Sir this is my emotional support cultivate

Man, I needed this. So many guides say '10-12 ramp', but not of the nuance beyond that

Instructions unclear, running a combo of 22 ramp/mana rocks

I've repeatedly played people on Arena that use Reliquary Tower, but cast absolutely no card draw. It makes no sense.

“Play 10 ramp, several wipes, etc” drives me up a wall. When do I want to play ramp, how many cards have I seen by then, etc. determines the quantity I’ll go after.

Cultivate and Kodama’s Reach were “staples” in the early days of Pre-cons and still show up in most pre-cons which contributes to their prevalence in EDHREC stats as many popular commanders are from pre-cons which often form the start of most decks.

I think Cultivate is heralded as a "must run" as the initial commander decks all had more expensive 3 color commanders with splashy effects (for the most part) so not only was it good at fixing mana, but it effortlessly fit into the curve of the deck

Personally I’ve always prioritized Natures’s Lore and Three Visits. Early turns that untapped land can be useful. In addition, 4 mana on turn 3 is stronger than 5 mana on turn 4, ie Cultivate vs Nature’s Lore

Here's another example. When building a Zacama deck, I generally run a large number of land based ramp, and only a couple of non-combo mana rocks (only Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, and those will change once I get a couple more 2 mana land ramp spells). This is due to Zacama's ETB caring about untapping lands, which is important for infinite combos. This means my curve and mana base reflects that: lots of basics, and a heavy leaning on forests/green producing lands. My deck runs smoothly as a result, and both Kodama's Reach and Cultivate play an important part in making sure that happens consistently, but I rarely put Cultivate/K. Reach in my other green decks unless I'm playing landfall or land-discard for value synergies. Great analysis, Snail!

im too broke for anything else. pls stop bullying me snail

Commander Mechanic had a video that talked about tailoring your ramp to your mana curve. Their video was good at explaining the math, but this video really contextualizes why you would want certain types of ramp in certain decks. Also, Prof's recent videos about mana base and ramp got me thinking about these topics a lot more. 3+ CMC ramp is practically unplayable now in most decks, due to how fast MTG has become and the prevalence of good 1-2 CMC options. Once I started to apply all of this my decks suddenly became a lot more playable, and the high playrate of Cultivate now seems insane to me.

I think that personally my deckbuilding got so much better when I started to look at ramp spells in the context of bridging the early turns to my commander/pivotal turns, instead of generic cards that up my mana. so like you mentioned, I love cultivate and Kodama when i want to cast my 5 mana commander. it fixes my colors, ramps me for one and ensures I have the last land I need the next turn. on the opposite end of the spectrum, I went back to the very first draft of my tovolar list and realized how ridiculous it was for me to run cultivate with a 3 mana commander.

I noticed this when I built Polukranos Reborn/Ruin Engine. I was loading it with a bevy of 2 drop ramp because that's the "bread and butter" and what I'm used to doing by default. It got bottlenecked. Forgetting that most of my commanders are at 4, and Polukranos is at 3, then flips at 6. I traded out all my 2 drop ramp for 1 and 4 drop ramp. So I could hit Polukranos on turn 2, ramp again on turn 3 with an explosive vegetation or something similar... in order to flip Polukranos as early as turn 4.

"Swords to plowshares your toski" "Oh"

The reason I'm willing to play more mana inefficient spells that grab lands is because faster forms of acceleration often can make you more of a target, and mass removal of enchantments artifacts and creatures is very common among my play group, so dorks, rocks and mana boosting enchantments make you more vulnerable to getting set back when the inevitable boardwipes occur.

This video is especially interesting to me. I recently brewed a Mazzy Aura deck where I wanted as much interactions and stuff as Auras. So I ended up with fertile ground, utopia sprawl and so on for ramp and Kenriths transformation and Darksteel Mutation as removal and it really get my gears grinding when I really brew all by myself

Discovered your channel today, this is the second video I've ever watched of yours. I'm new to commander, and was wondering why cultivate felt so bad to cast in my Henzie deck, whereas all the dorks felt so good. You've just made it click for me. I need to rebuild my ramp entirely, and then watch every video on your channel.

