Essential Spellbook - Green Ramp Cards

The Quest for Much More Mana

Cheers! Welcome to Essential Spellbook, the comprehensive guide to the core cards of Commander. Today's topic: green ramp cards.

What is Ramp?

One of Magic's core rules is that each player may only play one land each turn. This rule creates a predictable flow to a game of Magic. Players can cast cheap spells in the early game, but big haymakers that cost seven or eight mana need to wait until later.

"Ramp" is any effect that allows a player to circumvent this restriction by accessing more mana than the "one land per turn" rule permits. Cards that ramp are varied and numerous, including:

• Cards that put extra lands into play, like Rampant Growth
• Cards that tap for mana, like Sol Ring or Birds of Paradise
• Cards that reduce costs, like Goblin Electromancer
• Cards that produce short-term bursts of mana, like Dark Ritual or Dockside Extortionist

Ramp is an essential element of Commander deckbuilding. By including ramp cards in a deck, you can get your gameplan online before your opponents and give yourself a significant advantage. Because of this, nearly every Commander deck will benefit from including ten or more cards with ramp effects.

Although every color in modern Magic is capable of generating a mana advantage, green remains exceptional at efficient, resilient ramp effects. Therefore, green ramp cards are the gold standard against which other colors' ramp effects are judged. In this article, we'll explore representative green ramp cards at each mana value in order to build a foundational understanding of how these cards work.

A Note: Mana Value

The cost, or mana value, of a green ramp card is very important when evaluating its utility. Throughout this article, I'll be referring to cards that cost one mana as having "mana value 1" or "1mv." 2mv cards cost two total mana, 3mv cards cost three mana, and so on.

Land-Based Ramp

The most fundamental green ramp cards have effects that put extra lands into play. These are among the most reliable ramp cards that exist. Unlike other sources of ramp, like creatures or artifacts that tap for mana, lands are very difficult to remove from the battlefield, and unlike temporary ramp, like Dark Ritual, extra lands continue to provide an advantage turn after turn.

Land-based ramp cards scale with mana value: put more mana in, get more extra mana out. Let's explore the most fundamental benchmarks for this sort of effect.

Mana Value 2: Rampant Growth

Rampant Growth is the single most basic ramp card in the game. It's the card that gave "ramp" its name, in fact! The effect is straightforward: spend two mana, get an extra land. This card is very old, but it's still pretty good in modern Commander, and it establishes a benchmark that holds true even now: a card that costs two mana should earn you +1 extra land.

Commander incorporates many variants of this card, all of which offer some advantages and disadvantages over ol' reliable Rampant Growth. Popular cards in this category include:

• Farseek can find nonbasic lands, like Steam Vents,  but can't find Forests, even basic ones.
• Nature's Lore and Three Visits can find nonbasic Forests (that enter untapped!) but not any other type of basic land.
• Sakura-Tribe Elder can synergize with decks that care about creatures, especially creatures dying.
• Explore is less reliable but more relevant in the late game.

Based on your deck's specific strategy, you may choose to play any (or all!) of these cards. 2mv ramp is especially potent in a deck with a commander that costs four mana, since these cards allow you to reliably play 4mv cards a turn ahead of schedule.

Mana Value 3: Cultivate

Cultivate (and its virtually identical twin Kodama's Reach) establish another benchmark: a card that costs three mana should earn you +1 extra land plus some minor benefit. In Cultivate's case, this benefit is an additional land card in your hand, but other similar cards offer different upsides. Some of these cards include:

• Far Wanderings finds more lands if you have a full graveyard.
• Wood Elves and Farhaven Elf are ramp attached to 1/1 creatures.
• Grow from the Ashes offers the flexibility of an additional option: two lands for five mana.
• Fertile Footsteps turns into a Beanstalk Giant!

3mv cards like Cultivate are often fantastic in decks with commanders that cost five or six mana since they greatly increase the chance of playing these cards ahead of schedule while providing additional benefit over their 2mv competitors.

