Each and every deck is, of course, unique and is going to require a ramp suite equally unique and selected for that deck's particular needs. And ramp is obviously not limited to sorcery-speed spells - 0-1 cmc rocks are likely to be best for decks that want or need to be as fast as possible, 1-2 cmc mana dorks have their place in acceleration and creature-based strategies, some decks really like the 3, 4, and 5cmc mana rocks for explosive plays and artifact synergies. There's enchantments that ramp, and mana doublers of various types as well.
One distinction I often see being made, though, is between 2 cmc and 3-4cmc sorcery-speed ramp spells (i.e. Nature's Lore, Three Visits, and Into the North vs. Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Explosive Vegetation, and Skyshroud Claim. If I were to generalize, I would say that I often see the most tuned decks that attempt to be highly competitive run the 2cmc spells, and more casual decks built for bigger battlecruiser-type games skip the 2cmc spells in favor of the 3-4cmc ones.
The differences between Nature's Lore and Cultivate are actually pretty vast. Lore only grabs you one card, and it has to be a Forest, so decks with larger budgets for duals and shocks are obviously going to benefit way more than a budget deck running basics and non-basic-type duals. Also of import, it puts the land into play untapped, so it effectively only costs 1 mana. Cultivate and its ilk grabs up at least one card, but puts them into play tapped. It generates a lot more card advantage, though for just one more mana (or two if you consider Lore's put into play untapped ability).
So, how do you choose which is best for your deck? Is the major qualifier getting to 4 mana ASAP to run Nature's Lore, Three Visits, and/or Into the North? And wanting to get to bigger mana more reliably for Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, etc.? Or is it having duals (which makes Skyshroud Claim great, as well)? I'd appreciate all insights on this area of deck tuning.
I think both types (quick for small investment vs bigger) are viable as although they're ramp, they have different functions as you mentioned. In mid or late game the last thing I want is some little spell to ramp me one, although looking at that 4 mana ramp spell before turn 3 can be irritating.
I think both types (quick for small investment vs bigger) are viable as although they're ramp, they have different functions as you mentioned. In mid or late game the last thing I want is some little spell to ramp me one, although looking at that 4 mana ramp spell before turn 3 can be irritating.
Depends on the deck but I'd play both kinds.
One thing I've always felt about ramp of any kind is that it's really best to see in your opening hand, or first one or two draws. I don't really want to see any of it on turn 8, 9, or 10 (but that's another thing - some decks don't plan to ever have a turn 8, 9, or 10), but I suppose that in that situation the bigger-value cards are a better draw than the lower-value ones.
I suppose in some cases, that's the ideal. Again, I wonder if it just comes down to what your deck really curves out at. If most of your impact cards are ~4cmc, with a few 5 or 6 cost, then the Nature's Lore cards do the job best. If your deck goes bigger, I guess you're more willing to take the tempo hit on the Cultivate+ effects.
This is one of my favorite opening sequences. It's so satisfying to have 7 mana T4, especially without any fast mana. It really only works with any degree of reliability is heavy ramp decks, where you're going to have a use for the 4 cmc options later on.
I typically favor 2 cmc ramp, with edits to the ramp package depending on what I want to be doing. The 2 cmc spells go a long ways towards fixing your colors and smoothing out opening hands. There are definitely exceptions. If you have a game plan that relies on dropping your 5 CMC general or other high impact plays at 5 cmc, Cultivate/Kodama's Reach gain a lot of value for reliably getting you there (early) off of three lands in your first 10-12 cards, a very attainable goal for even the stingiest land counts. They also play nicely with 1 cmc mana dorks, where the 2 cmc spells can leave you with an extra mana T2. If I'm trying to hit 7 mana, the 4 cmc options are huge for a couple reasons. First is similar to Cultivate for a 5 cmc impact play. Even without any other ramp, the 4 cmc spells are likely to get you enough mana to play that on curve, even with poor land draws. Second, anything relying on a 7 cmc play is probably running other ramp to get there and the odds of an early 4 cmc spell go way up, which is a huge tempo advantage. It's a little more awkward to aim for 6 cmc impact plays, so I probably just load up on dorks and cheap ramp again. I understand that it's a little odd to drop back down on ramp when aiming for 6-drops, but that has other deckbuilding implications beyond the ramp package and it's rare for me to build around a 6-drop without going bigger or using it as a long game plan.
