In the week since, I've spent some time thinking about exactly why Growth Spiral was so strong. I've seen a lot of arguments making a variety of cases. I want to talk about these arguments and why they are valid or why I think they are missing the point. I also want to bring up a few things I haven't seen as often that I think do a lot to explain the dominance of Growth Spiral.
This may be a bit heavy on some theory, but I hope I can get my point across.
*Begin Theory*
What is Ramp?
The "one land drop per turn" limit is one of the most important rules in Magic. It is the way a cards mana cost dictates what turn it can see play. Without the growing nature of incremental mana increases, the game would be completely different.
There are several ways to play a card on a turn before it's mana cost would normally allow. These ways can be split into four categories. I will call them Ramp, Ritual, Tron, and Affinity.
Affinity refers to any cost reduction mechanic. Affinity for Artifacts is the classic example, letting you play a 7cc Myr Enforcer as early as turn 1. The Medallion and Familiar cycles from Tempest and Invasion would be in this category, as would Marauding Raptor and Grand Arbiter Augustin IV.
Tron refers to special lands that produce more than one mana when activated. These lands usually require some setup (like Tron, Tolarian Academy, and Lotus Field) or restrictions on mana type (Mishra's Workshop, Ancient Tomb, and also Tron).
Ritual refers to a one-time boost of mana, usually coming at the expense of card advantage. Dark Ritual, Black Lotus, and Ancient Spring are examples.
Ramp refers to a permanent increase in the amount of mana you have. This can come in one of three forms: Mana Rocks (Azorius Signet, Mox Ruby, and Coalition Relic are examples), Mana Dorks (Birds of Paradise, Noble Hierarch, and Llanowar Evles are examples), and Land Ramp (Rampant Growth, Farseek, and Cultivate are examples).
Growth Spiral, Explore, and other similar cards don't necessarily fall into one of these four categories, but they mostly resemble Ramp when they work as intended.
How to use Ramp cards
Mana Rocks can be used to power out expensive spells, but are more commonly used as fixing and ways to fill out the curve. They are less about accelerating into a game-breaking 6+ mana cost spell and instead about ensuring a deck gets to four mana and then reliably casts 4cc spells the rest of the game. These usually run between 24-26 lands. Example Deck
Mana Dorks are usually used to power out 3cc and 4cc creatures on turns 2 and 3 and then turn into attackers themselves when there is nothing left to cast. These decks run much lower land counts (20-23) and tend to be more aggressive than Mana Rock and Land Ramp decks. Example Deck
Land Ramp decks are trying to cast an expensive game-changing spell as fast as possible. Usually, this spell is Primeval Titan, but it can be anything similarly powerful. Example Deck. These decks run 26+ lands due to what I like to call The Fundamental Rule of Land Ramp:
The Fundamental Rule of Land Ramp: A land ramp spell is only useful if you are still making your land drop for the turn.
Land Ramp decks need to cast their big splashy spell *early* to have success. The Mana Rock and Mana Dork strategies can still execute their game plans adequately when they don't have the follow up land drops. Mana Rock and three lands is enough, Mana Dork and two lands is enough. The Land Ramp deck usually needs a combination of six Lands and Mana Ramp cards, preferably four lands two Ramp cards.
When I look at the various Growth Spiral decks in Standard the past two years, I see much more similarities to Mana Rock decks than I see similarities to Land Ramp decks. The main exception is the Field of the Dead / Golos deck from when Field was still legal for play.
Mulligans, Explore, and Rampant Growth
Ramp decks mulligan poorly, but topdeck fairly well.
I've played a fair share of Primeval Titan ramp decks in the past. The card Explore has been always been an option, but I've usually decided to not play it. My main issue with the card is it's reliability. Consider a hand of three land, Explore, Sakura-Tribe Elder, and two Primeval Titan. On the play, this hand can cast a turn four Titan whenever you draw two land over four draw steps (three draw steps for turn, one from Explore). With 27 lands in the deck, this is about 61% of the time. If the card Explore is replaced with Farseek. you only need to draw one land over three draw steps to cast turn four Titan. This happens about 81.8 % of the time with a 26 land deck.*
Now, this is a specific scenario I've cherry picked to show the advantages of Farseek over Explore. Explore has advantages too, mainly when you topdeck in the late game with enough mana to cast everything. But Explore also had another downside that was a bigger issue for me. When you mulligan with the deck, especially to 5 or fewer cards, Explore becomes much worse. Explore only gives you the extra land drop the turn you cast it, so a hand of two land, two Explore (lol), and Primeval Titan is significantly worse than two land, two Farseek, and Primeval Titan. Also depending on your interactive spells, it can be way better to have Farseek and guarantee having three mana on turn three to cast Anger of the Gods than it is to roll the dice and hope to draw a land over two draws.
For these reasons, I've shied away from using Explore in a dedicated Land Ramp decks. Others have had success with it, and maybe they are right that the benefits outweigh the downsides, but this is how I've seen it for the past decade or so.
The difference between a deck that HAS to get to six mana vs one that just wants to get to four or five more consistently can be seen in these two lists.
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| RUG Control |
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| Valakut |
The first deck is playing a much more interactive, controlling style using Explore more as a Mana Rock. It does have a 6cc Titan, but it is not imperative that it comes down on turn four. The second deck is a classic Land Ramp deck that only plays two explores (lol) despite having 28 lands in the deck, instead choosing to play Overgrown Battlement and Green Sun's Zenith to have more hard ramp spells.
