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22, Aug, 23

The 11 Best Ramp Cards In Commander

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Are you struggling to get more mana faster? Struggle no longer, here are the cards you need.
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Everyone knows that a key part of a good Commander deck is getting to play your scariest cards as early as possible.

The ability to play cards that don’t work in other formats is wonderful, but you need to get the mana to do so first.

That’s why ramp cards are so useful, they let you get on with things as fast as you can.

To help you play the most absurd cards, here are the ten best ramp cards in Commander.

Ten best ramp cards in Commander

There are countless ramp cards in commander, and even defining something as simple as a ramp card is tough.

We’ve chosen cards from across the spectrum of MTG colors, as well as the way in which they ramp.

If we did a full honourable mentions list here, the article would never end, but we do want to give a small shoutout to Arcane Signet, which should probably be in every Commander deck. Anyway, onto the list.

Honorable Mention(?) – Chromatic Lantern

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If you’re paying a deck with more than one color of mana in it, then you should definitely be using Chromatic Lantern. This card is a three mana Artifact that can tap to add one mana of any color, but its main ability is that it also grants this effect to all of your Lands.

If you’ve ever played a deck where you find yourself wishing your mana base was a little more robust, then plop one of these into the decklist and live your rainbow dreams as you no longer have any issues casting spells of any color.

This list really proves that, as time has passed, Commander has gone through a lot of changes. While putting Chromatic Lantern on a list like this may have made sense a few years ago, the card is now pretty terrible in comparison to a lot of options players have.

11- Two-Mana Mana Rocks

Whether its Arcane Signet, or some other Signet, some of the best ways to start ramping is just to drop an artifact on turn two that taps for mana. Three mana Mana Rocks nowadays won’t keep up with the speed of the format, unless there are some additional benefits on the table.

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10 – Ashnod’s Altar

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This entry was very nearly Black Market, but we decided that Ashnod’s Altar is probably a smidge better. Ashnod’s Altar is a three mana Artifact that allows you to sacrifice a creature to gain two colorless mana.

This basically allows you to turn everything on your board into mana, and Ashnod’s Altar is a key part of any kind of deck that likes killing off its own Creature for profit. It’s also just a good card to have around if you’re making tokens or bringing things back to life. It’s a very versatile ramp card, and it’s a lot of fun to build around too.

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9 – Mirari’s Wake

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Mirari’s Wake is much more than a ramp spell. For five mana, you get a Green White Enchantment that makes it so that whenever you tap a land for mana you get to add one mana of any kind that land can produce. For newer players, what that means is that if you tap a Forest for a mana you can get another Green mana, but if you tap something like a Watery Grave for a Blue mana, you can also get one Black mana for free.

On top of that, it also gives all of your Creatures +1/+1. It’s this ability that really helps Mirari’s Wake stand up against the competition. There are other cards that give a similar ability to it, but this one is a bit cheaper than most, and it also makes your Creatures hench, which is a lovely bonus.

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8 – Farseek

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Farseek is a two mana Sorcery card that lets you grab a Basic Land from your deck and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Wait, no, that’s Rampant Growth. Right, so Farseek is still a two mana Sorcery, but it only lets you get a Plains, Island, Swamp, or Mountain.

The thing here is, it doesn’t say Basic, which means you can fetch up any of the special Lands you want, providing they have one of those basic types included. It’s very powerful, it’s only two mana, and you should be running it in any deck that has Green and at least one more color in it.

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7 – Cabal Coffers / Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

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There’s one thing you should know about us here at MTG Rocks: we’re rebels. You can’t control us, we do what we want. In this instance, we’re listing two cards as one entry in a ten card list. Nobody can stop us doing this, so don’t even try.

So, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is a Legendary Land card that turns all lands into Swamps in addition to their other Land types. This means that they can all be used to tap for Black mana, and that’s funky. Cabal Coffers is a land card that allows you to pay two mana and tap it to add one Black mana for every Swamp you control. As long as you have more than three lands out with two of them being the ones listed here, that’s just pure profit, baby.

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6 – Sol Ring

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If we’re being honest, Sol Ring is probably the best ramp card in Commander, but it’s just a bit boring compared to our other picks, so we’re putting our foot down a little bit in the name of variety.

Sol Ring is a one mana Artifact that you can tap to make two colorless mana. It’s a very simple way of ramping, and while it’s no good for those aiming for one of every color by turn five, it’s still an absurdly potent way of gaining mana.

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5 – Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

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We’ve got another Legendary Land here with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. At its worst, you can use Nykthos to tap to for one colorless mana. The main ability though, is that you can pay two mana and tap it to gain mana equal to your devotion of any one color.

Devotion, for those that don’t know, is the number of mana symbols you have on your permanents. If you’re playing a mono-colored deck, this usually allows you to tap for at least five mana with only three or so permanents in play. It’s almost kind of disgusting.

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4 – Mana Crypt

Like it or not, despite the card’s absurd financial price tag, Mana Crypt is one of the best ways you can ramp in the Commander format. Crypt costs zero to cast and immediately generates two mana, which recurs on every turn. The downside is that the card has a chance of dealing three damage to you on your upkeep, but this downside is far outweighed by the absolutely ludicrous upside. In a coin-flip deck, this can actually turn into an upside, which is insane.

There are other situations where Mana Crypt’s downside can become worse. In decks that double up on upkeep triggers like The Prismatic Bridge, you will likely need to be rolling for Mana Crypt damage multiple times in a turn. Alongside the new EDH card City of Fire, Mana Crypt also sneakily deals nine damage to you instead of three, which can unexpectedly put you in a bad position. All-in-all, the upside to Mana Crypt is still worth it. If you can afford it, this is the best EDH card on the market, but there are some better cards at ramping you up long-term.

3 – Exploration

Its difficult to find more literal definitions to ramp than this. Exploration is a one mana enchantment that allows you to play two lands per turn instead of one.

Of course, you need additional land cards to make this effect worth it. This means that Exploration tends to lose its effectiveness pretty quickly unless you have reliable ways to continue hitting land drops every turn. Combining this with Crucible of Worlds and a Fetch Land, for example, can be surprisingly effective.

2 – Burgeoning

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For one whole Green mana, Burgeoning is an Enchantment that lets you play a land whenever an opponent plays a land. While you’ll need some decent card draw to keep up with this effect, even managing this once for every player in a four-player game can have you on five mana on turn two.

While this won’t grab land cards from your deck, if you combine it with some incidental card draw thanks to other colors, you can quickly end up with an unmatched number of Lands on board. Just keep in mind that you’ll likely be the enemy of the group if they’ve all got two Lands out and you’ve suddenly got ten.

1 – Smothering Tithe

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Finally, we have Smothering Tithe. Now, this isn’t what many people will expect to see up here, but its our list, so deal with it. Smothering Tithe is a four mana White Enchantment that does nothing when you play it. Instead, it lets you ask opponents if they want to pay two mana every time they draw a card. If they decide they’re not going to pay that mana, or they can’t afford to do so, you get a Treasure token that can tap and sacrifice to add one mana of any color.

In short, this is one of those Enchantments that’s going to really annoy everyone in your game, but also, you’ve got more mana than them, so who cares? You’ll usually either end up restricting the mana of your opponent’s or very quickly building up so many tokens that everyone will give up on trying to stop you, and then you can crush them like the manaless bugs that they are. That sounds evil, but so is the card, so you might as well lean into it.

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