+1/+1 Counters (1)
Anti-Counters (1)
Aristocrats (4)
Artifact Tokens (1)
Artifacts (1)
Big Creatures (2)
Colorless Decks (1)
Creatures (1)
Discard (1)
Enchantress (1)
Evasive Commander (2)
Evasive Creatures (4)
Fight Club (1)
Instants (3)
Karoo Lands (1)
Legendary Noncreatures (1)
Monocolored (1)
Monogreen (1)
Monored (1)
Monowhite (1)
Pingers (1)
STRATEGY-INDEPENDENT (28)
- 1x Everflowing Chalice
- 1x Carpet of Flowers
- 1x Curse of Opulence
- 1x Sol Ring
- 1x Khalni Heart Expedition
- 1x Burnished Hart
- 1x Overgrowth
- 1x Worn Powerstone
- 1x Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle
- 1x Circuitous Route
- 1x Dawn's Reflection
- 1x Elemental Resonance
- 1x Explosive Vegetation
- 1x Firemind Vessel
- 1x Frontier Siege
-
1x
Hedron Archive
- 1x Hunting Wilds
- 1x Market Festival
- 1x Migration Path
- 1x Ranger's Path
- 1x Sisay's Ring
- 1x Skyshroud Claim
- 1x Smothering TitheGC
- 1x Thran Dynamo
- 1x Ur-Golem's Eye
- 1x Vastwood Surge
-
1x
Gilded Lotus
- 1x Mirari's Wake
Sacrificable Artifacts (1)
Sansgreen (1)
Sanswhite (1)
Self-Mill (1)
Small Commander (2)
Small Creatures (3)
Tokens (6)
- 1x Gaea's CradleGC
- 1x Ashnod's Altar
- 1x Growing Rites of Itlimoc Flip
- 1x Phyrexian Altar
- 1x Primal Growth
- 1x Settle the Wreckage
Tribal Elf (1)
Vehicles (1)
This list comes with a disclaimer.
When it comes to ramp, there are some cards that are good depending on the average power level of the deck/environment. For example: When your games typically go to turn 17, a card like Skyshroud Claim will be really great and a card like Rampant Growth will do very little in comparison. However, when your games are typically over by turn 5, the reverse is true. With that in mind, I have made this list for games that end around turn 11 or so, which is basically the average (if you don't believe me, view my videos on my YouTube channel, and you will see that the average last turn is about 11). On top of that, while anecdotal evidence isn't the best evidence, I can also say that after I made the switch to using only ramp that ramps up by 2+, I noticed a huge improvement in my own games. With that in mind, here is what I would like to say:
This list is built in mind to offer the best options for ramp for a deck that is in an environment of the most common power level, which means that cards that ramp you up by only one mana (without providing any other card advantage), such as Rampant Growth and Farseek, are NOT good enough for this list due to the fact that they have a smaller effect than all the cards on this list, trading the ability to have the most mana late game (when the game usually ends) for having the most mana early game (when the players decide who is the scariest opponent) or for using the most cards from your hand. Don't believe me? Make the switch too, and let me know how your games go. :) Sure, doing more things in the first three turns FEELS better, but it's not actually as good as ramp of 2+.
That's fine and all, but don't take my word for it. Here is a video proving why ramp of 2 or more is significantly better for games that end around turn 9 or 10 (which is both what I've found from my research and what the Command Zone has found in their research): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgCux0rfun4
List of all pertinent ramp cards in EDH.
What this includes:
- Any card that that searches your library for two or more land cards and puts them on the battlefield for less than X mana, where X is twice the number of lands that it gets, but not more than 5.
- Any nonland permanent that can transform the same turn it enters into a land that produces 2 or more mana, following the same mana restrictions found in the first point above.
- Lands that produce net 3 or more mana (since that is 2 or more mana more than a land normally can produce).
- Artifacts or enchantments that allow you to have 2 extra mana for costing 4 mana or less, or 3 extra mana for costing 5 mana or less.
What this doesn't include:
- Cards that ramp you up by only one (Curious as to why? See the disclaimer above.).
- Cards that can ramp all players, unless it can be abused to be more ramp for you than each opponent.
- Creature cards needing to attack or activate a tap ability and auras that need to stick around. Creature cards are very fragile, so playing them or auras in place of other ramp means that many games will happen where a board wipe will knock out your ability to ramp as much as your opponents, but if they have a more or less immediate effect, the chances of this are low enough that they should be worth considering.
- Cards that require you to sacrifice lands or discard cards, unless it gets a surplus land more than the above restrictions for each land sacrificed and each card discarded.
- Cards that make you lose 1 life or more per mana.
- Cards that only provide mana for a specific color and/or type of spell.