Mana Value Four: Explosive Vegetation

Our benchmark green ramp card at 4mv is Explosive Vegetation. This card is essentially two Rampant Growths stapled together, because a card that costs four mana should earn you +2 extra lands. However, Explosive Vegetation is slightly outclassed in modern Commander, and most alternatives offer some additional benefit:

• Skyshroud Claim can only find Forests, but it puts them into play untapped.
• Migration Path can be exchanged for a different card if you don't need to ramp.
• Circuitous Route can find Gate cards in addition to basic lands.

Generally, decks will only play these 4mv cards if they anticipate needing a serious amount of mana. Consider playing these cards if you have a very expensive commander or lots of cards that benefit from extra mana, like Exsanguinate or Rite of Replication.

Additionally, decks with expensive ramp cards like Explosive Vegetation usually also play cheaper ramp cards, like Rampant Growth. In fact, those two cards chain together superbly: casting a Rampant Growth on turn two allows you to cast Explosive Vegetation on turn three and start turn four with seven lands in play!

Mana Value 5 and Beyond

More expensive green ramp cards can offer even more of a mana advantage, but these cards usually only see play in decks that are truly gluttonous for mana.

If you really want to go all-in on ramp, you can explore a whole spectrum of expensive green ramp cards from the relatively tame Nissa's Renewal to the truly monumental Reshape the Earth.

Mana Dorks

The second major category of green ramp cards is "mana dorks": creatures that tap to produce mana. In general, creature-based ramp cards are slightly cheaper mana-wise than their land-based equivalents, but they're also much more fragile. It's far easier for your opponents to kill your 1/1 Elvish Mystic than destroy the basic Forest that your Rampant Growth fetched.

Here are the cards I've chosen as representative benchmarks for mana dorks at various costs:

Mana Value 1: Elvish Mystic

The gold standard for 1mv mana dorks is Elvish Mystic (or Llanowar Elves or Fyndhorn Elves). This card demonstrates that mana dorks that cost one mana should tap for one mana. By doing so, they provide an additional mana one turn earlier than the benchmark set by Rampant Growth. The downside is that this mana is tied to an incredibly fragile creature. Other cards in this category include:

• Birds of Paradise produces mana of any color, and also flies! A fantastic card.
• Arbor Elf untaps Forests instead of tapping for mana itself
• Avacyn's Pilgrim and Elves of Deep Shadow produce colors other than green.
• Noble Hierarch and Ignoble Hierarch produce a variety of colors and also have exalted.
• Delighted Halfling can make your commander uncounterable.

1mv mana dorks are very fragile in comparison to land-based ramp, so you need a good reason to play them in your deck. They're worth considering if your deck's core strategy synergizes with creatures or if you really benefit from having three mana available on turn two. For instance, the 3mv Elf-centric Marwyn, the Nurturer adores playing cards like Elvish Mystic.

Mana Value 2: Priest of Titania

The representative card I've chosen for 2mv mana dorks is Priest of Titania. This card shows that mana dorks that cost two mana usually tap for one mana on their own but offer some additional benefit; in this case, the ability to produce much more mana under the right circumstances.

Priest of Titania clearly belongs in an Elf deck, but other 2mv mana dorks produce extra mana in combination with other strategies. These cards include:

• Bloom Tender
• Sanctum Weaver
• Fanatic of Rhonas
• Incubation Druid

Sometimes, 2mv mana dorks offer a benefit other than generating additional mana. Some examples include:

• Tangled Florahedron can be played as a land.
• Devoted Druid is a part of many game-winning combos.
• Paradise Druid and Sylvan Caryatid are slightly more resilient to removal.
• Manaweft Sliver and Gemhide Sliver allow all your other slivers to tap for mana, too.
• Poison Dart Frog is a real cutie.

Unlike 1mv dorks, which are mostly interchangeable, the playability of 2mv dorks usually depends on which specific cards synergize with your deck's strategy. If you're playing an enchantment deck, consider Sanctum Weaver. If you're manipulating +1/+1 counters, give Incubation Druid a look. Additionally, like 2mv land-based ramp, these cards tend to work well in decks with commanders that cost four mana because they enable you to play these commanders on turn three.

