Why Rampant Growth is bad.
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on March 28, 2019, 1:02 p.m. by SynergyBuild
Ramp, card draw, and fatties are the 3 cornerstones of EDH as a concept to many players. Rampant Growth , Rampant Growth is the symbol of one of these three cornerstones (I am sure you'll never guess which one).
I am here to tell you, despite what you may have been told. It is bad. Really bad, not even medium bad like Cultivate (Yes, I hate that too, outside of some specific lists like Tatyova, where it belongs to some extent).
Why? Well, to start, mana production. It doesn't give you mana immediately without Amulet of Vigor , unlike 2- mana manarock variants like the signet cycle ( Azorius Signet , Gruul Signet ), talisman cycle ( Talisman of Indulgence , Talisman of Progress ), Mind Stone , Prismatic Lens , Fellwar Stone , etc.
So? Many decks are mono-colored and can't use signets, or talismans, or have cards like Null Rod / Kataki, War's Wage , etc. or go up against them often. Rampant Growth gives a land. Well, Nature's Lore and Three Visits both give you an untapped land, they can hit Shocklands or Duals to get your colors better than Rampant Growth , and generally are pretty good.
What else? Growth Spiral , Explore , Sakura-Tribe Elder , Farseek , etc. all do Rampant Growth better, and aren't even good.
None of these are great cards. Llanowar Elves , Fyndhorn Elves , Birds of Paradise , Elvish Mystic , Boreal Druid , etc. all do it for half the mana, a turn faster, and are in green. How is a 2 mana card better?
Fast artifact mana or land mana like Mana Crypt , Mana Vault , Sol Ring , Chrome Mox , Mox Diamond , Ancient Tomb , Gemstone Caverns , etc. all do more work in almost all cases.
Enchantment mana like Wild Growth , Utopia Sprawl , Fertile Ground , Carpet of Flowers , Exploration , Burgeoning , etc.
Even Broken Bond or other cards with ramp attached can do more work. Farhaven Elf or Wood Elves with an elf-tribal deck, or dorks, etc.
So, with all of this, is there any real reason to run the cancerous growth (see what I did there xD)?
Yes, price. Rampant Growth is ~20 cents right now. Sure Gruul Signet , Golgari Signet , Simic Signet , Prismatic Lens , Llanowar Elves , Fractured Powerstone , Moss Diamond , Growth Spiral , Explore , Coiling Oracle , Broken Bond and tons more examples are equal to it or cheaper, but I am aware someone will bring it up.
There are too many better cards for lands-matter decks to use it, and too many are cheaper, equally cheap, or better and worth the cost to claim they are the reason Rampant Growth should see play, etc.
Seriously. If you run this card, stop.
This thread was moved to a more appropriate forum (auto-generated comment)
March 28, 2019 1:09 p.m.
I understand, and agree to an extent. I tend to cut it from precons first cut. But I think it is still in one or two decks as I'm just too cheap to buy a better version, and people in real like seldom have natures lore in trade binders. And having 32 edh decks sleeves up to play, prob means I'm in the exception category anyway. But it has a place in some extreme budget builds, and in extremely casual decks. The deck I know it's in has high end cards, and slower mana to even out power to casual players decks.
March 28, 2019 1:13 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #5
"Yes, price. Rampant Growth is ~20 cents right now. Sure Gruul Signet , Golgari Signet , Simic Signet , Prismatic Lens , Llanowar Elves , Fractured Powerstone , Moss Diamond , Growth Spiral , Explore , Coiling Oracle , Broken Bond and tons more examples are equal to it or cheaper, but I am aware someone will bring it up."
Dear pskinn0,
I am very sorry all of the local game stores have had buyouts of the above, quoted cards. It is a real shame to know that you also aren't within the world that tcgplayer, card kingdom, or cfg will ship to. I'd recommend running an additional land to the decks that run the growth. Thank you for your response.
But seriously. No possible replacements?