- Cards that are "strictly worse" than Gilded Lotus, as you really shouldn't be playing more than one of these cards except in very specific circumstances. (In this situation, "strictly worse" is being used to mean "costs five mana to play, but cannot immediately produce three colored mana the turn after it is played", because there isn't really a better way to succinctly describe it.)
Please suggest ramp spells that fit these parameters, ask about my other helpful resources for EDH, or check out this link to my scryfall search for ramp spells.
Updated: 
Want to see more?
Do you like watching commander games on YouTube?
Then check out my YouTube channel where I upload a game every Saturday at 11 AM EST, featuring 4 different commanders each month, one of which is brand new to the channel! Or at least check out this playlist of all the videos on my channel:
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Magical Hacker, not sure I follow your math. Mana Crypt loses you 1.5 life every upkeep. Assuming you play it turn 1 (so you don't lose life until turn 2), and the game ends on turn 10, that's 13.5 life for 20 mana. That's only 0.675 life per mana. Compare that to Carnival of Souls which will cost you 1 life per mana.
June 24, 2020
9:42 p.m.
Gunna have to agree with a lot of the commenters here, kinda absurd to not include any of the fast mana, signets, talismans, dorks, or 2 drop single land spells on a list of ramp. Your playgroup needs to be absurdly janky, literally 1-3 power level for those cards to be not considered running.
June 27, 2020
5:52 p.m.
Epidilius, I would disagree that Mana Crypt and Mana Vault "should" be on every ramp list, but for different reasons. Mana Crypt, when played in a regular deck, only results in an opponent losing more life, both from the inherent lifeloss ability and the response from opponents. Mana Crypt and Necropotence are the two cards I think of immediately when it comes to this type of effect. So while Mana Crypt definitely fulfills the role of ramp, the fact that it more often pushes decks towards losing rather than winning (in regular Commander, as my lists aren't designed to be used for cEDH) makes it excluded from the list.
On the other hand, Mana Vault doesn't actually ramp, it's more akin to a ritual. The fact that it doesn't untap itself means it's essentially a Dark Ritual for decks without black.
Regarding creatures, artifact wipes and MLD are nowhere near as common as creature-destroying wipes. That likelihood is a huge factor! Sword of Feast and Famine is not something that dies to a board wipe, whereas One with Nature does when the enchanted creature dies. The difference is that Sword of Feast and Famine can equip to any creature, and if that creature dies, you don't lose access to the card giving you the ramp (you only lose access to the ramp itself if you don't have any haste enablers). In my experience, those factors makes Sword of Feast and Famine a much more reliable source of ramp than Llanowar Elves.
Ultimately, my point is that these are all the ramp cards I would possibly recommend to someone. The other cards might as well not even exist.
arcane_trouper, you make a good point about life loss per mana made, but the difference between Mana Crypt and Carnival of Souls is that your multiple opponents are definitely likely to focus on making sure you don't win when you play a Mana Crypt than if you played a Carnival of Souls. They usually do that by attacking you for more damage and/or using spot removal/counterspells on your cards more often. That's why I found that Mana Crypt led to more losses than wins, and ultimately why it didn't fit on this list. That said, Carnival of Souls also needs to go!
Since you asked about my math, here it is: If the game ends on turn 10.29 (number from a recent video from Command Zone, which is very close to the number I got from analyzing the games present on my YouTube channel, where three opponents played whatever Commander decks and cards they want), then getting a Mana Crypt out on turn 1 gives you 9.29 flips. Each flip makes you lose an average of 1.5 life, so 9.29 multiplied by 1.5 is 13.935, and that divided by 40 is about 34.8%. Doing the same math for 8.29 and 7.29 (playing it on turn two or turn three, respectively) gives you the other two percentages.
progresso, actually, if you watch the video in the disclaimer, you'll see the mathematical reason why your statement is false.
Also, this should be pretty clear by now, this list is made up of cards I recommend for a specific result informed primarily by a mathematical approach at calculating the best tactical decisions and secondarily by comparing the results of employing tactical decisions in line with those calculations to the results of employing traditional strategy. That leaves no room for community consensus to override that research.
July 6, 2020
5:19 p.m.
A rebuttal to your arguments against Mana Crypt: it costs 0 mana. That means you don't have to play it T1. If you have a sweet 4 mana play that will have a large presence on the board (say, Teferi, Master of Time), just hold it in hand until T2. You don't pull aggression from other players until you would anyway (in this case, from Teferi, Master of Time) and you don't start losing coin flips early. As for Mana Vault, it lets me play a 5 drop T2, and Vault with any T1 ramp that can immediately tap for mana can give you a 6 drop T2. If Sol Ring + Mana Vault lets me win the game on T2, then that is pretty good ramp. Having to pay to untap doesn't matter at all when there are so many ways to untap it for free.
