Hi folks! We’re going to continue our analysis of 3-cost mana rocks for Commander games of Magic The Gathering! If you missed our last article on the series where we go over a bit about our criteria and what exactly mana rocks are, check that out here.
We’ll be using a rating scale to discuss these cards and how they rank up against others in this category:
S: The only reason you wouldn’t include this is personal choice, other synergy, or budget.
A:Â Always a solid choice, or is overwhelmingly good in a specific archetype.
B:Â Generally a good pick, can work well in most decks or very well in others with synergy.
C: Good in niche situations or specific decks, but might be outclassed by other picks if you don’t have specific synergy with it.
D: Generally outclassed by other picks. Only playable in very particular niches or if you just like the card and it fits your deck’s theme.
We have a lot to cover, so let’s not waste any time and get down to business.
Agility Bobblehead
Breaking my own rules right out of the gate? Why yes, dear reader. These are technically a cycle, but I’m going to look at them individually because their effects are drastically different, and their viability changes quite a bit assuming you aren’t just running all of them.
I think this is pretty decent on its own, things like Rogue’s Passage are pretty common lands to see at tables just due to how powerful having unblockable can be in a pinch. This can make a scary card really explosive when people don’t expect it, and it doesn’t really have any restrictions as a ramp spell to accommodate for that power.
Rating: B, can be a solid inclusion when you want things to come down swinging, and realistically doesn’t need other Bobbleheads to work well.
Altar of the Lost
Entering tapped isn’t a great start, and even though it taps for two mana it’s got pretty tight restrictions. Unless you really are frequently casting from the graveyard, this one’s a bit too tough to make work for the turns you actually want to be ramping.
Rating: D, I think you can make a case for things like Lier, Disciple of the Drowned where you can force flashback on other cards and are stuck without powerful ramp colors.
Altar of the Pantheon
It’s great if you’re using a deck that cares about devotion (i.e. one of the Theros-set Gods as a commander), providing easier access to devotion payoffs and incremental lifegain. Outside of that, it doesn’t provide much, even if you’re playing a God that doesn’t care about devotion.
Rating: D due to it being only useful for a few specific commanders, although it might be handy in Esika, God of the Tree on a budget.
Ancient Cornucopia
This poses an interesting question: is this more worth it to you than a Cultivate? Often times this can really get a decent hunk of life in 5 color decks, but something that helps your mana base more and smooths out your land drops is a hard effect to compete with.
Green-exclusive artifacts will always be in a bit of a struggle against green having access to other more potent forms of ramp, and while this definitely has a good use case in 5 color lists that need a bit of a life boost to offset things like Shock lands, it definitely struggles as you drop in color count.
Rating: C in 5 color decks or 3-4 color decks with specific lifegain synergy, D in anything else.
Bandit’s Haul
I’m a big fan of this one. If you haven’t played with Thunder Junction cards, I have great news: committing crimes is easy in the yee-haw wild west. You will get a lot of loot counters just from playing the game normally, and paying two mana to draw a card is pretty handy when you can do it often and at instant speed. This is really a solid inclusion for any decks that lack card draw and have a reliable way to get loot counters, particularly on other player’s turns.
Rating: A, not every deck will need the extra draw, but it really makes a good case as a well rounded utility card.
Bonder’s Ornament
I want to give a special shoutout to this card for Battle-Box style decks. I think it’s mediocre in typical constructed (seriously, I have never seen this card outside of someone playing an Ikoria preconstructed deck), but if you’re making a “game night/battle box” style set to enjoy with friends this can be a fun inclusion since you can tailor every deck to have one, making for some neat politics.
Rating: D, really pretty lacking unless you know other decks at the table have it. Even then, it’s not quite powerful, but it makes for some fun game interactions.
Bounty Board
I think that cards that incentivize player interaction are great, and getting to literally put bounties out for creatures to give other players a good reason to kill things is a great concept. In political decks this will shine for that reason, but I don’t think most decks will want this just because it ends up realistically netting more cards to opponents than you. It’s great flavor and it’s never going to explicitly be bad to include this in a control-focused strategy, but just keep in mind you’ll be feeding resources to players who are eventually still going to try to punt you off the board.
Rating: C, it’s not my favorite but it’s got great flavor and can net you some good temporary alliances to get rid of problem creatures.
Charisma Bobblehead
Compared to the last one we looked at, this one is definitely more beneficial if you’re deeper in the Bobblehead zone, as the token generation becomes actually pretty worth it once you’ve got a few of these in play. If you’re running it as a single piece though, I’d pass in favor of something else.
Rating: D, goes up in value quite a bit if you’re running all of the Bobbleheads though.
