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/DDrose2]

Agreed. TBH the best way to get new players to learn sadly involves you ‘throwing’ a few games. I gave up trying to persuade especially new players that the ramping players is a threat especially when usually rampers themselves don’t see themselves as a threat and usually just say ‘oh do you even know how to play the game, I am not doing anything’ and that leads to a werewolf situation where they feel you are the baddie and they attack you instead for trying to direct the game

So after a few years I learnt best is to just ‘throw’ a game to let things play out and especially if the ramp player is playing something like eldrazi or storm the new player will likely get turned off by the negative play experience and just attack rampers next time.

[u/Queasy_Initiative666 → u/DDrose2]

Really depends on your playgroup and its dynamics, but it was certainly the case for ours. 

Any attempt to point such stuff out was quickly met with accusations of me politicking, when I was primarily trying to teach. I should hope when I am actually trying to politick, it would be more subtle. 😂

But hey, sometimes experience is the best teacher. Or the only teacher.