March 28, 2019 1:19 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #7
March 28, 2019 1:20 p.m.
outside of some specific lists like Tatyova, where it belongs to some extent
March 28, 2019 1:21 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #9
For full sentence context:
Really bad, not even medium bad like Cultivate (Yes, I hate that too, outside of some specific lists like Tatyova, where it belongs to some extent).
March 28, 2019 1:23 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #10
For later context:
There are too many better cards for lands-matter decks to use it, and too many are cheaper, equally cheap, or better and worth the cost to claim they are the reason Rampant Growth should see play, etc.
Tatyova=Lands matter.
March 28, 2019 1:24 p.m.
I have to disagree with signets being better then rampant growth. Signets can be removed from the board a lot easier then lands plus rampant growth thins out your deck
March 28, 2019 1:37 p.m.
bushido_man96 says... #12
In general, I prefer mana rocks and dorks for ramp over cards like Rampant Growth , Cultivate , and Kodama's Reach . I generally don't even like to use cards like Skyshroud Claim if I don't have to. Its ramp for 4 CMC, which I just don't like the exchange of. What I do like is the value that card provides in four and five color decks where I can run a Bayou and a Tropical Island .
Where cards like Rampant Growth and others like it tend to have an upside is against artifact removal and hate cards like you mentioned. Vandalblast sucks when you've filled the board with mana rocks, and dorks die to board wipes. The Growth isn't a good exchange; you are right about that. But once that Forest is on the table, its got a higher probability of staying around for the duration of the game.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I generally agree with you, and prefer different forms of ramp (generally). But Rampant Growth and cards like it can be ok to run at times.
March 28, 2019 1:40 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #13
shadow63, bushido_man96 so is it good to run Growth? or one of the ~40 other options I gave.
like better land ramp?
March 28, 2019 1:43 p.m. Edited.
griffstick says... #14
There are so many better cards than Rampant Growth I hate having cards like that. I'd rather just draw a land
March 28, 2019 1:43 p.m.
ToolmasterOfBrainerd says... #16
I play rampant growth because my edh deck is really casual and I had a copy on hand. It may not be good but it's at least on par with the Abzan Banner and 2-mana dorks that I also play.
March 28, 2019 2:01 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #17
ToolmasterOfBrainerd do you have an address in continental US? I'd be willing to send you and of the 10 cent equivalents that are better. Wanna see my wares?
Llanowar Elves , Golgari Signet , Prismatic Lens , literally anything better.
I think if you are so poor you can't find the 10 cents to replace them, it becomes a tax-deductible donation, so it won't cost me anything.
Seriously, why the banner?
March 28, 2019 2:04 p.m.
bushido_man96 says... #18
I can't run cards like Three Visits . That's too damn much money for me to go spend. So budget becomes a consideration. Its also very easy to point out how good Exploration and Burgeoning are, especially with their price tags. I've got one copy of Exploration left, so I'm going to be choosy about which deck I put it in. If that means I've got make a choice for a card like Rampant Growth , then that's how it goes for me.
Non-budget options out of the way now, yes, you are correct that there are better options than Rampant Growth , that have better flexibility with the lands you can search for, and don't come into play tapped. Those are better. I think it ends up coming down to how many of that kind of effect a deck wants/needs.
With all that said, I'm not in disagreement with you. You've made very valid points, and like I said, you're preaching to the choir here; most of the time (most), I prefer rocks and dorks for ramp when I can run them. But I see why some people run Rampant Growth .
Another thing I notice is that some people, for some reason or another, just prefer run "spell ramp" as opposed to rocks. I don't know why, but some just seem to gravitate to it over rocks. I think the sorcery ramp spells can be more helpful in fixing mana over time, but I still prefer rocks and dorks.
March 28, 2019 2:14 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #19
If Armageddon isn't run or any other land hate, green players like land-based ramp. I understand. There are 100 better green land-based ramp spells than Rampant Growth . 80 are budget.
March 28, 2019 2:45 p.m.
bushido_man96 says... #20
What are your thoughts on running Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse ? Just based on the points you've made about Rampant Growth , I would guess that you would prefer not to run them. I'm finding more and more that I would rather not run them, either.
March 28, 2019 2:59 p.m.
