Waiting for the spoiler season of Magic Origins to start, I started working on some of my decks, especially the ones I wasn't so happy with. While doing so I noticed that a vast majority of my decks had a ramp portion in them, but "only" 3 (out of my 25 finished decks) had it as a primary plan. And while that might come down to personal preference, I figured it would be a good idea to write about the archetype, since it is often overlooked and branded as something else. You'll see what I mean by that in just a minute.
The Main Plan
First of all: What does a Ramp-Deck do that's different from other decks? The most interessting thing about this question is that it's not easy to answer at all. Especially the so-called "Goodstuff"-Archetype is kind-of overlapping with "Ramp"...while calling some decks "goodstuff" is just fine, the term is generally overused and I feel like 50% or more of these decks should be called "ramp" instead. So what does a ramp-deck do?
1.) It plays some sort of permanent mana acceleration during the early stages of the game. Often they even chain them together, so for example, play a ramp-spell of some sort on turn 2 and then play another - more expensive - ramp spell on the turn after (which is possible due to the extra mana from the turn before). There are several types: Putting lands into play from your library, putting extra lands into play from your hand, artifacts and creatures, all with their own strengths and weaknesses.
For example cards like Azusa need you to have more Lands in hand than usual to function at full efficiency. This will mean that you might not have something to play with all that mana and if you do you could be short one or two mana. Thran Dynamo offers a lot of mana but doesn't provide colored mana which might hurt some decks. And of course, every type of ramp that involves creatures is weak to removal, especially mass-removal.
2.) After establishing a lead in mana the decks will and should try to leverage
their advantage by casting more powerful spells than their opponents have access to at the moment. That can be a really big and/or hard-to-deal-with creature, a very powerful instant/sorcery or even an expensive planeswalker. These types of cards are often referred to as "Bombs":
3.) One of the bigger problems for these decks is card advantage, because you'll "use" cards in order to get to such a large amount of mana as fast as possible. So the last part of executing a successful ramp plan should always be "reloading" (= drawing a chunk of cards) to be able to use your mana advantage for more than one or two turns. Luckily those decks got enough mana to cast some really nice ones at doing so, but of course it doesn't have to be expensive...
Sometimes 2.) & 3.) are executed in reverse order but I guess you get the general idea.
As I see it, your deck doesn't have to do this and only this to be a ramp deck but once the deck is dedicating a good portion of its 100 cards (not only the omnipresent Sol Ring etc.) to accelerate into expensive cards, it should count as a ramp-deck.
How to build "Ramp".dec
There are of course many ways to approach deckbuilding, so the following instructions are by no means absolute. I just want to showcase how I would start building such a deck at the example of one of my own decks.
To start things off, you'll want to choose a commander. To be a useful commander a card should have as many of the following porperties as possible:
- Expensive "Bomb" on its own. This will mean that you can focus deckbuilding on Step 1.) as you'll never have to worry about finding a card to cast with all that mana
- Provide "reload", therefor ramping into your commander is a way to fill your hand again to find bombs, more ramp or assemble a combo.
- Offer a way to ramp, which - again - makes deckbuilding easier since you can play more bombs and/or drawspells because you have a reliable source of ramp.
- Make it difficult for your opponents to catch up. This is often overlooked, but most of the time, your opponents will catch up after a few turns, so if you find a way to delay that, you might be able to close out the game before they can. This is the least important aspect but I thought I should mention it anyway
Once you've settled on a Commander you should ask yourself:
- What type of ramp would synergize best with your commander?
- Is there a certain type of bomb/carddraw I should play because of my commander/ramp-package?
My example general is Maelstrom Wanderer, just because he's the perfect example of a very linear yet interessting deck. He's the perfect hybrid between a bomb and a "reloading" spell, since the deck should be built in a way where you either hit more big creatures or a carddraw spell of some sort. And - if built correctly - even hitting your ramp spells isn't always that bad.
Let's look at question #1 first:
On the surface it wouldn't really matter too much what type of ramp you run in a Maelstrom Wanderer deck, since your only goal is casting him and net a ton of value while also hitting for quite a lot of damage. BUT! The more you think about it, the more you realize that creatures are so much better than anything else. Why? Because he gives all the mana creatures you will occasionally hit when cascading haste, which means if you are "unlucky" and hit two of them you might be able to cast another spell from your hand that turn.
Let's say you hit the Sage and the Elder on your cascades... that means you can cast an Acidic Slime or a Mulldrifter after you've cast a Maelstrom Wanderer and then attack with both. Of course you can do the same with artifacts but the ones that provide multiple mana per activation are colorless most of the time which means you would be short colored mana to cast another spell.
Question #2: Well, certainly you should avoid spells that have X in their mana cost, but other than that you're pretty much ... who am I lying to?! Creatures! That's the answer. Simply because running creature based ramp involves "restricted mana" (Somberwald Sage) which is - most of the time - restricted to either creatures in general or a certain creature type (see Smokebraider). Therefor you should run creatures as your threats, creatures as your drawspells, creatures as your lands... well maybe you should play lands as your lands. But you get the idea. The more creatures you use in the deck, the more things you can play with that restricted mana, the more consistently you can do one of those sick turns where your board explodes while your hand gets bigger.
Now tell me that is not a thing of beauty! Wanderer into Thunderfoot Baloth for example not only creates 18 power with trample out of nowhere, the Baloth also transforms your tiny little mana dorks into creatures that can profitably attack. Another card that is just awesome would be Species Gorger: The turn he comes into play he can attack for six alongside your general, and the next turn you'll get the opportunity to bounce your Wanderer and cast him again... drawback? Not today!
With that I think I'll let your thoughts wander through the endless possibilities one could build a ramp-EDH. I hope I've inspired you to build a new deck, or to change some existing deck of yours. If not maybe you've at least learned something or found my ramblings somewhat entertaining.
See y'all 'round!
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