Like 25-28 depending, for a standard deck. With our pool probably 25/26.

Neither of those are Ramp cards dummy
Fetch lands aren't ramp

Yeah flip Nissa is not a ramp card, big Nissa is almost Kiora, you untap a land and have an extra mana. It sounds weird, but if you cannot reach 8 ramp spells without big Nissa you can consider her.

Shows how much I play ramp... I guess the idea is to get mana ahead of the curve and not just secure your Land drops, like maps aren't ramp either. So I guess my list is at 7 ramp cards then.
Hmm what about gitrog? He's both ramp and anti-ramp, because he kills your lands, but also lets you drop extra lands ramping you... In that case, even orrery could be considered ramp...
Anyway can you really play Green and ramp and not play Tireless Tracker? Should be in the rules...

Edit: 8 ramp cards, Hydra ramps... What about druids? They ramp on death...

LOL should be in the rules, love it!

I was going to submit an emerge deck and for sure the Druids are ramp

Well Gitrog is not ramp, even in the case you have 2 lands in hand you only play the land for the turn, while the other one replaces the sacced one. Orrery is conditional, but i suppose you can consider it ramp, even if i don't see it work. Hydra is ok though.

Don't really like to consider Druid as ramp, it's conditional. It's like your deck doesn't ramp reliably with druid, and if you are ok with conditional ramp maybe your deck is more midrangy than ramp. But this is my opinion, druid actually ramps even if conditional.

I'm also not sure anymore about big Nissa, most of the times you go behind on mana instead of ramp. But i suppose she is still valid.

They should because they act as mana ramp, instead of producing more mana they reduce the mana needed to play cards for the color of the monument. On youtube I saw a standard deck using monuments featured on mtg goldfish that saffron olive calls the monument "white ramp". I built a duels version, it can get out of hand because it can get so wide but rarity limits kind of kills it's consistency.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/in ... e-standard
Other mana accelerators that aren't land ramp:
Monuments in creature decks
Baral in spell decks
Foundry inspector in artifact decks
Harold of the Pantheon in enchantment decks
Oath of Ajani in PW decks
These cards all have the same function as mana creatures, they let you play cards ahead of curve. Improvise was interesting because it essentially uses every artifact played as mana acceleration, obviously not for this contest.


I disagree, flip nissa is absolutely ramp in the fact that once flipped her plays an additional land if it hits a land, basically a rampant growth that plays a land untapped if it hits a land. While we are at it, Nissa, steward is also ramp as her also plays an additional land if it hits a land plus she ramps you by essentially being a mana source for whatever creature card her hits that is < or = her loyalty. Tamiyo's ult is techinically ramp but ults haven't been counted before and I agree that would be stretching it for this contest. Moot point as she is triple color as well so illegal for the contest.

Other cards that provide mana by paying the cost of other cards are all the expertise spells and brain in a jar. Unlike Nissa steward it's a one time payment for the expertises though so do they count? Brain is weird too, does it count?

While we are on the subject, any card that puts a land onto the battlefield outside of your normal land drop or allows you to drop an extra mana source from your hand is by definition ramp.
Swell of Growth, Ghirapur Orrery, Mina and Denn, even the Gitrog could be considered ramp but the monster is kind of self defeating ramp and more of a card draw engine.
Knight of the white orchid and Primal druid are the only creatures that also bring a land to the board. That's crazy to me that's all we have that has that effect.

I've never been a "ramp deck" kind of guy but I will give my best attempt.

This post lists what I consider ramp/acceleration is. However this is Joker's contest so he makes the rules. He may want this to be a specific type of contest and I am surprised he doesn't count flip nissa so he may not count other acceleration cards that I consider ramp.

OK, so I made some changes and ran it for 3 games on the ladder and won all 3.
First, the changes:
Cut the evowilds and added 3x renegade maps and a rogue's passage. Why? Maps are better for the fatal pushes (triggering revolt) and work almost the same as wilds and can hit for an extra point with battle at the bridge, the idea being to play the maps and keep 'em around 'til I miss a land drop. The Passage is for the hydra... Obviously...

The games?
Vs 4-color Ramp (win)
This was a tough one. I didn't see much ramp this game, but drew ulamog early. My lifegain cards made the difference because we both got out our own cruel reality (Mine first). He started off stronger with the embalm hydra and some other fattie. Cruel Reality can really clean up if you get to 7 mana still alive... Anyway, when I finally got to enough mana to drop Ulamog and clear his reality, I was at 1 life and he had just dropped ishkanah and a bunch of spiders to sac... Luckily I top-decked a ballista FTW.

Vs 5-Color Superfriends (win)
Totally wrecked him.
Pushed his abbot. Bridged his 6/6 woodland wanderer. He makes a gideon emblem and starts dropping walkers all over the place. I manage to ultimate Ob nix, then I ramp up and drop ulamog to take out nahiri and ajani, then Never his gideon that keeps preventing ulamog damage, but he has no cards in library anyway... Key point was when I had to play greenwarden to get back a fatal push to kill his nissa animated 5/5 land and ultimate ob.

