For this article, I am going to do something a little different: rather than responding to a specific request, I want to put together a resource that we can all use when building almost any deck. Also, because I’m covering a very expansive subject, this is going to be a two-part article, linked closely to the next installment of Dig Through Time.
Green is often considered one of the best colors in the Commander format, largely because of its ability to use ramp effects to get a lot of lands into play (and then produce big effects with that mana). This doesn’t make the other colors less playable, of course—they all have great cards and strategies that do things Green can’t—but it does mean that we often approach the format with the expectation of “big mana” in mind. Commander is the format in which we generally expect to cast eight-mana or ten-mana spells at some point.
So… what are ALL the colorless mana ramp options available to deckbuilders? Which cards can go in any Commander deck you build, to help you do the mana-greedy things that make the format so powerful and ridiculous?
Before we get into the card-by-card breakdowns of your options, it’s worth taking a moment to discuss some of the hidden questions you might want to ask yourself as you choose what to put in your deck.
First: do you even need much ramp at all? Sometimes, particularly with aggressive decks, it’s a good idea to just say “well, if the game gets to turn 12, then I’m just not going to be able to match people on mana. No reason to junk up my deck with long-term mana generation that will only help me ‘lose less’ rather than actually win.” Of course, even in such circumstances, a few early-game, high-impact ramp effects like Sol Ring are probably a good idea.
Second: do you care if your ramp produces colored mana or colorless mana? The fewer colors your deck is playing, the better Thran Dynamo becomes, relative to Gilded Lotus. The more colors you’re playing, the better that Gilded Lotus starts to look in comparison, since it can serve as the fixing you might need to cast some critical spell. Monocolor decks can usually get slightly more efficient mana rocks by choosing options that produce colorless mana.
Third, and most importantly: are nonland permanents vulnerable in your playgroup? Most of the time, land is the most dependable card type in Commander, since there is a widespread social contract that prevents people from playing cards like Armageddon, Impeding Disaster, and Gilt-Leaf Archdruid. No such stigma exists for people who play Austere Command, Bane of Progress, or Oblivion Stone. When deciding whether to focus more on land-based ramp versus artifact-based ramp, you have to judge if the decks you will face play many sweepers that hit artifacts…and how cutthroat people tend to be about targeting “mana rocks.” Does Tina have a Child of Alara deck that she loves to play? Does Terry have a Roon of the Hidden Realm deck that often “flickers” Bane of Progress? When Sean casts Terastodon, does he eagerly destroy cards like Azorius Signet, or does he only destroy cards like Mind’s Eye? How many people play with Aura Shards, and do people try to mana-screw one another? Some metagames are very hostile to artifacts, and it is important to estimate the risks before choosing to play a lot of artifact mana. All long-time Commander players have seen the same sad thing: a player forced to sit there glumly on turn seven with only three lands after all his or her artifacts have been swept away.
Category 1: Single-Mana Rocks
In Commander, why is Rampant Growth considered so much worse than Explosive Vegetation? Normally, in Magic, two-mana spells see a LOT more play than four-mana spells, but the reverse is true in Commander because in games that go long (as these tend to), you need card advantage. Explosive Vegetation is a strict two-for-one while Rampant Growth just trades a sorcery for a single land. Similarly, when choosing non-green ramp effects, you can either go for cards that produce a single mana (and therefore function as pure acceleration, with no aspect of card advantage), or you can try to get more than one mana out of each card, generally at the expense of speed.This category is filled with cards that only produce one mana—so you should choose these cards if your deck needs to seize the initiative (Urabrask the Hidden) or can easily gain card advantage (Arcanis the Omnipotent).
Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond. While most mana rocks produce one mana for one card (and thereby “break even” when compared to a basic land), these moxen put you down a card—so you have to really NEED the acceleration if you’re going to play them. They may be very powerful in other formats, but it is a very rare Commander deck that wants to play these cards. Mox Diamond can be built around, however, if you include a significant “land recursion” theme with Crucible of Worlds, Tilling Treefolk, and/or Life from the Loam.
