So my playgroup has been having a huge discussion over the past couple days over what the best type of mana ramp for green is. Obviously if you're running a mono-colored deck like Omnath, Locus of Mana, you'll want pretty much every type of mana ramp possible. But the discussion has been mostly about multi-color decks and over 2 types of cards:
The question is, which of these types of ramp is generally better? My take is I like to use land based ramp for the extra security. My playgroup doesn't run much if any MLD so your lands are pretty safe. But a lot of them say (and from what I've been reading online) that the format has been generally shifting towards mana dorks and/or cheap mana rocks. And that's another thing, are the signets and such worth running in most multicolor decks with green?
I know in most 4-5 color decks mana ramp and enablers NEED to be able to have almost any color available, so artifacts like Chromatic Lantern and Fellwar Stone are essential, so we weren't really discussing that. We also know that in most cEDH decks, mana dorks trump all for their speed. We were mostly arguing over casual to semi-competitive 2-3 color decks, which runs the majority of the decks in my playgroup.
I argued for land based ramp because not only is it generally safer, you're also thinning out your deck so you're not drawing so many lands late game. Cultivate is one of my favorite cards in the game because it gives you a land drop now and for next turn. I won't argue though that mana dorks are much faster, but my playgroup runs a good amount of board wipes so they generally don't last too long. Drawing any kind of ramp late game sucks, but I know there are merits to both. The land ramp further thins your deck, and mana dorks can chump block. So I'm not quite sure where I stand.
I guess I'm wondering does it really completely depend on the deck and playgroup itself? Is there no general rule-of-thumb these days? Even if it doesn't lead to much of a resolution, I'd love to hear your guys' opinion and discussion of it.
To my mind it wholly depends on the deck. My Nissa build runs almost exclusively ramp critters like Wood elves, purely because I can bounce them and reuse them extensively, and I have landfall triggers. Omnath doesn’t necessarily care about any of that, so in theory dorks could work a whole lot better for him. Or might not, I’ve never built omnath
It really comes down to your playgroup and your deck. Though, I will say that I have never used a mana dork in any deck. The closest I have is Lotus Cobra which works pretty well in Karametra. I agree with your assessment that dorks are just too vulnerable and I have never seen a need to run mana rocks with the one color that is best at getting lands on the field.
In general, I am big on ramp creatures though I have been opening myself up to Cultivate and Kodama's Reach more for the reason you gave: it gives you a land now and for next turn. But overall I prefer to stick with creatures that get me lands because they give me a body to block with and they can be flickered, bounced, or recurred much more easily than non-creatures.
I will say - in a mono green deck Karametra’s Acolyte does disgusting things. Especially with Nacatl War-Pride. Other than that I’ve never seen the point in standard dorks.
1) Synerges with the rest of the deck - do I have land untappers, mana doublers or other effects that go with lands? Do I constantly want to wipe the board? More often than not, I have synergies with creatures moreso than land synergies, anything from Craterhoof Behemoth, Survival of the Fittest, to any type of effect that triggers when a creature enteres the battlefield, dies, or just the factor that they can chump block if needed.
2) What mana do I optimally want to operate on? If I curve ut at ~5, mana dorks does just fine as the ramp is mostly needed early. But if I want to reliably cast things that cost 7+ mana, then mana dorks just wont take me there and I have to run stuff like Farseek into Explosive Vegetation.
I tend towards land ramp and land enchantments myself. Both are more survivable in my meta rather than mana dorks. The only mana dork I run is karametra's acolyte since it can get gross, quick.
I've always found ramp to be highly individual to the particular deck and what it's trying to accomplish. Fast combo decks want to lean on dorks and cheap rocks whereas midrange grind decks will be happier with slower but more reliable land acceleration. Some decks want quick bursts of mana in a single turn, being willing to sacrifice long-term viability for a quick hit, whereas others want measured, non-risky growth. Some decks will want a large creature density for various synergies; others might want a higher instant/sorcery or artifact density.