Chromatic Lantern
I’ve been a long time preacher of how much I like this card for 3+ color decks. What it lacks in utility, it makes up in mana fixing: it just fixes all of your lands, straight up. Interestingly, the value of this card is actually much higher in decks that have a less powerful landbase; if you’ve already got Fetches, Shocks, and all the fixings, you won’t really care about this as much, but if you aren’t comitting to a manabase like that this can really help smooth out the edges. Even in decks that have already good mana fixing, it’s nice to have one extra wildcard that just solves your issues.
In good conscience though, I can’t rate this super high since really all it does is fix mana issues that technically are avoidable in deck construction, and become drastically less problematic the less colors you have. That being said, I’m still a massive fan of this and definitely reccomend it in many 3+ color decks that can struggle with mana fixing properly. I personally play it in Trynn & Silvar, and it’s always been handy there in Mardu colors.
Rating: B, the power fluctuates based on your need for mana fixing.
Coalition Relic
This card really shines in decks with counter manipulation. Proliferate is quite a popular effect, even more so after the recent Phyrexia sets that brought it back in force. It can be a neat way to set up for a turn where you just generate a stupid amount of mana off this. Notably, it’s great in Superfriends decks where you want to leverage Proliferate to boost the power of your planeswalkers anyway, so this will just always be able to generate a bunch of mana for you in the following turn. It’s pretty niche, but it offers a lot of potential for a single card, and you aren’t really paying much overhead for it.
Rating: B, it’s a staple for the aforementioned archetypes for good reason.
Commander’s Sphere
Oh, the sacred orb. I have gone from loving this card, to never touching it, to now finding a good niche for it. Back in the earlier days of the format’s popularity boom, this was a staple that used to go in many decks. As the game has evolved, I think it’s much less of an automatic include in many decks, but if your ramp package is mana-rock focused and you value having the flexibility of getting whatever color of mana you need, it’s hard to beat. It’s able to sacrifice itself for free in response to removal, making it a great “investment” since board wipes blowing it up are much less brutal than with most mana rocks. As with many of the “generate any mana color” rocks, it has more value the more colors you have, so I find myself excluding this from 2 color decks more often, but it frequently finds a home in my 3+ color brews. I do still think this card is played a bit more than it should be considering how many good 2-cost mana rocks there are today, but in the 3-drop category it’s still got a great home.
Rating: B, although it’s definitely less efficient in two color decks and a bit of a crime in mono-color.
Component Pouch
This card is a sleeper hit for combo decks that want to set up for an explosive turn. Aside from the obvious great synergy with die-rolling decks, this ends up working really well with things that let you untap it so you can either re-stock up on counters or to tap it multiple times in a turn. If you stock up so you can tap this twice with an untap ability that lets you generate 4 colored mana, which is pretty nice from a 3 mana artifact. It’s still really niche, but I think cards that can have a really good ceiling in a particular niche are some of the more fun cards that make Commander shine.
Rating: C, it belongs in very particular decks, but has some really good opportunities there.
Conversion Apparatus
It’s really easy to make a shitload of energy nowadays, and generating 3 mana for 3 energy is a really solid deal. It’s really good in energy decks, but you’re never going to have three energy to throw around outside of that and it’s definitely not worth paying the tax for it on this card just to fix your mana colors. That being said, in a dedicated energy deck having the ability to exchange mana for energy is also pretty invaluable, so it’s pretty much always going to be useful in those decks.
Rating: B, since it’s an auto-include in Energy decks in my humble opinion.
Crowded Crypt
I quite like this for mono-black decks actually. Mono-black is notoriously quite horrendous at ramping outside of Urborg shenanigans, and while this doesn’t explicitly help you ramp better, it provides a unique way to rebuild your board after a wipe. Even though it was introduced in a 2-color Zombie deck, I think I prefer it in a mono-color scenario since I’m not quite sure I value it better than mana fixing, but it’s definitely not the worst as far as mana rocks that generate creatures go.
Rating: C
FromTheShire: I would actually argue mono black is the second best ramp color due to the presence of both powerful one off Ritual effects like the OG Dark Ritual or Songs of the Damned and more sustained output Crypt Ghast effects on top of being packed full of tutors to find your Urborg and Cabal Coffers. The effect here is still noteworthy though.
Cultivator’s Caravan
I have played this card for years in Sram, Senior Edificer. I have not once crewed this card, so I can comfortably say you can often ignore that part outside of dedicated vehicle decks even though it’s got decent stats. This card realistically is a vessel for Vehicle decks to get a mana rock that can synergize with other things in the deck, and that can be really good. In Sram, it cantrips itself. In Greasefang, Okiba Boss it becomes a recurring threat that makes it good for triggering ETB effects and generally being a pain to remove. It’s pretty shit outside of synergistic scenarios, but it was basically custom built for those anyway.
Rating: B, as I firmly believe this is an auto-include for most vehicle decks even if the actual mana generation isn’t crazy.
That’s all for now, we’ll be continuing to review these in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more!
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