Being aggressive and pressuring the known ramp players before they are set up is a good way to make them pay for spending their mana and cards ramping early on.
An even slightly-tuned Karlov or Edgar Markov deck can make life very difficult for the dedicated ramper. Several other low-cost, aggressive generals can do the same. Alesha, for example. Along with Alesha herself being a threat, recurring Fulminator Mage or Ravenous Baboons can nullify some of the ramping pretty quickly. I was in a game recently where one player did nothing but ramp for his first four turns, and then the Zada player took him out in one shot on turn 5. Turns out having access to 9 mana but having no blockers and not running Fog effects is a bad idea when Zada is at the table.
MLD is super-frowned on in most of the groups I frequent- because it usually just grinds the game to a halt. In my experience, people want to play a bunch of games in their precious Friday evening hours.
What has worked much better is Natural Balance effects (Including a handful of custom planes and phenomena in my Planechase deck that address this) as well as talking to players about the kind of game we aim to play and what the expected pace of that game is. I've found that a few sentences before a game goes a very long way towards making sure everyone's got a shot at fun.
I have no qualms with massive land destruction because it is red and white's natural color pie response to deal with their disadvantage of card draw and ramp. People need to realize that these are viable strategies in MtG. The problem I've had with most MLD spells is when people cast it just to reset the board for the lols. But if it's turn 4 and you're at 10 lands and everyone else is at 3-4, no one's gonna groan more than the ramp player when you cast that clutch Armageddon. And if they had things in play, you didn't even set them back so much. If you cast something like Devastation, that would be more vicious but still "fair" because it at least leaves artifacts and enchantments in play.
I run things like Sunder because it hurts ramp players way more than other players because then the player ramping has to discard their lands, which is indirectly destroying them. As previously mentioned, you can also prevent players from searching their libraries, which also completely shuts down ramp (and tutoring as well). Red and white have access to these kinds of effects.
I concur that people need to just accept MLD as the answer to land-based ramp. Not everyone's going to want to run G in their decks for ramp. Where would the Grixis, Esper, etc. decks go? That is the most effective way to neutralize the land-based ramp strategy similar to how Wrath of God removes creatures, Vandalblast removes artifacts, etc. If the complaint against Armageddon like effects is the durdling for so many turns for lack of lands, a well-timed Planar Cleansing does a lot more if most players have nothing else to play afterwards; everyone's just topdecking.
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MLD isn’t even very good to begin with when employed against veteran players. Someone mentioned “Ramp diversity”, and that is exactly why it’s bad. I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve lost after getting my “11+” lands blasted at the hands of MLD in a Ramp deck. I’ve lost too many to count when I thought MLD would help rein in a Ramp deck I’m playing against. Let me put it this way, I’ve lost more games with my Ramp untouched than I have when it gets destroyed. For instance, the other night I watched a game like ones describe here. Dude hits Boundless Realms turn 4 with an Elvish Archdruid and Priest of Titania, giving him like 8 lands plus his dudes. Another guy hits the table with Armageddon, with a Sol Ring out. Ramp player shrugs, plays his Forest, plays his Llanowar Elf he drew and then cast Splendid Reclamation. The other 3 guys at the table quit and the ‘geddon user died a few turns later. Unless the MLD user is comboing off, this is how MLD usually plays out.
Fact is, they are more prepared for MLD than the person dropping it.
I’m not entirely sure where people get off thinking the other players will “thank” them for nuking everyone’s lands, because that never happens. I mean, you speak for the other players at the table? Pretty toxic attitude if you ask me.
If the complaint against Armageddon like effects is the durdling for so many turns for lack of lands, a well-timed Planar Cleansing does a lot more if most players have nothing else to play afterwards; everyone's just topdecking.
As opposed to hoping to top-deck a land? Or multiple lands?
People don't need to just accept that MLD is okay, because among some groups of players, it isn't okay. Part of the social aspect of the game is that people can make their own judgments about such things. If a group of players doesn't want MLD to be a part of the game - which is very common - they aren't wrong for feeling that way. That's why communication about expectations is good.
At the game shop where I most often play EDH, there is a fairly large group of players who are less competitive, and a smaller but very active group of players into a more competitive version of the format. The cEDH people are cool with MLD, hard stax, fast combo and so forth. The other players mostly tend to not be into those things. Neither group is wrong, they just have different preferences and different expectations as to what they want their games to be like. It works best if the more cEDH people play with likeminded players, and the less competitive players also play with more likeminded players. The guy who brings the MLD or the Stasis lock deck to play with the less competitive players is not really following the social contract.
Also, again, the idea that MLD really controls ramp well is largely fallacious. MLD is a control strategy, focused on limiting resources. I have a friend who calls MLD "lazy stax." It attempts to do a lot of what stax decks do, but in an easier manner and one harder for most decks to interact with.
Those who advocate for MLD aren't really so much wanting to control ramp so much as they are advocating for a more competitive version of the game which allows them to utilize a strategy not favored by the majority of the format's players to control the board in a manner favorable to the way they have designed their decks. That's fine that they want that, but it's also fine that most of the player base doesn't want that.
First, against your basic land ramp, you have several options. First, Ankh of Mishra and Tunnel Ignus (though don't expect them to win the game for you). Secondly, MLD. Just, ramp players don't expect it; the format's culture has made them feel entitled. As with everything, when you start house-banning anti-X, don't be surprised if X takes over. You can also hose tutors; obviously, Ob Nixilis, Unshackled fits with this, but the really good ones are Stranglehold and Aven Mindcensor which make tutoring not even possible.
Against individual big mana lands like Gaea's Cradle and Cabal Coffers, you can just use targeted land destruction, or Back to Basics and Blood Moon. Big mana lands are actually #1 on my land destruction list. (Big mana, then utility lands. After that, I don't really care. Technically, multicolor lands are next, then basics and spell lands and the like, but like I said, I don't really care after those first two.) I don't use MLD that targets individual basic land types, but I do use MLD that targets all nonbasic lands.
Rule of Law is also a "soft" hoser: "You want to ramp? That's nice. You can't do anything else this turn."
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
I also just want to add most of the time MLD has been used just to answer my ramping, I would recover faster than everyone else and be at the advantage again. MLD is a piece of your answer, not THE answer. You need to make surethe ramp player isn't already far ahead on the frontlines and you also have pressure of your own to go with it to take out the ramp player (and everyone else ideally) while they're rebuilding.
Acidic Soil has done work for me. Large burst damage and ramp players either need to slow down or play into it. I killed three green players in a single shot with it last week. Price of Progress is also a classic, but obviously doesn't work as well against basic land ramp.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
Isn't there a red creature that when enters the battlefield, it makes every player sacrifice lands until they have a specific(4 i think) amount?If im not msitaken, would anyone ehre know?
I prefer MLD that puts you into a certain amount of lands instead of nuking any of your play to play the game. I think players that a ramping don't feel to be a threat at the momment and msot jsut ignore that player. I think if a player ramps so mutch need to become the archenemy of the table to be stoped before its too late.
* limiting their ability to multi-spell (e.g. canonist)
* sweeping the mess they made (turning my 4 mana into 30 of their creatures or whatever plus whatever else I Hit)
* countering their high impact stuff where appropriate
* sometimes using light stax/repeated edicts/etc. to contain them (e.g. grave pact doesn't give a ***** how much mana you have mostly). Torpor orb is a house against a lot of decks at devaluing their ramp. damping sphere is also quite good.
* reanimating their stuff after I kill it
* a bit of targeted land destruction to take off colors if really pressed, or remove high impact lands like cradle
There're a lot of ways to constrain ramp players without resetting everyone's mana, which I don't find very fun. Just my two cents.
Isn't there a red creature that when enters the battlefield, it makes every player sacrifice lands until they have a specific(4 i think) amount?If im not msitaken, would anyone ehre know?
Secondly, MLD. Just, ramp players don't expect it; the format's culture has made them feel entitled. As with everything, when you start house-banning anti-X, don't be surprised if X takes over.
Once again Hyalapter comes in with the real truth the 90% are afraid to say.
