MTG Ramp is being powered down in Standard? It may certainly not seem like it. Llanowar Elves is now in the format, and there are tons of two-mana dorks in Standard too. Even still, some players are curious why ramp tools have been getting weaker in the format over time. Turns out, this isn’t an incorrect assumption, as Head MTG Designer, Mark Rosewater, has confirmed that ramp’s efficiency has been reduced.
Too Powerful for Standard
Despite the appearance of Llanowar Elves, Tumblr user mikealritchie took to Blogatog to highlight green’s shifting ramp identity. Two mana ramp spells like Growth Spiral, for instance, have all but disappeared, and Standard’s lands are slower too. MTG Foundations was seemingly the perfect place to fix one or even both of these issues, but Wizards didn’t budge.
Technically, we do have an almost classic two-mana ramp spell in Standard right now; Glimpse the Core. Able to fetch a forest or revive a Cave, this spell is fine, but fails to fix lands like past iterations of similar effects. Compared to classic ramp like Growth Spiral, there’s no comparison, especially in late-game situations.
Back in the day, drawing Growth Spiral was, at worst, just okay as it’s essentially a two-mana cantrip. While this isn’t ideal, there’s a non-zero chance you could draw something good, to salvage your turn. Glimpse the Core, on the other hand, is only ever going to get you a land. This makes it next to useless outside of early-game situations.
This lack of flexibility obviously hurts the overall consistency of decks trying to ramp. The same is true for the abundance of slow lands in Standard right now. Once again, Foundations put this point under a microscope as Wizards had the opportunity to provide decks with faster mana for five years. A reprint of the Pain Land cycle would have managed that.
Instead of keeping things moving, Wizards reprinted the Temple Land cycle instead, which are just bad right now. Not only are these lands slow at the best of times, but they’re a downgrade compared to the Surveil lands from Murders at Karlov Manor. It’s very rare that you’d ever want to Scry over Surveil, especially with all the graveyard synergies going around.
Slowing Things Down
Obviously, Wizards of the Coast made a conscious choice about what to print and reprint in Foundations. Llanowar Elves may be a step in the right direction for ramp, but this archetype hasn’t been given all of the tools possible. According to Mark Rosewater, this was by design, and it’s probably for good reason too.
“It’s just a little more efficient than we want ramping in Standard.”
Mark Rosewater
In recent years, Mono Green Ramp decks have been almost adorably weak in Standard. Back in the day, however, ramp decks have been absolute menaces, often dominating the format and driving much of the metagame. Turns out that dropping consistent and huge threats turn after turn is a pretty solid game plan when it’s well-supported.
Just think back to the power of Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath if you want a stark reminder of ramp’s dangers. This card did everything the archetype wants, providing ramp, draw, and a huge body, so it’s clear that Wizards can go too far. Uro had to be banned in Pioneer, Modern, and even Standard for good reason, so it’s best not to repeat that mistake.
Even outside of Uro, ramp can have huge format-warping dangers that completely change a format. If it’s too easy to ramp into massive threats, aggro decks don’t stand a chance, and even midrange can be outclassed. Should the ramp spells also be a source of fixing, there’s little reason for most, if not all decks, to use it.
With this in mind, it’s for the better that Wizards is careful about how much ramp they put into Standard. The arrival of Llanowar Elves will hopefully be a step in the right direction, and more steps can always be taken later. If Standard needs more ramp, Wizards can easily print it, just not in a set that’s legal for five years.
Going With the Flow
At the end of the day, ramp has rarely been a constant fixture in Standard, especially in recent years. This is true for every archetype, outside of the everpresent scourge of mono red decks. In rotating formats like Standard, archetypes live and die on the support they receive, which is always in a state of flux.
In some years, mono green, and ramp decks in general, will receive tons of support to become a tier one deck. Other years, mono-green players will be left practically starving, with neither enough threats nor ramp pieces to play them. In recent years, we’ve definitely been in the latter category, but that doesn’t mean it’ll always be that way.
With six standard-legal MTG sets being released in 2025, Wizards has plenty of opportunities to print new ramp cards. Even if these cards aren’t as good as the old staples, we’ll hopefully be able to see ramp decks rise from the ashes before too too long. Whether or not that will happen, however, remains to be seen. For now, we’ll just have to wait.