Such a good video and yet such underrated this channel. Give this man more attention! He deserves it 👐

Cultivate feels fantastic in landfall decks, then again the goal there is to create more and more triggers so it’s actually a pretty good spell specifically in that context.

Thanks for making the video. Nice to get some idea's that are not regurgitation of what edh shows.

(your videos are always on-point, I appreciate them very much !) This is one of my very first lessons I learned while deckbuilding EDH. I did cram every staple ramp spells I could think of and realized my commander was always out 'awkwardly'. Then did the opposite and could get it out on-curve reliably but then mana-dorks would just sit in my hand. I settled on between 1/2 and 3/4 of my ramp dedicated to getting the commander out, and the rest for good stuff. On ~10 rampish card a deck it gives you some leeway without compromising your late game. But again depending on the curve and gameplan sometimes you have to go more all-in in either ! Also you should spread it over multiple types of cards (artifacts, creatures, etc) and this rule applies to basically all other categories like draw, removal, etc

Counterpoint, the LotR Cultivate has dogs on it which makes it better

My anecdotal evidence agrees with your analysis. Cultivate was awful in my Chatterfang deck where it sat in my hand because I'd rather cast my commander and then make tokens. On the other hand, it made my Reaper King deck functional where 5 colours as fast as possible is the goal.

This was so useful dude. Thank you!

I feel like cultivate is good enough 70% of the time. Its both cheap enough and wide spread enough to be easily obtainable theres little reason for most people to care about minor nuances in a format more inherently social than cutthroat competition

This is very good advice. I run all creature based ramp in my sidisi deck, and I tried to stay away from mana dorks in favor of things like wood elves or sakura tribe elder that are less vulnerable, but before now i hadn't considered any of the things you bring up. Maybe i can do better than just looking at what the card type is

Every video on this channel is great

I agree, Ramp spells have nuance. For example, my Henzie deck runs Cultivate/Kodama's reach even though they get in the way of casting my Commander. However, since he's only a flavor tool for my big Haymakers and 3 colors, they serve their purpose of color fixing, ensuring that I don't miss a land-drop, which is vital for a Timmy-deck like mine, and getting me faster to my Etalis, lol.

Learned alot from this. My tovolar runs Cultivate and Kodamas reach for very little value considering how often im drawing. Thank you for the video!

Can we try to approach this from another angle of point? The big reason to play cultivate is that while it's a colorfix, it's also 2 lands for 3cmc. Not 1 _land_ for 2cmc. Big difference. Also, 3cmc with single-color bip is fantastic from a typical ramping point in EDH. This means we have all the stupid nut lines from ultra-fast mana rocks (ie. sol ring, mana crypt so on). So in the end it's more like turn 2 ramp to turn 3 drops. Consider these lines: Turn1 Turn2 Turn3 Land + Mana crypt + Cultivate 5cmc Commander/Hand dump Land + Sol ring (+ 2cmc rock) 5cmc Commander/Hand dump or Cultivate 7cmc Commander/Hand dump Land + Mana dork (or similar) 3cmc Commander or Cultivate 5cmc Commander/Hand dump Etc. surely there are more lines with lotus petals and so on. In contrast, if you play something like rampant growth, you are missing the extra value and you are probably better off playing 2cmc mana rock unless you are on landfall. Maybe there are more nuances, but in general, if you play rocks and want to supplement that with extra ramp, personally I would probably play cultivate and its twin if you are aiming for 7+ cmc clonking fridge beatdown. Edit. But yes, the main point of the video is that people should think about how to build their ramp packets in their decks, which I totally agree with.

Fantastic video and content, couldn’t agree more. I run a Radha Heir of Keld deck playing exclusively 4 cmc ramp to get me to 6-7 mana by turn 4.