Also, once you start bringing in personal experience, arguments kind of lose all meaning. I play a lot of mono or dual coloured decks, and I run Maze of Ith in pretty much all of them (also a respectable amount of artifact and land wipes). Unless your creature has hexproof and pro my colours, it will never connect. Between board wipes and spot removal, you would be better off playing Llanowar Elves, since you can run so many effective copies of it (eg, Elvish Mystic, Birds of Paradise, etc).
Also also, one of your stated rules is "Creature cards needing to attack". Does a Sword not break that rule, since it requires a creature to both attack and connect? At least Sword of the Animist just needs the attack trigger.
My personal opinion is that the most impactful plays are 4-6 mana. Being able to reach 4 mana on T2 and 6 mana on T3 should be a qualifier for "Most Optimum Ramp". I would rename this list to "Useful Ramp Cards". I do think this is a useful list, but I don't think it is a list of the best ramp, which the title claims it is.
About your last point, could you share that research?
July 6, 2020
5:44 p.m.
Magical Hacker I don't think potential opponent aggression is a valid argument against Mana Crypt. If you don't have a follow-up play for it turn 1, you can just wait to play it until you are going to use the mana for something. If you play it turn 2, is it more threatening than a turn 1 Sol Ring? Does it draw aggression more than a Gaea's Cradle, the power of which is directly to your board state?
July 7, 2020
7:06 a.m.
Magical Hacker Also, what about Seedborn Muse? If games take 10.29 turns, we play Seedborn Muse on turn 5, and there are 1.32 boardwipes per game (stat also from thar Commandzone episode), that's looking at ((10.29-5)÷1.32) turns Seedborn Muse is still on the board, producing a minimum of 5 mana per turn. That's an average of 15+ mana advantage.
July 9, 2020
12:30 p.m.
Shoot, my math is wrong in the previous comment. Disregard!
July 9, 2020
12:36 p.m.
Burnished Hart is 6 total mana for 2 lands. This does not meet your first requirement. Golden Guardian also costs 6 total to flip into a 2 mana producing land.
Regardless of aggro and percentage of life lost, Mana Crypt produces 2 mana a turn for 1.5 life. That's better than your 1 life per mana cutoff.
July 28, 2020
9:52 p.m.
Been tussling with a Boros list, and the curious conundrum of Fires of Invention. It's very much like a Red Sorcery version of Wilderness Reclamation. Cast Fires off four lands, immediately follow up with another 4-drop spell. As later turns go on and both spells in a turn use no mana, this also frees up mana for various activated abilities.
October 24, 2023
5:25 a.m.
EDIT TO MY LAST COMMENT: Just read the disclaimer. Don't mind me!
February 8, 2019
3:40 p.m.
Is there a reason Burnished Hart isn't on here? It seems to fit pretty cleanly into your criteria.
March 7, 2019
4:20 p.m.
There is not a single deck of mine, with green in it, that doesn't run a copy of Tempt with Discovery. I find the card to be extremely useful at any point of the game because it's a psycological approach to the whole table wether you play with grouphug strategies or not. In my opinion what makes it so great is that I would pay 4 mana any day if that spell can search my library for any land and lets me play it untapped, even if others are not tempted to do so. Of course there is always the "downside" that someone else could search for a Strip Mine-kind of land but the card specifically states that they have to put their land onto the battlefield first and then you search for another one, this is very clever wording because it gives you the advantage to respond to whatever land they chose.
September 8, 2019
7:16 a.m.
Just telling a update for this list is needed
Bone Miser Which is a creature version of Waste Not
And Dockside Extortionist since you get treasure per artifact and enchantment your opponents have
(If both qualify for the list ofcoarse)
April 15, 2020
10:40 a.m.
Shadeslinger, while it's good at giving you an immediate boost in mana, this list is for cards that give you extra mana over the course of the game. I will look into it and similar effects, and if I can reasonably reach the conclusion that virtually all decks should benefit from them, I will make another list called "List of Burst Mana" effects or something similar to that.
Agent_Fire, in a weird way, it's more like reverse-storing mana, since you can exert snow lands for two mana. Close, but I don't think it fits here!
kineticstasis, I believe I've had Burnished Hart on this list for a while, but I might be wrong... Either way, it's on the list currently!
Ra, that's a good point. If one or no opponents get a land, then it's producing a mana advantage of less than 2. If two or three opponents get a land with no strip mine effects, it's producing a mana advantage of greater than two. With strip mine effects, then you would be back down to a smaller advantage. It's hard to tell if it's good for the list, but for now, I'm gonna say that it's probably not within the parameters of the list. (It is on my tutor list though!)
TheDeckMaker2300, it's hard to justify playing Bone Miser here, as you have to discard at least 2 land cards each turn in order to be better than Gilded Lotus (otherwise, it is just more fragile and less mana productive, although I do have it on my card draw list). Dockside Extortionist is similar to the High Tide discussion with Shadeslinger above, so it all depends on how good burst of mana are in Commander.
