Why play Ramses? Well, you shouldn't. It's best to just stop here.
But if you want to keep reading then fine. Here are the most likely reasons why someone might want to run this guy;
1.) Because your playing blue/black and don't need a general, so any general will do. You just need the color identity. This is the most likely cause for considering Ramses. But honestly why bother? If you want some generic build then Sygg, River Cutthroat is better as an early chump blocker for aggro. Why not pay one more mana for Sivitri Scarzam so you have a slightly better body and something pretty to look at? Why not run Oloro, Ageless Ascetic and forget to include white cards? Excluding whitey is just racist, so man up and sleeve that Oloro.
2.) Because you play underwhelming opponents (be it low skill, some budget affair, or lack of desire for competitiveness), and you want to see how far this junker can get you while your opponents grow into better players. This is most likely the second most common reason to play Ramses. This is actually why I play Ramses. If this is your reason then a pre-con is better, as Ramses here can often times make things confusing and often times includes old cards with dated rules and big complicated text boxes.
3.) Because you are on a budget. Time to check yourself - there are (currently) 22 legendary blue/black creatures to pick from, and when it comes to the price of pocket change, then picking up just about any other will do.
4.) Because you are a mtg hipster. Check yourself again - you are reading a guide about this dude that compares his functionality over the past few years. We're not so original now are we?
Ok so here's the skinny. This is clearly an underwhelming and bad commander. Even a decade ago and ignoring powercreep Ramses here was always bad. No mater how many impressive and reoccurring aura's are printed Ramses will never have some über combo that will break the format, and he will never see heavy play.
His 6-cmc 4/3 body is pathetic and his ability is excessively situational. In today's EDH standard environment the only commander you will consistently see with auras would be Zur the Enchanter, who not only comes out faster than Ramses, but also tends to get Diplomatic Immunity effects upon first swing in multiplayer. There are also Sigarda and Uril, but to get your anti-hexproof effects via tutoring while these two will be busy ramping, tempo-racing, and stomping you out seems like a grand plan, no?
So why would any sensible EDH player spend any amount of effort to optimize and work with Ramses? There is no sensible reason. You have to be pretty absurd to want to run Ramses. A good synonym here would be insane. So let's just assume that people who spend effort developing Ramses are all insane. I'm insane, Ramses is insane, and if you keep reading this you must also be insane.
Great - now that we are all on the same level of crazy, let's start.
This deck was first brewed around 2008, and started as a budget deck to bring to a multi-player table. Since the original components were dirt cheap there was never reason to ever dismantle Ramses. Over the years it had been used as a newbie-player deck to test with against new opponents and friends to gauge their skill for future games (matching compatibility).
This design started as a budget, but has been a cesspool for my excess "staples" for edh. Ramses Overdark can be an extremely cheap general to build, so when looking at my below list please realize that all of the "ramses tech" is cheap, but the generic blue/black fillers may not be. There are obvious replacements here. The Mana Drain could be a Counterspell, the duel land could be a guildgate, the fetch lands could be basics and so on. Expensive cards can make a deck run smoother but are not required for Ramses!
With set after set of new cards released, and the rare occasional useful aura given to us, making Ramses playable has always been a tough job.
The most important part to consider when running this design is that we do not want to have our deck depend on Ramses. He is overcosted and his ability is often times whimsical. So having him out for the extra benefit is nice, but many things that need him are excluded. Since there are many times there will be no targets for our auras, we can't run too many, so what aura's that are included must be worthy.
Here are a few pointers for playing the deck;
This is a very political deck. My design only runs one counter and two tutor spells. Often times I will explain to the opponents that I only run one counter and one tutor as the demon is more or less a win-condition and used to almost always get one specific card. Running Ramses Overdark in the command zone tends to take quite a bit of pressure off you in multiplayer. Explaining that you only run one counter and one tutor to the opponents usually makes them dismiss you during the entire early game.