I'm not a particularly competitive player, but I do want my decks to run smoothly. Ramping too much is almost as damaging as not ramping enough thanks to the tempo hit you're going to take. Unless your endgame plan is going to go over all of your opponents, you're probably better off making more impactful plays sooner. Spending some time on figuring out your mana requirements over the first few turns of the game, then planning your ramp around that pays off in the long run. It's a little more difficult in EDH thanks to the higher variance, but you can generally guess a best, worst, and average case. There are enough ramp options available now that you can build a reliable ramp package with that information.
Tl;DR: I like Cultivate/Kodama's Reach if I have high impact 5-drops, 4 cmc ramp if I have high impact 7-drops or a similar big mana plan, and 2 cmc ramp + dorks for everything else. Balance your ramp with what you want the deck to do.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
Oh man, I love talking about mana ramp! I'm going to try and make this short though. If I don't, I might spend forever typing this out.
For me, the best mana ramp spells are the ones that cost the least amount of mana to cast per amount of mana generated. Sol Ring is obviously the holy grail of mana ramp because it costs 1 and generates 2 with no downside. There aren't many cards that can compete with that rate. Past that, I'm really looking to get as much mana as I can for as little as possible. All other things being equal, if I'm only getting a single point of mana from a card, I'm not going to play something like Darksteel Ingot when I could just be playing Birds of Paradise. Birds just come out earlier and do the exact same thing for less mana. Sure, there are tiny discrepancies between the two cards, but I don't feel as though those discrepancies are all that important. Birds of Paradise just costs less mana and does just as much work, so that's the ramp spell I'm going to play.
Things get interesting when you move on to cards that generate more than one mana though since it tends to be less evident which is better than the other. You can play a card like Gilded Lotus, which will always generate three mana, but what if you could just play Mirari's Wake instead? Will you have at least three lands? If you do, Mirari's Wake is going to output just as much mana and probably more. How about cards that only produce additional mana under other circumstances? Can you rely on an opponent having enough Islands to make Carpet of Flowers worthwhile? I tend to believe so, since if they only have a single one, the Carpet will still generate mana as efficiently as Birds of Paradise.
If most of your impact cards are ~4cmc, with a few 5 or 6 cost, then the Nature's Lore cards do the job best. If your deck goes bigger, I guess you're more willing to take the tempo hit on the Cultivate+ effects.
In decks without an access to G i'm a big fan of Signets, Talismans and Fellwar Stone as they come down early and are flexible on color. Bigger rocks like Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus only get a spot if the deck synergizes well with them.
Mine definitely vary wildly. I typically like spells to have additional utility, if possible. And I love playing cards people don't see very often.
Overperformers: Chromatic Lantern - 1 extra mana, but the smoothing is way more valuable Magus of the Library - ramp if need be or raw card advantage, gives it a ton of play Thought Vessel - a little ramp, and another Reliquary Tower Druids' Repository - this goes in any deck of mine with tokens or high creature themes Terrain Generator - I am baffled every time I see a mono-colored (or heavy basics) deck without one of these. Sometimes, it's just a regular land, but there's no drawback at all.
All the cards you mentioned have their place of course and it is deck dependent. I think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking ramp is ramp and not considering the implications of which ramp cards they are using.
My voltron Derevi deck is all about filling my hand with cards and using equipment that buffs her for it, so Cultivate and Kodama's Reach are great as they put a land into play and a land in my hand. Cards like Bloom Tender and Gilded Lotus are also great because of Derevi's untap ability.
My Kresh deck is all about getting massive creatures and utilizing cards that give resources based on creature power. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds is the best ramp card in the deck and it's not even close.
With Yidris I want to consistently get him out on turn 3 every game to increase my chances of having a defenseless opponent during his first attack phase. With that in mind my ramp is all 1 or 2 cmc and has to produce colored mana, so Signets, Birds of Paradise, even Elves of Deep Shadow can get me there.