I have Wildfire tucked under a Spinerock Knoll. Xantcha is out, and I have Coffers/Urborg and 9 lands, while the ramp player has out 12 lands. Both other players have 8.
Sounds like you have way more mana than the """ramp player""" and, surprise, wildfire helped you the most!
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How i feel about competitive players and casual players in EDH: The competitive are german tourists, the casual are italian tourists, both in a italian beach. The italians asking themselves "why are the germans here?" make a legitimate question, the answer is because the beach is beautiful, no matter the country you came from. The italians wanting to ban the germans are dumb, because if the germans pay for their stay and follow the rules like everyone else, they have the right to be in the beach. Hovewer, if the germans started to ask themselves "why are the italians here?"... they would be dumb as hell.
Secondly, MLD. Just, ramp players don't expect it; the format's culture has made them feel entitled. As with everything, when you start house-banning anti-X, don't be surprised if X takes over.
Once again Hyalapter comes in with the real truth the 90% are afraid to say.
It’s not the “real truth” if it isn’t true.
What about heavy Artifact Ramp? Or Mana Dorks? The only group that sounds “entitled” are the one who believe they are “policing” the format with MLD, protecting us all from the big scary ramp monster.
For reals tho, who has ever said “Thanks for blowing up my sh** just to slow that guy down”.
Secondly, MLD. Just, ramp players don't expect it; the format's culture has made them feel entitled. As with everything, when you start house-banning anti-X, don't be surprised if X takes over.
Once again Hyalapter comes in with the real truth the 90% are afraid to say.
It’s not the “real truth” if it isn’t true.
What about heavy Artifact Ramp? Or Mana Dorks? The only group that sounds “entitled” are the one who believe they are “policing” the format with MLD, protecting us all from the big scary ramp monster.
For reals tho, who has ever said “Thanks for blowing up my sh** just to slow that guy down”.
Clearly, nobody looks at a board clogged with mana rocks and says, "Where's my Wrath of God?", or "Where's my Armageddon?" when staring down a suite of mana dorks. Having a wipe for any situation is just good commander deck building. Rather than houseban removal, I just play around it.
I have seen quite a few "different" ramp decks, let's start with two different green based ramp decks. Let's take a "typical" Azusa ramp deck which tries to get a big Eldrazi online in the first couple of turns or simply tries to take advantage of having a lot of lands. I wouldn't say that having 10+ lands on turn 5 is problematic, as the poster of the thread already noticed:
...therefore spending more mana over the course of the game is the single biggest predictor of winning...
Having lands is one part, but you need to spend the mana otherwise there's not much of a big deal. So you need some kind of card advantage, in Azusa it's certainly some form of card draw or maybe Stax piece. So the problematic cards are the ones that give you an advantage. So, in the case of Azusa counter spells seem to work quite well, because if the cards are already on the field it might be too late.
Let's take another example: Seton.
Assume one builds something like a Druid/Elf Ball kind of deck. Here the mana comes mostly from creatures and using Seton. But not having a payoff in form of a big draw spell, or let's say a Craterhoof Behemoth, doesn't yield anything. So what does Seton need:
- quite a few Druids on the board
- maybe Seton to generate mana
- some payoff
You can tackle this deck with wraths, counter Seton or simply counter the draw spell. There are certainly more angles to attack such a deck. Here attacking the mana base, which is based on mana dorks, is certainly efficient.
Another green based example: old Zegana.
She's certainly not super popular but having a big creature/ramp deck with her at the helm works quite well in more casual groups. You basically need two things to go "off": a reasonably big creature and then cast Zegana. You get so many cards of just casting her that basically have a full new hand with a lot of answers threads.
Wraths only work to some extend but countering Zegana is backbreaking for this deck. MLD might do the job as well, but I would say that a counter is more versatile.
Last example: some red based artifact deck, e.g. Daretti
These decks don't ramp a lot with lands but with mana rocks. The advantage usually comes from artifacts drawing you cards, Stax pieces, recurring form the grave, etc. So in the end MLD does almost nothing, countering is an option but it doesn't yield you much (1 counter answers 1 of their cards), but blowing up some artifacts sets these kind of decks totally back (there are enough spells that blow up more than 1 artifact).