DrukenReaps says... #21
I really don't know anyone that would disagree with rampant being bad. I do disagree with cultivate being called bad. There's no land kill in my playgroup though so maybe that colors my opinion. Then again even where people destroy land there is still more creature/artifact/enchant destroy effects. Unless it is just a land kill deck.
March 28, 2019 3:14 p.m.
CrimsonChaos says... #22
I haven't built any EDH decks that use green cards as of yet, and I haven't seen anyone else run it yet, though being new to the format I haven't played against too many different kinds of decks. That said, the only real advantage to Rampant Growth I can deduce seems situational at best, in that if you don't yet have your mana rocks or any mana dorks in hand and are really hurting for a specific color of mana in a non-monocolor deck, it at least lets you search for any kind of basic mana as opposed to swapping the card out for a land and hoping that land turns out to be a kind that you need. Again, it's very situational. I agree there's better options in terms of both mana value and actual financial value, but if you absolutely have no means to obtain these options, and it's the only thing you have, then by all means you can play it. But if you have the means to pick up the alternatives, I see no reason why not to do so. I think Rampant Growth is one of those cards that was probably better in a limited draft than anything else, though I suppose that also depends on what options were available in its set.
March 28, 2019 3:40 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #23
Edhrec has it listed in nearly 30k decks. That is insane. It shouldn't break 1000 decks imo.
Also it depends on budget and lists for teramorph/evolving lands.
March 28, 2019 4:12 p.m.
Personally I run Evolving in Tatyova because I wanted an extra fetch, but I wouldn't run it in anything else given the choice. Just run a cheap rainbow land or dual
March 28, 2019 5:34 p.m.
I never said it was out of stock locally. I stated the cards I would replace it for are not for trade locally.
I also stated that the one deck I have it in, is to suppress the power level of the deck, I also have comes into play tapped lands to slow some decks. Now why would one do that. Well I have a collection in excess of $30k, so in order to play the higher end cards and not just make games unfun for others I make the deck a little more slow in mana base, as I understand not all have funds to get the higher end cards. I think I actually have a revised dual in the deck, along with shocks and fetches.
So you can either find a group that matches your decks level, lower the power level of the deck by making it slower, remove the high end cards, or just be the player no one wants to play with as they cant compete with your decks.
Now I do have some decks that I don't water down, as there are some who play higher powered decks, and a handful who play tier one decks or close. But choices have to be made so I can play with which ever group shows up.
I don't think that a land in its spot is better, as a land can't ramp at all early in the game, and doesn't fix your mana if you need a specific color.
And I never said that price was a reason, I stated I'm cheap and don't want to buy them. I also don't buy singles usually at all.
But I agree that it should not show up on that many decks, and only for very casual play where people are buying precons and only have cards they got in limited or were given to them. Another place is, like my deck, that it's in there to make the deck not as strong, in order to play against more casual decks.
March 28, 2019 7:08 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #26
Hey man, wanna budget deck that does worse? add a basic over the rampant growth. You said it yourself, if Rampant Growth is better, and you want to make a deck that is lower in power level, why not run that?
Or can you not trade locally for a Forest (I have heard they are nearing the $0.01 mark)
Really, name a deck that would want it? It came in the CMDR 2015 precon, so I guess, that deck could run it, but a basic would be better for your list, and no one else should use it, for reasons listed.
March 28, 2019 7:28 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #28
PlatinumOne I named a suggestion that beats rampant growth in every scenario.
Some of them were for players with higher budgets, others for lower. Many for mono-green, many for multi-colored inclusive of green, as those are the decks that are able to run the Rampant Growth to begin with.
Simply put, I named the first cards to come to mind that beat out Rampant Growth . Saying I didn't think of every scenario and that there is some random scenario that implores the use of multiple trash options is irrelevant because this post wasn't trying to explore the options to replace the Growth, only that the Growth is bad.
If you want to challenge this, give me an example of deck, price, goal, and link to said deck that runs Rampant Growth . If I cannot replace that card, or other similarly bad cards in that list within the budget set, I will concede this point. Your argument is entirely irrelevant to the discussion being used, however, since you now want some comprehensive list of every ramp spell that beats Rampant Growth in cost or effect, you must be either dumb or not understanding how this type of community post works. I hope it is the latter.
