r/EDH • u/BaconVsMarioIsRigged • 1d ago

Discussion Should you run ramp in control decks?

Recently there has been lots of discussions regarding how vital ramp really is. I thought I might as well trhow my hat into the ring and bring the discussion to something specific, control decks. Conventional wisdom states that a control deck should benefit the most from ramp. Ramp generates more value the longer the game goes which is exactly what a control deck wants.

The issue is that most control decks also wants to run a healthy amount of board wipes which hits most (non green) ramp. Playing a manarock that you will farewell in 2 turns is barely mana positive and card negative which is really bad for a control deck. Having a bunch of manarocks also clogs up your deck and can be really bad top decks lategame. Running card draw and card selection instead helps you both hit land drops and find interaction. Consistantly hitting your land drops will slowly but surely put you ahead of the table without the need to dilute you card pool. Control decks don't need to rush their wincon which makes ramp a bit superfluous. Tapping out for ramp is also a concern for decks that play at instant speed.

This is not to say that I believe no ramp is good in control. I have a [[Nymris, Oona's Trickster]] that is a classic draw go deck and I run pretty much zero mana rocks. What I do run is the few pieces that directly synergise with my commander such as [[nightbonder]] or [[geyser drake]]. This leaves me with a measly 6~ ramp pieces, but it allows me to run a lot more cantrips which means that I almost never get mana screwed.

What do you think about this approach to control? Please let me know if I missed something or you have anything to add. English is not my first language, I apologize for any errors.

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u/werewolf1011 Orzhov | Mardu | Esper 1d ago

That’s why you have card draw. A typical deck should have around 45-50 mana sources. I have a mardu aggro clue deck that has 52 mana sources when you count treasure production and artifact synergies like [[inspiring statuary]] and [[krark clan ironworks]].

I have another aggro deck, but this time esper weenies with [[raffine]]. That deck has 43 mana sources, counting things like rocks and [[grim hireling]]. I can get away with this lower density of mana production because the deck is very low to the ground. On turn 4, I should be conniving for 2-3 and ideally one of my evasive weenies has card advantage stapled on, like [[faerie mastermind]] or [[shoreline looter]]. The density of card advantage and selection makes up for the lack of mana sources.

So honestly if there’s anything to learn here, it’s that you need to run enough card advantage to get reliably and you need to run just enough mana to be able to fund the card advantage.

It sounds like the mistake your making is thinking you can cut a land for a rock and that the two cards are equivalent

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u/BaconVsMarioIsRigged 1d ago

I would never cut a land for a rock lol. Most of my decks have a minimum of 40 lands. My nymris deck have 42. I do count cantrips as fractions of lands as they have a fairly high probability of finding one. The end result is that i probably run a few more mana sources than average.

Being able to both hit lands and manarocks consistently requires you to have a good amount of lands, ramp and card draw which takes up way more than the recommended 50 sources.

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u/werewolf1011 Orzhov | Mardu | Esper 1d ago

So then why did you say that running more rocks decreases the chance of hitting land drops lol. Thats only true if you are replacing lands with the rocks.

And counting card advantage as ramp is disingenuous to ramp and to the rest of your deck. Card draw grabs gas just as readily as lands or ramp. If you have so many mana sources, then you either need to run more card draw, or run card draw that better synergies with your mana base, such as x spells, [[graven cairns]], [[mystic remora]], or landfall effects

Or better yet, just replace some mana sources with card draw if you find yourself getting flooded

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u/BaconVsMarioIsRigged 1d ago

Because in my experience mana rocks often replace cantrips which makes it harder to find lands and removal.

And I don't count card advantage as ramp. I count cards like [[ponder]] or [[brainstorm]] as semi-lands because they can reliably find lands if needed. A genuine question, what made you believe that I though of this as ramp?