I've been being more creative with my ramp outside of green decks with Bauble, Solemn, Sword of the Animist, Ornithopter of Paradise, etc and less rocks. It is shaking my buddy who I have review my rough draft of decks to his core.

I like the way your snail brain thinks. I've been doing this subconsciously for years, but found it hard to put into words, lol.

This was immediately helpful to me. I had jammed Cultivate& Kodama's into Arcades, as well as both of the haste boots for protection for him. This made it immediately obvious why my favorite ramp spells were wrong for my deck, and just questioning the boots gave me the opportunity to look at better options. My ramp base is better suited to my game plan now and I'm running protection spells that actually make sense for my deck instead of just the boots

This video < me playing decks that pop off around turn 5-6 but need to ramp hard in the early game

The way I finally broke out of my artifact ramp addiction was making a landfall deck

Specifically analyzing the culture of cultivate. *Chef's kiss* A+ job as usual.

Hey man, great video! I already knew the principles you presented, but still watched the whole video. You really nailed the point of ramp in EDH. I guess you got a new subscriber ✌🏼

Wait did my question on tovolar spark this video? Because thats cool. My main opinion for tovolar (and toski by extension since they do similar things) is burgeoning. Burgeoning is a very powerful ramp card getting potentially 3 more lands by the time its your next turn on play. But its main weakness is that you quickly run out of lands to play. Tovolar and toski solve that problem by simply drawing lots more lands. It fits neatly as a turn one play as well which is always welcome in a fast deck (tho honestly for my tovolar decklist im most excited by a turn one village messenger. Play lotus petal tovolar get card from moonrise intruder)

as a yugioh player, i needed to hear this SO BADLY! im not used to juggling both mana and card advantage so, this really gives me an insight on how to factor in mana better

I love that he points stuff out that makes total sense but you don't think about it until some one points it out.

6:10 No love for Elvish Mystic? I'm glad to see someone knows about the "2 female elves" mana dork that is Fyndhorn Elves.

Praise the snail

Cultivate: a Rampant Grove that also "can trips" to your most needed color land every time for one more colorless. A very good 3 drop, but of course, don't force it.

Thank you for convicing me that my deck in fact needs cultivate

Well i start off by getting all my ramp cards together, and then i look at how many ramp cards are recomended, finally i put them all in the deck and hope for the best...

I never quite grasped this concept until I played with my mana dorks and realized proper ramp lets you drop a turn 3 Koma, Cosmos Serpent, and just take over the game.

I have a Sarkhan soul aflame deck that runs basically no ramp at all because you want to either tap out for a dragon or leave up all your mana for tricks and counter magic every turn

Excellent video and outlook. Ramp optimization is something I was very bad at for a long time. Just putting in good stuff and I ended up buying too many of a lot of cards. I totally look at it this way now. I love ramp (and land) cards that do something else my deck needs. I think cost-reducers should be included in ramp as well. Even a -1 for 4cmc can be a boon late game.

Good video. And nice to see that I seem to already be on the right track :)

I never thought about exactly this, but I built Omnath Locus of All and exclusively put in 2 mana rocks or ramp spells, so I could always play Omnath on 3, and an 8 drop on 4.

I do really enjoy Cultivate and Kodama's Reach in Wort the Raidmother. If it's early then it can help setup turns to get Wort out easier but Wort can copy spells like crazy and Kodama's Reach and Cultivate grabs 4 cards out of the deck, normally deck thinning in EDH has a very miniscule gain but with a spell grabbing that many cards out of the deck then the actual gain of thinning starts becoming way more noticeable.

One of your better videos

I have a deck that has an interesting problem when putting this advice to use. It only really has 1 mana spike at 3, but the commander is Beledros Witherbloom, a 7 drop that fuels my aristocrat plays with the ability to untap lands and generate plenty of pests. Would Cultivate and Kodama's reach be bad in my deck if they greatly help towards getting my commander out faster without risking too much since I have multiple cards that would just kill my own mana dorks or destroy my own artifacts if I played them?

I like the pacing of the narration.