One general rule of thumb is to make sure you have a curve out plan and an end goal for your ramp. For example, if you're playing a Voltron-y three mana commander, dorks would be a great plan to maximize its potential to plop down second turn. Things like Kodama's Reach, on the other hand, would compete with your commander for his mana slot.
As for curving out, I've found most ramp strategies are best to operate on either a 1->3->5+ curve or a 2->4->7+ line. Llanowar Elves T1 to Wood Elves T2 to five available mana T3 or something like Rampant Growth T2 to Explosive Vegetation T3 to seven available mana on T4. These obviously assume you're hitting all land drops and are not guaranteed with the high variation in EDH, but it's a good target to keep in mind.
In other words, I don't think there is any "one best ramp strategy" for commander, but I do believe there is a "one best ramp strategy" for an individual deck.
I had actually intended to publish a guide on the best mana ramp in Commander, but I stopped working on it about 75% of the way through (as is tradition for me). I should probably go back and finish that.
To answer the question in your title, you first need to make a distinction. Are you looking for the best ramp cards in green? Or are you looking for the cards that ramp the best in green? Because those two things aren't exactly the same. It's not too difficult to construct a hierarchy of ramp cards based on how good they are at ramping, but it's very difficult to construct the same hierarchy based on how good those cards are in general in part because a card's worth always depends upon context; you start getting really apples to oranges comparisons that way.
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It is highly dependent on the specific deck you're playing and what the curve is like. In general I prefer my ramp to be roughly 2cmc or less unless the deck either needs more than 4 to 5 mana to play its threats, is a deck running a strategy that really wants creatures, or is a 3+ color deck running mana symbol intensive spells like Necropotence. Basically if it costs more than 2 or isn't land or artifact based you should seriously take a hard look at whether or not your deck needs to be running it over another Rampant Growth effect or a two drop rock.
Like others have said, it's highly deck-dependent. I only run mana dorks in one deck, and it's Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma. The whole point of the deck is to ramp out fatties and big spells, so I run Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic in addition to Emerald Medallion and a lot of land ramp. Ramp is key to the deck's success, but too many dorks would leave it vulnerable, so I've found that two is the optimal number.
I like the 1 mana land enchants like wild growth and utopia sprawl. They are the fastest (except for the broken artifact ones) - even faster than dorks (free turn 2 onward), fairly safe (comparable to lands - none are going to blow them up outside mass enchant destruction which is rare) AND makes earthcraft twice as good.
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Thanks for all the replies guys! Based on the feedback here, I may actually change my stance and run a combination of dorks/land ramp, at least for my Derevi deck. The deck isn't a stax deck but because of how many 3-drops are in the deck (including Derevi herself), I think I may swap out one of my Cultivate/Kodama's Reach for Farseek/Nature's Lore and the other for a 1-drop mana dork. I have so many ways to abuse and recur creatures that it may work out better in the long run.
Mana dorks like Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, Noble Hierarch, Bloom Tender, etc.
Land ramp like Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Farseek, Nature's Lore, etc.
The question is, which of these types of ramp is generally better? My take is I like to use land based ramp for the extra security. My playgroup doesn't run much if any MLD so your lands are pretty safe. But a lot of them say (and from what I've been reading online) that the format has been generally shifting towards mana dorks and/or cheap mana rocks. And that's another thing, are the signets and such worth running in most multicolor decks with green?
I know in most 4-5 color decks mana ramp and enablers NEED to be able to have almost any color available, so artifacts like Chromatic Lantern and Fellwar Stone are essential, so we weren't really discussing that. We also know that in most cEDH decks, mana dorks trump all for their speed. We were mostly arguing over casual to semi-competitive 2-3 color decks, which runs the majority of the decks in my playgroup.
I argued for land based ramp because not only is it generally safer, you're also thinning out your deck so you're not drawing so many lands late game. Cultivate is one of my favorite cards in the game because it gives you a land drop now and for next turn. I won't argue though that mana dorks are much faster, but my playgroup runs a good amount of board wipes so they generally don't last too long. Drawing any kind of ramp late game sucks, but I know there are merits to both. The land ramp further thins your deck, and mana dorks can chump block. So I'm not quite sure where I stand.
