Standard Deck Tech: Selesnya Ramp

Ramp decks were among the decks that were being held back as top competitors in the Standard Metagame due to the presence of Alrund's Epiphany.

In my article where I speculated about how Standard would shape up after the bans, I mentioned that I see the Storm the Festival archetypes as one of the potential winners with the latest announcement, and while I clearly got the wrong formula of which big mana deck would succeed, a Ramp deck went spectacularly well this weekend: Selesnya Ramp.

Without much ado, let's get straight to the decklist!

Not only did the above list win Sunday's Standard Challenge, it was also featured in the Top 8 of the GGtoor Arena Cup, one of the qualifiers for the next Set Championship, and both lists use the same 75 cards.

The goal here is clear: play dorks early to speed up your mana and then start dropping your bombs sequentially until burying your opponent in value. But this archetype also has as one of its advantages the ability to be a “go big” and “go wide” deck simultaneously.

“Go big” decks are archetypes that tries to play big threats sequentially, commonly driving up mana costs so that the next threat is even more powerful than the last. Ramp decks commonly tend to go this route.

However, Selesnya Ramp has so many ways to produce small creatures with its cards and increase their power that it also rewards the “go wide”, where a deck seeks to populate the board with many smaller creatures and then grow their size over the course of the game to the point where the situation is out of the opponent's control.

This is an issue for the opponent because it's hard to respond to both situations with all-encompassing cards: Spot removals or counterspells are infinitely better when dealing with Wrenn and Seven, but they don't work as well if you want to deal with small creatures, while sweepers like Doomskar works better when to remove many creatures from the board, but it becomes less useful when it comes to resolving just one gigantic token or a manland.

With this, it is necessary to diversify and use your answers wisely to deal with Selesnya Ramp, as there will be situations where leaving a Felidar Retreat on the battlefield can be more dangerous than allowing an Esika's Chariot to come into play, for example.

Its weakness, however, is that it doesn't draw as well, and it doesn't have good ways of filtering the top to get better draws, so it's too limited to making its first explosive plays and hope the opponent doesn't respond to everything to the point they limit you to relying on topdeck, as its failure rate is significantly high since it has many dorks and cards that doesn't work well on its own, which means it's vulnerable to high levels of interaction.

As expected and already mentioned, the purpose of this list is to play your bombs quickly, and for that, it needs plenty of mana.

To that end, you have cards that do something else besides adding mana.

Prosperous Innkeeper gives you some extra life when it stays on the battlefield, and doesn't specifically need to be in play to generate its extra mana.

Tangled Florahedron doubles as a land drop on a deck that definitely needs a land every turn, but is preferably used as a ramp to make the archetype jump straight to four mana at turn 3.

Katilda, Dawnhart Prime is a dork that also offers a way to make Brutal Cathar add mana if required, while her ability to put +1/+1 counters on each creature you control establishes as part of the "go wide" strategy with its tokens and smaller creatures in a few turns if the game stretches, and this makes her a potential removal magnet.

The middle of the game is composed especially of interactions, or means of guaranteeing a better board position, or even card advantage.

The creatures that exile others on this list also take advantage of the fact that there are many tokens being put into the battlefield by permanents such as Edgar, Charmed Groom, Esika's Chariot, Starnheim Unleashed, Wrenn and Seven, as these tokens are permanently exiled.

Brutal Cathar is a human and interacts with Katilda, Dawnhart Prime, but its main function is to hold creatures from aggressive decks exiling them, and doubling its effect if the opponent doesn't respect the Day/Night cycle, which this list is very capable of manipulating to its advantage by obtaining ways to utilize its mana without needing to cast spells.

Skyclave Apparition has the same function of holding the game, but works broadly against several other permanents, dealing with cards like Esika's Chariot and The Meathook Massacre definitively.

Circle of Confinement follows the same pattern as the cards above, being especially useful in dealing with your opponents' early drops, ranging from aggressive creatures like Werewolf Pack Leader and Reckless Stormseeker to value engines, such as Welcoming Vampire or Florian, Voldaren Scion.

Among the cards that aim to establish some value for its controller, we have Wedding Announcement, which is quickly becoming a staple, offering more bodies on the board, or even extra draws under the right conditions. Its other side significantly increases the pressure your mana dorks and smaller creatures offer if ignored by your opponent.

Yasharn, Implacable Earth guarantees your next land drops with extreme ease, while also being a powerful disruptive effect against some of the diverse archetypes that seek to take advantage of cards like Deadly Dispute or Rite of Oblivion alongside Shambling Ghast and Eyetwitch, such as Orzhov Midrange.

Also, a 4/4 for four mana creature that offers two cards to your hand isn't a bad choice in the Maindeck.

Like every Big Mana archetype, Selesnya Ramp wants to speed up the game in the first few turns to sequence bombs throughout the game.

The obvious inclusion for this purpose is Wrenn and Seven, as the Planeswalker does a bit of everything by producing gigantic tokens that can be copied with Esika's Chariot, allowing you to play extra lands in a turn if you are trying to ramp up to a massive Starnheim Unleashed or Emeria's Call, it guarantees land drops with its first ability and has an ultimate that, while rarely achieved, can offer an almost endless amount of card advantage in longer matchups.

The list also features Starnheim Unleashed as a spell with the potential to create a massive number of tokens while, like other Foretell spells, can be exiled at early in the game to protect it from discard effects, and just two or three 4/4 bodies with Vigilance and Flying are more than enough to establish the pressure to close the game in two or three turns.

Another payoff for its mana abundance is Emeria's Call, which puts 8 power on the board with a single card, while making your creatures indestructible, as well as serving as an occasional land drop when needed.

Esika's Chariot is one of the most powerful cards in Standard right now for its ability to create powerful snowball effects, even if it's just by doubling its own tokens.

But when your board also has a giant Treefolk token, or 4/4 angels with Flying, Esika's Chariot becomes even more threatening and demands immediate answers.

Another permanent that also works incredibly well with this list and interacts well with Esika's Chariot is Felidar Retreat, as an enchantment that doesn't do much on its own, but can significantly increase your board position over the course of the game, or the size of your creatures, and is specifically devastating if you sequence it with Wrenn and Seven's second ability, as well as collaborating for a “go wide” strategy with your mana dorks.

Although this list doesn't have as many permanents as what is commonly desired to better run Storm the Festival, this spell is still a value engine strong enough to have its place in the list, being a late game manasink.

There's not much to say about Overgrown Farmland and Branchloft Pathway, they are the best Dual Lands available in Standard right now.

However, Selesnya Ramp is one of the best decks to use its respective manlands because it has enough mana to turn Lair of the Hydra into a giant creature on an empty board, while Cave of the Frost Dragon is still a 3/4 creature with flying that dodges from certain removals and still establish some pressure.

Field of Ruin is still a much-needed land to deal with other manlands.

The list has a huge interaction package on the Sideboard, which we can divide between removals and disruption.

Among the removals, we have Portable Hole as a cheap way to deal with smaller creatures, but it can also deal with other low-cost problematic permanents like The Meathook Massacre and Ranger Class

Divine Smite is excellent at a time when the most played archetype is Orzhov Midrange, especially for dealing, at Instant-Speed, with some of its main card advantage engines: Lolth, Spider Queen and Sorin the Mirthless.

In addition to also offering indestructible to one of your creatures, Valorous Stance is a great way to deal with Goldspan Dragon and other high-power creatures commonly played by archetypes like Izzet Dragons and Temur/Jund Midrange.

The two additional copies of Skyclave Apparition offer a flexible way to increase board position while dealing with your opponent's problematic permanents at a low cost.

In the disruption category, we have cards that tries to prevent the opponent from casting their spells at the right timing, or from taking advantage of certain engines.

Elite Spellbinder is highly efficient at dealing with Midrange and Control while offering an evasive 3/1 body for three mana, but it loses some space in a list that doesn't aim to play under the opponent.

However, the PVDDR world champion card is a great way to get information about your opponent's resources while significantly delaying a key piece from their hand.

Reidane, God of the Worthy is particularly useful in delaying Midrange or Control decks that use few creatures or that require specific high-cost spells, such as Esper Control.

As already mentioned, Yasharn, Implacable Earth is a creature that automatically offers some value as soon as it enters the battlefield, but significantly delays the way some archetypes gain value through Deadly Dispute and other cards which cares about sacrificing permanents.

The sideboard has two more copies of Felidar Retreat, a particularly difficult to interact threat as it is an enchantment of which you can have multiple copies on the battlefield.

It's a solid option as there are games where opting for a “go wide” strategy is more rewarding, and this enchantment manages to create a favorable board position on its own just by the archetype doing what it proposes to do by playing lands, in addition to interacting well with smaller creatures that the opponent is not commonly interested in wasting resources on them.

I don't really like to speculate on how an archetype should or shouldn't settle after a new set is released before the full spoiler is out, but there are already a few cards that might be interesting to consider in Selesnya Ramp after Kamigawa's release.

Azusa's Many Journeys offers an extra land drop as soon as it enters the battlefield, and the extra life on the next turn might be against Aggro, while its transformed side can give you some extra mana if you use your resources wisely between pre-combat and post-combat.

Boseiju, Who Endures and Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire are excellent and have little or no concessions to be played, and it wouldn't be surprising if the entire cycle becomes multi-format staples.

This archetype manages to have an artifact and an enchantment with some ease through Esika's Chariot and Felidar Retreat, and even though the occasions where both are on the battlefield are unlikely, the possibility to draw one or two extra cards can make Roadside Reliquary a great utility land.

Kura, the Boundless Sky might be an interesting option, but he competes in the same slot as Wrenn and Seven, and with its ability only functioning as a Death trigger, it's possible it doesn't have enough to deserve a slot.

I believe that Selesnya Ramp is one of the best archetypes to try to play March of Otherworldly Light on the Sideboard, since this spell is extremely flexible in its utility, and the fact that it is Instant is very helpful, as it means we don't need to worry about spending a lot of mana on your own turn to deal with problematic permanents.

Because it's a threat AND response with Flash on the same card, The Wandering Emperor might deserve a slot on Selesnya Ramp's maindeck or sideboard for its flexibility and ability to be useful in different situations throughout the game.

Touch the Spirit Realm is a removal that also doubles as blink to protect some relevant creature, and has a mighty synergy with Esika's Chariot.

That was my Selesnya Ramp Deck Tech, a list that reappeared this weekend, having good results in the Set Championship Qualifier and also in the Standard Challenge

If you have any opinions, feedback or questions, feel free to leave them in the comments section.

Thanks for reading!