Not being super-competitive and not tending to play in the super-competitive portion of my local metagame, I tend to use things like Cultivate or Kodama's Reach in place of the two-mana ramp, and I run Skyshroud Claim in the vast majority of my decks that include G. I do use signets a lot, and I've been finding myself using Farseek more often of late as it helps mana fixing with the four-color options we got in Commander 2016, but I don't even own a copy of Three Visits. Even if I owned Three Visits, I don't think I'd often run it or Nature's Lore over Cultivate, or run both, because, again, I just don't play that competitively, and also because I don't want to fill my deck with cards that are really underwhelming to draw into on turn 5+. I don't build with a plan to combo off by turn 5, so slightly slower ramp works just fine for me.
I think that if your deck has lots of card draw you can run all the ramps. At least, thats my approach in my casual meta.
I try to have some good ramp and powerful spells at all cmcs. That said, I lean towards certain CMCs for ramp if they help me get to my general faster. I used a TON of cmc 2 ramps spells for my Yidris deck.
While I do appreciate the efficiency of Nature's Lore/Three Visits, I don't run them for various reasons (admittedly "they don't come in foil" is part of it).
In Freyalise, the Commander is 5CMC, so Cultivate/Kodama's Reach smooth out the mana flow a lot better. Also, the deck has a number of X-Spells/costly activated abilities, so the sheer ability to search out two lands is important. I definitely should be playing Skyshroud Claim in the deck, but I don't have one at the moment and those foils aren't exactly easy to find.
Animar prefers 1-drops for sure and any ramp should come from creatures rather than anything else. The same creature requirement for Karador applies as well (Sakura-Tribe Elder/Primal Druid fill in those slots instead, along with the Signets).
Fortunately, ramp is one those strategies that seems to have enough diversity to cover almost every individual playstyle that relies on it, so it's hard to say one type of ramp is generically better than all the rest. Even Boundless Realms doesn't look that silly if Avenger of Zendikar is on the field.
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Each and every deck is, of course, unique and is going to require a ramp suite equally unique and selected for that deck's particular needs. And ramp is obviously not limited to sorcery-speed spells - 0-1 cmc rocks are likely to be best for decks that want or need to be as fast as possible, 1-2 cmc mana dorks have their place in acceleration and creature-based strategies, some decks really like the 3, 4, and 5cmc mana rocks for explosive plays and artifact synergies. There's enchantments that ramp, and mana doublers of various types as well.
One distinction I often see being made, though, is between 2 cmc and 3-4cmc sorcery-speed ramp spells (i.e. Nature's Lore, Three Visits, and Into the North vs. Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Explosive Vegetation, and Skyshroud Claim. If I were to generalize, I would say that I often see the most tuned decks that attempt to be highly competitive run the 2cmc spells, and more casual decks built for bigger battlecruiser-type games skip the 2cmc spells in favor of the 3-4cmc ones.
The differences between Nature's Lore and Cultivate are actually pretty vast. Lore only grabs you one card, and it has to be a Forest, so decks with larger budgets for duals and shocks are obviously going to benefit way more than a budget deck running basics and non-basic-type duals. Also of import, it puts the land into play untapped, so it effectively only costs 1 mana. Cultivate and its ilk grabs up at least one card, but puts them into play tapped. It generates a lot more card advantage, though for just one more mana (or two if you consider Lore's put into play untapped ability).
So, how do you choose which is best for your deck? Is the major qualifier getting to 4 mana ASAP to run Nature's Lore, Three Visits, and/or Into the North? And wanting to get to bigger mana more reliably for Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, etc.? Or is it having duals (which makes Skyshroud Claim great, as well)? I'd appreciate all insights on this area of deck tuning.
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
Depends on the deck but I'd play both kinds.
One thing I've always felt about ramp of any kind is that it's really best to see in your opening hand, or first one or two draws. I don't really want to see any of it on turn 8, 9, or 10 (but that's another thing - some decks don't plan to ever have a turn 8, 9, or 10), but I suppose that in that situation the bigger-value cards are a better draw than the lower-value ones.
