering Spree` if legal; when the hate is a nonland permanent that can be targeted by `Echoing Truth`, bounce it near the combo turn so `Past in Flames` immediately converts the window. `Empty the Warrens` and `Pieces of the Puzzle` reduce dependence on graveyard flashback. Do not cast `Past in Flames` into a visible hate permanent unless the answer or alternate kill is already part of the same turn.

- Artifact/enchantment decks: Match answers by permanent type and timing. `Abrade` and `Shattering Spree` answer artifacts; `Shattering Spree` is preferred when replicate can clear multiple artifact obstacles before the combo turn. Nonartifact enchantments are not permanently answered by this sideboard, so `Echoing Truth` is a temporary window-maker and must usually be paired with immediate combo execution. `Blood Moon` can disrupt artifact/enchantment strategies only when their mana base is vulnerable; it does not answer a resolved hate permanent.

- Go-wide decks: Race toward `Grapeshot` or a faster `Empty the Warrens` board, and use removal only when a specific creature changes the clock or blocks token pressure. `Lightning Bolt` is not a sweeper; it should buy a turn against a key attacker or disruption creature. `Grapeshot` can divide storm copies across creatures and player only when the rules engine exposes legal targets and lethal math supports that allocation. Avoid token plans when the opponent's visible battlefield already blocks profitably or threatens a board-wide answer.

- Single-threat decks: Use tempo and pinpoint interaction to buy the exact turn needed for the combo. `Remand` is high leverage against one expensive threat or one key spell, while `Lightning Bolt` and `Abrade` are useful only when the single threat is within their legal target and damage/destruction range. Do not waste `Grapeshot` on a threat unless removing it prevents lethal damage or unlocks a guaranteed combo turn. `Echoing Truth` can reset a single permanent for one turn, but it is poor if the opponent can simply replay it before storm is ready.

- Creature-combo and hate-creature decks: Prioritize removal that protects spell resolution or prevents immediate combo loss. `Lightning Bolt` is the cleanest answer to small creatures, while `Abrade` covers creatures and artifacts when both target classes matter. Keep enough velocity after adding interaction; a hand full of answers without `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Manamorphose`, rituals, or `Gifts Ungiven` fails the deck's primary plan. If a hate creature is not currently stopping legal actions or lethal timing, consider whether racing is better than spending a card.

- Mirror or storm-adjacent spell decks: Win by counting mana, storm, graveyard access, and stack windows more accurately than the opponent. `Remand` can target an opposing key spell or protect your own decisive spell when legal, and it can create a tempo swing without diluting the engine. `Mystical Dispute` matters only against blue spells. `Empty the Warrens` is a valid pivot when both players are fighting over graveyards or `Past in Flames`, but `Grapeshot` remains cleaner when the turn can generate enough storm immediately.

- Unknown opponents: Default to the main-deck engine plan until public information identifies the matchup. Keep early plays that improve card quality and mana development: `Serum Visions`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Consider`, and lands that preserve blue-red access. Do not expose `Past in Flames`, fire off rituals, or spend `Manamorphose` for no same-turn purpose just to increase storm count before a commitment turn. Sideboard only after observed cards clarify whether the opponent is pressuring life total, attacking the graveyard, fighting on the stack, or presenting artifacts/enchantments that require exact answers.

## Specific Matchup Notes

Exact opponents are absent, so these notes are general/archetype-only; revealed cards, legal actions, and visible battlefield state override archetype assumptions.

- Fast creature aggro: Treat life total as a hard clock and preserve blue-red mana for a compact combo turn. Add role cards: `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, and sometimes `Empty the Warrens` when tokens can race visible attackers. Reduce main-deck emphasis: slower excess setup and exposed graveyard reliance when the opponent is presenting lethal pressure. Priority targets are creatures that shorten the clock, tax spells, or make an `Empty the Warrens` race fail.

