The most obvious reasons for not playing Mana Crypt are that it’s too expensive to buy and it makes the deck too powerful.

This lets us use the mana the turn it comes down, which shouldn’t be undervalued. It’s got one simple upside over the other signets: no filtering required. I love this card, and find it so universally useable, even in mono-colored decks. I remember first showing this to my pod late last year, being the newest to Magic and playing with people that remember when the original signets were in standard. It’s the card that keeps on giving: mana positive the turn you play it, brings your turn 4 to turn 2, and it’s great at recommending which pizza you should order for dinner. Is there a card that better represents Commander? I made the mistake of buying a whole bunch of Sol Rings when I first got into the format, not realizing that if you stick with the format you’ll end up with loads if you buy the occasional pre-con. They also help with the most important turns for ramping: turn 1 and turn 2. These three cards require us to find reasons NOT to include them, rather than reasons to include them. Most players will want to keep an opening hand that contains any of these three cards due to the huge advantages they generate. The argument for these three above all other mana rocks is simple: they’re universally good with almost no downside and they’re incredibly easy to cast. Let’s take a look at our mana rock tiers, shall we? I’ve compiled these lists from a range of data sources and hundreds of games. Hence our love of shiny rocks in the format. These concepts might seem trivial at first glance, but since we’re not in a two-person race, we need to have enough of our own threats to protect ourselves, not just hurt one of our opponents. Swing back has much higher stakes too: when we turn our creatures sideways, we’ve got three potential boards that will chose to take advantage of nice, open, face. Hence, ramp and big-person spells have a much bigger place in this format. A Lightning Bolt is much better sent at Birds of Paradise, and the choice is much simpler when you’ve got to burn through 120 points of your opponents health instead of 20 to win a game. The driving forces behind the prevalence of mana rocks in Commander is life total and the fear of swing backs. Alternatively, we can keep it simple by playing the holy trinity of Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, and Arcane Signet. The diversity of the Commander format means we can go all-in on 0-drop artifacts with a Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain “ Cheerios” deck. Prismatic Lens | Illustration by Scott Murphy

Edh best green reamp