Mind Stone, Guadian Idol, Thought Vessel, Star Compass, Fellwar Stone, Prismatic Lens, and Coldsteel Heart. These two-mana pieces of artifact acceleration are what most people think of when they hear the phrase “mana rock.” They are particularly good for decks whose commanders cost four mana (like Arcum Dagsson), since a powerful commander on turn three can really give you the initiative in the early game. Mind Stone is perhaps the best of all of them, since it can turn into another card in the late game. Guardian Idol is surprisingly good at picking up pieces of equipment after a sweeper—or, of course, chump-blocking—while Thought Vessel obviously provides a valuable effect for decks that can draw a lot of cards. Star Compass is interesting but not particularly impressive, since its ability only checks for basic lands and can’t provide any colors you don’t already have. Fellwar Stone is a great mana-fixer if both you and your opponents play a wide range of colors (or Vivid lands), while Prismatic Lens is either acceleration or great mana-fixing but not both at the same time. Coldsteel Heart, finally, can provide whatever color you want, but it will remain fixed on that color for the rest of the game.
(Of course, there are also the ten-card cycle of Signets and the less well-known five-card cycle of Talismans, for those who want mana-fixing for particular decks in a straightforward package.)
Unstable Obelisk, Pristine Talisman, Seer's Lantern, Spectral Searchlight, Commander’s Sphere, Darksteel Ingot, Chromatic Lantern, Vessel of Endless Rest, and Cryptolith Fragment. These three-mana artifacts generally provide more utility than their two-mana brethren above. Unstable Obelisk and Pristine Talisman don’t fix your colors at all, but the ability to destroy a permanent or to gain a steady stream of life can more than make up for that drawback. Their more recent cousin, Seer's Lantern, is actually quite good for decks that don't need colored mana fixing: the ability to scry with any leftover mana can make a big difference in your draws over a long game. All the rest of the cards here tap for any color of mana, but with various upsides attached to that core mana-fixing utility. Spectral Searchlight can be used as a powerful political tool, Commander’s Sphere can always replace itself for no cost, Darksteel Ingot survives the sweepers that are usually the downfall of artifact-heavy manabases, Chromatic Lantern perfectly fixes all of your mana for the rest of the game, Vessel of Endless Rest provides a surprisingly relevant bit of graveyard hate, and Cryptolith Fragment can provide a surprisingly relevant (and progressively more scary) bit of life loss for decks that slant in an aggressive direction.
(Note, too, that there are several other three-mana artifacts that produce mana—but they are generally worse than the options listed above. Manalith is strictly worse than many of the cards above, as are Mana Prism, Phyrexian Lens, Sol Grail, and the five cards in the Obelisk cycle. The cycle of ten Cluestones can provide some weaker analogues to Commander’s Sphere, while the cycle of five Banners can do the same but with more colors. The cycle of ten Keyrunes can give you some sweeper-resistant creatures to use if you have nothing better to do with your mana, and the cycle of five Dragon Monuments can provide 4/4 flying creatures for a high cost.)
Paradise Plume and Meteorite. These more expensive mana rocks are probably not going to make the cut in just about any decks, with the exception of those with commanders who can really take advantage of incidental lifegain or incidental damage, respectively. Paradise Plume might be very good in a Karlov of the Ghost Council deck that wants to ramp, while Meteorite might be good in a Brago, King Eternal deck (along with any other mana rocks that enter the battlefield untapped).
Category 2: Multiple-Mana Rocks
As discussed above, these cards are often more appealing for Commander decks because they qualify as a certain kind of card advantage—once you can get more than one mana out of a single card, you are ahead of the curve. These should often be your go-to options for artifact-based ramping!
Sol Ring and Mana Crypt. Obviously, we have to start with a card that is generally considered one of the few “auto-includes” in any Commander deck. Sol Ring is simply the best artifact-based mana acceleration available in the format, and it has (fortunately) been reprinted enough that it’s highly accessible to everyone. Just play it. …That is, unless you (like me) have a color-hungry Child of Alara deck that has little use for colorless mana AND tends to sweep the battlefield of artifacts repeatedly. Mana Crypt, on the other hand, is a profoundly rare and expensive card, and although it is quite good, it is not actually as good as Sol Ring. After all, in a format like kitchen-table Commander the efficiency of its zero-mana casting cost is not as relevant (compared to the single mana for Sol Ring) as it would be in other formats, and over the course of a long game the damage from lost coin flips can really add up.
Everflowing Chalice and Astral Cornucopia. These cards have the great benefit of flexibility—I am including them here because they can certainly be made to produce multiple mana, but they can also be run out early as single-mana accelerants. They are particularly good with cards that manipulate counters, like Vorel of the Hull Clade or Contagion Engine.
Coalition Relic and Kyren Toy. Both of these mana rocks are valuable because, in addition to tapping for one mana in a straightforward fashion (read the second ability on Kyren Toy again—it says “X plus one”), they give you the option of saving up some unused potential for a future turn. Coalition Relic is the better card overall, since it produces mana of any color and only has to tap to charge up, but Kyren Toy has a much higher ceiling.
Worn Powerstone, Sisay’s Ring, Ur-Golem’s Eye, Hedron Archive, Thran Dynamo, Gilded Lotus, and Dreamstone Hedron. These are the really heavy hitters of this category. Some of these cards are powerful enough that, even if people tend to destroy artifacts a lot in your playgroup, you may want to run these mana rocks simply because of the huge benefits they provide for the few turns they stay on the battlefield. Worn Powerstone is surprisingly good, simply because it ramps directly from three mana to a possible six, where a lot of the power in Commander lives. Sisay’s Ring and Ur-Golem’s Eye are the weakest cards here and should probably only go into decks that are pushing the “artifact ramp” angle just as hard as they can. Hedron Archive, on the other hand, hits an incredibly sweet spot between Mind Stone and Dreamstone Hedron—you can cast it early enough that its ramp can contribute to your primary game-plan rather than feeling “extra,” the two-mana boost it provides is powerful enough to feel worthy of a slot in your deck, and its sacrifice ability provides enough benefit that you will often see it as a real and valuable possibility. Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus are probably the best cards in this list: three mana is a huge amount, and they both come into play untapped, ready to pay back most of their cost. I highly recommend trying them in mana-hungry decks. Dreamstone Hedron seems like it should be powerful, and it is, but it occupies a profoundly awkward slot in Commander. By the time you hit six mana, you want to be playing the powerful, proactive cards at the heart of your deck rather than taking the turn off to cast something with no impact on the battlefield. In the very late game, you can be very happy to trade Dreamstone Hedron in for three new cards, but you’re still going to have to spend a turn to cast it, and it’s surprisingly bad to have in your opening hand.
Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, and Basalt Monolith. These cards comprise a category that I personally call “credit cards.” They give you a big payoff up front, but then they will cost you if you want to pay them off later. In some ways, these are a lot like Dark Ritual—you can get a significant tempo boost at the cost of card advantage, since a tapped Grim Monolith sitting on the battlefield isn’t really worth a full card. At a fundamental level, these cards differ because they have different relationships to that kind of faux card-disadvantage: Mana Vault is closest to a Dark Ritual (since it’s the most difficult to untap and thereby “turn into a full card again”), Basalt Monolith looks uninspiring but gives the most consistent value as a card because it’s the easiest to untap, and Grim Monolith stands somewhere in between the two others. If you play a lot of instants-speed effects, then the Grim and Basalt Monoliths can give you something valuable to do if you don’t want to spend mana on something else.
Category 3: Land-Based Ramp
At the beginning of this Dig Through Time article, I mentioned that a lot of the best ramp in Commander is based on lands because of that card type’s durability. Green is obviously the best color at putting extra lands onto the battlefield, but the following options can help that ability extend into all the other colors, too—and they are therefore some of the most valuable options in this entire article.
Wayfarer’s Bauble, Burnished Hart, Solemn Simulacrum, and Oblivion Sower. These are the most straightforward options available: use these cards normally, and they will put extra lands into play. Wayfarer’s Bauble is an efficient option that more decks should play, since it can effectively take up a land slot in your deck. Burnished Hart is not usually seen as worth using spot removal on, so you can often spend a couple of early turns ramping with it and nobody will Lightning Bolt it out from under you. Solemn Simulacrum is a staple in the format for a reason: it’s incredibly solid even when simply played normally, and it is amazing with any kind of “blink” effects. Oblivion Sower is a very interesting card: used normally, it will usually get you one or (maybe) two lands, which is pretty darn good for a colorless, six-mana 5/8. It is particularly impressive, though, if you have any other ways to exile people’s lands: something as simple as a Bojuka Bog or Relic of Progenitus on a late-game graveyard can usually net you quite a few extra lands when you cast the Sower.
Sword of the Animist, Surveyor’s Scope, Druidic Satchel, and Explorer’s Scope. These are much more conditional than the above-mentioned cards, so they will likely only fit into specific decks. Sword of the Animist is the most consistent of them, and can see play in a lot of decks, but you still need to have a decent number of early-game creatures for it to reach anything like its maximum potential. Surveyor’s Scope is a card that looks exciting but can really only see play in certain groups: if all of your friends play green and love ramping out extra lands, then you will be able to make good use of this card without warping your deck around it. Otherwise, you will have to choose your spots: if you tend to play five-player games and you play a lot of bouncelands—and you’re perhaps willing to intentionally miss a land drop early on—then you can actually get the incredibly powerful effect that everyone envisions when they first see this card. The last two cards in this list—Druidic Satchel and Explorer’s Scope—can be played as they are, and they will occasionally get you extra lands into play, but they are much more effective if you have some good ways to manipulate the top of your deck. If you tend to search for Sensei’s Divining Top with Trinket Mage, then you might want to consider the Satchel or Scope (and more particularly the Satchel, since it’s much better overall).