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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I suppose in some cases, that's the ideal. Again, I wonder if it just comes down to what your deck really curves out at. If most of your impact cards are ~4cmc, with a few 5 or 6 cost, then the Nature's Lore cards do the job best. If your deck goes bigger, I guess you're more willing to take the tempo hit on the Cultivate+ effects.
R.I.P. Sundering Titan (6/20/12) and Braids, Cabal Minion (9/12/14)
Am I playing a 3 drop commander who's the deck engine, like Selvala, Explorer Returned? Then I need turn 1 ramp (Lotus Petal, Chrome Mox, etc) to play the commander on turn 2.
Current Decks
GTitania midrange
RGThromok tokens/goodstuff | UB Grimgrin zombie tribal
GW Sigarda enchantress | R Godo voltron
U Braids aggro | WR Kalemne punisher
RU Mizzix storm | BUG Mimeoplasm competitive reanimator | UG Ezuri infect
I typically favor 2 cmc ramp, with edits to the ramp package depending on what I want to be doing. The 2 cmc spells go a long ways towards fixing your colors and smoothing out opening hands. There are definitely exceptions. If you have a game plan that relies on dropping your 5 CMC general or other high impact plays at 5 cmc, Cultivate/Kodama's Reach gain a lot of value for reliably getting you there (early) off of three lands in your first 10-12 cards, a very attainable goal for even the stingiest land counts. They also play nicely with 1 cmc mana dorks, where the 2 cmc spells can leave you with an extra mana T2. If I'm trying to hit 7 mana, the 4 cmc options are huge for a couple reasons. First is similar to Cultivate for a 5 cmc impact play. Even without any other ramp, the 4 cmc spells are likely to get you enough mana to play that on curve, even with poor land draws. Second, anything relying on a 7 cmc play is probably running other ramp to get there and the odds of an early 4 cmc spell go way up, which is a huge tempo advantage. It's a little more awkward to aim for 6 cmc impact plays, so I probably just load up on dorks and cheap ramp again. I understand that it's a little odd to drop back down on ramp when aiming for 6-drops, but that has other deckbuilding implications beyond the ramp package and it's rare for me to build around a 6-drop without going bigger or using it as a long game plan.
I'm not a particularly competitive player, but I do want my decks to run smoothly. Ramping too much is almost as damaging as not ramping enough thanks to the tempo hit you're going to take. Unless your endgame plan is going to go over all of your opponents, you're probably better off making more impactful plays sooner. Spending some time on figuring out your mana requirements over the first few turns of the game, then planning your ramp around that pays off in the long run. It's a little more difficult in EDH thanks to the higher variance, but you can generally guess a best, worst, and average case. There are enough ramp options available now that you can build a reliable ramp package with that information.
Tl;DR: I like Cultivate/Kodama's Reach if I have high impact 5-drops, 4 cmc ramp if I have high impact 7-drops or a similar big mana plan, and 2 cmc ramp + dorks for everything else. Balance your ramp with what you want the deck to do.
For me, the best mana ramp spells are the ones that cost the least amount of mana to cast per amount of mana generated. Sol Ring is obviously the holy grail of mana ramp because it costs 1 and generates 2 with no downside. There aren't many cards that can compete with that rate. Past that, I'm really looking to get as much mana as I can for as little as possible. All other things being equal, if I'm only getting a single point of mana from a card, I'm not going to play something like Darksteel Ingot when I could just be playing Birds of Paradise. Birds just come out earlier and do the exact same thing for less mana. Sure, there are tiny discrepancies between the two cards, but I don't feel as though those discrepancies are all that important. Birds of Paradise just costs less mana and does just as much work, so that's the ramp spell I'm going to play.
Things get interesting when you move on to cards that generate more than one mana though since it tends to be less evident which is better than the other. You can play a card like Gilded Lotus, which will always generate three mana, but what if you could just play Mirari's Wake instead? Will you have at least three lands? If you do, Mirari's Wake is going to output just as much mana and probably more. How about cards that only produce additional mana under other circumstances? Can you rely on an opponent having enough Islands to make Carpet of Flowers worthwhile? I tend to believe so, since if they only have a single one, the Carpet will still generate mana as efficiently as Birds of Paradise.