- Interactive midrange: Protect resource diversity rather than one fragile line. Add role cards: `Pieces of the Puzzle`, `Empty the Warrens`, and `Blood Moon` when the opponent's lands make it disruptive without cutting off your own blue-red spells. Reduce main-deck emphasis: redundant engine creatures on removal-heavy boards and all-in ritual hands without a payoff. Priority targets are discard-softened windows, removal-heavy shields-down turns, and mana bases punished by `Blood Moon`.

- Blue control or stack-combo: Make the decisive turn about mana surplus plus stack positioning. Add role cards: `Mystical Dispute`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, and sometimes `Empty the Warrens` if the opponent is overloaded on one-for-one answers. Reduce main-deck emphasis: creature-only acceleration plans that walk into removal without backup. Priority targets are counterspell windows, end-step or low-mana turns, and legal `Remand` spots that either delay their key spell or protect your storm turn.

- Big mana and greedy mana: Race first, disrupt second when disruption changes the opponent's timing. Add role cards: `Blood Moon`, with `Remand` kept important when it buys a full turn. Reduce main-deck emphasis: creature removal unless visible creatures are the actual clock. Priority targets are early nonbasic-heavy mana development and expensive spells that can be delayed long enough for `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or `Grapeshot` to finish.

- Artifact pressure or artifact hate: Match the answer to the visible permanent. Add role cards: `Abrade`, `Shattering Spree`, and `Echoing Truth` when the rules engine confirms legal targets. Reduce main-deck emphasis: graveyard-only commitment if the artifact constrains `Past in Flames`. Priority targets are artifacts that stop casting, stop graveyard use, or end the game faster than the combo clock.

- Graveyard pressure: Pivot before the opponent's hate turns `Past in Flames` into a stranded card. Add role cards: `Echoing Truth`, `Abrade`, `Shattering Spree`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, and `Empty the Warrens` according to target legality and pressure. Reduce main-deck emphasis: keeping hands that require uninterrupted flashback. Priority targets are the hate permanent immediately before the combo turn, not several turns before the window matters.

## Risk Summary

- Mana risk: The deck needs both blue selection and red ritual mana, so hands with only `Mountain`, pain-heavy `Shivan Reef` lines, or tapped/conditional sequencing through `Spirebluff Canal` can fail despite many spells. Do not spend `Manamorphose` without a same-turn color or storm purpose unless forced by hand texture.

- Matchup risk: Creature pressure punishes slow cantrip hands, while heavy interaction punishes one-engine-creature hands. Choose between speed, resilience, and sideboard answers from revealed information rather than archetype memory alone.

- Draw risk: `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions` improve selection but do not guarantee a payoff. A hand full of cantrips without `Baral, Chief of Compliance`, `Goblin Electromancer`, rituals, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or `Grapeshot` can spend turns looking busy while falling behind.

- Over-sideboarding risk: Adding too many `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Blood Moon`, `Echoing Truth`, `Mystical Dispute`, `Shattering Spree`, `Pieces of the Puzzle`, or `Empty the Warrens` can dilute storm count and ritual density. Keep the deck capable of chaining spells after sideboard adjustments.

- Graveyard risk: `Past in Flames` is powerful but fragile against visible graveyard constraints. Do not begin a flashback line unless mana, storm count, graveyard contents, and any required answer to hate are all aligned.

- Sweeper/removal risk: `Empty the Warrens` loses value against visible board-wide answers or blockers that already contain the token race. `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and `Goblin Electromancer` should not be treated as guaranteed mana discounts after passing priority into open removal.

- Closer risk: The list has only two `Grapeshot`, so using one as removal must prevent lethal, unlock a winning turn, or solve a hate creature that cannot be ignored. Preserve at least one clear kill path.

- Interaction risk: `Remand` is stack-only and temporary; it does not answer resolved permanents. `Echoing Truth` is also temporary, so pair it with immediate execution when bouncing a hate permanent.

- Sequencing risk: Rituals before a commitment can expose mana without payoff. Count current mana, reducer discounts, storm count, graveyard access, and legal targets before starting the decisive chain.