Mana Value 3 and Beyond

Mana dorks that cost three or more mana are even more diverse in their effects than 2mv dorks. It's difficult to apply a unified standard of reference to cards that vary as much as Elvish Archdruid, Kami of Whispered Hopes, and Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. Because of this wide variety of effects, these cards mostly see play when they directly support a deck's core strategy rather than because a deck is specifically in the market for 3mv mana dorks.

The Weirdos

Some green ramp cards can't be easily categorized into either of the two above categories. However, most of these cards can be evaluated by comparing them to land-based ramp and mana dorks. For instance:

• Auras like Wild Growth and Overgrowth offer efficient ramp, but often at the cost of flexibility and resilience.
• Cards that allow you to play extra lands, such as Exploration, Burgeoning, and Azusa, Lost but Seeking, provide tremendous amounts of ramp. However, they only function if you can draw enough cards to reliably play additional lands.
• Lotus Cobra and Tireless Provisioner produce additional mana when lands enter the battlefield.

Often the Auras will see play in decks that care about enchantments, while the others are popular inclusions in Landfall decks that care about lands entering the battlefield.

Which Green Ramp Cards Should I Play?

When deciding which green ramp cards to play in your decks, you should consider two factors: cost and synergy.

Cost

The first broad metric to evaluate is cost. Most green ramp cards exist on a spectrum between Elvish Mystic (low mana value, fragile, low impact) and Reshape the Earth (enormously impactful, resilient, very high mana value).

The average green commander deck will likely play a mix of 2mv and 3mv ramp, with maybe one or two more expensive ramp cards. This ramp will likely be primarily land-based, plus a few mana dorks that directly synergize with the deck's strategy. However, some decks find compelling reasons to deviate from this norm.

The cost of a deck's commander is a critical consideration. For instance:

• A deck with a commander that costs two mana may avoid 2mv ramp because it anticipates playing its commander on turn two instead of ramping.
• A deck with a commander that costs three mana may play more 1mv ramp, despite its fragility, to facilitate playing its commander on turn two.
• Decks with a commander that costs four mana may avoid 3mv ramp because 3mv ramp won't help play a 4mv commander any faster.
• Decks with a commander that costs six or more mana will have more use for expensive ramp cards like Explosive Vegetation.

These considerations can also apply if a deck contains a large amount of noncommander cards at a specific mana value. For instance, a deck built around morph, which involves playing lots of creatures that cost three mana, will likely play more 1mv ramp spells, just like a deck with a commander that costs three mana. Similarly, a deck built around very expensive spells (such as Dragons or spells like Exsanguinate with in their mana cost) will likely play powerful, expensive ramp no matter the cost of its commander.

Note that expensive ramp should generally be played in addition to cheaper ramp, not instead of it.

Synergy

The second main metric for choosing your deck's ramp is synergy. Most decks will function well on a mix of land-based and mana-dork-based ramp, but some decks can benefit from other card choices:

• If your deck's strategy synergizes with small creatures, consider playing more mana dorks. Lathril, Blade of the Elves and Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy are strong examples of commanders that benefit from a higher creature count in ways that make up for the inherent fragility of creature-based ramp.
• Inversely, if you're playing a deck that's likely to frequently wipe the board clean, avoid mana dorks. The more "destroy all creatures" cards you play, the more of a liability mana dorks become.
• If a specific ramp card is particularly synergistic with your deck's main strategy, strongly consider playing that card. Put Sanctum Weaver into your Sythis, Harvest's Hand deck, for instance.
• If your deck is built around lands, like Omnath, Locus of Creation, focus on land-based ramp. Also consider some of the more esoteric ramp options, like Lotus Cobra and Azusa, Lost but Seeking, that support a deck looking to play lots of lands.
• Put Poison Dart Frog in every deck. I mean, look at that little face. How can you say no?

May Your Mana Pool Always Be Full

Thanks for coming with me on this journey towards Much More Mana. Please feel free to leave a comment if you have questions or if you disagree with my assessments.

Join me next time as I answer the obvious question: "So, how do I ramp if I'm not playing green, then?"