You should play more of these ramp spells

[The Golgari Guy]

Hi all,

I'm writing this post as a suggestion to green deck builders.

Cultivate and Kodama's Reach are respectively the first and third most played green spells in EDH, with respectively 198632 and 143505 inclusions according to EDHREC. They are basically treated as auto-includes in any green deck, and for a good reason: They are incredibly solid, as they guarantee you a land drop while at the same time ramping you. In other words, they ramp you without making you go down on cards (as opposed, for example, to Rampant Growth).

However, I think that in green decks with heavy creature synergies these two cards should come pretty low on the list of ramp spells to include. If your deck runs Guardian Project, Beast Whisperer, Shamanic Revelation, Craterhoof Behemoth, or if your commander cares about creatures, such as Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Hamza, Guardian of Arashin, Yarok, the Desecrated, etc. you should strongly consider running the following cards before including Cultivate and Kodama's Reach:

• Wood Elves
• Springbloom Druid
• Yavimaya Dryad
• Elvish Rejuvenator
• Farhaven Elf

Why should you run these instead of Cultivate/Kodama's Reach? There are multiple reasons, but the main ones are:

-These will draw you cards out of Guardian Project and similar, whereas Cultivate/Kodama's Reach won't. They'll thus be much better when drawn in the late game.

-They will synergize with your Craterhoof Behemoth and similar finishers, boosting your other creatures and receiving the boost themselves.

-They give you a body to block with! This may seem like a minor benefit, but it can actually be extremely relevant in many games.

-Some of them have useful synergies with specific strategies. Wood Elves is probably the best since can fetch any Forest (even nonbasics) on the field untapped. Springbloom Druid is great in landfall decks since it gives you immediately 2 landfall triggers. Yavimaya Dryad has evasion and can be used as a political tool, since it can ramp an opponent. Elvish Rejuvenator can fetch nonbasics. The most mediocre one is probably Farhaven Elf.

-If your deck has Sun Titan or any other way to recur permanents (Meren of Clan Nel Toth is probably the best example as a commander), you probably want these instead of Cultivate/Kodama's Reach.

I'm writing this because I've noticed that most of the green decks I see on the website run Cultivate/Kodama's Reach, even when they have heavy creature synergies and would be much better off running these. Note that I'm not saying that Cultivate/Kodama's Reach are bad: in a vacuum, they're better than all the cards listed above. However, in decks with creatures synergies they are worse then all of these.

You'll notice that I focused on 3-CMC creature-based ramp spells. We could also discuss whether decks with creature synergies are better off running mana dorks such as Llanowar Elves, rocks such as Arcane Signet or the Simic Signet, or 2-CMC ramp spells such as Rampant Growth and Farseek, but I think that that topic, although similar, deserves a separate discussion (Spoiler: I think dorks are better in those kind of decks, and that ramp spells are better than rocks in general).

Even if Cultivate/Kodama's Reach have always been great in your creature-heavy deck, I'd suggest to give the options above a try. You may be positively surprised.

[Morganator 2.0]

Should we be using these cards? I know we've discussed this once or twice before, but it still seems like there are so many options for ramp at 1 mana or 2 mana that you shouldn't need to be using 3 mana ramp. Even if you want a creature-heavy deck, you've got mana dorks. Playing a land then a mana dork on turn 1 is a very strong opening move, and one that you can consistently rely on. I should know, that's almost always my opening move for any green deck. It's much better than waiting until turn 3 for a Farhaven Elf.

[The Golgari Guy]

Should we be using these cards? I know we've discussed this once or twice before, but it still seems like there are so many options for ramp at 1 mana or 2 mana that you shouldn't need to be using 3 mana ramp. Even if you want a creature-heavy deck, you've got mana dorks. Playing a land then a mana dork on turn 1 is a very strong opening move, and one that you can consistently rely on. I should know, that's almost always my opening move for any green deck. It's much better than waiting until turn 3 for a Farhaven Elf.

I absolutely agree with you. However, what I wanted to do was not to compare those cards to 1 and 2 cmc options, but specifically to Cultivate and Kodama's Reach, which are also 3 cmc and played in a myriad of decks. I wanted to point out that in many of these decks you'd be better off running one of these cards instead of Kodama's Reach / Cultivate.

There are decks that don't want 3-cmc ramp for sure, but there are also those that want it. For example, my Xenagos deck runs 15 ramp spells since it's filled with high-cmc beaters, and the commander costs 5 mana, so 3-cmc ramp still allows me to get him out 1 turn earlier:

https://deckstats.net/decks/149180/1847575-xenagos-dragon-daddy/en

Also 3-cmc ramp pairs very well with 1-cmc ramp since you can go, for example, turn 1 llanowar elves, turn 3 wood elves.

In general, I agree that 1 and 2-cmc ramp is better, but some decks want so much ramp that you'll start considering the 3-cmc one. And in those decks, often a Wood Elves is better than a Cultivate. This is the point i wanted to make