## Test Feedback Checklist

- Result driver: Identify whether the match was decided by speed, disruption, mana, graveyard access, sideboard hate, or a failed closing turn. Record the exact turn where `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, or `Empty the Warrens` first became a realistic path.

- Mulligan quality: For each opener, ask whether it had blue selection, red mana, a realistic engine plan, and at least one path toward payoff. Flag keeps that relied on drawing both mana and payoff without help from `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, or `Serum Visions`.

- Mana execution: Check whether lands preserved both blue and red access without unnecessary pain from `Shivan Reef` or `Steam Vents`. Note any game where `Mountain`, late `Spirebluff Canal`, or color choices from `Manamorphose` stranded `Gifts Ungiven`, `Remand`, `Past in Flames`, or ritual chains.

- Velocity check: Track whether `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, and `Serum Visions` found action quickly enough or merely spent turns without improving the kill window. Mark cantrip choices that bottomed or passed on a missing role card: land, reducer, ritual, payoff, interaction, or sideboard answer.

- Engine durability: Record whether `Baral, Chief of Compliance` or `Goblin Electromancer` survived long enough to matter, and whether the pilot overcommitted a reducer into visible removal pressure. Ask whether the game plan still functioned when no reducer stayed in play.

- Ritual sequencing: Audit every combo attempt for floating mana, storm count, graveyard contents, and reducer discounts before and after `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, and `Manamorphose`. Flag any ritual cast before the pilot had a legal payoff, a card-selection reason, or a same-turn mana requirement.

- `Gifts Ungiven` quality: For every `Gifts Ungiven`, record the chosen pile, available mana, graveyard state, and whether any selected card became stranded by timing or color. Ask whether the pile respected visible hate and whether it offered a win, a rebuild, or only more setup.

- Graveyard plan: Check whether `Past in Flames` was cast only when the graveyard, mana pool, and storm count could convert into progress. Mark games where graveyard pressure made `Past in Flames` unreliable and whether `Pieces of the Puzzle` or `Empty the Warrens` provided a better post-sideboard path.

- Interaction usage: Review `Remand`, `Lightning Bolt`, `Abrade`, `Echoing Truth`, `Mystical Dispute`, and `Shattering Spree` for exact target legality and timing. Flag temporary answers that were used without an immediate follow-up combo turn.

- Closing accuracy: Verify that `Grapeshot` damage, storm copies, targets, and lethal math were logged correctly. For `Empty the Warrens`, ask whether tokens were fast enough against the visible battlefield and whether waiting for a larger storm count was safer or too slow.

- Role after sideboard: Ask whether the pilot stayed mostly combo, became too reactive, or adopted a real alternate plan with `Pieces of the Puzzle`, `Blood Moon`, or `Empty the Warrens`. Flag over-sideboarded games where storm density collapsed.

- Stranded cards: List every `Past in Flames`, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Grapeshot`, `Blood Moon`, `Abrade`, `Lightning Bolt`, `Mystical Dispute`, `Echoing Truth`, `Shattering Spree`, or `Pieces of the Puzzle` that stayed unusable and why.

- Overperformers and underperformers: Name the exact cards that won turns, bought turns, or failed to matter. Separate card weakness from sequencing mistakes, matchup mismatch, and missing card-reference metadata.

## First Tuning Questions

- Reducer count: Are four `Baral, Chief of Compliance` and four `Goblin Electromancer` still necessary, or are redundant reducers becoming liabilities against removal-heavy opponents? Keep the full eight only if they consistently accelerate wins or force interaction that opens a later turn.

- Cantrip mix: Do four `Consider`, four `Sleight of Hand`, and four `Serum Visions` find the correct mix of lands, rituals, and payoffs, or does one selection spell underperform in the current runtime? Compare missed land drops, failed payoff discovery, and graveyard setup for `Past in Flames`.

- Ritual density: Are four `Desperate Ritual`, four `Pyretic Ritual`, and four `Manamorphose` enough to support both natural `Grapeshot` kills and `Past in Flames` turns after sideboarding? If combo turns often stop one mana short, tune ritual density before adding more reactive cards.

