Whether you want to play a crazy Eldrazi Titan, or pull off a crazy infinite combo, many of Commander’s most exciting plays need a ton of mana to pull off. For that reason, a lot of Commander decks dedicate a surprising amount of space to ramping their mana. Unfortunately, some Commander decks have an easier time with this than others. Green, in particular, has way more efficient and budget-friendly options for getting ahead on mana than any of the other colors. While Magic’s other colors can’t quite compare, there are some strong ramp options if you know where to look.
Copy Land
Debuting in Modern Horizons 3 Commander, Copy Land provides a pure form of ramp for mono-blue decks. Worst-case scenario, Copy Land will essentially act as an extra land drop, but the card is capable of doing a lot more in focused strategies. Copying powerful lands, like Field of the Dead or Gaea’s Cradle, for example, can generate a ton of advantage. You can even copy opponents’ lands, finding missing fixing pieces or taking advantage of opposing utility lands like Bojuka Bog.
Sadly, outside of some obvious other use cases, like Enchantress or specific lands synergies, there really isn’t much to Copy Land.That, however, isn’t the end of the world, since Blue doesn’t get simple ramp effects like this, making this card a bit of a hidden gem.
Deep Gnome Terramancer
Like most white ramp, Deep Gnome Terramancer will only find you extra nonbasic Plains if a condition is met. Luckily, this is incredibly easy to do in Commander, so much so that you should be able to do it multiple times each turn cycle.
For reference, a land that isn’t played refers to any land that enters play without a player using their land drops. This means that almost all of green’s common ramp options, like Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach, will trigger Deep Gnome Terramancer. The creature can also trigger on extremely common utility lands like Evolving Wilds and Myriad Landscape, meaning that Terramancer will likely get value even if green isn’t at your table.
This, essentially, makes Deep Gnome Terramancer repeatable ramp on a stick. Considering that Deep Gnome Terramancer is rather inoffensive outside of this, there’s a decent chance your opponents will ignore it long enough for you to get multiple lands out of it. Heck, you can even gift opponents land drops to trigger the creature yourself.
Braid of Fire
Flipping the script on Cumulative Upkeep costs, Braid of Fire will continue to offer an extra red mana on each upkeep. This can scale extremely fast, but since the mana is generated on your upkeep, you’ll only be able to use it to cast instants. For some decks, this is enough to warrant an inclusion, but there are ways to move that mana to your Main Phase.
Both the recently printed cards Electro, Assaulting Battery and Ozai, the Phoenix King won’t let mana extinguish as phases end, allowing you to use the mana to cast spells on your main phase. This also allows you to store multiple Braid of Fire triggers turn after turn, saving your mana for a massive Fireball effect to end the game in one go.
Braid of Fire otherwise does a lot of work with Commanders who can use the mana directly. Ashling the Pilgrim and Grenzo, Dungeon Warden both offer activated abilities that ensure your Braid of Fire mana will always have a use.
Rev, Tithe Extractor
Black has a decent amount of strong ramp options that generally involve Treasure Tokens or aristocratic costs. Rev, Tithe Extractor certainly falls into that same camp, turning one of your attacking creatures into a souped-up Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.
Like Ragavan, whatever creature Rev targets will need to connect with your opponent, but the Deathtouch buff makes blocking the creature a very difficult proposition. You also get to keep the card that your targeted creature exiles permanently, meaning that Rev both provides cards to cast and mana to put towards it.
Rev functions a bit better in aggressive decks with lots of small bodies, but so long as your Commander deck has enough creatures for this card to target, Rev should make a powerful upgrade to any black deck. The card overperforms in all kinds of popular Commander strategies, like making creatures unblockable, stealing your opponent’s cards, or just creating tokens.
The only catch with this card is that it’s rather expensive. Thanks to only receiving one printing in Foundations Jumpstart, Rev, Tithe Extractor demands a pricy $34. Regardless, it is among the strongest ramp options that non-green Commander decks can use.
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