Jesus, I've been playing since New Phyrexia and I've never thought of my ramp package like that. I do always just throw in a lot the staples without much critical thought... thinking about what turn you actually plan on casting your commander is so obvious I'm smacking myself in the face right now. Thanks for the video!

Great video! Thanks for the analysis.

I’ve taken the mentality of “what does it offer to the deck” into more consideration in the last few years. I found out spells like cultivate are amazing in a Field of the Dead strategy because they can help you get your (non-)snow basics to help get your lands with different names going, AND hit more land drops to trigger field. I normally don’t like cultivate for how much it costs, otherwise

Nice, had this same feeling when looking to build a new deck

One of my favorite ramp combos in my UB artifact deck is skyclave relic(kicked) and master transmuter ofc helped by early game artifact cost reduction

Such good advice! Definitely noticed the difference when I made the switch in one of my decks with a majority of 4 cmc creatures when I made sure all the ramp was 2 cmc costed.

Thank you for the video it makes sense to me. A lot of similar videos are convoluted or some banal min/max attitude 😂 thanks bro!

I recently built a Bess, Soul Nourisher deck, which is basically a green and white 1/1 creature tribal. Bess, and most of my card draw pieces are 3 mana spells. (this is also the most common mana value in the deck) My ramp spells are: 6 1/1 mana dorks, 4 of which cost 1, soul ring, a sorcery that let's me choose between getting a basic land from my deck into play or creating a 1/1 token and a 1/1 that creates treasures. I may have forgotten one, but that makes sense for my this deck.

After a few years of building some edh decks I've started to pay much more attention to what cards do for the deck rather than the general staples, even to the point of cutting sol ring out of a few decks because it doesn't push the gameplan forward. An example of this is Will, Scion of Peace; I cut sol ring for an Ivory Tower and a plethora of 1 mana "gain life" effects, with will out and able to tap, the lifegain is going to payoff so much more for the spells that Will wants to cast than the potential "turn 1 sol ring" Great video, glad to see someone bring this to light!

As someone who has a biggggg addiction to five colour decks, I mostly used things like cultivate and cirtcicous route to fix my mana base. I also tend to not play decks that are built around the commander to win. So for example I made a tribal elemental with commander being horde of notion. The entire concept is I can play my deck without my commander and potentially win, then late game I pull my commander out and slap out all my elementals again and again hopefully after most removal has been used.

Thank you for making a video to send my friends to, when playing expensive cmc commanders that require to play high cmc spells (like Ovika Enigma Goliath) the ramp suite for the deck based on edhrec is a mess as the mana curve is heavily skewed to 4+ mana so almost everything has to tap for multiple or give discounts to really contribute to the gameplan, but so many people see 2 mana mana rocks is the end all that EDH rec only suggests a couple of bigger rocks

Omnath locus of mana breaks so many rules you laid out

This video gave me so much nuance that I'm going home and changing the ramp in some of my less functional and consistent decks and I feel it'll explain so much as to why they dont work. 3 mana ramp "staples" have mentally poisoned both me and those decks.

I tend to value flexibility over efficiency. In my 5 color control deck, I run things like Growth Spasm (makes a token blocker just in case I need it, or something to bargain), Road / Ruin (extra removal), Spring / Mind (card draw), Migration Path (cantrip), and Titania's Command (lots of modes). I usually don't have to worry about outpacing my opponents since I can just board wipe if they get too far ahead. I also draw a lot of cards, so stuff like Urban Evolution, Growth Spiral, and Eureka Moment can actually ramp me (or save me from a big swing if I have Glacial Chasm in hand)

This video is a better argument than most on playing different ramp cards but there is one thing I want to bring up. Lower MV doesn't actually mean you don't want ramp, decks with a lower curve in EDH often do want to spend just as much mana as the higher curve decks but that mana will be spent on multiple small spells instead of just one big one. So yeah a deck may not want to play a 5 drop on turn 4 but it might want to play a 2 drop and a 3 drop. Tovalar and Toski especially as they both draw cards so you'll always have plenty of spells to play with that extra mana.