I guess I'm wondering does it really completely depend on the deck and playgroup itself? Is there no general rule-of-thumb these days? Even if it doesn't lead to much of a resolution, I'd love to hear your guys' opinion and discussion of it.
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Commander:
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Modern:
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Standard:
Ha! That's a good one.
In general, I am big on ramp creatures though I have been opening myself up to Cultivate and Kodama's Reach more for the reason you gave: it gives you a land now and for next turn. But overall I prefer to stick with creatures that get me lands because they give me a body to block with and they can be flickered, bounced, or recurred much more easily than non-creatures.
1) Synerges with the rest of the deck - do I have land untappers, mana doublers or other effects that go with lands? Do I constantly want to wipe the board? More often than not, I have synergies with creatures moreso than land synergies, anything from Craterhoof Behemoth, Survival of the Fittest, to any type of effect that triggers when a creature enteres the battlefield, dies, or just the factor that they can chump block if needed.
2) What mana do I optimally want to operate on? If I curve ut at ~5, mana dorks does just fine as the ramp is mostly needed early. But if I want to reliably cast things that cost 7+ mana, then mana dorks just wont take me there and I have to run stuff like Farseek into Explosive Vegetation.
That being said, I do like having some sort of combination, so I can T1 dork into T2 Cultivate/Kodama's Reach/Wood Elves for value I like having the fixing dorks that I have access to at all times (Birds of Paradise, Elves of Deep Shadow, Avacyn's Pilgrim, Noble Hierarch, Deathrite Shaman, Arbor Elf) and thus need a reason to exclude them, but the others I need a reason to include, if that makes sense.
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Credit to DolZero for this awesome sig!
One general rule of thumb is to make sure you have a curve out plan and an end goal for your ramp. For example, if you're playing a Voltron-y three mana commander, dorks would be a great plan to maximize its potential to plop down second turn. Things like Kodama's Reach, on the other hand, would compete with your commander for his mana slot.
As for curving out, I've found most ramp strategies are best to operate on either a 1->3->5+ curve or a 2->4->7+ line. Llanowar Elves T1 to Wood Elves T2 to five available mana T3 or something like Rampant Growth T2 to Explosive Vegetation T3 to seven available mana on T4. These obviously assume you're hitting all land drops and are not guaranteed with the high variation in EDH, but it's a good target to keep in mind.
In other words, I don't think there is any "one best ramp strategy" for commander, but I do believe there is a "one best ramp strategy" for an individual deck.
To answer the question in your title, you first need to make a distinction. Are you looking for the best ramp cards in green? Or are you looking for the cards that ramp the best in green? Because those two things aren't exactly the same. It's not too difficult to construct a hierarchy of ramp cards based on how good they are at ramping, but it's very difficult to construct the same hierarchy based on how good those cards are in general in part because a card's worth always depends upon context; you start getting really apples to oranges comparisons that way.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Cheap mana dorks are great in decks that need to be as fast as possible or can get additional value from them later in the form of cards like Skullclamp, Survival of the Fittest, or Birthing Pod. 3cmc or greater ramp I try to be a lot more selective of because it's harder to play without hurting you in later parts of the game. My favorite cards in this category are Commander's Sphere, Chromatic Lantern, Wood Elves, Farhaven Elf, Skyshroud Claim, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Oracle of Mul Daya as they all either have extra utility, are good at color fixing, or do both.
One card that I see a lot of mono-green players sleep on is Nissa's Pilgrimage. In mono-green, it's strictly better than Kodama's Reach and Cultivate.
The deck's entire ramp package is:
Sol Ring
Exploration
Llanowar Elves
Elvish Mystic
Emerald Medallion
Nature's Lore
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Nissa's Pilgrimage
Kodama's Reach
Cultivate
Vernal Bloom
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
My 720 Peasant Cube
UWU/W BlinkUW
BMono-Black ControlB
Commander:
GWUJenaraGWU
BGeth MBCB
RGXenagosRG
WUBSharuumWUB (retired)
Modern:
xAffinityx (starting)
Standard:
Ha! That's a good one.