Colorless (44)
- 1x Abzan Banner
- 1x Ancient Tomb
- 1x Ashnod's Altar
- 1x Azorius Cluestone
- 1x Azorius Signet
- 1x Boros Cluestone
- 1x Boros Signet
- 1x Cabal Coffers
- 1x Caged Sun
- 1x Coalition Relic
- 1x Dimir Cluestone
- 1x Dimir Signet
- 1x Dreamstone Hedron
- 1x Extraplanar Lens
- 1x Fellwar Stone
- 1x Gauntlet of Power
- 1x Gilded Lotus
- 1x Golgari Cluestone
- 1x Golgari Signet
- 1x Gruul Cluestone
- 1x Gruul Signet
- 1x Hedron Archive
- 1x Izzet Cluestone
- 1x Izzet Signet
- 1x Lake of the Dead
- 1x Mana Vault
- 1x Mind Stone
- 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
- 1x Orzhov Cluestone
- 1x Orzhov Signet
- 1x Phyrexian Tower
- 1x Pyromancer's Goggles
- 1x Rakdos Cluestone
- 1x Rakdos Signet
- 1x Selesnya Cluestone
- 1x Selesnya Signet
- 1x Serra's Sanctum
- 1x Simic Cluestone
- 1x Simic Signet
- 1x Temur Banner
- 1x Terrain Generator
- 1x The Immortal Sun
- 1x Thran Dynamo
- 1x Worn Powerstone
Gold (6)
Blue (4)
Black (5)
Red (2)
Green (38)
- 1x Arbor Elf
- 1x Azusa, Lost but Seeking
- 1x Cultivate
- 1x Dictate of Karametra
- 1x Early Harvest
- 1x Elvish Archdruid
- 1x Exploration
- 1x Farhaven Elf
- 1x Farseek
- 1x Growing Rites of Itlimoc Flip
- 1x Heartbeat of Spring
- 1x Heritage Druid
- 1x Karametra's Acolyte
- 1x Keeper of Progenitus
- 1x Kodama's Reach
- 1x Magus of the Candelabra
- 1x Mana Reflection
- 1x Natural Balance
- 1x Nature's Lore
- 1x Nissa's Pilgrimage
- 1x Nissa's Renewal
- 1x Oracle of Mul Daya
- 1x Patron of the Orochi
- 1x Priest of Titania
- 1x Rampant Growth
- 1x Sakura-Tribe Elder
- 1x Search for Tomorrow
- 1x Shaman of Forgotten Ways
- 1x Somberwald Sage
- 1x Summer Bloom
- 1x Verdant Confluence
- 1x Vernal Bloom
- 1x Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
- 1x Wayward Swordtooth
- 1x Wood Elves
- 1x Yavimaya Dryad
- 1x Yavimaya Granger
- 1x Zendikar Resurgent
Commander (1)
Hello and welcome to another commander article; Today the topic of discusion is choosing the correct ramp package for a commander deck. This may seem like a strange topic to some; for green decks Cultivate and Kodama's Reach and a few signets should do and for non-green decks signets Mind Stone and a few other artifacts should do the trick correct? Though all the aforementioned cards are excellent in commander it might be surprising to some that not every green deck wants Cultivate and many multi color non-green decks do not want Mind Stone type cards in their lists. When selecting ramp packages it is important to look at color intensity and deck synergies as the ramp package should ad-hear to those needs above all else. In addition to selecting the correct packages its also important to take into consideration how much ramp a deck wants and how many pieces it wants to draw. The following is a discussion on typical ramp strategies and general notes on how to choose a ramp package.
Before doing any deck construction a few things need to be taken into consideration such as what deck is being built the general strategy being used (re-animator, spell slinger, stompy etc.), and the budget of the deck. This guide deals with none of those questions instead it assumes that the deck builder knows these things already and instead wishes to address the building phase and bring light to that aspect of the game. The questions below are try to address some basic ideas and concepts before breaking down on a 100 card singleton deck.
+1always keep the restriction in mind - This may seem trivial but it is very easy to have a lapse of memory and throw a Phage the Untouchable into a Living Death deck or a bunch of Mind Stone effects into a Kataki, War's Wage deck only to realize the blunder latter.