Here's a list of ramp spells I currently play:
Burgeoning (sort of)
Carpet of Flowers
Exploration (sort of)
Mana Crypt
Mana Vault
Mirari's Wake
Mox Opal
Sol Ring
Here's a list of ramp spells I'm currently considering:
Birds of Paradise
Deathrite Shaman
Eladamri's Vineyard
Magus of the Vineyard
Bloom Tender
Priest of Titania
Selvala, Explorer Returned
Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
Elemental Resonance
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
If I had to make harder cuts i'd propably limit myself to cards like Farseek, Nature's Lore, Skyshroud Claim, Spoils of Victory, Tempt with Discovery and Three Visits even though the later isn't in any of my decks because of the steep price for its function.
Outside of mono-G flexibility is the deciding factor.
All of these exclude specialist cards like Harrow, Crop Rotation, Sylvan Scrying, Boundless Realms, Animist's Awakening and others that find their way into the respective decks.
In decks without an access to G i'm a big fan of Signets, Talismans and Fellwar Stone as they come down early and are flexible on color. Bigger rocks like Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus only get a spot if the deck synergizes well with them.
Overperformers:
Chromatic Lantern - 1 extra mana, but the smoothing is way more valuable
Magus of the Library - ramp if need be or raw card advantage, gives it a ton of play
Thought Vessel - a little ramp, and another Reliquary Tower
Druids' Repository - this goes in any deck of mine with tokens or high creature themes
Terrain Generator - I am baffled every time I see a mono-colored (or heavy basics) deck without one of these. Sometimes, it's just a regular land, but there's no drawback at all.
My voltron Derevi deck is all about filling my hand with cards and using equipment that buffs her for it, so Cultivate and Kodama's Reach are great as they put a land into play and a land in my hand. Cards like Bloom Tender and Gilded Lotus are also great because of Derevi's untap ability.
My Kresh deck is all about getting massive creatures and utilizing cards that give resources based on creature power. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds is the best ramp card in the deck and it's not even close.
With Yidris I want to consistently get him out on turn 3 every game to increase my chances of having a defenseless opponent during his first attack phase. With that in mind my ramp is all 1 or 2 cmc and has to produce colored mana, so Signets, Birds of Paradise, even Elves of Deep Shadow can get me there.
tldr: depends on the deck
Otherwise 2 cmc all the way.
Preference is given to
- Nature's Lore
- Three Visits
as they come in untapped.My meta is very fast, so Cultivate, Kodama's Reach just do not make the grade, although there are some excellent posts above as why you may want them.
I try to have some good ramp and powerful spells at all cmcs. That said, I lean towards certain CMCs for ramp if they help me get to my general faster. I used a TON of cmc 2 ramps spells for my Yidris deck.
GWUBAtraxa, Praetor's Voice PrimerGWUB
GWURoon Bant Blink WhateverGWU
BRGLord Windgrace LandsBRG
In Freyalise, the Commander is 5CMC, so Cultivate/Kodama's Reach smooth out the mana flow a lot better. Also, the deck has a number of X-Spells/costly activated abilities, so the sheer ability to search out two lands is important. I definitely should be playing Skyshroud Claim in the deck, but I don't have one at the moment and those foils aren't exactly easy to find.
Animar prefers 1-drops for sure and any ramp should come from creatures rather than anything else. The same creature requirement for Karador applies as well (Sakura-Tribe Elder/Primal Druid fill in those slots instead, along with the Signets).
Horde has a land theme and therefore is more reliant on the likes of Exploration and Burgeoning into Animist's Awakening rather than the typical ramp-patterns.
Fortunately, ramp is one those strategies that seems to have enough diversity to cover almost every individual playstyle that relies on it, so it's hard to say one type of ramp is generically better than all the rest. Even Boundless Realms doesn't look that silly if Avenger of Zendikar is on the field.