But not everyone is a wicked smooth Jedi, and the mere display of islands on your side of the table will cause some worry and targeting.
We will fail in 1v1 due to the speed and reliance on our enchantments, so when playing multiplayer we need to smartly manipulate the board the best we can. Our best general-answers now are Vow of Malice and Vow of Flight. Snapping one of these on the more aggressive opponent at the table is great. Using one of the 5 reanimation enchantments to get back a diverting creature is even better. You won't have time to fiddle early game waiting in hopes of having Ramses, so we need to start the mind games early.
When it comes to actually winning, this design is sickeningly short on winconditions. Bribery honestly may be the best bet since we can pull a better creature out of the opponents deck. Rune-Scarred Demon into Rite of Replication, then rite-kicking the demon is another generic blue/black win-con. These three cards do not require anything from our deck other than mana, and do nothing for the Ramses theme.
Auramancer's Guise on Ramses is a possible pathway for general damage. The only reason this made the cut is due to Vigilance. Ramses's ability can be activated after he is declared as an attacker, akin to Stonehewer Giant plays. But man wouldn't it just be better to have Stonehewer in the deck?
When using our general the best we can do is find as much value that doesn't kill our own tempo. With that idea, we are running as many auras that can "reoccur" themselves. I call this the "Rancor effect," since this is the most popular card with this ability. We have 10 of these effects included in the deck, but there are others.
Fool's Demise is most likely our best enchantment to use with Ramses out. We can theft a creature every turn if the enchantment isn't countered and Ramses isn't disrupted. This is hands down the strongest effect that Ramses can provide for us.
The rest of the "reoccurring" enchantments should be considered as spot removal with Ramses, or early game disruption. Dragon Wings and Dragon Shadow are both great. Cycling the wings early is nice, but most people tend to forget that you can auto-equip these from the graveyard to your opponents side. Despondency and Launch are the original reoccurring "rancor" cycle and have very little use past being slightly annoying to the opponent. These and Slow Motion + Sleeper's Guile are the decks best repeatable creature removal with Ramses. Screams from Within is pretty unique, and can sometimes backfire as it may end up on one of our dudes, but the option of wiping out an entire token army is pretty great. Glistening Oil and Fallen Ideal blur the lines between offense and defense, as both might end up on our own guys for combat.
Do note that I have chosen to take out Genju of the Fens and Genju of the Falls, since this is a multi-player deck that is already fairly weak, and showing the opponents that you can repeatably destroy a land a turn is a good way to paint a target on us.
The new Constellation crew with Herald of Torment and Nighthowler are the most recent additions. Agent of Erebos is proving to be fantastic in a deck with 30+ enchantments to hose many graveyard based strategies. Rite-kick'ing a Doomwake Giant essentially requires a boardwipe or the opponents will never be able to keep creatures on the field.
Thassa's Emissary was considered as a replacement for Shadowmage Infiltrator in my most recent update. Infiltrator is great but often times the fear ended up being useless in my meta, and the power-boost on the emissary was tempting. Do note that we can bestow an opponents creature, and when that creature dies the incoming enchantment-creature does still belong to us.
Venser, Shaper Savant is running double-duty here as one of our few control elements in the deck, but also a possible saving grace to snap something vital of ours back to hand. I've been considering Riptide Chimera as a secondary effect here to help save a few enchantments.
Hakim, Loreweaver is just silly, and spaming his first activated ability to recover enchantments is great. He is extremely useful for recovering the "rancor effect" enchantments to hand if they were countered, since his second ability will cause them to go back up to hand yet again. And paying uu for Eldrazi Conscription is just fancy.
Here are some of the previously used cards, possible alternate paths to take Ramses, possible improvements worth testing, and other Ramses tech;
There are many "good" cards that work well with enchantments, but over the past few years these things have been found to be just too slow, or too situational. From what I've tested myself, and what few Ramses decks I've seen, there is typically some sort of theme or trend. For example, my first push for Ramses was a theft theme with enchantments like;
While treachery is still main-decked, this theme was just not good enough. There are better theft generals out there to pick from, and relying on enchantments for theft is bad. Considering that an Aura Shards blows out our deck, this was too unreliable.
