State of Mana Dorks in Standard
Standard forum
Posted on Oct. 17, 2014, 1:12 a.m. by Arvail
So I've been playing two different decks lately. One is my Jund Top Deck Management build while the other is a Sultai Control deck. They both use Sylvan Caryatid + Courser of Kruphix core and the jund one even has Elvish Mystic .
While playing, I've often felt the dorks to be very lackluster. The caryatid still pulls its weight, but the mystic especially feels really lackluster most of the time. Outside of my opening hand, it usually feels pretty meh, and with the amount of tap lands in standard, it's pretty easy to rather want to go temple into caryatid. Flying has become a huge deal in standard as Mantis Rider and Wingmate Roc have found incredible presence in Jeskai and Abzan. Meanwhile Stormbreath Dragon and Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker duke it out for slots in red decks and Buther of the Hoard sits nicely in Mardu builds.
Where do you think mana dorks currently fall in standard? Should we just leave them to the green devotion and Jeskai Ascendency? Where have you found success with dorks?
If it feels llike you don't need it, test the deck without it.
/thread
October 17, 2014 1:42 a.m.
The whole point of Elvish Mystic is hitting one in your opening hand. Other than that it is supposed to be meh. Sylvan Caryatid is the lord of mana dorks in standard, so you might not need the Mystics, but idk what other one drop you would rather have. Maybe Bloodsoaked Champion or Monastery Swiftspear , but you'd probably just be better off with the Mystics.
October 17, 2014 9:59 a.m.
Mana dorks, including Elvish Mystic , provide turn 3 Stormbreath Dragon in Gruul colors. Or any other 5 drop. Pretty much all midrange decks containing green should run at least a few if not the full myriad of them.
October 17, 2014 10:03 a.m.
The inherent problem with mana dorks will always be that they scale badly into the late game when your opponent wipes the board or handles your 2-3 threats you've obtained. Turning dorks into threats is the best way a ramp deck can win. See: Craterhoof Behemoth , Ezuri, Renegade Leader , Ajani, Mentor of Heroes , or I guess Gavony Township to some degree.
The only one of these in standard is Ajani.
Without having a way to turn dorks into late-game threats, you absolutely run the risk of getting continual bad topdecks mid to late-game as well as flooding on ramp and not getting enough threats to use the mana on.
Another card I like in super-ramp or ramp in general is Villainous Wealth
. Why? You don't even need win conditions in your deck besides it. All you have to do is focus entirely on getting it to resolve with a large 
and you can let your opponent's deck do the heavy-lifting.
So, here's what I'm getting at. Don't play a bunch of mana dorks unless...
A) You're willing to risk bad top decks while getting to play T3 Polukranos, World Eater or Stormbreath Dragon
OR
B) Instead, play ramp into a card that can make use of so much mana/make your mana dorks a viable threat afterwards.
subrosian says... #2
I recently added Elvish Mystic to my UG tempo flash/morph/whatever build:
Mysterious Forces (UG Tempo) Playtest
Standard* subrosian
SCORE: 26 | 4 COMMENTS | 6070 VIEWSand it's actually working really well. Lets me cast Boon Satyr reliably in a deck with 11 Islands and 3 Forests (among the 10 duals), gets the speed of the deck up significantly, and fills the 1-drop slot. Seems pretty good to me.
October 17, 2014 1:32 a.m.