Ramos, Dragon Engine is a prominent character in the Magic: The Gathering Foundations set and serves as a legendary creature that can act as your commander. Since its introduction in 2017, this card has gained popularity due to its WUBRG identity, which includes all five colors of mana.
There are numerous approaches to building a Ramos deck, encompassing various themes such as Shrines, Rooms, and Dragons. This guide will focus on utilizing Ramos in a five-color toolbox deck, highlighting cards that facilitate casting multi-colored spells and maximizing their benefits.
Decklist
Commander: Ramos, Dragon Engine
| Creature | Creature | Creature | Creature | Creature | