today's gab is about RAMP!
Ramp is a fun archetype that tends to appeal the most to Timmy-type players.
It's a gameplan that accelerates your mana resources to a higher point than your opponent, then leverages the extra mana into powerful effects that go "over the top" of whatever your opponent is doing with their more tightly-constrained mana resources.
In environments that resemble Legacy-Vintage, this archetype tends to take the form of a "fast mana cheat deck" where your goal is to burst out a bunch of mana on an early turn to end the game with an unbeatable cheat target (Channel Emrakul, etc).
However, there's another way to do Ramp in high power environments that tends less towards Cheat and more towards the traditional "get more mana -> spend more mana -> ???? -> profit" paradigm of the archetype.
as an example for discussion:
consider the above Jumpstarter half-deck from my own cube. this is my "Ramp" pack, and in the process of making it, i realized that "going over the top" was much easier in my *normally* super-tight-mana environment than i realized. here's how this deck does it:
1. Accelerate Mana
Dorks (such as Dryad of Masks & Hana) and land grabbers (such as Dominaria Dryad and W6) produce extra mana or retrieve lands from the deck/yard to ensure that the deck can reliably and quickly move up to a higher point on the curve. Radha's Oracle of Mul Daya effect also allows us to grab extra lands off the top of the library each turn.
While she's technically a curve topper, Nissa DOUBLES our mana to make some truly insane plays available to us.
2. Spend Mana
Normally when we think of "ramp targets," we think of arbitrarily large creatures or spells that flip the game on its head in a single turn, such as Colossal Dreadmaw, Craterhoof Behemoth, Titan of Industry, etc.
However, this deck tops out at 5 mana with Nissa and Fury! Sure, they're both pretty big plays, but the lesser-sung hero of the ramp deck is the mana sinks.
Notice we have here in this list:
-3 expensive activated abilities that present a huge threat to the opponent (Radha, Vastwood Mystic, Lair of the Hydra)
-3 cards with large kickers (Burst Lightning, Flametongue Yearling, Chandra's Fireblast)
By including a high quantity of mana sinks, particularly the repeatable ones, the deck has OPTIONS for spending mana without needing to run an awkward, top heavy curve of large chungus. Another way to get at the same concept is to include large cards that have small alternate costs. For example, Fury is a 5 coster, but can be evoked for FREE at any point in the game in case of emergency.
3. Don't Die
One piece of Ramp that can be easy to overlook amidst all the splashy plays is the simple question: what happens if i ramp up and get to cast my big spell but then i just die the next turn? This is why (in my opinion) it's essential to have some cheap interaction or at least roadblocks in your ramp deck so that you stay in the game early and the table can, in fact, be flipped to your favor by your first couple big plays. In this deck, Burst Lightning, Strangle, Chandra's Fireblast, and FTY give you early options for pruning down the enemy board so that you have breathing room to build to the big finish.
that's my gab on RAMP!
have you ever wanted to try supporting a ramp deck in your own format? or have done it and have wisdom to share? maybe just a favorite ramp deck from constructed days of yore that might be cool in a cube?
Ramp is a fun archetype that tends to appeal the most to Timmy-type players.
It's a gameplan that accelerates your mana resources to a higher point than your opponent, then leverages the extra mana into powerful effects that go "over the top" of whatever your opponent is doing with their more tightly-constrained mana resources.
In environments that resemble Legacy-Vintage, this archetype tends to take the form of a "fast mana cheat deck" where your goal is to burst out a bunch of mana on an early turn to end the game with an unbeatable cheat target (Channel Emrakul, etc).
However, there's another way to do Ramp in high power environments that tends less towards Cheat and more towards the traditional "get more mana -> spend more mana -> ???? -> profit" paradigm of the archetype.
as an example for discussion:
consider the above Jumpstarter half-deck from my own cube. this is my "Ramp" pack, and in the process of making it, i realized that "going over the top" was much easier in my *normally* super-tight-mana environment than i realized. here's how this deck does it:
1. Accelerate Mana
Dorks (such as Dryad of Masks & Hana) and land grabbers (such as Dominaria Dryad and W6) produce extra mana or retrieve lands from the deck/yard to ensure that the deck can reliably and quickly move up to a higher point on the curve. Radha's Oracle of Mul Daya effect also allows us to grab extra lands off the top of the library each turn.
While she's technically a curve topper, Nissa DOUBLES our mana to make some truly insane plays available to us.
2. Spend Mana
Normally when we think of "ramp targets," we think of arbitrarily large creatures or spells that flip the game on its head in a single turn, such as Colossal Dreadmaw, Craterhoof Behemoth, Titan of Industry, etc.
However, this deck tops out at 5 mana with Nissa and Fury! Sure, they're both pretty big plays, but the lesser-sung hero of the ramp deck is the mana sinks.
Notice we have here in this list:
-3 expensive activated abilities that present a huge threat to the opponent (Radha, Vastwood Mystic, Lair of the Hydra)
-3 cards with large kickers (Burst Lightning, Flametongue Yearling, Chandra's Fireblast)
By including a high quantity of mana sinks, particularly the repeatable ones, the deck has OPTIONS for spending mana without needing to run an awkward, top heavy curve of large chungus. Another way to get at the same concept is to include large cards that have small alternate costs. For example, Fury is a 5 coster, but can be evoked for FREE at any point in the game in case of emergency.
3. Don't Die
One piece of Ramp that can be easy to overlook amidst all the splashy plays is the simple question: what happens if i ramp up and get to cast my big spell but then i just die the next turn? This is why (in my opinion) it's essential to have some cheap interaction or at least roadblocks in your ramp deck so that you stay in the game early and the table can, in fact, be flipped to your favor by your first couple big plays. In this deck, Burst Lightning, Strangle, Chandra's Fireblast, and FTY give you early options for pruning down the enemy board so that you have breathing room to build to the big finish.
that's my gab on RAMP!
have you ever wanted to try supporting a ramp deck in your own format? or have done it and have wisdom to share? maybe just a favorite ramp deck from constructed days of yore that might be cool in a cube?