+2Make sure to understand new cards - Often times when doing a gather search one will come across a card they've never seen before, read it once, and shove it in a deck thinking it does the thing they want when it actually doesn't. Things like mistakenly reading onto the battlefield as opposed to into the hand are common mistakes and can change a card from good to literally unplayable; remember if it looks too good to be true you probably read the card wrong. It is also important on older cards to read the errata and judge rulings to eliminate any confusion or misunderstands of how the card works as older wording can often be misleading.
+3Don't break your back - This means simply to bend over backwards for a certain strategy. A deck that requires a player to uses multiple cards that are either sub par or normally unplayable then it will usually reflect in the decks performance. Shelving the idea and waiting for more cards to be printed into the archetype is usually the best course of action.
Restrictions such as these are often the biggest hurdles commander brewers and casual players face as often the answer one is looking for may not be something that anyone has compiled a list for or at least has given thorough thought to. Finding the right cards to fit a deck synergy can be difficult and can require vast amounts of knowledge. Gather searches, forum postings,or asking for advice at a local LGS are all excellent ways to obtain information and garner new ideas and fine tune a deck.
Creatures matter- This type of ramp depends on creatures coming into play and staying on the battlefield usually having ETB effects and flicker effects accompanying them . cards like Wood Elves are an excellent card that often makes its way into commander lists as a body that gets a land however its most powerful within "creatures matter" strategies. These are strategies that need creatures to be on the battlefield or need creatures with ETB effects to go off such as the aforementioned Tishana, Voice of Thunder,Roon of the Hidden Realm, or Ezuri, Claw of Progress. Cards that might be in this package include Yavimaya Dryad, Farhaven Elf, Ondu Giant, Ulvenwald Hydra, cyrptolith rites etc..
elf ball- Elf ball is the nickname of strategies that use the elf tribe to make large quantities of mana quickly and either win by Overrun effects, lord abilities, or a large X spell like Fireball (from which the name elf ball comes from). Primers for elf ball commander can be found on most any mtg commander site (the main commander usually being Ezuri, Renegade Leader) but most builds include Heritage Druid,Elvish Archdruid, Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, and any other elves that produce mana.
Traditional Green ramp- Cultivate the green Divination cultivate is ussually a first pick in most green decks due to the fact it ramps by one and guarantees another land drop for the casting player. Most green decks will without a doubt want this card (and Kodama's Reach the original cultivate as staple ramp cards. Decks that want cultivate are more common than those that don't however as a rule of thumb when putting cultivate in a deck the builder should first ask these two questions.
+1Is my deck reliant on having multiple bodies on the field?
+2- Do non-creature spells have adverse effects to my decks strategy?
Details about the solution to the first question is written above when playing decks that have a creatures matter theme, or the "elf ball" theme often time cultivate is left out usually because it is unnecessary or the fact that a body and one land is better than two lands in that style of deck.as for the second question this is directed at decks that simply do not want non creature spells in the 99; this is mainly a jab at Primal Surge, and Genesis Wave decks though other strategies such as Ruric Thar, the Unbowed also apply.
Death matters-Usually seen in G/B/x style decks these are decks that want to have their ramp on creature that die or can be sacrificed for value. This style of play often share similarities with the creatures matter strategies though a notable exception is that this strategy prefers creatures with 1 toughness due to the prevalence of Skullclamp in these builds. Examples of commanders that would want this style of package are Merin of clan Nel Toth, Karador, Ghost Chieftain, and sek'kuar deathkeep.Package examples include yavimaya druid, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Yavimaya Granger, etc.
enchantress-Enchantment matters strategies are a favorite among G/W/x players and the ramp package used in these builds is very different from other builds. The ramp package used is usually aura cards that enchant lands to tap for more or to use global enchantments to make lands tap for more. It is relevant to note that though theses decks like to have as many lands available as possible so cards like Cultivate are welcome additions though most mana ramp should come from enchantments. In green there are no commanders that want enchantments specifically however common commanders include karametra god of the harvest and Rubinia Soulsinger. Examples of ramp cards would be Utopia Sprawl, Fertile Ground, Trace of Abundance, Mana Reflection, sera sanctum, etc.
