To help manage this problem, we’re going to pick some things we want to do and use our 75% techniques to narrow our potential cardpool for us, not for power level restrictions but rather for our sanity. If you’ve been reading this column for a while you know that I like to win the game with Helix Pinnacle and I think that’s one of the win conditions we want to explore here. The issue is that cards like Thrasios, Triton Hero just turn into more copies (effectively) of Helix Pinnacle. Do I want to be all-in on one card or do I want to try and find more things I can do with an infinite amount of mana? Do I even want an infinite amount of mana? (I probably do, right? Otherwise I build The Ur-Dragon) With a 5 color mana-base, I have a lot of slots already pre-devoted to mana fixing and ramp which means that I actually don’t have too many slots in the deck to monkey with once I get the “essentials” nailed down. I think an infinite couldn’t hurt, so the combo between Nim Deathmantle and Composite Golem should be fine. Without tutors, we’ll still need a way to win or not lose long enough to execute our plans and having the “steal their stuff and win with it” backup plan should be present in most 75% decks as much as that’s going to cut into our few “freebie” slots. Cards like Desertion that can swipe something good or counter a blowout spell will be leaned upon heavily.

If you’re like me, you use EDHREC a lot when you build and you may have noticed the new “themes” menu at the top of a commander’s page. Looking at different Ramos subthemes can help us see which cards people with similar builds are playing and help our signal:noise ratio a bit in building. If we’re going for a subtheme or just looking to filter our all of the Planeswalkers or +1/+1 counters builds, these filters can help us select more of the cards we’ll actually play. I recommend spending some time tinkering with them if that’s a resource you use when you build.

Ramosnap Excavating ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (1)
• 1 Ramos, Dragon Engine

• Creatures (20)
• 1 Admonition Angel
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
• 1 Coiling Oracle
• 1 Composite Golem
• 1 Courser of Kruphix
• 1 Deadeye Navigator
• 1 Emeria Shepherd
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Knight of the Reliquary
• 1 Mina and Denn, Wildborn
• 1 Mystic Snake
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Ramunap Excavator
• 1 Roil Elemental
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
• 1 The Gitrog Monster
• 1 Thrasios, Triton Hero
• 1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
• 1 Transguild Courier

• Instants (6)
• 1 Cyclonic Rift
• 1 Desertion
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Realms Uncharted
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 Sylvan Reclamation

• Sorceries (13)
• 1 Blasphemous Act
• 1 Bring to Light
• 1 Explore
• 1 Hour of Promise
• 1 Life from the Loam
• 1 Nature's Lore
• 1 Scapeshift
• 1 Skyshroud Claim
• 1 Splendid Reclamation
• 1 Supreme Verdict
• 1 Sylvan Scrying
• 1 Tempt with Discovery
• 1 Villainous Wealth

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Abundance
• 1 Burgeoning
• 1 Chamber of Manipulation
• 1 Helix Pinnacle
• 1 Rhystic Study
• 1 Sacred Ground
• 1 Terra Eternal

• Artifacts (8)
• 1 Amulet of Vigor
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Crucible of Worlds
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Door to Nothingness
• 1 Expedition Map
• 1 Nim Deathmantle
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (39)
• 1 Island
• 1 Mountain
• 1 Swamp
• 3 Plains
• 5 Forest
• 1 Academy Ruins
• 1 Azorius Guildgate
• 1 Bloodstained Mire
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 1 Buried Ruin
• 1 Cascading Cataracts
• 1 City of Brass
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crystal Quarry
• 1 Dimir Guildgate
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Flooded Strand
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Golgari Guildgate
• 1 Gruul Guildgate
• 1 Izzet Guildgate
• 1 Krosan Verge
• 1 Mana Confluence
• 1 Maze's End
• 1 Orzhov Guildgate
• 1 Polluted Delta
• 1 Rakdos Guildgate
• 1 Selesnya Guildgate
• 1 Simic Guildgate
• 1 Tectonic Edge
• 1 Windswept Heath
• 1 Wooded Foothills

Buy This Deck

Knight of the Reliquary needs more targets. I don’t really have enough basics for it to do a ton of work right now and my decision to omit shocklands is something you could reverse to give yourself a few more forests and plains for your knight. I was trying to keep the cost of the deck down a little and make spells that fetched basics a little bit better. Plains are good with Emeria Shepherd and Knight of the Reliquary and a lot of the early plays we want to make require Green so it made sense to load up on Forests a bit. If you like shocks better and you have them, you’re probably good to throw them in. After all, 7 of the shocks are either a Plains or Forest so you don’t sacrifice much knight utility.

I wanted to add Eldrazi Displacer to back up Deadeye Navigator because we have cards like Coiling Oracle, Mystic Snake, Solemn Simulacrum and Eternal Witness that are very good with Navigator. However, we don’t have too many ways to make colorless mana with this mana base so I opted to cut it. This mana base is one that you’ll have to heavily customize yourself, I think. If you have to omit Displacer because of too few sources of colorless, not run Knight because of too few Forests and Plains (Emeria Shepherd is still perfectly fine with few Plains) or make some other crazy mods, go for it.

There are other potential ways to build this deck, and a +1/+1 counter subtheme was appealing also. If you want to go that route, you’ll want to build very differently but it will still be a fun deck. This subtheme makes sure you’ve always got access to the 10 mana from Ramos, or you make him big enough to just smash someone for 21 when you attack. Cards like Corpsejack Menace and Doubling Season will do a ton of work. You can even run Pinnacle in that build if you want.

I’ve seen some people who are running Conflux to get 5 spells that you can use right away to combo off. I think those builds are fine but I went a little more utilitarian with my build. My favorite thing to do in Commander is get a Mystic Snake bound with a Deadeye Navigator or put a Solemn Simulacrum in a Mimic Vat as opposed to getting a pile of weird creatures with a Conflux. If you are looking for that kind of build, think about cards like Angel's Grace and Ad Nauseam for your Conflux piles, or look up some builds online. I’m not saying those are 75% at all, I’m just saying I like how the build I suggested shaped up.

Did I make some assumption about how the cards work that’s wrong? Did I exclude something you like to run in your Ramos deck? Got a list for me to look at? Leave it in the comments section. Thanks for reading and we’ll be back next week to talk about something new and exciting like the new Ixalan cards or the killer 75% reprints in Iconic Masters. Until next time!