There’s a gigantic elephant in the room; namely rituals and mana engines like Smothering Tithe. Might be an interesting idea for a future video.

I have to disagree with you on this one. Cos for hands tribal Kodama's Reach and Cultivate are the only acceptable ramp. Lol. I totally agree though, people get used to something long enough they don't really look at it until it's presented to them.

I’m glad others feel this way, especially in decks where the commander is important, having a ramp package that benefits it is critical

I wish you would have commented on "play extra lands per turn" kinds of ramp as well, because I've found that an Exploration usually feels way more powerful than any other ramp spell if you're playing a deck that's good at drawing lots of cards, while spells like Cultivate feel better in decks that don't draw as much.

Sir, get your hands off my Cultivate! But good food for thought, I didn't consider the commander CMC with ramp spells before.

As a Kinnan player, this is the most mana efficient video of all time.

A good way I found to know how much Ramp you need is to goldfish. So let's say you're uninterrupted and you can play a regular game (not counting on Sol Ring) and you get all your combo pieces which would let you win the game, there. For example. * On my Yarok deck I'll play a Mana Dork on turn 1 *Turn 2 I play A mana rock or signet. (I'll use the mana usually on either a 2 cmc ramp spell or tutor *Turn 3 I play either Birthing Pod or Vannifar *Turn 4 Ill play Yarok. Then use vannifars effect to go for Peregrine Drake by chaining the untappers that ETB and you know the rest. Infinite mana with either Eternal Witness or Archaomancer and a victimze or ghostly flicker. So for a consistent Win turn 4/5 win I need 2-3 mana accelerants. The components are the Mana Dork and the signet/talisman. So I would suggest 20 ramp for a deck with that power. It's just a bit slow for CEDH territorry but consistent enough to put up a decent threat by turn 5. So I usually use about 7 mana dorks and 10-12 rocks (talismans, signets,fellwar stone and of course arcane) or cards like rampant growth and farseek. This usually assures me a turn 2 double spell and a turn 3 engine set up so Yarok comes out and immediately provide value. I might delay it a turn if I don't have the follow up play. So yeah. I suggest 18-20. Ramp spells if you're setting up the wincon on turns 4-5)(Uninterrupted)

The biggest problem with mana curve that I have noted. Especially after playing enough commander, is that getting your commander out once for 3 mana does not means it’s the most efficient play if you minimize your ramp for that consistency. In all likelihood, if you commander is a king pin. You will need 1-2 extra mana to keep him alive and have haste if you need to deal combat damage. In that case ramp big before your command is played is the viable option in 90% of commander decks. Unless your kingpin commander is cmc 1-2 you have no downside from ramping to 5/6 or even 9-11 mana by turn 3. Especially if you drop a quick card draw engine or general card draw to keep up tempo

*reading the title knowing my average turn 3 board state is 3 lands and 1 or 2 mana rocks at most* yeah probably

another lesson i have heard from creators about ramp is: "I want half my deck to make mana", which thinking about generic numbers of 37 lands + 10 ramp, yeah that's about right honestly! and the best way to start a deck is: cast all your spells, where do you run out? because the worst position to be in is "I cant cast my spells"

I have a Ragavan commander deck and people are genuinely surprised to find out it doesn't run any mana rocks. Crazy to feel that way when you're looking at a mono-red aggro deck that already generates it's own mana.

you are the best of us

This video is a real eye-opener, and a topic I’ve been looking at a ton lately as I look to colors outside my comfort zone- particularly in an extremely fast ramp deck, Jorn, God of Winter. Trying to put the puzzle pieces together and hit a huge amount of mana before the table is ready for it is the entire goal of that deck, and this video makes me excited to brew. Well done!