Playing Extra Lands- This package involves playing multiple cards that say "play an additional land this/each turn". Of all the packages listed this one tends to be the most expensive money wise due to many of the cards being played in other eternal formats as well as the support cards being a bit pricey. This package is typically used in "lands matter" style decks that either use cards with landfall or uses cards like Strip Mine, Ghost Quarter, and Wasteland to destroy opponents lands and lock them out with Crucible of Worlds and Life from the Loam. Cards this package might include are Azuza, Lost but Seeking, Exploration, Summer Bloom, and Wayward Swordtooth.
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Mono colored decks have interesting strategies for ramping and generally including extra planer lenses, Caged Sun, and Gauntlet of Power as powerful sources of ramp,though it is worth noting that gauntlet of power also hits opponents lands so does extra planer lense unless imprinted with snow lands. Aside from the mana doubling effects mono colored strategies can make use of colorless ramp cards more effectively than multi color decks as color intensity is often less of a concern in mono color strategies than multi color. Cards such as Thran Dynamo, Mind Stone, Hedron Archive etc. are much more useful for mana acceleration as colored mana is covered by the mana base easily.Mono colored strategies are also better equipped to use one time ramps such as High Tide, Mana Geyser, Rain of Filth, etc more effectively than multi colored decks and can lead to incredibly explosive turns though it is almost never correct to use these cards as a main source of ramp.In addition cards such as the medallion series (Ruby Medallion Sapphire Medallion et. al.) and cards that reduce mana costs such as immortal sun are very powerful and often overlooked in most strategies
Spoiler alert on this one mono-black is fairly straight forward and only has one real way to construct its ramp package due to the high number of aggressively costed black only mana doublers in black in Crypt Ghast, Nirkana Revenant, Magus of the Coffers, and Cabal Coffers. Black takes advantage of these along with guantlet of power, Caged Sun, and extra-planer lenses to have a total of 5 mana doubling effects in addition to two powerful ramp cards. When using this strategy in bi-color decks it is important to have the majority of the mana base and spells in the deck be black oriented and have access to urborg tomb of yawgamoth as well as ways to tutor it up. This is to simply put the mana base is extremely warped towards black and restricts the non-black color to being more of a "splash" than a major contributing color.
It is no secret that when it comes to ramp green got the better end of the color pie though the non green decks still have access to quite a lot of options though it really depends on the mana intensity of the deck. As more colors are added it is necessary to add more fixing and more duel lands to the deck to insure consistency. This means in multi color decks this means the value of cards that produce colorless mana is extremely diminished if not detrimental to a decks mana plan. This is to say a card like Fieldmist Borderpost is likely to be more useful than a Worn Powerstone in a deck that requires alot of different mana colors. In decks that lack acsess to green ramp and fixing artifacts tend to be the best line to take as they often provide the most efficient and least restrictive in their nature E.g. cards like Storm the Vault and Dreamscape Artist while powerful either have deck building restrictions or have additional costs .Surprisingly (and yet its not) the more colors a deck has the more options it has for color fixing I.E three color decks have access to two additional signets as opposed to bi color decks which can only access a single one. For most Bi and tri-colored decks the signet cycle, the border-post cycle (Fieldmist Borderpost Veinfire Borderpost etc.), the diamond cycle (Sky Diamond Charcoal Diamond etc), and the keyrune cycle (Rakdos KeyruneAzorius Keyrune etc.) in addition to Chromatic Lantern, Gilded Lotus, and Solemn Simulacrum should provide acquit amounts of ramp to most non green mana multi color decks. There are obviously many more options and strategies that can be explored if one is willing to put in the time and effort to look for right cards and piece together the stradegem.
Mana intensity is how much colored mana on average is required to cast a the majority of a deck's spells. For example a black/x deck that is wanting to cast Necropotence and Phyrexian Obliterator is going to have a heavy dependence on black mana as it would be necessary to reflect this in the decks ramp package and mana base. On the other hand if one constructed a three color deck where the cards looked like Cultivate, Divination, Mentor of the Meek where the cards have less symbols (I.e. W2 as opposed to WW1) but has a wider variety of colors that need to be assembled accordingly. More than likely however, decks will have cards with double mama symbles such a Grave Titan and Frost Titan in which case it is important to take note of which color is most prevalent or which color has the most symbols amount cards in the deck. For example if a list were to have 10 cards with double green and 3 with double blue green would take precedence in the construction of the mana base as the deck is more heavily invested in that color. It should be noted this is only a starting point as other factors like how many blue cards are there in total in the deck if the other forty-ish non-land cards are blue then its safe to assume the decks actually blue with a heavy green splash.