Vs Izzet Control (win)
This was the sweetest victory of all. Loved it!
Game was me playing lands and him playing lands and both just discarding our dead cards. I played my ramp cards and he countered them. I kept playing walkers and minor threats for him to keep blowing his counters. His wincons are on the bottom of his library, so are my gaea's (18 cards left and I didn't see one). I held ulamog for his wincons all game long (he basically has torrential and disciple), so I drop land, ramp to get my land out and wait.
Then he starts getting low on cards and plays commit on his own hulk... I see an opportunity. I look at 2 never // return in my hand and discard them at my next opportunity. When he finally plays disciple, I ulamog it and the fumarole. Ulamog gets countered, but his got 1 less wincon. Then he tries to play torrential again and drops big chandra. I take a beating, but I top-deck greenwarden and he's out of counters and really low on cards I get ulamog back. I then return his commit // memory and he sees his screwed. He tries to disperse his own gearhulk, but he doesn't have enough mana to instant-speed memory... so... He's got 1 card left, I've a greenwarden and a zombie token and ulamog in hand... So, he scoots... Sweet! AI doesn't have any idea what to do, so it +1s chandra and passes. Next turn I ulamog chandra and another fumarole and sit back and watch the AI deck itself...
I really enjoyed that, shame gaea's didn't show up (Haven't seen one in all 3 games), because I designed this deck to heavily hate on control and I am really pleased that this first test run went so well.

Will play and test some more...

Well you can use basically whatever you want in your deck, just not stretch things to make them fit in the ramp requirement. Remember that this round is about making a ramp deck, not just adding some accelerators to make your deck fit the requirement. It's all about going big.

Being more specific about cited cards (remember, i'm thinking about ramp decks, not cards by themselves) :
- Maybe monuments should be valid, they are creatures only accelerators, and more useful when you have lot of medium sized creatures instead of going big. I can see them being valid.
- Baral is a storm card, it lets you play lot of spells in the same turn. In ramp it's useful only with ramp spells, and mana dorks are almost always better.
- Inspector, Herald, Oath of Ajani are other specific accelerators. They are only good if you can play more than one of those specific cards in the same turn, otherwise a more flexible mana dork is always better.
Idk about these accelerator, they are good cards for midrange decks rather than ramp decks. I can maybe consider monuments, especially Rhonas' one. It's up to you to consider these cards as ramp, just remember that you want to build a ramp deck, and not a deck that can just fit the requirements.

- Flip Nissa is not ramp, she only fetches a forest. You cannot consider her flipped side, because you need 7 lands to flip her so you can ramp with her only if you already did it, but she can't do it by herself. Her +1 is also conditional, and i consider it only as card advantage.
- Nissa Steward can be considered as ramp. You can play her on turn 3 and use her 0 as ramp. It's conditional but you can set up your draws with her. So she is valid for the requirement.
- Swell of Growth, Ghirapur Orrery, Mina and Denn are valid for the requirement. Gitrog is not valid as explained above.
- Knight and Druid are weird cards. They actually ramp, but not consistently. Knight lets you do it only if you are behind on mana, almost never in a ramp deck. Druid can stay on your battlefield for the entire game. Idk, i think you can make a similar reasoning as for the accelerator, you can consider these for the requirement, but it's up to you to use them as ramp and not as some casual advantage.
Just remember to focus on the deck, and not on single cards to satisfy the requirement. If you build a ramp deck these requirements will be fulfilled and you don't even notice it.

Example Ramp deck: Contest Ramp 1

Green:26
2 x Oath of Nissa
2 x Sylvan Advocate
4 x Nissa's Pilgrimage
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
4 x Pulse of Murasa
4 x Explosive Vegetation
2 x From Beyond
1 x Nissa, Vital Force
1 x Verdurous Gearhulk
1 x Greenwarden of Murasa
2 x Nissa's Renewal
2 x Rishkar's Expertise

Artifact:9
2 x Walking Ballista
2 x Reality Smasher
2 x Endbringer
1 x Decimator of the Provinces
1 x Kozilek, the Great Distortion
1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Land:6
3 x Foundry of the Consuls
1 x Rogue's Passage
2 x Westvale Abbey

Basic Land:19
17 x Forest
2 x Wastes


Been having fun testing this one, thought I'd post it as an example though based on some of the conversations. Not sure if this will be my final deck though.

I totally forgot that Ulvenwald Hydracounts as ramp too. That card does double duty for the requirements.

Would you consider Chandra, Torch of defiance as ramp? I would love to build a green red ramp deck with her as my turn 4 ramp if we could get more than 1 copy.

Yeah both Hydra and Chandra are valid as ramp.

