Why Rampant Growth is bad.
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on March 28, 2019, 1:02 p.m. by SynergyBuild
Ramp, card draw, and fatties are the 3 cornerstones of EDH as a concept to many players. Rampant Growth , Rampant Growth is the symbol of one of these three cornerstones (I am sure you'll never guess which one).
I am here to tell you, despite what you may have been told. It is bad. Really bad, not even medium bad like Cultivate (Yes, I hate that too, outside of some specific lists like Tatyova, where it belongs to some extent).
Why? Well, to start, mana production. It doesn't give you mana immediately without Amulet of Vigor , unlike 2- mana manarock variants like the signet cycle ( Azorius Signet , Gruul Signet ), talisman cycle ( Talisman of Indulgence , Talisman of Progress ), Mind Stone , Prismatic Lens , Fellwar Stone , etc.
So? Many decks are mono-colored and can't use signets, or talismans, or have cards like Null Rod / Kataki, War's Wage , etc. or go up against them often. Rampant Growth gives a land. Well, Nature's Lore and Three Visits both give you an untapped land, they can hit Shocklands or Duals to get your colors better than Rampant Growth , and generally are pretty good.
What else? Growth Spiral , Explore , Sakura-Tribe Elder , Farseek , etc. all do Rampant Growth better, and aren't even good.
None of these are great cards. Llanowar Elves , Fyndhorn Elves , Birds of Paradise , Elvish Mystic , Boreal Druid , etc. all do it for half the mana, a turn faster, and are in green. How is a 2 mana card better?
Fast artifact mana or land mana like Mana Crypt , Mana Vault , Sol Ring , Chrome Mox , Mox Diamond , Ancient Tomb , Gemstone Caverns , etc. all do more work in almost all cases.
Enchantment mana like Wild Growth , Utopia Sprawl , Fertile Ground , Carpet of Flowers , Exploration , Burgeoning , etc.
Even Broken Bond or other cards with ramp attached can do more work. Farhaven Elf or Wood Elves with an elf-tribal deck, or dorks, etc.
So, with all of this, is there any real reason to run the cancerous growth (see what I did there xD)?
Yes, price. Rampant Growth is ~20 cents right now. Sure Gruul Signet , Golgari Signet , Simic Signet , Prismatic Lens , Llanowar Elves , Fractured Powerstone , Moss Diamond , Growth Spiral , Explore , Coiling Oracle , Broken Bond and tons more examples are equal to it or cheaper, but I am aware someone will bring it up.
There are too many better cards for lands-matter decks to use it, and too many are cheaper, equally cheap, or better and worth the cost to claim they are the reason Rampant Growth should see play, etc.
Seriously. If you run this card, stop.
I don't think rampant growth is bad. Getting out extra lands is typically the safest way to get ahead in EDH. There are better cards like you said, but I'm already running all the better cards and rampant growth. My particular deck has 18 ramp cards with 14 of them costing 2 or below (non cEDH).
Granted I have 3 EDH decks that run green and only one of them have rampant growth, so I get where you're coming from. But if your strategy is ramp into big things, this will probably make your list.
January 7, 2020 1:38 p.m.
pcud if u use actual good ramp cards no it won't, it's so far down on the list that you should literally never play it. I don't even run it in my Tatyova list, that's how bad it is.
January 7, 2020 2:49 p.m.
Soren841 I'm curious, what ramp cards do you run in that list? How many at each CMC?
I also like cards like Collector Ouphe. In my Meren deck, for example, I have actually been taking more of the rocks out for land ramp since I have enough tutors in that deck that it makes it reasonable that I can get The Ouphe out almost every game. I don't run rampant growth in that deck, but if that deck needed more ramp than 10 cards, you bet Rampant Growth would find it's way there.
Again, it's not the best, but it's not bad, especially when budget is something to be considered.
January 7, 2020 7:19 p.m.
pcud I run 30 pieces of ramp and 6 of them are over 2cmc. Rampant Growth is objectively bad.
January 7, 2020 10:39 p.m.
Soren841 Alright. What are those 26 pieces of ramp that are 2CMC or below that are better than rampant growth and are budget friendly?
January 8, 2020 12:47 p.m.
pcud they aren't budget friendly because I play good decks :) I could replace them all with budget friendly options that are below 2cmc and better than Rampant Growth, but I'm not going to because there's no benefit to me and I really don't give a shit if u live in ignorance.
January 8, 2020 12:54 p.m.
griffstick says... #9
Rampant growth is bad.
I have this ramp rule of thumb. If a ramp card doesn't put me 2 ahead its likely worth a closer look. I'd rather play Explosive Vegetation than Rampant Growth I'm not a fan or ramp cards that feel like card disadvantage. That's why I like Cultivate so much more than Rampant Growth . Mind Stone is leagues above rampant growth and mind stone is budget.
January 8, 2020 1:01 p.m. Edited.
To start out, I forgot about this thread, so it took me a while to log on and realize that there had been responses... so my bad.
Soren841 Well of course there's a lot of better ramps cards and Rampant Growth would never make it in a competitive deck that's running a lot of artifact ramp like moxes. We're talking about different worlds here and if you can't tell the difference, I wonder who's really ignorant here...
griffstick I get that. I used to be more into the 2 for 1 until I started making more decks that really care about when they ramp. My more powerful decks typically have 90% of their ramp on turns 1 and 2 as most of their commanders cost 4. So the idea is to play the commander out on turn 3 and start with the game plan. I also understand running cards like Mind Stone over Rampant Growth. I personally would be inclined to run rampant growth over mind stone in a lot of my play groups since everyone runs a decent amount of mass artifact removal and cards like Collector Ouphe. If that wasn't the case, I would rather run things like Mind Stone since it's more flexible and can tap the turn it comes down.
January 16, 2020 1:37 a.m.
griffstick mindstone is more expensive than rampant growth
Arby_Q says... #1
Right. There's also the part where you wrote:
"It is bad. Really bad, not even medium bad"
Including Three Visits, there are only 5 land ramp cards that cost 2 mana. Rampant Growth might be the worst of the 5, but that doesn't make it a bad card.
March 31, 2019 6:06 p.m.