- Mana base pressure: Are four `Spirebluff Canal`, four `Steam Vents`, four `Shivan Reef`, two `Fiery Islet`, two `Island`, one `Mountain`, and one `Otawara, Soaring City` producing too much pain, too few basics, or too many awkward late lands? Track whether `Blood Moon` plans conflict with blue requirements.

- Closer split: Are two `Grapeshot` enough when one is sometimes used as removal, or does the deck need stronger protection for the first copy? If `Empty the Warrens` wins more post-sideboard games than `Grapeshot`, consider whether the alternate-plan slots are correctly sized.

- Graveyard reliance: Are two `Past in Flames` correct when opponents show graveyard pressure, or should the sideboard lean harder on `Pieces of the Puzzle` and `Empty the Warrens`? Tune only after separating hate losses from poor `Gifts Ungiven` pile construction.

- Stack interaction: Is two `Remand` plus one `Mystical Dispute` enough against blue decks and fast stack-based threats? If `Remand` is often temporary without a follow-up, decide whether the slot is buying real combo turns.

- Creature-control package: Are three `Lightning Bolt`, two `Abrade`, one `Echoing Truth`, and one `Shattering Spree` answering the permanents that actually stop wins? If artifact pressure is rare, avoid overloading on artifact answers at the cost of storm density.

- `Blood Moon` conflict: Does `Blood Moon` win enough games to justify slower setup and possible self-constraint? Keep it only when it changes the opponent's clock or interaction more than it disrupts `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, and blue cantrips.

- Role conflict: Is the post-sideboard configuration trying to be combo, control, and prison at once? If games are lost with mixed hands of `Blood Moon`, removal, reducers, and no payoff, narrow the plan for each matchup.