A deck that wants to cast its spells on time and efficiently would have to have a mana base and ramp package to support these cards mana symbols. In other words X amount of cards in the deck need to be able to produce a certain color of mana in order for the deck to properly function. To find this out the player needs to ask when does the deck need to have access to these amount of colored mana sources. To find this out on a theoretical basis the player can use a method called hyper-geometric distribution in order to get rough estimates on how many sources of a color are needed.
Though it sounds like a big complex mathematical function (which it is) tools and explanations are available for the average player to use without needing a masters in mathematics. Hypergeometric calculators work by calculating the odds of an outcome within a sample size I.E. the odds of drawing x amount of a certain mana sources (the outcome) from a 99 card deck (the population size) in X amount of draws (the sample size). Thankfully alot of the leg work for these kinds of calculations have been done in the past; among them an excellent article written by channel fireballs Frank Karsten in 2014 which includes not only copious amounts of information but also a few handy charts show below
Pretending the deck in question is an Obzedat, Ghost Council one could experiment a build using the mono black strategy in adition to using cards suchs as Kor Cartographer and Godless Shrine along with cards such as Expedition Map to search out cards like Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth for fixing and Cabal Coffers for ramp. At the end of a short brainstorm one might come up with a package that included the seven cards from the mono black ramp strategy, Gilded Lotus, Kor Cartographer, Solemn Simulacrum, Sol Ring, Coalition Relic, Orzhov Signet,Chromatic Lantern, and Dark Ritual as supplement for a total of fifteen pieces of ramp. with these numbers the odds of hitting at least one piece of ramp in the first four turns is just under 88% and the odds of hitting at least two pieces is around 58%. In addition calculating the number of swamps/black sources can be seen below though it should be noted that these are calculated to be at 90% plus (e.g. 90 percent of the time a deck will draw these colors if these numbers are followed) though for the deck detailed above the numbers are at the builders discretion though around 80% for having three swamps on turn three is acceptable.
One problem in that is constant in many commander decks is the inclusion of Rampant Growth in the 99. Rampant growth although traditional and one of the more aggressively costed ramp spells suffers from a major flaw; literal Rampant Growth is not even the best rampant growth printed. Literal Rampant Growth has like may cards before it suffered from the age old problem of power creep meaning that there are not many more cards that do Rampant Growth's job better than it. After all of the "strictly better" cards get are put in it is ussually not correct to put in Rampant Growth due to the fact the other ramp slots are taken up by cards like Cultivate and other variants.The point of this is not to just pick on Rampant Growth but to use it as an example for using strickly worse cards other options should be explored; e.g. if a deck has rampant growth but not Sakura-Tribe Elder rampant growth should be replaced. examples of better rampant growths include Into the North, Nature's Lore and Farseek which can get dual lands, Sakura-Tribe Elder does exactly what rampant growth does however comes with a 1/1 body that sacrifices itself, and Search for Tomorrow though only better on turn 1 the ability to cast the spell for 1 mana with suspend makes the card more versatile and explosive.
In magic there are a fair few number of mana doubling effects but very few are as aggressively costed as Heartbeat of Spring. playing a turn two/ turn three heartbeat of springs can result in between six to eight mana on turn 4. In non-commander formats a deck that could do this would ussualy be able to get away with it as most decks in eternal formats aren't geared to cast big mana spells, in commander however most all decks can and will take advantage of the fact that their mana has been doubled and will have a full turn cycle to take advantage of this fact before the deck that cast heartbeat has a chance to use it. Cards like Heartbeat of Spring should be avoided in typical ramp packages as the type of deck that can properly suport these cards are ussually atypical .Heartbeat of Spring is like Rampant Growth the front man for several other cards such as Zhur-Taa Ancient, Mana Flare, and Dictate of Karametra also fall into the category of group mana doublers.