At the end of the day, I would say combating ramp is totally dependent on your opponents decks and how they use their resources to get card advantage. Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but:
- Counterspell work quite well against the typical "I ramp with Cultivate and stuff"-decks, e.g. ramping and casting one big payoff spell
- Wraths work well against creature based ramp
- Artifact destruction works well against red based ramp decks
But there are certainly more suitle things I didn't cover and there are certainly different styles of ramp (for example with mana doublers). This were just the things I face the most. Oh, and don't forget: ... getting the ramp player from 40 to 0 works always quite well...;)
I think the thing that helps combat ramp is to stop treating any spells as neutral.
I often see people being very hands off about disrupting certain parts of peoples game plan and a good way to slow down people is to not take for granted early game plays and treat the entire game as a single thing which it is.
People often save the removal or the disruption for the big thing which comes out when they are so behind in X, Y or Z way that it is meaningless. When that player then gets blown out by something big they then place a large part of the blame on how they lost and now the game up to that point.
* limiting their ability to multi-spell (e.g. canonist)
* sweeping the mess they made (turning my 4 mana into 30 of their creatures or whatever plus whatever else I Hit)
* countering their high impact stuff where appropriate
* sometimes using light stax/repeated edicts/etc. to contain them (e.g. grave pact doesn't give a ***** how much mana you have mostly). Torpor orb is a house against a lot of decks at devaluing their ramp. damping sphere is also quite good.
* reanimating their stuff after I kill it
* a bit of targeted land destruction to take off colors if really pressed, or remove high impact lands like cradle
I agree with these as well as just pulling the lever if it needs to be pulled.
If you want a beat ramp-centric decks, I think there are many ways to do it. The objective is to do more meaningful things while they are ramping.
1.) Play combo decks. They spend their time ramping instead of interacting while you goldfish. If they complain about what the cards you're playing, you can complain about the cards they're playing. /s 2.) Play aggro decks, especially ones that have threats that scale well (e.g. Pathbreaker Ibex, Triumph of the Hordes, Craterhoof Behemoth, Bruse Tarl). I know 40 life is a tougher cookie to crack, but there are less blockers and spot-removal to deal with from a ramp deck. If you can convince other players to be more aggressive or even build their own aggro deck, even better. I've never faced a ramp-heavy deck that's ever had a chance versus my Edric deck (even when it was low power level, i.e. no time magic). 3.) Draw cards and play counterspells. The history of competitive constructive magic will tell you that UU beats expensive spells all day. 4.) Ramp harder. They use lands, then you use cheaper/better artifacts and beat them to the punch.
Now, if you to stop ramp, then you have to take the full measures needed to STOP people.
1.) Stop land ramp, by stopping them from searching (Mindlock Orb, etc.).
2.) Tax them so that they have to exchange their entire turns for ramping (Rule of Law, etc.).
3.) Shut-down their mana-rocks (Stony Silence, etc.).
It takes a lot to break the symmetry of those cards, so they are not popular to build around. But it's tough to literally stop people and for all the griping about "stax," it's almost impossible. Really, you end up just slowing them down even with the full measure. So don't ever go half-measure.
MLD is a tactic used to close out a game. It's not really a tactic that stops a ramp player. And if they are able to land their one big post-ramp threat, the MLD card just rots in your hand until/if you can trump their board state.
What about heavy Artifact Ramp? Or Mana Dorks? The only group that sounds “entitled” are the one who believe they are “policing” the format with MLD, protecting us all from the big scary ramp monster.
For reals tho, who has ever said “Thanks for blowing up my sh** just to slow that guy down”.
This is the most slippery slope "defense" I've ever read so much that it borders on terrible strawman.
Typically I beat ramp with aggression and tempo. If they are ramping they aren't getting (creature) board advantage and you can just start swinging at them putting them under pressure to find answers which can sometimes be hard in decks that are hard ramping. Then they will start throwing haymakers at which point you counter or remove whatever their big threat pay off was at the end of all that ramp. This is the tempo phase of the game.
When it's all battlecuriser magic whoever ramps the hardest wins, but if you go for a more aggressive play style you can undercut all the ramp and get players low then find some reach before the ramp play can close the game.
Oh and obviously combo is good against ramp, because so much of a ramp deck is dedicated to ramp that they get squeezed for answers
While control aspects in a deck are good against ramp eventually the ramp player will overpower a control player so you have to be a tempo player have something that will quickly close the game after you stop the ramp players first volley.
MLD sucks for everyone in the game you stopped the ramp but you also stopped every other player in the game, oh good you removed the ramp player but now no one is having any fun, particularly the player that was already struggling to find lands and get on board now can't play the game.
MLD sucks for everyone in the game you stopped the ramp but you also stopped every other player in the game, oh good you removed the ramp player but now no one is having any fun, particularly the player that was already struggling to find lands and get on board now can't play the game.
The only time this is true is when the people wielding the MLD don't know how to use it effectively. If you're arguing against it's use, then that includes you. Define what MLD is, anyway? Just blowing lands? So if I Contamination/Infernal Darkness lock you, it's fair game "because at least I didn't blow up your lands", right? What about Winter/Static Orbs? Stasis? Oh, no, that's not okay either? But I didn't blow up your lands though... oh, what you really mean is "anything that disrupts my plan to play 7drop.dek is sucking the fun out of every game", right?
I play "MLD Tribal". There's not a single time where I resolve one, that it doesn't end the game in my favor.
Careful how you throw around strong words like "everyone" and "no one". You don't speak for everyone, you don't even speak for a majority. You speak for you, and you're trying to cause a mob mentality stampede with this hivemind propaganda. Stop. I hate countermagic, does that mean it's unfun and should be shunned? Of course not. I just main deck Boil and learn to expect that people will play what they want to play.
All cards serve a purpose, whether you like them or not. Let's stop mixing cards we like/hate with cards that make the game "unfun". Whatever "unfun" means, anyway.
My group is mixed on mass land destruction. They're generally fine with it if you're going to win within the next 5 minutes after doing it, but hate it otherwise. Most decks in my playgroup can't recover from it. Surprisingly, my rampiest deck has actually recovered swiftly from it more than once before thanks to also having artifact ramp. Few players in my group are much of a threat even at 8+ mana because of not having lots of tutors or combos, while others are, so it's kind of up in the air whether it's justified for me to bring it.
There were days when I tried cards like Jokulhaups and Sunder, but they were in most cases met with bad feelings because half of the decks in my group were kind of battlecruiser-ish at the time (and still are) so they just can't handle having it happen in the middle of the game. The social contract seems to dictate that MLD is a hairy thing to consider at best.
That said, some players in my group are bringing back land-destruction anyway so the question may quickly become 'how do I consistently recover from or avoid this' as opposed to 'how do I combat ramp?'
Here is the other thing about MLD. It often is the right call if you have it in hand and aren't going to win from it but you are going to stay alive / stop someone else. Sometimes the smart use is not when you have the overwhelming board presence assuming you want the game to continue.
I also feel that generally the boogeyman that people build their head to be MLD is worse than the actual reality of MLD, because people always talk about how the games slow down to a crawl however that only ever happens I have found if people complain about it, because there is actually nothing faster in the game then.
Draw card for turn
Is it a Land
If yes play land
If no end turn
Do you have more than 7 cards in hand
If yes discard one
If no proceed to next turn
The game goes very very quickly once one of those spells resolve and it largely comes down to who can draw better from that point.
Obviously resolving one of those spells with a commanding presence or a lock of some other fashion is much preferable to that but I really can't stand the hyperbole about what games turn into when one of those spells is cast.
An even slightly-tuned Karlov or Edgar Markov deck can make life very difficult for the dedicated ramper. Several other low-cost, aggressive generals can do the same. Alesha, for example. Along with Alesha herself being a threat, recurring Fulminator Mage or Ravenous Baboons can nullify some of the ramping pretty quickly. I was in a game recently where one player did nothing but ramp for his first four turns, and then the Zada player took him out in one shot on turn 5. Turns out having access to 9 mana but having no blockers and not running Fog effects is a bad idea when Zada is at the table.