I've seen a few variants when browsing other decks. One that seemed interesting was a tap-down + tax effect;
All these themes were themselves better deployed with a better general.
There is also quite a few generically good cards that many may still consider running with Ramses.
Ramses decks tend to have a huge plethora of generic effects that occur when the enchantments or the enchanted creature die or attack. These could be considered "tempo" but we are in the color of drawing and tutoring, so really why waste an enchantment slot for Casting of Bones when we have access to Ancestral Vision?
And some of the ghetto Ramses tech has just been dated due to the growing popularity of the format and power-creep. EDH has not aged well for the casual, and this makes Ramses a sad panda. Something like Crystal Chimes still has a place for mass recursion late game, but these others have just not aged well;
The Rootwater Shaman specifically has just been blown away by Leyline of Anticipation, but even the Leyline doesn't fit in what this deck wants to do very well. Flash everything is really strong, but the majority of our effects manipulate creatures on the opponents turn. The only time we desperately need to flash an enchantment out is to stop a haste creature. The odds of seeing the leyline + the answering enchantment vs a haste are slim. How's about a Capsize instead?
More Voltron...
So Endless Scream used to be the card of this deck as a big scary win-condition. When we got Eldrazi Conscription late 2010 this great old card was hastily replaced. But cards like this may still have a place in some variant. Your argument then again gets to 'why run Ramses?' when you could just run Hakim or Zur or any general with protection.
Multiplying the ability;
With Ramses's ability not requiring any mana, and many of the reoccurring enchantments being very cheap to cast, it may be tempted to run some untap or double effects. Illusionist's Bracers and Rings of Brighthearth may work if there are two creatures simultaneously enchanted. From playtesting the only one that might be worth the slot is Fatestitcher and Thousand-Year Elixir. I have taken these out of my recent designs to make my deck appear weaker. Most opponents will dismiss Ramses's ability in early game, but landing this with Ramses out will skew threat assessment and put you on someone's radar.
The most recent revision included the new Constellation and enchantment-creatures from the Theros block. Considering Riptide Chimera as another addition. Considering Fatestitcher and Copy Enchantment for reasons.
Why play Ramses? Well, you shouldn't. It's best to just stop here.
But if you want to keep reading then fine. Here are the most likely reasons why someone might want to run this guy;
1.) Because your playing blue/black and don't need a general, so any general will do. You just need the color identity. This is the most likely cause for considering Ramses. But honestly why bother? If you want some generic build then Sygg, River Cutthroat is better as an early chump blocker for aggro. Why not pay one more mana for Sivitri Scarzam so you have a slightly better body and something pretty to look at? Why not run Oloro, Ageless Ascetic and forget to include white cards? Excluding whitey is just racist, so man up and sleeve that Oloro.
2.) Because you play underwhelming opponents (be it low skill, some budget affair, or lack of desire for competitiveness), and you want to see how far this junker can get you while your opponents grow into better players. This is most likely the second most common reason to play Ramses. This is actually why I play Ramses. If this is your reason then a pre-con is better, as Ramses here can often times make things confusing and often times includes old cards with dated rules and big complicated text boxes.
3.) Because you are on a budget. Time to check yourself - there are (currently) 22 legendary blue/black creatures to pick from, and when it comes to the price of pocket change, then picking up just about any other will do.
4.) Because you are a mtg hipster. Check yourself again - you are reading a guide about this dude that compares his functionality over the past few years. We're not so original now are we?
Ok so here's the skinny. This is clearly an underwhelming and bad commander. Even a decade ago and ignoring powercreep Ramses here was always bad. No mater how many impressive and reoccurring aura's are printed Ramses will never have some über combo that will break the format, and he will never see heavy play.