Often times group mana doublers are more aggressively costed than the single player mana doublers such as Mana Reflection or Zendikar Resurgent making them very attractive to big mana decks that want to get alot of mana as quickly as possible. There are many effects that give extra mana to all players though cards like Vernal Bloom, guantlet of power, and to an extent Keeper of Progenitus are usually safer as they can be used to the players full advantage while minimizing the amount of advantage an opponent would garner from the effect due to the mana base not being designed to take full advantage of the effect. When it comes too including these cards in a deck its often down to the deck builders discretion as to what is worth giving an opponent extra mana though there are some obvious stipulations that make having these effects more attractive.
+1 A deck with X costed spells
When a deck has several spells with X in the mana cost such as Genesis Hydra, Exsanguinate,Blue Sun's Zenith, and White Sun's Zenith having a shed load of mana makes these cards more attractive and even game winning. This same logic is true for activated abilities that can be used repeatably during a turn such as Thrasios, Triton Hero, Ant Queen, or Duskwatch Recruiter can generate large ammounts of card advantage and board presence quickly.
+2Big turn decks
Decks that want to play alot of spells in a single turn and already possess many or all of the player only mana doublers (Mana Reflection, mirarris wake, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger). Decks like these include archetypes like storm, creature ball, and various combo decks. The common factor in these decks are that they all have a hefty amount of card advantage to compliment the amount of mana they generate (that is to say fast cars with no gas don't go places).
+3 Group hug
+4palinchron decks
Though technically a combo deck as described in the previous explanation its specific enough to warrant its own catagory. Palinchron with any mana doubler goes infinite with itself generating infinite storm count and mana though this effect is not exclusive to Palinchron; cards such as Cloud of Faeries,Great Whale, and Peregrine Drake all do something similar to Palinchron when paired with another card such as Deadeye Navigator or Temur Sabertooth. Cards such as these are the most common ways to untap lands in commander though other forms such as Time Spiral, Turnabout, and Early Harvest all do the same thing in spell slinger and storm styled decks.
Some ramp strategies simply do not fit into any particular package or are so vague and specific they would be better off just being featured in their own list than detailed in a primer. Typically these types of stradegies are either part of a combo, only work with certain commanders, or are formed under specific restrictions. Examples of this would be a famous combo deck from the early days of magic called pros bloom; the deck used the cards Squandered Resources, Cadaverous Bloom, and Natural Balance to ramp and cast Prosperity and Drain Life; this type of strategy is viable in commander especially in decks like Titania, Protector of Argoth, or The Gitrog Monster as these cards want to see lands go to the and then recurred with cards like Life from the Loam, World Shaper, and Splendid Reclamation. Stradegies like these are only limited by the builders imagination and the card pool available and many unusual ramp stradegies can be found by browsing other commander lists or looking into other formats for inspiration.
Understanding all the options available in commander for ramp can greatly improve game-play as well as improve the deck building aspect of commander. That's it for this commander article as always I hope you enjoyed and if you have questions comments or suggestions leave them down in the comments bellow or click on the images to follow me on twitter for updates on articles and budget commander brews.
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Revision 3 See all
(6 years ago)
| +1 | Ancient Tomb | main |
| +1 | Arbor Elf | main |
| +1 | Brass's Bounty | main |
| -1 | Burgeoning | main |
| +1 | Cabal Coffers | main |
| -1 | Corrupted Grafstone | main |
| +1 | Crypt Ghast | main |
| +1 | Dictate of Karametra | main |
| +1 | Early Harvest | main |
| +1 | Elvish Archdruid | main |
| +1 | Farseek | main |
| +1 | Gilded Lotus | main |
| +1 | Growing Rites of Itlimoc Flip | main |
| +1 | Heritage Druid | main |
| -1 | Jeskai Banner | main |
| +1 | Karametra's Acolyte | main |
| +1 | Karametra, God of Harvests | main |
| +1 | Lake of the Dead | main |
| +1 | Mana Vault | main |
| -1 | Manabond | main |
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 6 years |
| Last updated | 6 years |
| Legality | This deck is Commander / EDH legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 11 - 0 Mythic Rares 37 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 35 - 0 Commons |
| Cards | 100 |
| Avg. CMC | 3.45 |
| Tokens | City's Blessing, Treasure |
| Folders | Cool Decks, Not My Decks, Commander, Useful Commander stuff, Edu, Deckbuilding, Resources, Card Lists, Lists, EDH (HELP) |
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