Valakut was another early deck that poked its nose around the competitive scene. Cheap to build and relatively easy to play it was an attractive option to cheap budget minded and new players alike. The idea was pretty simple: Get a Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle into play, then play mountains. It also did a fantastic job of highlighting the innate problems of ramp decks.
I like Valakut a lot as a deck to make an example of. Ramp deck are fun and, when they work, very explosive. This deck could easily generate 7-8 lands by turn four, but then what?
First, let me pretend for just a moment that my reader base isn't made up entirely of seasoned players with a comprehensive knowledge and skill set packed away. I'm always amused when a newer player brings me a deck that's essential 16x Rampant Growth effects, 8x Llanowar Elves and friends, and 4-5 "Dragons".
It's hard to tell inexperienced players why this is a bad way to go, because it just makes so much sense! Even in practice, when their deck fails, everything seems to have gone according to plan. When you ask them what went wrong, their response is either "I had the beasty but not the mana." or "I had the mana but not the beasty."
And there it is, simple as pie crust clear as day. Nearly every ramp deck, including Valakut, suffers from its inability to reliably find half of its equation. If you have the ramp, you still need to find your ramp target. If you have your ramp target, you need your ramp. Valakut was a little special in that its ramp target was in fact a land, making it a little easier to handle. However, being the case, the deck was extremely vulnerable.
Land disruption was simply everywhere, meaning you either had to fight against it with suboptimal tools like Trace of Abundance, or dance around it and go off in a single turn. The deck generally saw two versions, neither of which could be determined as superior.
Many people favored the Creature Valakut, using Bloodbraid Elf, Siege-Gang Commander, Avenger of Zendikar and the like as a plan B to Valakut not going off. This is kind of like Polymorphing Gideon... If your creatures are so good, why even bother playing Valakut at all?
I personally enjoyed a mostly creatureless version of the deck. Heavily reliant on ramp using only Siege-Gang Commander as creature back up. I actually saw some decent results, but that was back before NLB, UW control and other, more powerful decks that we have today. The fact still remains, though, that even completely uninterrupted, the deck was still fully capable of flubbing on you.
Ah, Nostalgia!
I've mentioned before that I used to record MTGO matches as a hobby, and only later did I do it for PureMTGO. As it turns out, my very first recording was a live, narrated game with me piloting Valakut Ramp against Bant Allies! Let's watch...
I would continue to tweak and modify the list as the season went on. Ancient Stirrings proved to be pretty amazing, and replaced Expedition Map as my tutor. The reality was, no matter what kind of improvements the deck got, it just wasn't enough to keep up with the rest of the field.
UW Control has Tectonic Edge and Spreading Seas, as did many other control decks. Bant and Jund were simply superior in both speed and utility. Even tier 2 decks outright outclassed poor Valakut. The creature heavy version was better of using Valakut as a supplement, rather than a win condition, and realistically was better off just dropping it all together.
The sad truth is that Valakut Ramp as we know it has no place in the current standard...
Frankly, I'm Scared As hell
This article doesn't necessarily apply strictly to Valakut, but to ramp decks in general. Even the much hyped Turbo Land deck wasn't consistent enough to be considered top tier. However, there's a couple deck evolutions coming down the pipe that have me, as a control player, slightly worried...
I never really cared much for the green titan, but certain interactions can't really be ignored here. I'm still somewhat of the opinion that ramping into a titan to ramp into something else is completely redundant, but these decks both look just fast enough to pull it off. Titan Ramp appears to use Valakut as its backup plan, which is great. It still suffers from Ramp's inherent problems, but your ramp target is now much better here.
Turbo Titan is what has me scared. The Oracle/Jace interactions are just as broken as ever, only now both your titans and Eldrazi monsters can hit the board much faster. There's a fairly good chance Mindbreak Trap will be finding a home in my sideboard in the very near future...
Ramp decks have been around forever, and despite getting better tools and targets they never really change. They can certainly be a lot of fun, and there's something to be said about having 10+ mana available to you on turn 4, but I feel they'll never be "quite" consistent enough for top level play.
Join me next time for the exciting conclusion to my five part retrospective series! Any guesses as to the topic?
Valakut has always seemed to be very good as a threat rather than a win con. It makes people want to play their land destruction and removal. I would never put it in a deck expecting to ride a ramp trail to a win with it. Expedition map, fetchlands, various spells all of it is not enough to guarantee the continuous flow of land needed. Which is why cards like Admonition Angel (fun fun fun!!!) also fail.
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Valakut has always seemed to be very good as a threat rather than a win con. It makes people want to play their land destruction and removal. I would never put it in a deck expecting to ride a ramp trail to a win with it. Expedition map, fetchlands, various spells all of it is not enough to guarantee the continuous flow of land needed. Which is why cards like Admonition Angel (fun fun fun!!!) also fail.
Yeah, and that's how these new ramp decks are using Valakut, which I find very acceptable.