His 6-cmc 4/3 body is pathetic and his ability is excessively situational. In today's EDH standard environment the only commander you will consistently see with auras would be Zur the Enchanter, who not only comes out faster than Ramses, but also tends to get Diplomatic Immunity effects upon first swing in multiplayer. There are also Sigarda and Uril, but to get your anti-hexproof effects via tutoring while these two will be busy ramping, tempo-racing, and stomping you out seems like a grand plan, no?
So why would any sensible EDH player spend any amount of effort to optimize and work with Ramses? There is no sensible reason. You have to be pretty absurd to want to run Ramses. A good synonym here would be insane. So let's just assume that people who spend effort developing Ramses are all insane. I'm insane, Ramses is insane, and if you keep reading this you must also be insane.
Great - now that we are all on the same level of crazy, let's start.
This deck was first brewed around 2008, and started as a budget deck to bring to a multi-player table. Since the original components were dirt cheap there was never reason to ever dismantle Ramses. Over the years it had been used as a newbie-player deck to test with against new opponents and friends to gauge their skill for future games (matching compatibility).
This design started as a budget, but has been a cesspool for my excess "staples" for edh. Ramses Overdark can be an extremely cheap general to build, so when looking at my below list please realize that all of the "ramses tech" is cheap, but the generic blue/black fillers may not be. There are obvious replacements here. The Mana Drain could be a Counterspell, the duel land could be a guildgate, the fetch lands could be basics and so on. Expensive cards can make a deck run smoother but are not required for Ramses!
With set after set of new cards released, and the rare occasional useful aura given to us, making Ramses playable has always been a tough job.
Here is what the current design is running;
1 Ramses Overdark
Creatures: 16
1x Baleful Strix
1x Burnished Hart
1x Clever Impersonator
1x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Mulldrifter
1x Trinket Mage
1x Rune-Scarred Demon
1x Hakim, Loreweaver
1x Venser, Shaper Savant
1x Herald of Torment
1x Nighthowler
1x Agent of Erebos
1x Doomwake Giant
1x Thoughtrender Lamia
1x Rootwater Matriarch
1x Iridescent Drake
Spells: 11
1x Mana Drain
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Damnation
1x Decree of Pain
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Bribery
1x Rite of Replication
1x Fact or Fiction
1x Ancestral Vision
1x Capsize
1x Cyclonic Rift
Enchantments: 2
1x Phyrexian Arena
1x Mystic Remora
1x Auramancer's Guise
1x Drake Umbra
1x Eel Umbra
1x Pemmin's Aura
1x Zephid's Embrace
1x Eldrazi Conscription
1x Vow of Malice
1x Vow of Flight
1x Treachery
1x Unhallowed Pact
1x Shade's Form
1x Fool's Demise
1x False Demise
1x Private Research
1x Dragon Wings
1x Dragon Shadow
1x Slow Motion
1x Sleeper's Guile
1x Despondency
1x Launch
1x Glistening Oil
1x Fallen Ideal
1x Screams from Within
Artifacts: 10
1x Mana Crypt
1x Sol Ring
1x Wayfarer's Bauble
1x Mind Stone
1x Charcoal Diamond
1x Sky Diamond
1x Commander's Sphere
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Expedition Map
1x Crystal Chimes
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Temple of the False God
1x Flooded Strand
1x Polluted Delta
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Misty Rainforest
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Marsh Flats
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Myriad Landscape
1x Sunken Ruins
1x Drowned Catacomb
1x Temple of Deceit
1x Watery Grave
1x Underground River
1x Underground Sea
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Cabal Coffers
1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1x Strip Mine
1x Wasteland
8x Island
5x Swamp
0 cmc = 1 + lands (38x)
1 cmc = 6
2 cmc = 13
3 cmc = 20
4 cmc = 12
5 cmc = 7
6 cmc = 2
7 cmc = 0
8 cmc = 2
The most important part to consider when running this design is that we do not want to have our deck depend on Ramses. He is overcosted and his ability is often times whimsical. So having him out for the extra benefit is nice, but many things that need him are excluded. Since there are many times there will be no targets for our auras, we can't run too many, so what aura's that are included must be worthy.
