Hi folks! Last time on this little series, we were talking about some of the options for ramping in the 2 mana slot. Today, we’re going to the other end of the ramp spectrum and looking at 4 mana cost ramp artifacts. As a refresher: Ramping is the term for spending your mana on sources of additional mana to use on later turns. Think of it like an investment; spend more mana now to have access to more later. Due to the nature of Commander being a multiplayer format where players have high starting life totals, raw aggression isn’t as potent as it is in a 1v1 format, so the early turn are best used setting up your board and hand to be in a more advantageous state for the rest of the game. While Ramping is not the only way to aid in setting up your game plan for success, it’s widely considered to be universally helpful and always a safe addition to most decks – if not a necessity for some.
This Ramp can come in many forms, such as: adding more lands to the battlefield, creatures that tap for mana, or what we’re going to talk about today – mana rocks. A “mana rock” is a colloquial term for an artifact that’s primary purpose is tapping for mana, similar to a land.
4 mana is quite a bit for a ramp spell: these tend to come in at the end of the sort of early-game “setup” phase of a Commander game where players are starting to cast commanders and deploy threats. Due to this, they tend to be more potent in decks that have a higher mana curve or have the means to protect their expensive rocks from being destroyed. It’s also worth mentioning that particularly at 4+ mana, green land-ramp spells start to be more favorable due to being better protected and sometimes more versatile on when you can cast them, so many of these options are viewed from the perspective of decks without access to green ramp. That being said, some of these ramp pieces provide unique effects that can be really powerful when used in the right decks, and have additional effects that can make them worth using for a purpose beyond mana generation.
We’re going to use a good old letter grade tier list to generally rank all of our options on how easily they can be included in decks, but as a reminder: there will always be other cases of specific strategies, playstyles, and commanders that can make better use of these than a general point of view can show, so don’t be afraid to play these if you find a solid synergy.
Our ratings are as follows:
S: The only reason you wouldn’t include this is personal choice, other synergy, or budget.
A: Always a solid choice, or is overwhelmingly good in a specific archetype.
B: 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.
Mana Battery Cycle
These are weird in terms of a true “Ramp” spell since they don’t actually ramp you naturally. They effectively let you store mana to use at a later date, but with the caveat of being really inefficient at what they do. It takes two of any color mana to add one charge counter, so while this does act as a sort of delayed mana filtering, it’s still not a great rate for actually generating mana. I think these have a use case in proliferate decks, where you can put one charge counter on them then cash it all in later for like a 5-6 mana ramp turn, which can be honestly a pretty cool way to utilize this even if its a touch slow.
Rating: D due to it being really only good in one niche (and even there it’s a bit slow), but if you have counter manipulation it’s pretty handy. It’s also pretty outclassed by a card down the list.
Note: I’m going to mention Gemstone Array here too since it’s pretty similar, just doesn’t require tapping, but removes each counter one at a time. This means people can respond to blow it up easier before you can use all of the mana if you don’t dump it all at once, which is a bit annoying, but it’s a bit faster to charge up. It’s pretty much in the same category as the mana batteries.
Charmed Pendant
This is a card I’ve never seen until making this article, but honestly it’s pretty cool. First and foremost, it does provide a source of self-mill, which mana decks leverage nicely even if that isn’t this card’s primary purpose. It adds mana equal to the number of colored mana pips of the card you milled, which has a really high ceiling and a floor of rock bottom. Mill a land? Zero mana, you get nothing, you lose; good day sir! Mill a Progenitus? Enjoy your 10 mana. This obviously flourishes in decks that run cards with a lot of colored pips, but where I think it really shines are decks that manipulate the top of the deck via frequent Scry effects, Miracles, and other means of putting cards on top of your library. Being able to make sure this doesn’t hit duds is an essential part of this, so knowing you won’t just hit lands is pretty key to making this work.
Rating: C, you really want a way to make sure this won’t occasionally ramp you for nothing, but the top end can get pretty crazy here.
Diamond Kaleidoscope
Another mana-battery-esque card in that it doesn’t really ramp you, but it makes tokens you can sacrifice for mana. On one hand, this is cool in token decks since it serves multiple purposes. On the other, if this dies you can’t sacrifice the prisms for mana, making this a really expensive dork maker.
Rating: D, 7 mana to reserve 1 for later on top of being pretty fragile is a tough sell, but making tokens can be good if you can copy your tokens often.
Empowered Autogenerator
This is a much more modernized version of the mana batteries, since it effectively always can ramp you off the cuff, doesn’t lose its counters when it taps, and STILL has crazy synergy with Proliferate effects. Entering tapped means it’s particularly slow for a 4 mana rock, but it really starts to snowball out of control after a few turns. Notably it also is great with untap effects, since you can also use those to get multiple counters in a turn.
Rating: B, this has absolutely crazy scaling even if it has a slow start, and quite a few popular deck archetypes can easily crank this up to 11.
Firemind Vessel
Frankly, I think this card represents a good “baseline” for what you expect from a 4 cost rock. It can generate 2+ mana, fix multiple colors, and has good synergy with untap shenanigans compared to cheaper rocks, even though it sucks a bit more when they get hit with spot removal. It’s not fancy, but it gets the job done when you need mana and can’t get your hands on high quality ramp spells from other colors; notably this works pretty well in high CMC Red/Blue decks, which is a pretty thematic win.
Rating: B, it’s overwhelmingly fine but often won’t let you down when you need this type of mana ramp. Obviously not really as helpful in most mono-color decks that aren’t trying to steal cards from other decks.
Hedron Archive
A classic Commander card and topic of a lot of debate online as to its usefulness. I’m pretty indifferent on it. The biggest boon of this card is that it draws two cards in a pinch and enters untapped, but it doesn’t fix mana colors at all. It’s fine, I don’t think I’d jam this in every deck but it does at least have versatility for when you really don’t need more mana or really just need to try for more cards. It’s great in colorless decks or artifact decks that can recycle it though, which definitely scores some points.
Rating: B, in good conscience I can’t really rate this any higher or lower based on how I think this stacks up to other cards on this list. If you’re in the situation where you want to reach for mana rocks that tap for two mana and are willing to invest into the 4-drop category to begin with, I think this will probably serve exactly what you need if you aren’t strapped for colors.
Ice Cauldron
Read the oracle text on this before you try to decipher the Da Vinci Code that is this card’s rules text. It’s a two dollar reserve list card. Let that sink in.
Rating: Ice Cauldron.
Ichor Elixir
I mentioned in our last series that I, the writer, am not super familiar with Planechase games, but due to my understanding of them, this card seems absolutely ace for them. It gives you so much more control and choice over the board state when you’re throwing planar dice down, so that being tied to an already fine mana rock is great value. Aside from that it’s nothing special if you aren’t using those mechanics, but it’s totally worth including if you are even just for the fun of having more interaction with Planechase built into the player decks at the table.
Rating: A in Planechase games, C otherwise.
Khalni Gem
I understand the intent is for this to have synergy with landfall, but this is probably the last card I want to play in a landfall deck to get more synergy, especially since you arguably don’t need mana rocks at all in that archetype.
Rating: D
Krark-Clan Ironworks
KCI is a classic piece used in combo decks across many formats, but it’s also a great value piece for any deck that can generate a lot of artifacts. Food, Clue, and Treasure tokens become 2 mana when you need them. Thopters and Servos? Into the forge with you, that’s 2 mana. This can be absolutely explosive when you need to reserve mana for a big pop-off turn, but it also means you can always have extra in the tank for counterspells and interaction. There are also a slew of brutal combos including this that you can use, with 701 combos for it currently registered on Commander’s Spellbook. It’s a super versatile card for any deck that has the artifacts to power it.
Rating: A. It’s still niche in that you do have to have artifact generation/recursion to some degree to make this work, but with the amount of decks that can do this and with just how powerful of a card it is, it’s hard to argue it’s not going to find a home in a ton of decks. With artifact decks being the most popular archetype according to EDHrec, I don’t feel too bad saying it’s the “least niche-niche” to fill.
Machine God’s Effigy
This card is really hard to rate here for me; it’s real solid as a general creature copy spell, but it’s a bit mediocre as a ramp spell. As a whole package, I think the best way to look at it is as a copy spell that can generate mana in a pinch if you need it. Compared to a lot of other copy spells, this isn’t terrible, as it’s kinda like a Phyrexian Metamorph but trades the Phyrexian mana pip for the ability to be a mana dork. I’m all for this card, but I’m not playing it in replacement as a ramp card.
Rating: Purely as a ramp spell I’d call it a D, but as a copy spell it’s a solid B.
Nyx Lotus
Absolutely fantastic ramp for mono color decks and some two-color options. Devotion is interesting because it’s naturally a bit of a big payoff mechanic on cards like this: this literally taps for nothing on an empty board, but it can be really crazy when you have a reasonable board state. Things like Mono-Red dragons, Big Blue, and even high curve Mono-Black decks can use this to a really good extent. Even then, the floor isn’t that low; at worst it tapping for one or two mana isn’t that bad.
Rating: A, it’s got a really powerful ceiling in the right archetypes, but loses some value 4-5 colors when you can potentially dilute your devotion pool too much.
Paradise Plume
I hate just talking smack on cards, but frankly I do think this one is butt cheeks. Tapping for only one mana at most is pretty rough on a 4 mana ramp card, and while it can help as a source of lifegain in decks that care about that, it’s not going to be enough for incremental lifegain unless you have explicit synergies there. Even if you do have the right archetype for this, it’s not a particularly great lifegain source anyway and other, cheaper cards can do the same job better and not be taking away from a ramp source.
Rating: D, it’s not 100% unplayable but it’s definitely “first cut” material in my book.
Relic of Sauron
Frankly, this is where cards like Hedron Archive and Firemind Vessel get a bit outclassed. If you’re in the colors that can run this, it’s a great ramp piece that fixes really well, enters untapped, and can use a repeatable Thrill of Possibility whenever you need cards. It’s not the cheapest card at the time of writing, but frankly if you’re in the colors for it (or a 4-color-sans-green deck) I think it’s one of the better rocks you can run above 2 mana.
Rating: S in any Grixis colors that don’t include green, I genuinely think you’d be hard pressed to find this not pulling it’s weight in the decks that have access to it.
The only slight to this card is that it’s pretty much locked to a few color combinations, but I’m rating this based on all of the possible decks it’s legal in, especially since the majority of Grixis commander options are 4 mana at the bare minimum.
Sarevok’s Tome
This card is fun and thematic, but I really don’t think I’d play this unless I’m chasing the goal of a really thematic deck alone. Even if you have the initiative, the free casting of a random card is a weird thing to build around for a deck that needs to run a bunch of other not-bombs to actually help get through your dungeons. While casting a card for free could be considered ramp, you still have to pay three mana to do it, which in this case is on a ramp card, so you’re effectively losing two available mana to do that on top of paying the three for the cost. It’s fine if you really build into having this but I really am not sold on it.
Rating: D
Sceptre of Eternal Glory
Due to the stipulation of needing three of the same named land, this is pretty safely committed to Mono-color or two-color decks that run a lot of basics, but three mana for a four drop rock that also color fixes is pretty bonkers. Sadly I think most mana bases with three or more colors just don’t have the basics to really make sure this is online often enough, but if you have the basics this is a heavy hitter.
Rating: A in Mono-Color decks, B otherwise.
Thran Dynamo
I love this card because it offers a really interesting choice. It’s effectively one of the best rocks in this category in terms of raw mana generation; comes in untapped, gives you three colorless mana. The catch is that it gives you nothing else. No mana fixing, no bonus effects, nothing. In general, most people are totally willing to make this trade off, but it means that not every deck will find this to be an optimal choice. In general, high curve, artifact, and tap/untap decks benefit from this the most, but it really comes down to your personal brew and how tight you are on mana fixing. I think if you can include this, it’s hard to argue against the power of just chucking three mana down a turn, but it’s really coming down to what works for you.
Rating: Honestly quite torn here, so I’m going to say somewhere between A and B, since it heavily depends on your need for colorless mana, but when it works it’s 100% diesel gas.
Author’s Note: I’m consciously leaving out Sissay’s Ring and Ur-Golem’s Eye and mentioning them here, as they both are effectively entirely power crept by this card and others on this list and serve little use outside of Colorless Eldrazi decks that really need the redundancy in ramp.
Stonespeaker Crystal
Flexible graveyard hate is something I try to include in every deck I make, and I think this is genuinely one of the better options. Obviously you don’t often want to lose a 4 mana ramp spell, but it’s often way better than the Graveyard player popping off and winning the game, and it at least refunds you the card for your troubles. While I personally find it more useful than something like Hedron Archive, it depends a bit on if you have other sources of graveyard hate available to you (i.e. less useful in black decks that can use Bojuka Bog and other sources). It hits as many graveyards as you want and can leave yours safe as well, which is really handy.
Rating: It’s going to be a pretty high B, it’s a solid pick for decks that need the effect.
The Golden Throne
Whew, this is a really unique mana rock. First, it’s a nice get out of jail free card to save you from getting killed. If players don’t have a way to remove this before killing you, that’s a real kick in the pants. Since it’s probably going to sit on the board for a bit, I consider this a bit of frosting on the cake rather than a main reason you want to include this, but it’s quite a hefty bonus to have in your back pocket.
The real meat here is that this is both a sacrifice outlet and a mana rock. While that makes it more niche, it’s a fantastic multipurpose powerhouse that generates a lot of mana (with great fixing – any combination of colors!) and can easily cause death triggers for aristocrats decks. I think a lot of the reason we don’t see this super often is because of availability or people not choosing to play UB cards in non UB decks, so I’d be interested to see how this would fare with a universes within print.
Rating: A, it’s a real house in Aristocrats decks and pretty solid in regular token decks, but it’s not seeing much play outside of that. I do think this is my most underrated pick of the list, as it’s pretty underrepresented outside of the precon it’s printed in. Give it a try in your next Aristocrats brew if you are alright with UB cards.
Visage of Bolas
What the heck? I played a lot during this set and I don’t remember this in the slightest. Well, let’s look at Nicol Bolas, the Deceiver then, since this hinges on how good that card is as well.
It certainly is one of the planeswalkers ever. It’s waaay too fragile for 8 mana and just doesn’t do enough when it enters to be worth it.
Rating for Nicol Bolas, the Deceiver: What? No, this is a mana rock article!
Back to the artifact, this only generates one mana, so you’re really paying for the tutor and not much else.
Rating: D, it’s great in Nicol Bolas theme decks and not so great everywhere else.
That’s a wrap, join us next week for more Commander content! Let us know if there are any other ramp related topics you want to see us cover. Enjoy your games!
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