What has worked much better is Natural Balance effects (Including a handful of custom planes and phenomena in my Planechase deck that address this) as well as talking to players about the kind of game we aim to play and what the expected pace of that game is. I've found that a few sentences before a game goes a very long way towards making sure everyone's got a shot at fun.
I run things like Sunder because it hurts ramp players way more than other players because then the player ramping has to discard their lands, which is indirectly destroying them. As previously mentioned, you can also prevent players from searching their libraries, which also completely shuts down ramp (and tutoring as well). Red and white have access to these kinds of effects.
I concur that people need to just accept MLD as the answer to land-based ramp. Not everyone's going to want to run G in their decks for ramp. Where would the Grixis, Esper, etc. decks go? That is the most effective way to neutralize the land-based ramp strategy similar to how Wrath of God removes creatures, Vandalblast removes artifacts, etc. If the complaint against Armageddon like effects is the durdling for so many turns for lack of lands, a well-timed Planar Cleansing does a lot more if most players have nothing else to play afterwards; everyone's just topdecking.
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Fact is, they are more prepared for MLD than the person dropping it.
I’m not entirely sure where people get off thinking the other players will “thank” them for nuking everyone’s lands, because that never happens. I mean, you speak for the other players at the table? Pretty toxic attitude if you ask me.
As opposed to hoping to top-deck a land? Or multiple lands?
At the game shop where I most often play EDH, there is a fairly large group of players who are less competitive, and a smaller but very active group of players into a more competitive version of the format. The cEDH people are cool with MLD, hard stax, fast combo and so forth. The other players mostly tend to not be into those things. Neither group is wrong, they just have different preferences and different expectations as to what they want their games to be like. It works best if the more cEDH people play with likeminded players, and the less competitive players also play with more likeminded players. The guy who brings the MLD or the Stasis lock deck to play with the less competitive players is not really following the social contract.
Also, again, the idea that MLD really controls ramp well is largely fallacious. MLD is a control strategy, focused on limiting resources. I have a friend who calls MLD "lazy stax." It attempts to do a lot of what stax decks do, but in an easier manner and one harder for most decks to interact with.
Those who advocate for MLD aren't really so much wanting to control ramp so much as they are advocating for a more competitive version of the game which allows them to utilize a strategy not favored by the majority of the format's players to control the board in a manner favorable to the way they have designed their decks. That's fine that they want that, but it's also fine that most of the player base doesn't want that.
Against individual big mana lands like Gaea's Cradle and Cabal Coffers, you can just use targeted land destruction, or Back to Basics and Blood Moon. Big mana lands are actually #1 on my land destruction list. (Big mana, then utility lands. After that, I don't really care. Technically, multicolor lands are next, then basics and spell lands and the like, but like I said, I don't really care after those first two.) I don't use MLD that targets individual basic land types, but I do use MLD that targets all nonbasic lands.
Against mana dorks, Pestilence, Pyroclasm, Electrickery, Aether Flash (which, come to think of it, goes infinite with Polyraptor *scribbles down combo*), or just plain Night of Souls' Betrayal; most decks that run a lot of mana dorks expect to clamp them once they reach the top of their curve, so they don't provide anthems.
Against mana rocks, Meltdown, Aura Shards, Creeping Corrosion, Vandalblast, Shattering Pulse, Nature's Claim, Austere Command...
Rule of Law is also a "soft" hoser: "You want to ramp? That's nice. You can't do anything else this turn."
On phasing:
I prefer MLD that puts you into a certain amount of lands instead of nuking any of your play to play the game. I think players that a ramping don't feel to be a threat at the momment and msot jsut ignore that player. I think if a player ramps so mutch need to become the archenemy of the table to be stoped before its too late.
* limiting their ability to multi-spell (e.g. canonist)
* sweeping the mess they made (turning my 4 mana into 30 of their creatures or whatever plus whatever else I Hit)
* countering their high impact stuff where appropriate
* sometimes using light stax/repeated edicts/etc. to contain them (e.g. grave pact doesn't give a ***** how much mana you have mostly). Torpor orb is a house against a lot of decks at devaluing their ramp. damping sphere is also quite good.