Expedition Map, Armillary Sphere, Journeyer’s Kite, and Crucible of Worlds. These cards don’t count as actual “ramp,” strictly speaking, but in a long game (as often happens in Commander), the ability to continue making land drops can easily take the place of early-game ramp. That said, Expedition Map is capable of getting any land, so it can easily turn into a true ramp effect by getting any of the lands pictured below—particularly Myriad Landscape or Nykthos. Armillary Sphere is an incredibly straightforward way to convert one card into two lands and fix your mana, Journeyer’s Kite is more expensive but can let you hit land drops for an entire game, and Crucible of Worlds plus any fetchland (like Evolving Wilds) can also let you never miss another land drop.
Myriad Landscape; Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx; Ancient Tomb; and Temple of the False God. These are the lands that constitute legitimate “ramp” effects, as long as you’re just playing a normal game of Commander. Myriad Landscape is a fantastic Magical card, and as long as you’re playing more than a few basics in your Commander deck (and can handle a colorless land that enters the battlefield tapped in the early game), you should probably be playing it. Myriad Landscape, also, is perhaps the best card of all time to combine with Crucible of Worlds. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx generally only fits into monocolored decks or decks that are heavily slanted toward one color, but it can do a huge amount of heavy lifting in those decks, particularly in the late game. Ancient Tomb is a strange card in Commander: because life totals start at 40, the two damage it inflicts doesn’t matter as much… but because games tend to go very long, there is more time for the damage to add up. It’s probably best included only in very aggressive decks, much like the traditional use of its fellow “Sol Land,” City of Traitors, which is basically unplayable in the format. Temple of the False God, on the other hand, can fit into almost any deck and is generally a welcome addition: by the time you hit five lands, the fact that it only taps for colorless mana won’t generally matter much… and a Commander deck that doesn’t hit five lands is almost certainly dead in the water anyway. The risk of this land’s doing nothing is far outweighed by the benefit of jumping straight from four to six mana.
Thespian’s Stage, Deserted Temple, Thawing Glaciers, Lotus Vale, and Scorched Ruins. It might be best to think of this collection of lands as “A Stage, a Temple, and things that combo with them.” Now, it’s a bit more complicated than that—Thespian’s Stage can turn into a ramp effect when combined with any bounceland, after all, and should probably be played in all decks inhabiting a bounceland-heavy metagame—but the upside of copying Lotus Vale or Scorched Ruins is much more impressive, since Thespian’s Stage gets to skip “enters the battlefield” triggers. Deserted Temple, in addition to forming an obviously good combo with the Vale or Ruins, can let you get double the uses out of Thawing Glaciers, since that card doesn’t return to your hand until the end of the turn. In decks that are trying to play a long game, Thawing Glaciers has been a staple source of card advantage since 1996, and its ability to give you an extra land drop every other turn is no joke in Commander decks, even in the absence of any land-untapping combos. (Although, if you’re into such combos, check out the Glaciers with Stone-Seeder Hierophant.) Lotus Vale and Scorched Ruins are not particularly good cards on their own, since the impulse to destroy them will be almost irresistible for your opponents, but they are great with any land-recursion effects, like those we discussed in relation to Mox Diamond near the very beginning of this article.
Mage-Ring Network and Terrain Generator. These two lands let you build up resources over time, although in the case of Mage-Ring Network the resources go away as soon as you use them. I would be remiss not to mention the five dual-color storage lands from Time Spiral here, since they are the better versions of Mage-Ring Network if you’re playing those colors. It’s often easier than you might imagine to spare the (effectively) two mana it takes to add a storage counter to a land. Terrain Generator, on the other hand, is not particularly easy to use: it can only put BASIC lands into play, and it’s often not quite worth it. Its best use is in decks that play a lot of basics, draw a lot of cards, and are interested in keeping mana open during others’ turns. If you’re building Arcanis the Omnipotent or Soramaro, First to Dream, keep this card in mind!