## Veles Tactical Policy

### Policy: Mulligan For Engine And Access
Priority: High
Decision families: mulligan
Cards: Baral, Chief of Compliance; Goblin Electromancer; Consider; Sleight of Hand; Serum Visions; Desperate Ritual; Pyretic Ritual; Manamorphose; Gifts Ungiven; Grapeshot
Phase windows: pregame
Runtime cues: opening hand; mulligan choice
Use when: choosing whether a seven-, six-, or five-card hand can execute a Modern Storm plan.
Avoid when: the hand has no blue selection, no red access, and no path to a reducer or payoff.
Instructions: Keep hands with lands, blue selection, red access, and either a cost reducer or a route to `Gifts Ungiven`/`Grapeshot`. Mulligan hands that are only rituals plus payoff with no selection, or only lands plus reducers with no velocity.
Pilot skill floor: Level 2
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Early Reducer Setup
Priority: Medium
Decision families: mana; priority
Cards: Baral, Chief of Compliance; Goblin Electromancer; Spirebluff Canal; Steam Vents; Shivan Reef; Island; Mountain
Phase windows: main phase before combo turn
Runtime cues: action:cast Baral, Chief of Compliance; action:cast Goblin Electromancer
Use when: a reducer can be cast while preserving next-turn blue and red access.
Avoid when: visible removal pressure makes casting the only reducer into open mana worse than cantrip setup, or when the hand can win without exposing it.
Instructions: Prefer landing exactly one reducer before the combo turn when it converts rituals and `Gifts Ungiven` into a same-turn kill. Do not deploy redundant reducers just to spend mana unless the extra body changes the mana math or protects against removal by redundancy.
Pilot skill floor: Level 2
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Preserve Blue-Red Mana
Priority: Medium
Decision families: mana
Cards: Spirebluff Canal; Steam Vents; Shivan Reef; Fiery Islet; Island; Mountain; Otawara, Soaring City; Manamorphose
Phase windows: land play; mana payment; combo turn
Runtime cues: land choice; mana payment choice; action:cast Manamorphose
Use when: choosing lands, pain payments, or `Manamorphose` colors.
Avoid when: the legal payment is forced by the rules engine and no alternative source or color exists.
Instructions: Maintain both blue for `Consider`, `Sleight of Hand`, `Serum Visions`, `Remand`, and `Gifts Ungiven`, and red for `Desperate Ritual`, `Pyretic Ritual`, `Grapeshot`, and `Past in Flames` turns. Use `Manamorphose` to repair colors, not to create colors with no planned spell.
Pilot skill floor: Level 2
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Cantrip Role Selection
Priority: Medium
Decision families: selection
Cards: Consider; Sleight of Hand; Serum Visions
Phase windows: early main phase; setup turns; combo turn when mana remains
Runtime cues: action:cast Consider; action:cast Sleight of Hand; action:cast Serum Visions; surveil/scry/selection prompt
Use when: the hand is missing land, reducer, ritual, payoff, or interaction.
Avoid when: casting the cantrip consumes mana needed for a committed same-turn kill or stack answer.
Instructions: Select the role the hand lacks before taking generic velocity. `Consider` can stock the graveyard for `Past in Flames`; `Serum Visions` sets future draws after the draw; `Sleight of Hand` chooses one visible card now. Do not bottom or mill a needed role card for abstract storm count.
Pilot skill floor: Level 2
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Combo Commitment Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: priority; mana; selection
Cards: Desperate Ritual; Pyretic Ritual; Manamorphose; Gifts Ungiven; Past in Flames; Grapeshot; Baral, Chief of Compliance; Goblin Electromancer
Phase windows: main phase with priority
Runtime cues: action:cast Desperate Ritual; action:cast Pyretic Ritual; action:cast Gifts Ungiven; action:cast Past in Flames; action:cast Grapeshot
Use when: deciding whether to start spending rituals toward a kill or rebuild turn.
Avoid when: visible mana, known disruption, graveyard hate, or missing payoff makes the line stop after generating mana.
Instructions: Commit only when mana pool, storm count, graveyard, and hand can reach `Grapeshot`, `Past in Flames`, or a `Gifts Ungiven` pile that converts this turn. Waiting is correct when a cantrip can improve the line without risking lethal pressure.
Pilot skill floor: Level 3
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Ritual Sequencing After Commitment
Priority: Medium
Decision families: mana; priority
Cards: Desperate Ritual; Pyretic Ritual; Manamorphose; Baral, Chief of Compliance; Goblin Electromancer; Past in Flames
Phase windows: committed combo main phase
Runtime cues: action:cast Desperate Ritual; action:cast Pyretic Ritual; action:cast Manamorphose
Use when: the combo turn is already selected and a legal ritual action is available.
Avoid when: casting the ritual strands required blue mana, spends the last red before `Past in Flames`, or increases storm without a payoff route.