I'm not sure if I would count Ulvenwald Hydra as ramp if I included it in one of my decks, for the same reason that I don't really like counting Nissa, Sage Animist as ramp in a ramp deck.. It would depend on how high my mana curve went. If I had Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or some other ~10, then I would be happier to count it as ramp, however if the curve stops at ~6-7, then I'm quite doubtful. When I've played her, Sage Animist has quite often ramped me towards an Ulamog, but she doesn't do it before seven mana at the earliest. I guess Hydra is slightly better on that point, since it's 6 cmc and you could cheat it out, or use monuments or mana dorks to get it out earlier.

To clarify, I have no problem with someone claiming Ulvenwald Hydra is a ramp card, I'm just not sure if I would count it as such when building a deck. On the topic of whether cards are ramp or not, what about Eldrazi Scion's? Some of the cards with them are clearly not ramp, but some of them could perhaps be considered ramping? From Beyond springs to mind as a card I might in some cases count as ramping.

It's not easy to split cases with top end of the curve as 6/7 cmc or 10 cmc, that's why i tend to consider Hydra as ramp no matter what. It's also more reliable than flip Nissa since she must survive and flip, and her +1 hits lands less than 50% of times.
From Beyond is valid for the ramp requirement, i just hope we don't go into tokens territory with too many of these cards. Eyeless Watcher seems fine, Blisterpod is the same as Primal Druid, so idk.

I was thinking of X spells that one could include, and thought of something tangent to that. How do we treat aftermath cards that are dual coloured? I've played some aftermath cards where I'm only interested in the front side, Prepare in my tournament deck is an example, where I don't have any way to cast Fight. How would cases as this be considered? Especially if you actually can cast the flip side by means of your present ramp. Consider the case where you have Cut // Ribbons in a Gruul deck, though you also have Deathcap Cultivator, perhaps an Aether Hub or Gift of Paradise? It wouldn't be reliable, but by late game you could have a quite good chance of hitting with a big Ribbons.

I don't believe it's that big of a problem, since few people would play Cut without planning to play Ribbons, in which case you could rule that it's not allowed, since it's splashing. I was just curious how you would think of this situation.

I have edited the rules about X spells and aftermath cards, idk if you have seen it.
About aftermath cards as front side, i think that if you consider only one side without planning to cast the other side the aftermath cards are pretty bad and we have better cards. For example if you want to cast only Cut, cards like Fiery Impulse or Harnessed Lightning are better.
I think that if you don't actually adapt your manabase to have the chance to cast it there is no problem, since it is very unreliable using only mana by Gift of Paradise or Cultivator etc.

Giocher: "Go build ramp decks"

Everyone: "WATS RAMP?!"

XD XD XD

Here's another list I brainstormed together:

Simic dork ramp

Creature(26)
2 x Walking Ballista
4 x Druid of the Cowl
2 x Deathcap Cultivator
2 x Vizier of Tumbling Sands
2 x Tireless Tracker
1 x Reclamation Sage
2 x Rogue Refiner
2 x Weaver of Currents
1 x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
2 x Altered Ego
1 x Aethertide Whale
1 x Greenwarden of Murasa
1 x Woodland Bellower
1 x Gaea's Revenge
1 x Aetherwind Basker
1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

Instant(3)
2 x Pull From Tomorrow
1 x Pulse of Murasa

Sorcery(2)
2 x Baral's Expertise

Enchantment(2)
2 x Sandwurm Convergence

Planeswalker(3)
1 x Nissa, Steward of Elements
1 x Kiora, Master of the Depths
1 x Nissa, Vital Force

Artifact(2)
2 x Cultivator's Caravan

Land(22)
7 x Island
8 x Forest
2 x Lumbering Falls
2 x Hinterland Harbor
3 x Aether Hub


To view this deck go to: https://www.magicduelshelper.com/deckli ... 46c7b0bd6b

Created using Magic Duels Helper: http://www.magicduelshelper.com

This one uses creature-based ramp and x-spells, with some big meaty finishers. Lack of interaction is probably a weakness and I may have gone overboard with the dorks, but the mana sinks should take advantage of all your extra mana. Haven't tested it yet, but its another idea to try out if your lost for ideas.
Any and all feedback is welcome because ramp is uncharted territory for me.

Well, disregarding Lightning Axe and Fiery Conclusion, Cut is our cheapest guaranteed 4 damage spell, though not being instant hurts it a lot. I don't believe I would run it in the current meta for just its front part, I would much rather play Harnessed Lightning, especially if I had other energy gain. But I could see a meta where you cared about being able to deal 4 damage to a turn three creature when you're on the draw.

Though the only 4 toughness 3- drops that can be annoying that I can think of is Thing in the Ice, Plague Belcher, Exemplar of Strength or maybe Lathnu Hellion, though by the time you could cast Cut the Lathnu Hellion would already have attacked, and used up two energy. It could also be nice against Heart of Kiran, except for the fact that it utterly sucks at targeting vehicles.

TLDR: I don't forsee a meta in duels where being able to do 4 damage to a creature cheaply is in any way relevant.

Doing 4 damage isn't irrelevant, but at Sorcery its situational.
Only really worth the slot if ribbons is part of the game plan, but there is plenty of worse removal in our pool.