Gemstone Caverns; Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper; City of Shadows; Shrine of the Forsaken Gods; Urza’s Tower; and Cloudpost. These are the “leftover” ramping lands, the ones that have significant drawbacks or that will generally only work in very specific builds of decks. Gemstone Caverns actually looks surprisingly solid in Commander, since the multiplayer aspect of the format means that you will not be “playing first” most of the time. In your opening hand, it thus becomes significantly better than a Chrome Mox, and if you draw it later on in the game, it can just be a random land that taps for colorless mana, with no card disadvantage. The only problem with the opening-hand scenario is that, in Commander, it’s not generally worthwhile to exile one of your cards to get a turn ahead in early mana production. If you jump too far ahead as a result of the Caverns, after all, the other players may just gang up on you. Untaidake, the Cloud Keeper is very good at casting your deck’s commander (multiple times, if necessary), but it is not a very good land in the vast majority of decks: only being able to cast legendary spells is just too much of a drawback. City of Shadows, while potentially quite powerful, needs a very specific deck to unleash its potential: if your deck makes token creatures (as with Ophiomancer) or is good at temporarily stealing your opponents’ creatures (as with Dominus of Fealty), then you might be able to feed the City up to some impressive heights. One difficulty I have found when playing with City of Shadows is that I always want to leave it untapped in order to sacrifice creatures to it… but that means I am not tapping it for all that colorless mana. Shrine of the Forsaken Gods looks a lot like Temple of the False God, but its restriction on how you can spend its two-mana ability makes it really hard to use effectively. Most of the time, only decks that are purposefully embracing an artifact- or Eldrazi-heavy theme will find a home for the Shrine. Urza’s Tower is obviously not a land capable of ramping on its own—and even when combined with Urza’s Mine and Urza’s Power Plant in a deck, the singleton nature of Commander makes it very hard to get them together. The cost of having three bad, colorless lands in your deck is generally not worth the possible (but incredibly rare) reward of getting seven mana from the assembled “UrzaTron”—unless, of course, you are “tutoring” like a madman or building an all-colorless Commander deck! Cloudpost, similarly, is just plain bad on its own. You can try to combine it with Thespian’s Stage, Vesuva, and/or Glimmerpost, but (just as with the Urza’s lands) the reward is not generally worth the cost of having Cloudpost in your deck. I have included it in this list for one primary, nefarious reason: to give me an excuse to advocate for a silly plan. If you can convince all of your Commander-playing friends to put a single Cloudpost in each of their decks, then you are setting up your games for random awesomeness: whenever two or more people happen to draw their Cloudposts, they will make one another’s lands WAY better. If you have the kind of playgroup that would enjoy that kind of random, accidental, cross-deck synergy, then buy some Cloudposts and shove them in everyone’s decks!
Category 4: Cost Reduction
These cards can be incredibly powerful if you are planning on casting a lot of spells—so they are at their best in decks that draw a lot of cards or use recursive mechanics like buyback or flashback. (And if your deck is TRULY focused on one of those mechanics, you could consider Memory Crystal or Catalyst Stone.) Note, too, that cards that care about “converted mana cost,” like Mizzix of the Izmagnus or Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas, won’t see the discounts that these cards apply: they will only look at the symbols printed at the top of the physical card, so they will still get their beneficial triggers even though you pay less mana.
Helm of Awakening, Stone Calendar, and Seal of the Guildpact. These are the cost-reducing cards that are the most broadly applicable. Helm of Awakening, in fact, might be toobroad, since it affects everyone’s spells instead of just your own. It’s a very powerful effect, but you need to be aware that you may be enabling your opponents to do some scary things. Stone Calendar was the very first of these kind of effects, and it’s still the most straightforward one. Its cost may look steep, but it will pay for itself (and then some) if you are planning on casting a lot of spells. Seal of the Guildpact is obviously designed for two-color decks, and it can be particularly impressive if you play a lot of two-color cards, but it’s important to remember that it won’t provide any benefit whatsoever if you’re casting artifacts or other colorless spells.
Heartstone, Cloud Key, Semblance Anvil, Urza’s Incubator, Urza’s Filter, Planar Gate, and Conduit of Ruin. These are the more conditional cost-reducing cards—you can generally tell if these are going to be right for your deck just by looking at them. Heartstone can be incredibly powerful in certain setups: it was no coincidence that it was included along with Sliver Overlord in the “Slivers” Premium Deck (and it would be very good with Sliver Queen). Pretty much any commander with activated abilities that cost mana can be improved (sometimes vastly) by Heartstone… but be aware that it affects ALL creatures, not just your own. The next several cards—Cloud Key, Semblance Anvil, Urza’s Incubator, and Urza’s Filter—can all give you impressive discounts on certain types of cards. Cloud Key is one of the best because of how straightforward it is, Semblance Anvil is powerful but hard to get perfectly set up (and results in card disadvantage), Urza’s Incubator can only go in tribal decks, and Urza’s Filter is hard to use to its potential, even ignoring the fact that it can really help your opponents: you would ideally want to use it in very strange, multicolor-focused decks (with, say, Cloven Casting, Dragon Arch, and Pyroconvergence). The last two cards in this category—Planar Gate and Conduit of Ruin—both cost six mana and both apply their discount only to creatures, but there are a lot of differences between them nonetheless. Planar Gate is just about what you would expect: it makes all of your creatures two mana cheaper, so it can provide ridiculous benefits in decks that aim to constantly cast or re-cast creatures. Conduit of Ruin only applies its discount once per turn, so it is very much like a “normal” ramp effect unless you use something like Vendalken Orrery or Winding Canyons to cast a creature not only on your own turn but also on somebody else’s. Generally, it is not difficult to decide if Conduit of Ruin is right for your deck: do you play many targets for its “tutoring” ability? Do you plan to cast a creature on just about every turn of the game? If so, this might be a great card for you. Oh, and speaking of creatures…
Category 5: Mana Creatures
Creatures in this category are sometimes called “mana elves” after the original (green) example of Llanowar Elves. Outside of the color green, this kind of creature ends up with some drawbacks: they are more expensive, and they get even more fragile than green’s Elves, since it’s easier to destroy an “Artifact Creature” than to destroy a normal creature. Oh, and in the Commander format, the text “destroy all creatures” tends to pop up, sometimes multiple times, over the course of a game. As a result, these are not generally a very wise choice for your mana-ramping needs unless you have some specific reason for wanting creatures to do this job. (Like, for instance, you play Myr Superion or need a creature on the battlefield to get your Grimgin, Corpse-Born untapped.)
Manakin, Millikin, Hedron Crawler, Plague Myr, Warden of Geometries, Palladium Myr, and Kozilek’s Channeler. These are the most “vanilla” creatures in the category, since they only tap for colorless mana. Manakin (“Skywalker”) is as straightforward as it gets, while Millikin adds to that baseline the ability to fill up your graveyard, which can actually be quite valuable in decks that care about threshold, delve, or some form of reanimation or recursion. Hedron Crawler is actually a step down from Manakin because it is 0/1 with no compensating features whatsoever, while Plague Myr adds infect to Manakin’s baseline, which can be very good in decks that pump up their creatures or that need a chump-blocker who leaves a permanent mark. Warden of Geometries looks like a better deal than it actually is: a 2/3 body isn’t enough to really matter in Commander, which makes the vigilance ability worse, since it will be hard to find a place to attack with this creature. Palladium Myr is actually surprisingly powerful, since it’s basically Worn Powerstone and can jump you to six mana on turn four. Kozilek’s Channeler costs two more mana for a bigger body—although you should assume that you will often be tapping the Channeler rather than leaving it up for attacking or blocking, so its 4/4 stats might not actually come into play very often.
Opaline Unicorn, Alloy Myr, Scuttlemutt, and Lotus Guardian. The first three creatures here are all incredibly similar, so we don’t have to talk much about the differences between Opaline Unicorn (weaker) and Alloy Myr (stronger). Scuttlemutt, however, has a weird ability to change creature’s colors that can be surprisingly powerful. It is very good against protection abilities, like those granted by Sword of Feast and Famine and its ilk, it works very well both with and against fear and intimidate, and it happens to be great with random cards like Samite Elder, Soul of Ravnica, Bloom Tender, and Civic Saber. Lotus Guardian is not usually a card people think of as a good ramp effect, since it costs seven mana, but certain decks that can massively discount colorless costs (like Rakdos, Lord of Riots or any deck playing Mycosynth Golem) can make the Guardian cheap enough to appreciate its size, flying, and colored-mana production.
Category 6: Build-Specific Options
This final category of colorless mana-ramp cards is full of some unexpected (and occasionally quite powerful) options that will only fit in narrow types of decks. If you are building one of those decks, though, these might be the most impressive cards for you!
Extraplanar Lens, Gauntlet of Power, and Caged Sun. These land-doublers are staples of the format, though (of course) they will only be really worthwhile in decks that are mono-colored or heavily slanted toward a single color. Extraplanar Lens only costs three mana, which makes it quite powerful: if you play it on turn three, you can start reaping its benefits in the early game, and if you play it on turn ten, you only have to tap three lands to get an immediate doubling effect on all the others. This kind of power is generally always worth the cost of exiling one of your own basic lands, unless people are likely to destroy the Lens very soon indeed. It should be noted that, if you imprint an Island on the Lens, ALL cards named “Island” will tap for an extra mana, not just the ones you control—though this generosity can be mitigated by using only Snow-Covered basic lands in your deck, so that the Lens will only double your Snow-Covered Mountains (or whatever) rather than everyone’s normal Mountains. As an additional bonus, now that Oath of the Gatewatch has given us the basic land Wastes, Extraplanar lens is an incredibly powerful option for all-colorless decks! In comparison, Gauntlet of Power costs five mana, it only affects basic lands, and there is no way to avoid its generosity to other players with the same color of basic lands—but if you get to untap after casting it, you will have access to a huge amount of mana. Caged Sun is very much the same, although it affects nonbasic lands and doesn’t share the extra mana with other players. This makes it the most powerful of these effects by a significant margin, and although it costs the most mana of these three options, we can be thankful that it costs a lot less money than the Lens or Gauntlet.
Mox Opal, Mycosynth Wellspring, Sphere of the Suns, Sculpting Steel, Metalworker, Blinkmoth Urn, and Mycosnyth Golem. These ramp cards are only worth playing in decks that are committing thoroughly to an artifact-based theme, but some of them are stunningly powerful in such a deck. With metalcraft active, Mox Opal is simply the best Mox ever printed, which is saying something. Mycosynth Wellspring can provide two basic lands—including, for entirely colorless decks, the new Wastes—while providing a free artifact to sacrifice. Sphere of the Suns works similarly well with effects that sacrifice artifacts for value: the card is not long-lasting enough to make the cut in normal decks, but its efficient burst of mana production can help artifact decks set up cards like Trading Post or Daretti, Scrap Savant that can then sacrifice the Sphere and possibly recur it from the graveyard later. Sculpting Steel is a great card for artifact-based decks in general, but it doesn’t look like a “ramp” card. Fortunately, though, you can use it to copy any other mana rocks on the battlefield, and if all of your friends play Sol Ring in all their decks, there is a decent chance that you can play it on turn three as the equivalent of an untapped Worn Powerstone, even if you’re not a truly artifact-based build. Metalworker was banned in Commander for a long while, which should give you a hint of its power: in a dedicated artifact deck, it can tap for absurd amounts of mana and possibly “go infinite” with cards like Staff of Domination or Voltaic Construct. Blinkmoth Urn can generate a huge amount of mana in an artifact deck while only giving small or nonexistent benefits to all the other players—and, indeed, if other players are getting too much mana from the Urn, you can switch it off with cards like Clock of Omens. Mycosynth Golem is a profoundly powerful cost-reducer, but unless your deck is full of artifact creatures, it will only work on a few spells you cast. (Keep in mind that Mycosynth Lattice doesn’t turn cards on the stack into artifacts, so you will NOT be able to get the Golem discount on any more creatures as a result of having the Lattice on the battlefield.)
Honor-Worn Shaku and Serum Powder. These three-mana artifacts can be very useful in the right deck. Honor-Worn Shaku is a virtually unknown card that can quickly be upgraded into a Worn Powerstone (or better) if your commander is not necessary in combat (like, say, Jhoira of the Ghitu or Norin the Wary) or if you play a lot of legendary permanents. If you are playing many legendary enchantments (like the Gods or all five of the Hondens) or playing legendary artifacts (like Sword of the Animist, the Kaldra pieces, or the Gods’ weapons), you can probably get a lot of mana out of this unassuming artifact. Serum Powder, on the other hand, will never give you more than one mana, and may simply get exiled without ever providing a single mana—but if need to mulligan aggressively to make your weird Commander deck work, Serum Powder has the unique effect of occasionally giving you a smaller deck and a better starting hand.
Paradise Mantle and Springleaf Drum. These cards are generally not as powerful in Commander as they are in “normal” formats, since their standard function is to jump one mana ahead in the early game with very cheap creatures. That simply isn’t a great plan in Commander. In this format, the greatest use of these two cards is probably to get your creatures tapped. Playing creatures with the “Inspired” ability word, including King Macar, the Gold-Cursed, or creatures that can untap themselves easily (like Grimgrin, Corpse-Born) can make these cards valuable for you.
Gemstone Array, Ventifact Bottle, and Ice Cauldron. These cards don’t actually “ramp” you, per se—since they don’t permanently increase your total mana available—but they do allow you to save unused mana from one turn and spend it on a future turn. They are best in decks that can channel a lot of mana into individually-huge effects. Gemstone Array is surprisingly powerful to have on the battlefield, since it allows you to save up for a big turn quite easily and flexibly, just by using whatever mana you can’t otherwise use during each turn. If your deck is interested in leaving up mana for instants or abilities on other people’s turns, then the Array can let you advance your game-plan even if you decide not to use those instants. Ventifact Bottle and Ice Cauldron are fairly similar (and are both fantastic with Rosheen Meanderer)—they both let you save up X mana for use on the next turn. Ventifact Bottle is rather weaker: you have to pay “1X” and therefore have a slight loss in efficiency, it only produces colorless mana, you can’t use it on back-to-back turns, and you have to charge it up at sorcery speed. That final point can be a big problem, since people can get very intimidated by a tapped Ventifact Bottle with ten counters on it. They may assume (rightly, most of the time) that you are going to cast something like Comet Storm or Sphinx’s Revelation with all that extra mana—and they will therefore destroy your Bottle to stop you. Ice Cauldron is the better card, for that reason: you can dump all of your mana into the Cauldron at the end of somebody else’s turn (and reveal a scary card by exiling it to the Cauldon), then untap immediately and cast that card with two turns’ worth of mana. Ice Cauldron also happens to be very good against discard: you can always just tap the Cauldron to exile a card in your hand, and that card will always be castable from exile, even if the Cauldron is destroyed.
Ashnod’s Altar and Phyrexian Altar. These cards only qualify as “ramp” if you produce a lot of token creatures, but they can generate huge amounts of mana for you if you’re casting spells like Increasing Devotion. In addition to being mana-producers, these cards can serve as ways to sacrifice creatures for zero mana, which can be a profoundly valuable effect in its own right.
Walking Atlas and Khalni Gem. These cards go in decks that want to play around with putting extra lands onto the battlefield (as with Patron of the Moon and Terrain Generator) and/or returning lands to your hand (as with any of the legal Moonfolk, Flooded Shoreline, and Ovinomancer).
Charmed Pendant. This is a very weird card. It is anything but reliable, since sometimes you will really need it to produce mana and it will instead hit a land or colorless card. Only a few decks are willing to put up with this kind of inconsistency, and those builds will probably be trying to take advantage of both halves of the Pendant’s effect: both putting extra cards into your graveyard AND having lots of mana symbols. In a Horde of Notions deck, for instance, using the Pendant to mill a Fusion Elemental or Maelstrom Wanderer would generate a lot of mana and provide good fodder for the Horde’s activated ability. An Ambassador Laquatus deck could play lots of cards like Sanity Grinding (or Blue Sun’s Zenith) to hit, while an Alesha, Who Smiles at Death deck would be fairly happy to mill a Ponyback Brigade or Ankle Shanker.
Mana Matrix and Eye of Ugin. These, at the very tail end of our list, are very specific cost-reducing cards. Mana Matrix is much more widely applicable than the Eye, though, since it is not unusual to build decks that center around enchantments or instants… it is a powerful card that very few people know about, and you should keep it in mind if you are constructing a deck that wants to support lots of cards of these two types (popular enchantment-based decks include “five-color Gods” and Daxos the Returned). Mana Matrix is also notably powerful with enchantments that return to your hand, like Broken Fall / Molting Skin, Attunement, Fool’s Demise, or anything next to a Riptide Chimera. There are a lot of possibilities there. The optimal use of Eye of Ugin, on the other hand, is incredibly obvious: play big colorless Eldrazi and profit. If you are building the kind of deck that plans to play Eye of Ugin, you probably do not need me to explain it.
* * *
Well, thanks for going through this HUGE collection of cards with me! All of these can go in whatever deck you want—so if you have ever said, “man, this deck just needs more mana,” there is almost certainly a good option available to solve your specific problem! And stay tuned for the next installment of Dig Through Time, in which I will cover options that can be used in specifically White, Blue, Black, and Red decks.Now, please head to the comments and give me some requests for future Dig Through Time articles! We all know how hard and how satisfying deckbuilding in the Commander format can be, and there are often cards out there, lost in the mists of time, that are exactly what you’re looking for to make your deck run like clockwork.
No comments:
Post a Comment