NOPE! You don't need that much (or any) ramp
Tell me if you've heard this one before:
You should have at least 10 pieces of ramp in all your commander decks.
Welp, everything you've been told about commander is wrong.
If you pay attention to any of the top Commander content creators, one of the first pieces of advice you'll hear is to make sure you have plenty of ramp in your deck. There are a couple corollaries as well:
2-mana ramp has pushed 3-mana ramp out of the format
You should play at least 10 pieces of ramp in your deck
So why has this become such common knowledge?
First off, it really sucks to be mana screwed. There is nothing worse in a game of EDH than watching everyone around you get to play super fun, splashy cards while you're sitting on three lands.
Second, EDH is a game of massive, splashy effects. Our decks are often filled with 4-6 drops. It's not uncommon to even see 7+ mana value cards in decks - and often these are the most fun.
Finally, effective decks will often want to play multiple, high-impact cards in a turn.
So, it just comes to reason that adding cards that both ensure you get to play the game, and you get to play the expensive, fun cards is something you should do. Right?
Over-indexing on ramp is a fallacy that leads to bad deckbuilding.
Before we begin, let's agree to the previous points: 1. It is better to have plenty of mana to operate your deck; 2. EDH decks, on average, need to hit higher mana values per turn than your average 60-card deck; and 3. Making multiple plays in a turn is often correct.
But these aren't the only considerations for deck building and game play. And importantly, you don't win the game for having the most mana.
Advancing your game state is important.
Building advantage engines is important.
Ensuring you have cards and effective play into the late game is important.
If you're ignoring these pieces of the game during the first three turns just so you can ramp, you better have a darn good reason to do so.
This is especially true because of the pace and length of a commander game. Because of the typical game's scope, there are two potentials that can erase all of your effort if you spent your first three turns only ramping:
Your mana rocks and elves can get wiped from the board. This is true for all permanent types, but if you've drawn two cards from your Mulldrifter or gotten a massive trigger from Silent-Blade Oni, you've still progressed your actual game plan.
You can miss a land drop and completely negate the benefit of ramping. It's nice to be at 4-mana on turn three, but if you miss a drop-you are still at 5 mana on turn five.
Here's the Truth: Card Draw is Better than Ramp
Way back in the day, Magic Hall of Famer Alan Comer broke people's brains by inventing on of the four most influential Magic decks of all time - Turbo Xerox (which then transformed into the Miracle Grow and Super Grow archetypes that essentially inform all Brainstorm-based aggro decks in Legacy).
The key innovation of the Grow decks is that a deck can actually run fewer lands, as long as they have enough cheap card draw and deck manipulation.
I'm not sure this was technically true, but the old heuristic was that you could cut 1 land for every four cantrips in your deck. This led to Comer's absolutely bonkers 10-land Quirion Dryad deck.
The secret is that with enough card draw in your deck, you are able to both ensure you consistently hit enough land drops for your deck to operate AND you have enough gas to make impactful plays. And very importantly, you don't find yourself top-decking junk in the late game.
Now, I don't advocate running an irresponsible number of lands in your deck (36-38 is probably in the wheelhouse), but recently, in most of my decks I've been running significantly higher amounts of card draw than ramp.
This is especially true these days. The prevalence of treasure makes ramp even less necessary. It seems like every color these days has an easy way to make incidental treasures. These little guys help keep your on curve if your draw stumbles, and they help fix your mana. You don't need to play a turn two signet if you just end up with a random treasure on two or three.
Different Archetypes Demand Different Answers
What's important to understand is that even in Commander, there are different deck archetypes.
Some decks want to play an aggressive game, playing high-impact spells quickly to gain an advantage before everyone has had the chance to set up. These decks don't want to waste their early turns ramping.
Some (possibly most) decks want to play a mid-range interactive value game. They want to build an engine based on synergies and incremental advantages that allow them to get into the mid-game. These decks should really be playing value pieces in the early game and not ramp.
Other decks want to control the game until they win through inevitability or by finding their combo pieces. With 40 life and three opponents, these decks have the time to set up their massive end game. They should be drawing cards to make sure they get there instead of ramping.
On the other hand, there are some decks who want to dominate by playing massive effects in front of the curve. Some of these are reanimator decks that can cheat your Kokushos and Primordials in early. Others are stompy decks that want to jump the curve to play Avengers of Zendikar and Apex Devastators early. it's really only these last decks that need significant ramp.
One of the things I learned playing Netrunner was the importance of mixing your drip and burst economy. You need a good combination of quick resources that let you get up and running, but also a steady flow that keeps your engine going throughout the game.
The same is true for card draw in EDH.
It's important that you can build engines to provide a steady flow of cards throughout the game (drip). Many players have an inherent knack for this. We see how powerful cards like Rhystic Study and Phyrexian Arena are. But these cards are often too slow to be the ramp replacements we're looking for.
Instead, we need cheap, effective, and flexible card draw. So what, specifically should we be looking for:
1-mana cantrips are fine, but they don't actually serve as card draw.
2-mana spells that draw 2 cards are insane - even if they have a drawback.
Getting a cantrip/card draw off a two mana creature is excellent.
3-mana spells need to draw at least two cards with a bonus if they are sorecery speed. Instant-speed 3s that draw at least two cards are much better.
You can, and should, play card draw spells that cost 4+, but those are for fueling your late game, not smoothing out your early turns.
Luckily, there are tons of great cards that fit into this mold. And I think people are really coming around on some of them. Here are my favorites:
I'm not sure I completely agree that the format is speeding up all that much. I do see that decks are being built in a more coherent way - with more impactful and interesting things happening earlier.
Taking full turns off to play a ramp spell shouldn't be the default. Instead make sure your deck is chocked full of efficient card draw spells. Your games will be smoother from start to finish, and you'll be making impactful and interesting plays until the very end.