June 16, 2020
5:07 p.m.
Not sure how this is, "a list of optimum ramp" when you exclude so much of the best ramp. I see your disclaimer, but I think you can make any list a, "list of optimum [x]" if you make your disclaimer so restrictive. Should be realistic and change the title to "list of decent cards that have the potential to ramp by 2 or more."
June 22, 2020
4:49 p.m.
arcane_trouper, that change is relatively recent, as it used to say "list of ramp" and a few players felt that I should change the title to reflect that I've purposely left off mini-ramp. Due to the length constraint of the name that Tappedout has, the best title I could find is the one I'm currently using. Hopefully, that clears things up for you!
June 23, 2020
9:07 a.m.
Ok. Still seems like "List of Big Ramp" would be succinct and clearer than "optimum".
Also, what about Mana Crypt?
June 23, 2020
7:09 p.m.
arcane_trouper, that would be better if optimum ramp were a misnomer.
Mana Crypt fails under the fifth point under "what this doesn't include" because you would lose about 38.6% of your life to it in the average game if you get it out on turn 1. Turn 2, 34.8%. Turn 3, 31.1%. Turn 4, 27.3%. Losing over a quarter of your life for ramp seems like a questionable tactical decision, especially since it has such a reputation for being so powerful that people tend to respond by overreacting and dealing you even more damage, destroying more of your things, and countering your spells. It's something that is right for a few decks, but I saw it make me win less often when I just played it in every deck.
June 24, 2020
10:27 a.m.
Retraced Image is a nice blue ramp spell.
June 1, 2018
4 p.m.
Why isn't Krosan Restorer on this list?
June 27, 2018
8:16 a.m.
smashadams83, for a deck that would like to use a card to ramp, by one, that is very true. However, this deck does not feature cards that only ramp by one (see the disclaimer for my reasoning). I apologize if this change to the deck was made after you suggested the card, as I do think it would have been a great card in a previous version of this list. :)
imagenus, it was missing because I missed it in my search. However, it has now been added! Thanks!
SaltySpecula, for a deck that would like to use a card to ramp, by one, that is a good ramp card. However, this deck does not feature cards that only ramp by one (see the disclaimer for my reasoning). I apologize if this change to the deck was made after you suggested the card, as I do think it would have been a great card in a previous version of this list. :)
July 12, 2018
4:33 p.m.
Sorry again! As I go through my decks to update with new cards (and this time, also clean up the scryfall searches due to changes in how regex is treated), I sometimes tweak the search and the cards present in the deck, which can sometimes result in me coincidentally changing the list such that suggestions made before the change (which I wait until after I'm done, since adding them in before I'm finished with the list without recommendations is a lot harder) go from being great and perfectly in line with the outline of the deck to being well outside of the parameters. I always feel really bad, because of how it looks, but more because of how it can be taken personally, which is not my intention at all.
Sweet! As I go through my list, I'll continue to respond to any comments you've made. Thank you for the feedback, as I could not make these lists without the amazing critique of the community :)
July 13, 2018
1:16 a.m.
I'm guessing you don't consider the signets or talismans to be ramp?
November 9, 2018
2:16 p.m.
I would definitely count them as ramp in a deck, but the reason theyre not on the list is because there are enough cards for more substantial ramp on this list :) The list does need to be updated though to include ramp that is less mana efficient if it ramps by 2 or more lands.
November 10, 2018
3:08 a.m.
Gotcha :) just cross-referencing my lists with yours cuz I might get rid of mine xD yours have way more. Thanks though
November 10, 2018
7:50 a.m.
High Tide for blue. It adds an additional blue for each island you tap.
December 6, 2018
6:43 p.m.
Would Winter's Night count here as ramp?
December 6, 2018
6:49 p.m.
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Revision 32 See all
(4 years ago)
| +1 | Forsaken Monument | main |
| +1 | Keeper of the Accord | main |
| +1 | Vastwood Surge | main |
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| Date added | 10 years |
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Epidilius says... Edit Remove Edit Delete #1
At this point, the name is a misnomer. Mana Crypt and Mana Vault should be near the top of any "best ramp" list, but they aren't included here. Quite frankly, the life loss doesn't really matter if you land a Mana Crypt turn 1 either, since you will either be far enough ahead that you are winning, or an opponent will destroy it.
Also, you have a rule of "no creatures" because of board wipes, which limits the credibility of this list. There a ton of artifact wipes and mass land destruction spells as well. And if you have this rule, why do you include cards that rely on creatures, like Sword of Feast and Famine? They are even harder to use than Llanowar Elves, since the elf doesn't have to attack (and connect!) to add mana.
I agree with arcane_trouper, this should be renamed or reworked to fit the name.
June 24, 2020 6:26 p.m.