Big Mana

The 'Big Mana' archetype seeks to cast large mana value spells as early as possible. Unlike the Sneak and Show archetype, it seeks to do this with a large amount of (*often repeatable*) Ramp spells or Artifacts, often with scaling effects (*Such as Cabal Coffers or Priest of Titania*) or by chaining smaller ramp spells (*Like Cultivate or Worn Powerstone*) into much larger ramp spells (*Such as Thran Dynamo or Zendikar Resurgent*).

'Big Mana' decks can share a lot of cards with the Sneak and Show archetype and even combine both tactics in the same deck, switching between them based on what it has in it's starting hand.

'Big Mana' decks often contain Green or Black.

## **Popular Cards & Commanders**

**Notable 'Big Mana' cards include:**

* Kodama's Reach / Cultivate
* Sunbird's Invocation
* Zendikar Resurgent
* Old Gnawbone
* Jegantha, the Wellspring
* Reshape the Earth
* Skyshroud Claim / Explosive Vegetation / Migration Path
* Thran Dynamo
* Gilded Lotus
* Cabal Stronghold / Cabal Coffers

**Commanders that may commonly use 'Big Mana' cards include:**

* Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty
* Kozilek, the Great Distortion
* Maelstrom Wanderer
* Svella, Ice Shaper
* Belbe, Corrupted Observer

## **Strategy**

### **Little Ramp into Big Ramp**

Small ramp spells such as Arcane Signet or Farseek are popular because they are usable very early, allowing them to provide a regular ammount of extra mana for most of the game. By Comparison, higher mana-value ramp spells such as Thran Dynamo (*or even cards like Explosive Vegetation or Hedron Archive*) are considered risky, since there is always a chance you don't draw enough lands to even activate them.

In this way, small ramp spells increase your odds of casting Big ramp spells, and effectively amplify the advantage of large Ramp spells by letting you get them sooner.

### **Scaling Ramp**

Some forms of Ramp become better over time, checking cards you own to produce a variable amount of mana that normally increases over time. Some examples of this include:

* Cabal Stronghold / Cabal Coffers / Bubbling Muck / Crypt Ghast / Nirkana Revenant
* Priest of Titania / Elvish Archdruid / Elvish Guidance
* Karametra's Acolyte / Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx / Nyx Lotus
* Circle of Dreams Druid / Gaea's Cradle / Growing Rites of Itlimoc // Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun
* Leafkin Avenger / Sacellum Godspeaker / Selvala, Heart of the Wilds
* Overgrown Battlement / Axebane Guardian
* Nissa, Who Shakes the World / Vernal Bloom
* Mana Flare / Overabundance / Zendikar Resurgent / Gauntlet of Power / Caged Sun / Nyxbloom Ancient / Doubling Cube / Mana Reflection / Regal Behemoth
* Seedborn Muse / Drumbellower / Wilderness Reclamation

### **Winning through Mana**

Big mana decks, in theory seek to leverage all that extra mana into a victory, this can be done via several means:

* **Large Creatures**: Many powerful creatures cast early enough can lock-down the board and make it far more difficult for your opponents to provide a threat. Examples include: *Giant Adephage, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur & Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite*
* **Mana Sinks**: With access to enough mana, even humble cards like *Jade Mage* can generate enough value over time to all but guarentee you a win.
* **Chaining Value**: Some permanents let you effectively turn each spell cast, into more value to cast more spells. Permanents that do this include: *Zendikar Resurgent, Beast Whisperer, Guardian Project, Future Sight, The Reality Chip or Mystic Forge*.

## **Common Deck Categories**

* Big Creatures
* Card Draw
* Ramp (Low Mana Value)
* Ramp (High Mana Value)
* Ramp (Scaling)
* Removal
* Board Wipe Cards
* Protection Cards / Mass Protection Cards
* Mana Sinks / X Spells

**10 cards** will probably give you **2 cards in a given game** from that category, and a good chance to **start with 1** in your opening hand. Critical categories for your deck may require a similar or larger number than this, depending on expected levels of Counterspells or Removal.
**5 cards** will probably give you **1 card per game** of that category. Cards you don't want to overload on but still want access to (*board wipes in a tokens deck for instance*) may want a similar figure to this... Going smaller than this number makes receiving a card of this category very unlikely without Tutors or some other Toolbox approach.

## **Strengths and Weaknesses**

### Strengths

* 'Big Mana' decks put enormously powerful creatures into play often before other decks are able to play creatures of a similar caliber. They may even gain enough mana to cast a powerful creature so early in the game that other players are not yet prepared to respond to those creatures, staunching opponents’ abilities to set up their own plans properly.

* 'Big Mana' decks as the name implies, often generate a large amount of mana, and therefore can often accumulate a lot of value with mana-sinks such as Zacama, Primal Calamity, or chain a large number of spells using permanents like Zendikar Resurgent or Mystic Forge.

### Weaknesses

* 'Big Mana' decks run a large number of ramp spells, with small ones to help power larger ones, with a smaller number of major threats to cast. An imbalance in the deck or the starting hand can disrupt your game plan. Drawing too many high-cost creatures with no ability to put them into play can be a large setback, as can drawing large ramp spells with nothing to assist you in casting them.

* 'Big Mana' decks can rapidly take the lead on mana or create an intentionally large threat on the battlefield early, which can have the unintended consequence of turning that creature's controller into the 'archenemy', or Public Enemy Number 1. Other players, even those that the sneak player does not intend to attack, may strongly fear and decide to eliminate before it becomes impossible to deal with.

* Since 'Big Mana' decks are normally aiming to win using a small number of powerful permanents, they are particularly vulnerable to removal spells. While a single pinpoint removal spell technically only removes one permanent, if they are not common in the deck it can hurt them disproportionately.

* Since most 'Big Mana' decks rely on powerful creature, they rely heavily upon the combat step. This means their play patterns tend to be more predictable (*at least once their board is established*), which allows other players to predict their actions more easily and take steps to prepare for them ahead of time. A small number of threats often forces them to focus on one player at a time, rarely able to eliminate multiple enemies at once. Reliance upon combat can also make it difficult to circumvent hyper-defensive decks such as Pillowfort strategies, especially those that use Fog effects.

#### **Artifacts**

Big mana decks relying on a large number of Mana Rocks to ramp them, and/or powerful artifact creatures may find they benefit heavily from additional Artifact synergies.

#### **Landfall**

Big mana decks using ramp spells to put a large number of land into play may find they benefit heavily from additional Land-based synergies.

#### **Reanimator**

If your deck already has a large number of powerful creatures to sneak into play, and sometimes suffers as a result of removal or is forced to discard when it fails to find enough ramp, why not include cards that put those creatures into play another way? Or even back into play if someone kills them

#### **Tribal**

If your deck relies on using a lot of similar and/or scaling creatures to generate mana like Elves may find that information about the related tribe may help them find the best threats for their decks to include, as well as additional other synergies.

**Related EDHREC Resources**

* EDHREC Big Mana theme page
* EDHREC Sneak articles
* EDHREC #Lands tagged articles