Instructions: Cast red rituals before expensive blue selection when reducer discounts make mana positive. Use `Manamorphose` after red mana is available to create the exact colors needed for `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or `Grapeshot`.
Pilot skill floor: Level 2
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Gifts Ungiven Pile Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: selection; priority
Cards: Gifts Ungiven; Past in Flames; Desperate Ritual; Pyretic Ritual; Manamorphose; Grapeshot
Phase windows: end step; main phase combo turn
Runtime cues: action:cast Gifts Ungiven; card search/selection prompt
Use when: choosing whether to cast `Gifts Ungiven` and what named cards to find.
Avoid when: graveyard access is blocked, mana cannot use the resulting cards, or selected cards do not produce a this-turn win or durable rebuild.
Instructions: Build piles around what the opponent can put into graveyard and what remains usable from hand. Classic `Past in Flames` piles require enough mana and graveyard access; do not choose cards that become dead under the current visible hate or color constraints.
Pilot skill floor: Level 3
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Past In Flames Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: priority; mana
Cards: Past in Flames; Desperate Ritual; Pyretic Ritual; Manamorphose; Consider; Sleight of Hand; Serum Visions; Grapeshot
Phase windows: main phase combo turn
Runtime cues: action:cast Past in Flames
Use when: `Past in Flames` is legal from hand or graveyard and the graveyard contains castable spells.
Avoid when: graveyard hate can remove the key cards before resolution, mana cannot pay flashback costs, or the graveyard lacks rituals/selection/payoff.
Instructions: Cast `Past in Flames` only when flashbacked rituals and cantrips produce mana, storm, and a path to `Grapeshot`. Account for reducer discounts, current mana pool, and the fact that flashback uses cards from graveyard after `Past in Flames` resolves.
Pilot skill floor: Level 3
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Grapeshot Lethal Targeting
Priority: High
Decision families: interaction; priority
Cards: Grapeshot
Phase windows: combo main phase; storm trigger target prompts
Runtime cues: action:target opponent Grapeshot
Use when: visible storm-copy count plus original `Grapeshot` damage is at least the opponent's current life total and every required target prompt can legally target the opponent.
Avoid when: lethal requires targeting creatures, planeswalkers, or hidden assumptions about prevention, redirection, or life changes.
Instructions: Put the original and enough storm copies at the opponent to meet lethal damage. Continue selecting the opponent for remaining copies when legal unless a visible prevention or required target restriction changes the math.
Pilot skill floor: Level 1
No-API allowed: yes
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Grapeshot As Removal
Priority: Medium
Decision families: interaction
Cards: Grapeshot
Phase windows: main phase; combo turn before lethal check
Runtime cues: action:cast Grapeshot; action:target creature Grapeshot
Use when: a visible creature prevents the combo plan, threatens immediate lethal, or must be removed for survival.
Avoid when: spending `Grapeshot` removes the only payoff and no `Past in Flames` or second `Grapeshot` route is available.
Instructions: Treat nonlethal `Grapeshot` as interaction only when survival or a combo-enabling target matters. Preserve copies for lethal whenever the opponent's life total is the primary constraint.
Pilot skill floor: Level 3
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Remand Commitment
Priority: High
Decision families: interaction; priority
Cards: Remand
Phase windows: opponent stack; own combo stack
Runtime cues: action:cast Remand
Use when: deciding whether to counter a spell temporarily or pick up your own spell with stack benefit.
Avoid when: the spell will be recast immediately and no combo turn, survival turn, or card-flow advantage follows.
Instructions: Use `Remand` to buy the exact turn needed to combo, protect a key spell on stack when legal, or convert a threatened spell into a redraw. Do not treat it as permanent removal for resolved permanents.
Pilot skill floor: Level 3
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Creature Combat Is Secondary
Priority: Low
Decision families: combat
Cards: Baral, Chief of Compliance; Goblin Electromancer
Phase windows: combat
Runtime cues: attack/block prompt
Use when: deciding whether reducers should attack or block.
Avoid when: combat risks the only cost reducer needed for a next-turn combo or exposes it to unfavorable trades.
Instructions: Keep reducers alive over chip damage. Block only when life total or a lethal clock requires it, and attack only when the reducer is redundant or the opponent cannot punish the tap/combat state.
Pilot skill floor: Level 2
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Otawara Bounce Timing
Priority: Medium
Decision families: interaction; mana