* reanimating their stuff after I kill it
* a bit of targeted land destruction to take off colors if really pressed, or remove high impact lands like cradle
There're a lot of ways to constrain ramp players without resetting everyone's mana, which I don't find very fun. Just my two cents.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Yeah, play that cultivate!
Once again Hyalapter comes in with the real truth the 90% are afraid to say.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Sounds like you have way more mana than the """ramp player""" and, surprise, wildfire helped you the most!
It’s not the “real truth” if it isn’t true.
What about heavy Artifact Ramp? Or Mana Dorks? The only group that sounds “entitled” are the one who believe they are “policing” the format with MLD, protecting us all from the big scary ramp monster.
For reals tho, who has ever said “Thanks for blowing up my sh** just to slow that guy down”.
Clearly, nobody looks at a board clogged with mana rocks and says, "Where's my Wrath of God?", or "Where's my Armageddon?" when staring down a suite of mana dorks. Having a wipe for any situation is just good commander deck building. Rather than houseban removal, I just play around it.
Having lands is one part, but you need to spend the mana otherwise there's not much of a big deal. So you need some kind of card advantage, in Azusa it's certainly some form of card draw or maybe Stax piece. So the problematic cards are the ones that give you an advantage. So, in the case of Azusa counter spells seem to work quite well, because if the cards are already on the field it might be too late.
Let's take another example: Seton.
Assume one builds something like a Druid/Elf Ball kind of deck. Here the mana comes mostly from creatures and using Seton. But not having a payoff in form of a big draw spell, or let's say a Craterhoof Behemoth, doesn't yield anything. So what does Seton need:
- quite a few Druids on the board
- maybe Seton to generate mana
- some payoff
You can tackle this deck with wraths, counter Seton or simply counter the draw spell. There are certainly more angles to attack such a deck. Here attacking the mana base, which is based on mana dorks, is certainly efficient.
Another green based example: old Zegana.
She's certainly not super popular but having a big creature/ramp deck with her at the helm works quite well in more casual groups. You basically need two things to go "off": a reasonably big creature and then cast Zegana. You get so many cards of just casting her that basically have a full new hand with a lot of answers threads.
Wraths only work to some extend but countering Zegana is backbreaking for this deck. MLD might do the job as well, but I would say that a counter is more versatile.
Last example: some red based artifact deck, e.g. Daretti
These decks don't ramp a lot with lands but with mana rocks. The advantage usually comes from artifacts drawing you cards, Stax pieces, recurring form the grave, etc. So in the end MLD does almost nothing, countering is an option but it doesn't yield you much (1 counter answers 1 of their cards), but blowing up some artifacts sets these kind of decks totally back (there are enough spells that blow up more than 1 artifact).
At the end of the day, I would say combating ramp is totally dependent on your opponents decks and how they use their resources to get card advantage. Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but:
- Counterspell work quite well against the typical "I ramp with Cultivate and stuff"-decks, e.g. ramping and casting one big payoff spell
- Wraths work well against creature based ramp
- Artifact destruction works well against red based ramp decks
But there are certainly more suitle things I didn't cover and there are certainly different styles of ramp (for example with mana doublers). This were just the things I face the most. Oh, and don't forget: ... getting the ramp player from 40 to 0 works always quite well...;)
I often see people being very hands off about disrupting certain parts of peoples game plan and a good way to slow down people is to not take for granted early game plays and treat the entire game as a single thing which it is.
People often save the removal or the disruption for the big thing which comes out when they are so behind in X, Y or Z way that it is meaningless. When that player then gets blown out by something big they then place a large part of the blame on how they lost and now the game up to that point.
I agree with these as well as just pulling the lever if it needs to be pulled.
1.) Play combo decks. They spend their time ramping instead of interacting while you goldfish. If they complain about what the cards you're playing, you can complain about the cards they're playing. /s
2.) Play aggro decks, especially ones that have threats that scale well (e.g. Pathbreaker Ibex, Triumph of the Hordes, Craterhoof Behemoth, Bruse Tarl). I know 40 life is a tougher cookie to crack, but there are less blockers and spot-removal to deal with from a ramp deck. If you can convince other players to be more aggressive or even build their own aggro deck, even better. I've never faced a ramp-heavy deck that's ever had a chance versus my Edric deck (even when it was low power level, i.e. no time magic).
