Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say that's blatantly incorrect. Literally over half a million decks minimum run it, so clearly people do care about it, regardless of whether you think it's good, or even whether it is actually objectively good. Also, how often something is played is absolutely relevant.
How so? The question isn't even "is
Cultivate good?"; if it were, you could argue that it's played a lot
because it's good, but we all know that there are lots of reasons for cards to be played or not played, and it's quite possible that it's just overrated (which is in fact the stance that, so far as I can tell, everyone in this thread so far is taking). But the actual question is "are the best ramp options too good?" and if you don't think that
Cultivate is as good as those, then it's not something we're even considering.
If a card is that ubiquitous, there's a reason for it. You yourself referenced "auto-include" cards and asked whether running something in a majority of decks per se makes it good:
There's a subtle difference there: a card being run a lot
suggests that it's
probably quite good. But, that's why I'm asking, do people think that ramp is too good in EDH? Furthermore, I'm talking about a category of cards. A whopping 49% of EDHrec decks that can run
Cultivate do... but how many run
any ramp spell? 100%? Are there any that we
consider remotely viable decks that don't run any? Plenty of people would claim that a deck with
Cultivate would be better without it... how many people would claim that any given deck would be better off it you removed all the ramp entirely?
Either the card is in so many decks because it is good, or it's good because it's in so many decks.
You what? How does playing something a lot make it good?
Ultimately, context matters, and I feel like that's being dismissed in this discussion. For instance, if you're playing a landfall deck and/or haven't played a land per turn and would otherwise miss your drop, then Cultivate is definitely stronger than it would be in just about any other situation and is a good card in that moment.
Lots of things can be "a good card in a moment". 6-mana sorcery-speed removal can be pretty great in a lot of moments. That doesn't mean anyone is arguing that those are the most powerful cards.
Besides, this whole confused discussion about
Cultivate seems to be a massive distraction. The previous argument seemed to be "ramp isn't too good because
Cultivate isn't too good" and I said, OK, but there are plenty of things that are better than
Cultivate. Now you seem to be saying,
actually,
Cultivate is great. Well OK, doesn't that imply, then, that the things that are better than
Cultivate are, like,
really good, possibly too good? Or are you saying that
Cultivate is actually Magic's best ramp spell?
The longer the thread carries on, the more it seems like you're trying to split the baby here; you seem to be arguing that that ramp is in fact "too strong" - which presumably means that it's necessary to run it - while at the same time saying the format is fast enough as it is so it's not needed and that certain ramp is bad and shouldn't be played even though it's incredibly popular.
I don't really understand the confusion here. Who said the format is fast and so ramp is not needed? And, as I've just elaborated, popularity is really irrelevant and some ramp spells can be bad without making all ramp spells bad. I kind of thought that that was obvious.
Are you getting confused by the fact that I asked what a version of EDH would look like without the fastest/best ramp, and proposed that it would be fine? That's a separate question to whether ramp
in the format as it exists now is good or not.
Let me go back to what I was originally asking and attempt to clarify:
1. Do we think (the best) ramp is good? Everyone runs ramp, and so far as I can tell the accepted wisdom is that it's the best thing to do. The most competitive decks in the format use large amounts of ramp and, even at non-cEDH tables, the ability to explode early and achieve an unassailable lead requires ramp. I certainly cannot imagine doing the most powerful things decks can do without more than the normal one mana per turn. No, ramp is not
sufficient to win, but I would argue that it is
necessary. So I am arguing for yes on this one, but willing to be challenged.
Note that we are not talking about any specific ramp spell. You can look at the world's worst ramp spell and say, nope, not good but that doesn't say anything really about this question; we're talking about using good ramp vs no ramp at all. Heck, a lot of those bad ramp spells probably
are still better than not having any at all.
2. If 1. is true, and ramp is so good to be ubiquitous, is that a problem? My proposition (something to be discussed) is that, actually, EDH would be better without it. These spells take up slots in the deck, introduce (unneeded and possibly excessive/unhealthy) variance, and don't really add anything to the game. If it were tuned to the point where it were more of a balanced trade-off, such that some decks would want and run ramp but others might put in none at all, would the format be more interesting? It would also likely be slower, which I propose is also no bad thing.
This is, actually, pretty similar to the proposition in MustaKotka's
Sol Ring article (not that you alone should not run ramp and expect to have a good game, but that perhaps your whole table should not run it, and have more fun).