March 29, 2019 8:42 a.m.
No one is going to cast a removal spell on a dork. If you only have access to one color in your opener, and you're a multicolored deck, why the fuck did you keep that hand?
March 29, 2019 9:54 a.m.
lagotripha says... #31
I'm going to argue that rampant growth has a place- In charbelcher EDH.
Three to four lands, mana rocks, all the land searching and artifact searching you can fit, and counterspells. There aren't enough 'search a land' spells to be picky in that list, as you do have more slots to fill than most other EDH builds.
March 29, 2019 12:47 p.m.
There are definitely enough, especially considering you wouldn't be searching very many lands. You also wouldn't have mana to cast spells about 90% of the time.
March 29, 2019 1:06 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #33
lagotripha lemme check, also, Belcher lists run 1-2 lands, and <10 search effects, often much better than Rampant Growth .
If I remember they run a basic and a mountain/forest, Taiga / Stomping Ground , and Mountain / Forest , not 4.
Also, if I am up-to-date, they even run effects like landcyclers, so they have ~182 possible choices, many enough to replace Rampant Growth .
March 29, 2019 1:18 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #34
My idea is that it's run in many decks because in EDH you can't have multiple copies of a single cards, so budget ramp decks (mono green or not) put a bunch of those cards, including Rampant Growth , to get a lot of mana to cast the big monsters and win the game. Simple, easy and on a budget. A friend of mine had a budget Azusa, Lost but Seeking deck and it was based on a similar strategy. Probably if he had had to pick one of those he wouldn't have chosen that card. But since he needed, i don't know, cheap 15 ramp cards he put that in too.
However let me tell you i love this series of "Why X card is Bad (and Why)".
March 29, 2019 1:19 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #35
Thanks, I think I can go over why Cyclonic Rift is the worst card ever printed next xD
Also, Azusa, as a commander doesn't need much ramp. Often, you would rather lands in hand, because 3 land drops a turn will get you there.
The deck runs ramp though, but 1 mana ramp, because they want their play-pattern to be as follows:
Turn 1: Forest , Wild Growth (sub this for any other turn 1 ramp, Arbor Elf , Llanowar Elves , Elvish Mystic , Utopia Sprawl , Boreal Druid , Sol Ring , Green Sun's Zenith for Dryad Arbor , Fyndhorn Elves , or whatever else)
Turn 2: Forest , Azusa, Lost but Seeking , Forest , Forest
Turn 3: Empty hand. of lands/spells with the lands you just played.
See how Rampant Growth neither gives you the turn one ramp to get the turn two azusa, nor does it give you more ramp than a land after? Unless you had 3 lands in hand AND a Rampant Growth AND not have enough mana to cast the spell in hand.
March 29, 2019 1:25 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #36
SynergyBuild The deck wasn't mine, it was of a friend of mine lol. Also we weren't experienced so his idea back then was: i play a lot of lands so i can put my big green monsters the earlier the better. My point was this: in a random budget deck based on ramp you use a lot of those cards so that's why that card is often present in many of those decks. Not because it's good but because it's a cheap strategy and you can run multiple copies of better cards.
March 29, 2019 1:32 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #37
There are roughly 60 cards I'd deem better than it in a mono-green ramp deck.
If you want land-based ones, I can name ~20ish, if you need more than 20ish land-based ramp spells, you can run Rampant Growth . I have yet to see anyone's list on all of Tappedout that uses that many.
March 29, 2019 1:36 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #38
Well SynergyBuild that was my hypothesis to explain why that card is used so often. I'm not trying to justify them. You also have to consider that when you are talking about budget decks you look for the cheapest card that can do something, even if you know that some Others are way better.
March 29, 2019 2:13 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #40
Last hypothesis: EDHrec uses as suggestions for a particular theme/commander the most used cards among the decklists on their site. So if a lot of people uploaded decks with that card other people started to see it as a staple/recommended and so they put it in as well in their decks. Most people here is not defending it so the reason behind this should be something like that.