3.) Draw cards and play counterspells. The history of competitive constructive magic will tell you that UU beats expensive spells all day.
4.) Ramp harder. They use lands, then you use cheaper/better artifacts and beat them to the punch.
Now, if you to stop ramp, then you have to take the full measures needed to STOP people.
1.) Stop land ramp, by stopping them from searching (Mindlock Orb, etc.).
2.) Tax them so that they have to exchange their entire turns for ramping (Rule of Law, etc.).
3.) Shut-down their mana-rocks (Stony Silence, etc.).
It takes a lot to break the symmetry of those cards, so they are not popular to build around. But it's tough to literally stop people and for all the griping about "stax," it's almost impossible. Really, you end up just slowing them down even with the full measure. So don't ever go half-measure.
MLD is a tactic used to close out a game. It's not really a tactic that stops a ramp player. And if they are able to land their one big post-ramp threat, the MLD card just rots in your hand until/if you can trump their board state.
This is the most slippery slope "defense" I've ever read so much that it borders on terrible strawman.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
When it's all battlecuriser magic whoever ramps the hardest wins, but if you go for a more aggressive play style you can undercut all the ramp and get players low then find some reach before the ramp play can close the game.
Oh and obviously combo is good against ramp, because so much of a ramp deck is dedicated to ramp that they get squeezed for answers
While control aspects in a deck are good against ramp eventually the ramp player will overpower a control player so you have to be a tempo player have something that will quickly close the game after you stop the ramp players first volley.
MLD sucks for everyone in the game you stopped the ramp but you also stopped every other player in the game, oh good you removed the ramp player but now no one is having any fun, particularly the player that was already struggling to find lands and get on board now can't play the game.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
The only time this is true is when the people wielding the MLD don't know how to use it effectively. If you're arguing against it's use, then that includes you. Define what MLD is, anyway? Just blowing lands? So if I Contamination/Infernal Darkness lock you, it's fair game "because at least I didn't blow up your lands", right? What about Winter/Static Orbs? Stasis? Oh, no, that's not okay either? But I didn't blow up your lands though... oh, what you really mean is "anything that disrupts my plan to play 7drop.dek is sucking the fun out of every game", right?
I play "MLD Tribal". There's not a single time where I resolve one, that it doesn't end the game in my favor.
Careful how you throw around strong words like "everyone" and "no one". You don't speak for everyone, you don't even speak for a majority. You speak for you, and you're trying to cause a mob mentality stampede with this hivemind propaganda. Stop. I hate countermagic, does that mean it's unfun and should be shunned? Of course not. I just main deck Boil and learn to expect that people will play what they want to play.
All cards serve a purpose, whether you like them or not. Let's stop mixing cards we like/hate with cards that make the game "unfun". Whatever "unfun" means, anyway.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
There were days when I tried cards like Jokulhaups and Sunder, but they were in most cases met with bad feelings because half of the decks in my group were kind of battlecruiser-ish at the time (and still are) so they just can't handle having it happen in the middle of the game. The social contract seems to dictate that MLD is a hairy thing to consider at best.
That said, some players in my group are bringing back land-destruction anyway so the question may quickly become 'how do I consistently recover from or avoid this' as opposed to 'how do I combat ramp?'
I also feel that generally the boogeyman that people build their head to be MLD is worse than the actual reality of MLD, because people always talk about how the games slow down to a crawl however that only ever happens I have found if people complain about it, because there is actually nothing faster in the game then.
Draw card for turn
Is it a Land
If yes play land
If no end turn
Do you have more than 7 cards in hand
If yes discard one
If no proceed to next turn
The game goes very very quickly once one of those spells resolve and it largely comes down to who can draw better from that point.
Obviously resolving one of those spells with a commanding presence or a lock of some other fashion is much preferable to that but I really can't stand the hyperbole about what games turn into when one of those spells is cast.