Hello happy Commander folks! I hope your day is going awesomely and superbly well!!! Today I wanted to address some great talking points about Black's most played card in Commander but one that I never run in my Black brews: Dark Ritual!

This one mana instant that made three mana of a Black and temporary nature way back when and dominated from being combined with Hypnotic Specter to Legacy where you'll pair it with Liliana of the Veil and Hymn stuff in my Pox brew, or Pox proper. It's built a nasty reputation. It's the second most unfair of the boons from Alpha after Ancestral Recall. There are more in Commander decks than classic Demonic Tutor or Feed the Swarm. Why?

This thing is so unfair that all future rituals cost more in the future!

It's a temporary mana maker, and I prefer permanent ones like land rampers in spell form like Cultivate, Rampant Growth or Explosive Vegetation or in dork form like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Wood Elves or Solem Simulacrum to ramp the harder to answer lands. Then next I prefer permanent mana rocks like Sol Ring or Fellwar Stone or Chromatic Lantern. Then next are the more vulnerable dorks like Birds of Paradise, Delighted Halfling or Llanowar Elves. Permanent ramps are easiest to answer and give your foe's a turn to answer with sorcery speed stuff, only Blue can counter a Dark Ritual so they feel fairer.

Again, I just don't run the Ritual, but I feel there are two decks where it makes sense to run it.

#1. When your Commander costs precisely three mana in Black and is fair too

The best time to use it is when your Commander is a three-drop like Ayara, First of Locthwain or Braids, Arisen Nightmare (That's a bit unfair, don't run that). Maybe Rat leader Karumonix, the Rat King? Mari the Killing Quill? Those are fine and dandy to my mind. As long as it's not a broken one like Braids, but a more relaxed one that's fine.

I like Hancock, Ghoulish Mayor loads. The first turn of him isn't going to break the bank, right, since he's a 2/1 in size and needs counters on him and a team to do stuff or Viconia who needs a full graveyard before giving you random value in your hand each upkeep.

#2. When you need to make a Storm count

The other obvious time to use this broken enabler is with a Storm Count like Dragonstorm, Brain Freeze, Chatterstorm, Empty the Warrens or Grapeshot. Here you'll lean into this broken enabler to set up mana and storm counts!

To be fair, storm wins feel a bit unfair to me, because you cannot counter their set up since you'll just add to the storm count, and then when they cast the main kill spell, it you cannot just counter the kill spell since you have an entire stack. But this is the oblivious other home for the Dark Ritual. With storm, but I haven't built a storm Commander deck ever to my memory. But, that's another great home for it, I just wouldn't call it "fair" unless it's a Rakdos Dragonstorm non-combo one, I could see that work.

What about Lotus Petal?

This feels like both a better and worse Ritual. It only ramps you one mana not two, but it's any color and can add to artifact stuff like metalcraft or affinity or recurring it for more mana with stuff like Sun Titan. It's also a $20+ dollar investment for this common! At least the Ritual is cheap fiscally and mana wise too! That might be why it's run in fewer brews.

I don't run it at all in my artifact, storm or other brews, although it's clearly broken in many of them. There is no faster first-turn three-drop Commander but with a two mana Commander and an untapped land, that works well. Just, again, try to be nice here with your two-drops on the first turn, although a 2 drop tends to be less powerful than a 3 drop.

Don't run powerful Tinybones, Trinket Thief or Baral, Chief of Compliance or Magda, Brazen Outlaw although maybe her Hoardmaster version is better. Just run stuff like...

Ivora, a 1/1 trampler that enters with a Blood token and then combat damage too and then a discard trigger to place a +1/+1 counter here. That's not that onerous. I also kinda like Eight-and-a-Half-Tails with a 2/2 body that you can give stuff pro White too and then make stuff White too since they need a bunch of folks smashing face to protect and there are no major breaks here like keywords or tappers.

Do you a think a first turn Daxos is okay? A Mono-White devotion that pumps toughness and is a Soul Warden for your stuff two-drop feels okay to me on the first turn, but your mileage may vary.

Again, I don't really care for Lotus Petal and don't run it in my decks just like the Ritual but those are times when it makes sense, two-drop nice Commander, storm or artifact synergies. I just don't like the signals it sends and likely follows up with.

There we go! I hope you enjoyed my deeper thoughts into this pair of card. What are your thoughts and when/if do you run Dark Ritual? With what Commanders and in which archetypes? What about Lotus Petal? Where and in what do you run it? Do you skip it like me? Why or why not? Thanks for reading as always!