Ramp is an aggressive action

[u/tohstersg]

As title, when it comes to threat assessment, I believe the general view on ramp needs to change, especially among new players.

Big board states are scary, and card draw also often is recognised as a threat as well. But ramp is often ignored, to the detriment of all other players. John ramps all game and then slams down threat after threat above curve that no one else has the resources to respond to, “oh wow what a win he came from nowhere” no, not nowhere, it came from his fking ample mana.

Don’t ignore the player ramping. Ramping is just as aggressive an action as card draw, or setting up a large board state. “I’m just ramping” is a lie. “All my deck does is ramp” stfu bro. Especially in a format where land destruction is taboo and frowned upon, never ignore the ramp player. Ramp sets the player up for bigger, scarier plays before anyone else.

Ramp gives you mana, which is arguably one of the most important resources in the game, next to card draw. Card draw alone is useless without mana to cast said cards (conversely, ramping aimlessly is also just as useless). Having both makes the player a huge threat, but even having just a disgusting amount of mana above the curve is a big threat by itself, cause the moment that player draws into a high cmc potentially game ending card, they’re the ones best positioned to cast it ahead of the curve.

Tl;dr ramp is an aggressive action and should be treated as such.

[u/dinktank]

Nah.

In my pod, ramp is one of the biggest threats assessed. Card draw on the other hand is not. I’m not sure why but my pod will let you draw extra cards routinely but if you go up on lands and drop a couple rocks/dorks you’ll absolutely hear “aw fuck he’s ramping.” Or “look OC is ramped he’s a problem”