March 29, 2019 2:26 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #41
You are completely correct, yet still, I assumed people would realize through gameplay R-growth is bad.
March 29, 2019 2:54 p.m.
I wish newer players knew to only use EDHRec as a starting point rather than using the information as gospel. I often run into overtuned decks cause they want every effect and their deck ends up being clunky and barely functional.
March 29, 2019 4:15 p.m.
ShutUpMokuba says... #43
EDHrec is good to get some general ideas, mostly for new players that don't know many cards and want suggestions to improve/build their deck. The problem with that is that if i read +70% synergy i don't know from which deck that info comes from. I mean if all the "less efficient" decks run that card for some reason (Budget, ignorance about already existing better cards…) i still get that 70% of the decks of that type run that cards. Now if i'm an experienced player i may say that i still don't want to use it in my deck. But a beginner is encouraged but the high "affinity". One think that EDHrec misses that is present here on tappedout is the "upvote" system AND the comment section. I've seen many decks here with tons of upvotes with comments that were destroying the deck in a way that even a beginner could figure out that the deck was not consistent. All this just to remind that EDHrec is an usefull tool but not a completely reliable one.
March 29, 2019 4:29 p.m.
PlatinumOne says... #44
SynergyBuild: "i named a card that beats rampant growth in every scenario"
not quite. you listed cards that had an advantage in one aspect, but not all. all of the cards you mentioned either cost more money, or did not color fix in a way that is resilient to removal.
if you really don't see the relevancy, then YOU are the dumb one. i literally could not have made it any simpler. budget decks that use 2+ colors are not "random" scenarios. they are quite common.
i'm not spending $84 on Three Visits , and Llanowar Elves does not give non-green mana.
quite literally, the entire basis of your argument is " Rampant Growth is bad because you should either be spending an amount of money equivalent of a used car on your deck, or you should be playing mono-green". what about the players that want to do neither? they play Rampant Growth .
March 30, 2019 1:33 a.m.
Then buy Nature's Lore or Harrow or Summer Bloom or Explore or Growth Spiral or Farseek or Sakura-Tribe Elder or Wild Growth a fucking basic land..
Or maybe a signet, or a talisman, or a dork, or a cluestone, or a Keyrune, or a Locket or a fucking basic land..
March 30, 2019 7:57 a.m. Edited.
SynergyBuild says... #46
PlatinumOne where is the used car for 50 bucks? (Research the price of the card)
Also, I didn't say one card beat rampant growth in every way, you misread my quote. I said a card beats it per every scenario.
March 30, 2019 1:30 p.m.
You've convinced me to diversify my ramp in decks. I'm always scared because Bane of progress and Wave of Vitriol are my two favorite board wipes but what is 2 or 3 rocks to 3 or 4 good enchantments?
March 30, 2019 5:49 p.m.
Lol, seriously?
Rampant Growth isn't bad. Land ramp is almost always better than any other extra mana source in casual EDH. One of the easiest ways to get way ahead in a game is to turn 2 get an extra land, turn 3 get an extra land, turn 4 Akroma's Vengeance or some such. Later on in the game, the effect is even better. We've all seen people get wrecked when Bane of Progress drops on turn 10, leaving the decks that play 30 lands with nothing to do, while the green players can still play two six-drops a turn.
Cards like Rampant Growth provide a ton of consistency. You get whatever color you need, and you always get to 4 mana on turn 3. In a cEDH meta, or one where MLD isn't frowned upon, mana rocks/dorks are better. In most EDH metas, land ramp is king.
March 31, 2019 3:44 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #50
Arby_Q cards like Rampant Growth are great! I recommended plenty of better ones like Farseek , Nature's Lore , etc.
I hope you can in the future read the post you are criticizing before doing so.
SynergyBuild says... #2
BTW this is part of a series with my "Why Phyrexian Arena is bad."
Also, I screwed up. Can someone put this in the Commander forum rather than the Commander deck help forum?
March 28, 2019 1:02 p.m. Edited.