*End Theory*
Growth Spiral in Standard
Why was Growth Spiral so oppressive in Standard? I think it has less to do with the Ramp aspect and more to do with the surrounding cards. Lets look at two more recent lists.
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| Esper Control |
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| Bant Control |
I chose to use two lists from the same player instead of maybe better performing lists to get a sense of the internal consistency in the deckbuilding choices. I want to focus on Growth Spiral in the Bant decks because it's less of a combo enabler like the Temur Reclamation deck. Wilderness Reclamation is itself an incredibly powerful Ramp card that adds some complications to discussing the raw power of Growth Spiral.
I think both of the lists above by Andrea Mengucci are very similar. Both are controlling strategies looking to stabilize and end the game with planeswalkers. When you compare the numbers, both have similar amounts of 5cc+ spells. The Esper deck had four Teferi, Hero of Dominaria as well as two Command the Dreadhorde. The Bant deck has two ECD, two Nissa, two Shark Typhoon, and two Hydroid Krasis. The difference in the decks is how they plan on getting to the point in the game of casting these 5cc cards.
The Esper deck plays a traditional control role, using early disruption like Thought Erasure, Cast Down and Oath of Kaya to disrupt the opponents early plays. It has Kaya's Wrath to clean up the board if it gets out of hand. Once the board is stabilized, Teferi Hero of Dominaria can take over the game.The Bant deck has the same end game of the control deck, but gets access to eight Explores. This means it doesn't need as much early interaction, it can skip that stage of the game.
4 Thought Erasue, 4 Cast Down, 3 Oath of Kaya, 3 Basilica Bell-Haunt, 1 Despark, 3 Kaya's Wrath, 2 Elderspell = 20
4 Growth Spiral, 4 Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, 2 Aether Gust, 2 Dovin's Veto, 1 Brazen Borrower, 2 Mystical Dispute, 2 Shatter the Sky, 3 Land = 20
I think Growth Spiral functions more as a Mana Rock in a controlling deck than a Land Ramp card in a Ramp deck. Cards like Nissa, Who Shakes the World and Elspeth Conquer's Death are still reasonable plays on turn five without any ramp. The deck uses the accelaration from Growth Spiral and Uro in lieu of interacting early. It plays just enough early interaction for the games it doesn't draw one of the Explore effects.
Other Arguments about Growth Spiral
I want to mention a few things I've seen other people argue for why Growth Spiral was so strong.
First, the instant speed nature. The argument goes that it is significantly better than Explore because it lets you hold up mana. I think by the end of the Standard format this argument was fairly well debunked. The instant speed is certainly a benefit, but I don't believe it to be the main reason it seems much more powerful than Explore. Explore was used in similarly powerful ways when it was in Standard as I showed above. The decks that use Spiral at the end of the format weren't playing cards like Quench to leverage the flash aspect, and playing against Spiral decks wasn't that tricky with regard to instants on your turn (at least, not because of Growth Spiral instants). The Bant deck above is largely a tap out control deck. The additional color requirement of Blue compared to Explore was largely irrelevant in Standard because Blue and Green were probably going to be in your deck anyway.
Second, that Spiral is hard to interact with compared to Mana Dorks. Mana Dorks can be Shocked or Bolted on turn one or two (always Bolt the Bird) to disrupt their effectiveness. A turn three Mana Dork in a deck with nothing costing more than 4cc has been effectively neutered. However, I don't think this comparison is reasonable. Mana Dork decks look nothing like Growth Spiral decks. I will say in the games I've played post-ban that countering turn three Uro has been a very strong play, so maybe the issue was that there was too many to reliably disrupt (see the next point).
Third, that you can play eight copies of the card. I think this has more merit than the other two arguments, but I'm still skeptical to the extent. Eight copies means its harder to stop from happening, but I'm not sure you would actually put all eight copies of the card Growth Spiral into the Bant deck. The strength here is that Uro lets you dilute your deck with 29 lands and 8 Explores while still having a reasonable amount of late game threat density. This is the reason I advocated for an Uro ban instead of a Growth Spiral ban, but I do see the reasons for leaving Uro around into future Standard.
Fourth, the lack of pressure from other decks. This one I actually agree with. The biggest threat to Ramp decks in the past has been very aggressive aggro and reliable countermagic for late-game threats. Teferi, Time Raveler basically removed all hard late-game counterspells from the format. The lack of aggressive one-drops is another issue. Aggro decks can try to "go under" the Growth Spiral decks, but don't have the tools necessary. If your best aggressive creatures don't come down until turn three or four, why would you choose that over just playing Growth Spiral yourself?
Final Word on Growth Spiral
I don't think Growth Spiral is an objectively over-powered card. It would not have needed a banning in a different Standard format without Uro. Perhaps even a different banning philosophy would have let it stick around. I still think this is a good choice to ban for the last few weeks of this Standard format. I think a card like it can be printed again in the future, but it would be important to only have one in the format at once.
I hope I've explained my thoughts and theories adequately on this card and ramp cards in general. If you have any questions on something I may have not explained adequately, feel free to leave a comment or reach out to me on Twitter @ceciliajupe.
-Ty
*Note on the math here: I ignored ETB tapped lands and ramp redraws. Ramp redraws really help the first hand a lot, but also negate the relevance of Explore. Perhaps having both is better and I'm completely wrong. I originally posted with incorrect percentage for the Explore case.
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