#white ramp

[niuttuc]

Today’s recent budget commander sleeper is one that made a bit of noise on release with the latest set precons, but ended up drowned in the constant noise of magic these days.

Ramp is good in commander. That’s not news. And it’s hard to come by in white, at least cheaply. Knight of the White Orchid is still the gold standard of white (catch up) ramp, able to fetch nonbasics, and coming on a solid body on turn 2, it’s a white Rampant Growth that sometimes doesn’t work.

This is similar. It’s a turn slower, because it has a tap ability, the land enters tapped and the body it’ll leave behind will end up being a 1/1. However, that’s where the downsides end and the upsides start. Just like Knight of the White Orchid, it can fetch nonbasic Plains, which is even important on a budget nowadays with the two cycles of common typed duals in Kaldheim and Dominaria United.

Scholar of New Horizons also works even if you’re not behind. Granted, it only tutors to hand and doesn’t ramp you then, but hitting every land drop is oftentimes more important than ramping, since you don’t have to spend resources on it. It can also be used cheekily with this with the cycling typed duals (and triomes) to draw a different card. Oh, and the ability can be activated at instant speed which most of the time won’t matter, but will be very appreciated when it comes up that you’re going first and an opponent ramped on turn 3 and suddenly unlocks your own ramp instead of the land draw you’d resigned yourself to.

Beyond that, Scholar, by itself, can be used multiple times for no extra cost, as long as you have counters in your deck, which most decks do, even if incidentally. Have a cathar’s crusade? A Felidar retreat? A luminarch ascension? You’ll have a plentiful supply of counters to feed this turn after turn then, and those are just for mono-white.

In some cases, removing counters might even be an upside, if you expect -1/-1 counters, or, much more importantly, have any saga in your deck. Having the scholar out with the saga allow you to not only keep ramping or making your land drops and keep the saga forever, it also allows you to repeat any chapter from that saga every turn, even the last one should you so wish. It gets absurd with many of them, from Urza’s Saga tutoring every turn and sticking around to the Cruelty of Gix being a free tutor or reanimation every turn. With a Luminous Broodmoth, it’ll make any creature be able to die every single turn and come back.

Don’t get me wrong, this card doesn’t NEED synergies to be good. I’d play it in any white deck as ramp even if no other card in the deck ever had counters, right behind Knight of the White Orchid and in front of Loyal Warhound. On a budget or not. But it does much more than it would in a vacuum, and basically any deck will have some tools to synergize with it. It might actively up the number of incidental sagas I include in white decks just by existing. (But I’m mostly looking for an excuse, I love sagas.)

The card currently retails for under $1 (with the extended art version where you can read the name and artist for half of that), and I’d encourage you to snag one as soon as you find the occasion, in case this doesn’t get reprinted. It’s just staple-level good, much more than any other card that has been featured on here so far.

[cloth-fabric]

ramp tramp tramp stamp - fw24

[toohwe]

Cabin

[coldflasher]

was rewatching the pilot again yesterday for fic reasons and thinking again about the sherlock-style screen annotations they had when barry was doing CSI work that they literally only did in the first ep and then never revisited again, presumably because they realized it'd be far too much effort to work out the details on such a precise level

and thinking about like. that barry allen with the hyper-precise exact measurements that he did by eye (with joe shaking his head in awe so you know that he's a CSI supergenius) vs. the leonard snart who timed his heists to the exact nanosecond (which again, presuming they ditched because it's a logistical nightmare to write dialogue that nitpicky and obsessive, and would be such a fucking pain to do on a week-to-week basis). like. yet another reason they are soulmates tbh. is audhd4autistic a thing the same way t4t is a thing? if it isn't then i'm making it a thing

[nb2000]

*whispers* I don't like the new TARDIS interior, all that white is too cold.

[monstress]

me and my friends would've killed matt healy with hammers next time we see him i'll tell you that much

[bigboobyhalo]

what a sad-sack

[transsexula]

BTW if this is your first time protesting, please keep in mind your abilities.

What I mean by that- is take a look at yourself, and your privledges. How can you use that to the protests advantage?

Please make sure to listen to your fellow protestors, but one thing that can help- is that if you are white, white passing- put yourself between the cops and hijabi protestors. Ask to connect arms with them. Stay grouped TIGHTLY together.

Do not push cops directly. If they are grabbing a fellow protestor and trying to drag them out, you and a buddy should close in and cut the cop off. Bring your fellow protestor back into the crowd. Keep them safe.

Cops will do their best to break up large groups into smaller ones to make it easier to detain, arrest, or beat innocent people.

And on another note- if you have the resources, please remember to bring extra head coverings, or extra fabric that can be used as such. Not only to help fight against gas and smoke attacks, but also to throw over the many hijabi students who get attacked.

[slavik1983]

Silent Hill.

[coldbycrossfade]

the sexual tension between fans of Taskmaster the British Show and Taskmaster the Marvel "Villain"

[alttxt]

so we're clear. trans people will always exist. we have always existed, and as long as this planet can support human life, we will continue to exist. that is a promise.

and a threat.

[songsintheattic]

i suddenly heard a bunch of quacking and honking that seemed way too loud and i looked out the back window and the ducks were loose??? i think ursula knows how to open the trailer door but the only other time he did it was to let everyone out in the morning

[yz]

Skateboarding at Place-des-arts.

[valentineish]

The term "walkable cities" makes me bristle. Despite the assumption that this is ignorance borne of U.S. citizenship, I do understand the term. I share a goal with the people using it.

But the focus on walkable perpetuates the exact design principles that makes my life hell: that anybody who isn't an ablebodied, healthy adult is not a consideration. The fact that other activists are telling disabled people to sacrifice our quality of life for a narrow vision of developed spaces is what's frustrating.

[emiliav]

Shadows and Reflection Assignment, Mr. Cargill's Favorite, Black and White, Ramp, Inverness IL, September 2022