Here are a few pointers for playing the deck;
This is a very political deck. My design only runs one counter and two tutor spells. Often times I will explain to the opponents that I only run one counter and one tutor as the demon is more or less a win-condition and used to almost always get one specific card. Running Ramses Overdark in the command zone tends to take quite a bit of pressure off you in multiplayer. Explaining that you only run one counter and one tutor to the opponents usually makes them dismiss you during the entire early game.
But not everyone is a wicked smooth Jedi, and the mere display of islands on your side of the table will cause some worry and targeting.
We will fail in 1v1 due to the speed and reliance on our enchantments, so when playing multiplayer we need to smartly manipulate the board the best we can. Our best general-answers now are Vow of Malice and Vow of Flight. Snapping one of these on the more aggressive opponent at the table is great. Using one of the 5 reanimation enchantments to get back a diverting creature is even better. You won't have time to fiddle early game waiting in hopes of having Ramses, so we need to start the mind games early.
When it comes to actually winning, this design is sickeningly short on winconditions. Bribery honestly may be the best bet since we can pull a better creature out of the opponents deck. Rune-Scarred Demon into Rite of Replication, then rite-kicking the demon is another generic blue/black win-con. These three cards do not require anything from our deck other than mana, and do nothing for the Ramses theme.
Auramancer's Guise on Ramses is a possible pathway for general damage. The only reason this made the cut is due to Vigilance. Ramses's ability can be activated after he is declared as an attacker, akin to Stonehewer Giant plays. But man wouldn't it just be better to have Stonehewer in the deck?
When using our general the best we can do is find as much value that doesn't kill our own tempo. With that idea, we are running as many auras that can "reoccur" themselves. I call this the "Rancor effect," since this is the most popular card with this ability. We have 10 of these effects included in the deck, but there are others.
Fool's Demise is most likely our best enchantment to use with Ramses out. We can theft a creature every turn if the enchantment isn't countered and Ramses isn't disrupted. This is hands down the strongest effect that Ramses can provide for us.
The rest of the "reoccurring" enchantments should be considered as spot removal with Ramses, or early game disruption. Dragon Wings and Dragon Shadow are both great. Cycling the wings early is nice, but most people tend to forget that you can auto-equip these from the graveyard to your opponents side. Despondency and Launch are the original reoccurring "rancor" cycle and have very little use past being slightly annoying to the opponent. These and Slow Motion + Sleeper's Guile are the decks best repeatable creature removal with Ramses. Screams from Within is pretty unique, and can sometimes backfire as it may end up on one of our dudes, but the option of wiping out an entire token army is pretty great. Glistening Oil and Fallen Ideal blur the lines between offense and defense, as both might end up on our own guys for combat.
Do note that I have chosen to take out Genju of the Fens and Genju of the Falls, since this is a multi-player deck that is already fairly weak, and showing the opponents that you can repeatably destroy a land a turn is a good way to paint a target on us.
The new Constellation crew with Herald of Torment and Nighthowler are the most recent additions. Agent of Erebos is proving to be fantastic in a deck with 30+ enchantments to hose many graveyard based strategies. Rite-kick'ing a Doomwake Giant essentially requires a boardwipe or the opponents will never be able to keep creatures on the field.
Thassa's Emissary was considered as a replacement for Shadowmage Infiltrator in my most recent update. Infiltrator is great but often times the fear ended up being useless in my meta, and the power-boost on the emissary was tempting. Do note that we can bestow an opponents creature, and when that creature dies the incoming enchantment-creature does still belong to us.
Venser, Shaper Savant is running double-duty here as one of our few control elements in the deck, but also a possible saving grace to snap something vital of ours back to hand. I've been considering Riptide Chimera as a secondary effect here to help save a few enchantments.