Cards: Otawara, Soaring City
Phase windows: opponent end step; own main phase before combo; emergency priority
Runtime cues: action:channel Otawara, Soaring City; action:activate Otawara, Soaring City
Use when: a visible permanent blocks the combo, creates lethal pressure, or must be removed temporarily for the selected turn.
Avoid when: using `Otawara, Soaring City` as a land is required for blue access or bounce only delays a permanent without a follow-up.
Instructions: Treat the channel action as temporary interaction that costs a land card from hand and mana. Prefer using it immediately before the combo turn or to survive a lethal permanent, not as routine tempo.
Pilot skill floor: Level 3
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Sideboard Role Preservation
Priority: High
Decision families: sideboard
Cards: Pieces of the Puzzle; Lightning Bolt; Abrade; Empty the Warrens; Blood Moon; Echoing Truth; Mystical Dispute; Shattering Spree; Desperate Ritual; Pyretic Ritual; Manamorphose; Gifts Ungiven; Past in Flames; Grapeshot
Phase windows: sideboarding
Runtime cues: sideboard edit; deck configuration prompt
Use when: sideboarding after game one.
Avoid when: adding reactive cards removes too many rituals, cantrips, reducers, or payoffs to execute Storm.
Instructions: Add only the interaction that answers visible matchup pressures. Preserve enough rituals, cantrips, and win conditions that `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, `Grapeshot`, and `Empty the Warrens` plans remain executable.
Pilot skill floor: Level 2
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Empty The Warrens Alternate Kill
Priority: Medium
Decision families: priority; sideboard
Cards: Empty the Warrens; Desperate Ritual; Pyretic Ritual; Manamorphose; Baral, Chief of Compliance; Goblin Electromancer
Phase windows: post-sideboard main phase combo turn
Runtime cues: action:cast Empty the Warrens
Use when: storm count can make a board that races the visible battlefield and `Grapeshot` or graveyard lines are constrained.
Avoid when: the opponent has visible sweepers, lethal crackback, or blockers that make tokens too slow.
Instructions: Use `Empty the Warrens` as a lower-resource kill against stack pressure or graveyard hate, but verify the token clock against opponent board and life total. Do not cast it for a token count that cannot change the race.
Pilot skill floor: Level 3
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Blood Moon Commitment
Priority: Medium
Decision families: priority; sideboard; mana
Cards: Blood Moon; Island; Mountain; Steam Vents; Spirebluff Canal; Shivan Reef; Fiery Islet; Otawara, Soaring City
Phase windows: post-sideboard main phase
Runtime cues: action:cast Blood Moon
Use when: opponent mana development is visibly more constrained by `Blood Moon` than this deck's current hand.
Avoid when: casting it cuts off needed blue access, delays the combo without disrupting the opponent, or conflicts with planned `Gifts Ungiven` turns.
Instructions: Commit `Blood Moon` only when basic/blue access is already secured or the hand can operate through it. Treat it as a prison pivot, not a default three-mana play.
Pilot skill floor: Level 3
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Post-Board Removal Use
Priority: Medium
Decision families: interaction; sideboard
Cards: Lightning Bolt; Abrade; Echoing Truth; Shattering Spree; Mystical Dispute
Phase windows: opponent turn; own setup turn; combo protection window
Runtime cues: action:cast Lightning Bolt; action:cast Abrade; action:cast Echoing Truth; action:cast Shattering Spree; action:cast Mystical Dispute
Use when: a legal target or spell stops the combo, threatens lethal, or prevents sideboard plan execution.
Avoid when: firing interaction does not change survival, combo access, or the opponent's relevant hate.
Instructions: Match each sideboard answer to its real job: `Lightning Bolt` for creatures or closing damage, `Abrade` and `Shattering Spree` for artifacts, `Echoing Truth` for temporary bounce, and `Mystical Dispute` for stack fights involving blue spells.
Pilot skill floor: Level 2
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Pieces Of The Puzzle Rebuild
Priority: Medium
Decision families: selection; sideboard
Cards: Pieces of the Puzzle; Desperate Ritual; Pyretic Ritual; Manamorphose; Gifts Ungiven; Past in Flames; Grapeshot; Consider; Sleight of Hand; Serum Visions
Phase windows: post-sideboard setup main phase
Runtime cues: action:cast Pieces of the Puzzle; selection prompt
Use when: the matchup pressures creatures or graveyard lines and the hand needs noncreature density.
Avoid when: spending three mana prevents a same-turn combo or leaves shields down against lethal.
Instructions: Use `Pieces of the Puzzle` to rebuild with instants and sorceries, especially rituals, selection, `Gifts Ungiven`, `Past in Flames`, or `Grapeshot`. Do not take cards that cannot be cast in the planned turn cycle.
Pilot skill floor: Level 2
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes
