I love the idea of untap-based ramp, not in the least because it makes bouncelands a lot more viable. However, it's kind of crappy without dedicating an absurd amount of support for it. Has anyone made it work? My drafts have been based around the Lotus Field decks using the following cards and bouncelands, but it really hasn't been enough:
The following are also plausible for this archetype:
There are a few more, but these are the ones that I think are most relevant. The trouble becomes for me that they're both part of an A + B (+ C combo if you include Wild Growth or Wolfwillow Haven and friends) combo and are very fragile. Am I overthinking this? Are the parts good enough on their own just like in any other ramp shell?
Generally speaking, I like this style of ramp because it encourages having a reasonable number of different types of effects and makes it harder to splash willy-nilly. I also like how it can start to multiply with a bounceland + a Wild Growth + an untapper providing six mana instead of three or four from any two of the parts, which appeals to my desire for in-game drama. Also, making more mana off of fewer lands means that you can discard away the other lands and take more actions, which appeals to me. Maybe this all stems from internalized trauma at the hands of Llanowar Elves in an elfball deck that stomped me when I was little, idk. Point is, I like this method of generating mana A Lot.
There's also the concern of what to do with an absurd amount of mana. Kessig Wolf Run isn't my favorite as it's both repeatable and very hard to interact with, but a lot of X spells are just fine unless you really go off, and this archetype already suffers from siloing the parts pretty dramatically. Stuff like Fight with Fire is more my speed, as it's still respectable while offering a fun way to live the dream without guaranteeing victory. Nissa, Steward of Elements is a fun intersectional card here.
In closing: has anyone done something like this? Is it fun when it works? I don't know, but I've been bashing my head against it for a couple of years with no success.
Edit: I think the question I may be asking is how much the following card would break a bounce land environment in which Llanowar Elves is tolerably good? Note that the question isn't whether or not it'll break it but rather how much it'll break it by.
Untapping Elf
: untap target land.
0/1
The following are also plausible for this archetype:
There are a few more, but these are the ones that I think are most relevant. The trouble becomes for me that they're both part of an A + B (+ C combo if you include Wild Growth or Wolfwillow Haven and friends) combo and are very fragile. Am I overthinking this? Are the parts good enough on their own just like in any other ramp shell?
Generally speaking, I like this style of ramp because it encourages having a reasonable number of different types of effects and makes it harder to splash willy-nilly. I also like how it can start to multiply with a bounceland + a Wild Growth + an untapper providing six mana instead of three or four from any two of the parts, which appeals to my desire for in-game drama. Also, making more mana off of fewer lands means that you can discard away the other lands and take more actions, which appeals to me. Maybe this all stems from internalized trauma at the hands of Llanowar Elves in an elfball deck that stomped me when I was little, idk. Point is, I like this method of generating mana A Lot.
There's also the concern of what to do with an absurd amount of mana. Kessig Wolf Run isn't my favorite as it's both repeatable and very hard to interact with, but a lot of X spells are just fine unless you really go off, and this archetype already suffers from siloing the parts pretty dramatically. Stuff like Fight with Fire is more my speed, as it's still respectable while offering a fun way to live the dream without guaranteeing victory. Nissa, Steward of Elements is a fun intersectional card here.
In closing: has anyone done something like this? Is it fun when it works? I don't know, but I've been bashing my head against it for a couple of years with no success.
Edit: I think the question I may be asking is how much the following card would break a bounce land environment in which Llanowar Elves is tolerably good? Note that the question isn't whether or not it'll break it but rather how much it'll break it by.
Untapping Elf
: untap target land.0/1
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