Hakim, Loreweaver is just silly, and spaming his first activated ability to recover enchantments is great. He is extremely useful for recovering the "rancor effect" enchantments to hand if they were countered, since his second ability will cause them to go back up to hand yet again. And paying uu for Eldrazi Conscription is just fancy.
Here are some of the previously used cards, possible alternate paths to take Ramses, possible improvements worth testing, and other Ramses tech;
There are many "good" cards that work well with enchantments, but over the past few years these things have been found to be just too slow, or too situational. From what I've tested myself, and what few Ramses decks I've seen, there is typically some sort of theme or trend. For example, my first push for Ramses was a theft theme with enchantments like;
While treachery is still main-decked, this theme was just not good enough. There are better theft generals out there to pick from, and relying on enchantments for theft is bad. Considering that an Aura Shards blows out our deck, this was too unreliable.
I've seen a few variants when browsing other decks. One that seemed interesting was a tap-down + tax effect;
Another ran reanimation;
"Burning" via enchantment kill;
Repeatable Land Destruction via;
Then there was the deck running the Licids;
Corrupting Licid, Dominating Licid, Gliding Licid, Leeching Licid, Stinging Licid, and Transmogrifying Licid are some pretty dated tech. Yea, the Licid's are cute. They are terribly cute. They are terrible. Please just stop.
All these themes were themselves better deployed with a better general.
There is also quite a few generically good cards that many may still consider running with Ramses.
Ramses decks tend to have a huge plethora of generic effects that occur when the enchantments or the enchanted creature die or attack. These could be considered "tempo" but we are in the color of drawing and tutoring, so really why waste an enchantment slot for Casting of Bones when we have access to Ancestral Vision?
And some of the ghetto Ramses tech has just been dated due to the growing popularity of the format and power-creep. EDH has not aged well for the casual, and this makes Ramses a sad panda. Something like Crystal Chimes still has a place for mass recursion late game, but these others have just not aged well;
The Rootwater Shaman specifically has just been blown away by Leyline of Anticipation, but even the Leyline doesn't fit in what this deck wants to do very well. Flash everything is really strong, but the majority of our effects manipulate creatures on the opponents turn. The only time we desperately need to flash an enchantment out is to stop a haste creature. The odds of seeing the leyline + the answering enchantment vs a haste are slim. How's about a Capsize instead?
More Voltron...
So Endless Scream used to be the card of this deck as a big scary win-condition. When we got Eldrazi Conscription late 2010 this great old card was hastily replaced. But cards like this may still have a place in some variant. Your argument then again gets to 'why run Ramses?' when you could just run Hakim or Zur or any general with protection.
Multiplying the ability;
With Ramses's ability not requiring any mana, and many of the reoccurring enchantments being very cheap to cast, it may be tempted to run some untap or double effects. Illusionist's Bracers and Rings of Brighthearth may work if there are two creatures simultaneously enchanted. From playtesting the only one that might be worth the slot is Fatestitcher and Thousand-Year Elixir. I have taken these out of my recent designs to make my deck appear weaker. Most opponents will dismiss Ramses's ability in early game, but landing this with Ramses out will skew threat assessment and put you on someone's radar.
The most recent revision included the new Constellation and enchantment-creatures from the Theros block. Considering Riptide Chimera as another addition. Considering Fatestitcher and Copy Enchantment for reasons.
Links to my most current deck lists;
Primary EDH; Rakka Mar Token Perfection, Crosis Mnemonic Betrayal, Cromat Villainous, Judith Gravestorm, Rakdos Empty Storm, Exava Artifacts, Bant Trash, & Fumiko Voltron!
EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
Latulla Burns, Akroma Smash, Jeska Voltron, Rakdos Storm, Bladewing Darghans, Lyzolda Worldgorger, Xantcha Steals your Heart, Jori Storm, Wydwen Permission, Gwendlyn Paradox, Jeleva Warps, & Sigarda Brick!
Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!