I feel like this is just distilled wisdom. There are MANY reasons to play Cultivate, but also lots of reasons to avoid it in certain decks.

devils advocate for cultivate in toski: you suspect your opponent has something like path to exile or swords, so you want to ensure you have an additional mana on t4 for a protection spell like tamiyo's safekeeping. I hate casting my commander with no backup plan for removal, protection spells and mana to cast them are important when I'm putting together a list. I even run cultivate in my kyodai gates list, but I only do that because I also run scapeshift, I sac the basics for gates and other valuable lands, then splendid rec a full graveyard of lands to hopefully be able to maze's end in the same turn if my lands are coming in untapped.

Want to shout out one of my favorite ramp spells - Search for Tomorrow. Suspending on turn 1 give you 4 mana on turn 3, same as a signet. And there are very few 1 cmc ramp spells that aren’t mana dorks.

I still stand by harrow as the best ramp spell it’s just too freakin good

So true. A while ago I realized my Gitrog Monster edh deck really didn’t need Cultivate, and the many variations of Harrow are much better.

This is why in Obeka I dont run cards like commander sphere, talismans and signets get 4 mana on 3 which is where the curve is, so cards like commander spehere doesnt really do much

Oh, this isn’t magic the Noah. Goodbye.

There is one basic thing edh players need to undertand about Cultivate and Kodama's Reach. If your commander is 3cmc/4cmc and you want it out as early as possible, never play 3 mana ramp spells, never. Play the two mana ones, the mana dorks, the enchantments, but never 3cmc spells that ramps you. I know that, in lower power level tables, "loosing" a turn 2 (if you ramp on turn 1) or 3 on cultivate is not bad, it's OK actually, but playing always Sol Ring, a mana dork or Wild Growth on turn one; or a Farseek/Nature's lore, etc... On turn two is far more important and efficient.

i run harmonize in every mono green deck because sometimes i just want cards w no board presence

You need cultivate in a werewolf deck to recover after a board wipe. Or to play your commander on turn 6 or 7 when there’s less removals being casted. You don’t need your werewolf commander on turn 2,3, or 4.

Fetching 2 lands for 3 is still the best rate. It very simply smooths a 3 land opening hand that top decks 0 lands into one with certainty making it to 5 mana. The game isn't over when you play your 3 CMC commander far from it. Even low drop creature decks want mana to play more low drop creature spells. Consistently playing your land for turn and using your available mana is one of the biggest goals in mana base building.

I'm someone who proudly proclaims Cultivate as my favorite card ever printed in Magic. I can see objectively that it is showing its age compared to the days when Kaalia and Riku were the new hotness, however, if you think I should cut it from my decks: feel free to pry it from my cold, dead hands! But, yeah, great points and video!

another thing to take into consideration is what your commander is, i feel like, if my commander is a plainswalker, i would rather have solum, sakura or burnished hart has ramp, who can also serve as protection to my commander insted of ramp spells

Bro said "here's a graph"

This is such a great video, and I have seen it absolutely abused lately. I'm not sure how people point to this and say "Putting Rampant Growth in a 3CMC commander decks or Cultivate in a 4CMC commander deck is wrong" after you put so much thought and nuance into this explanation, but internet gonna internet I guess. Anyway, this is super helpful. While I don't run green often, I do get to see this at work in a lot of my decks. I have a Clavileno deck that absolutely wants to curve out into an attacking Vampire + Clavileno by turn 3, so the ramp it looks for is stuff that gives it additional value and late-game reach, and some ritual effects that give it explosive openings and cash in on its inherent card advantage later on. On the other hand, Stella Lee also costs 3, but she really wants to come down and either threaten interaction, or just immediately double-spell to trigger her impulse draw. And she's heavily incentivized to hold onto some cheap cards so she can double/triple spell later on, meaning holding back an Abrade or Bitter Reunion for later turns becomes extra cards.

Yeah I have a Pako/Haldan deck that I opted for more play additional land cards as I’m focusing on Pako and doubling up his triggers. So I naturally get a lot of lands from the other three players. Exploration like effects are more valuable for me.

Cultivate/Kodama's reach allows you to run a lower land count in decks that otherwise want to land ramp a whole lot. Especially good in decks with high CMC commanders.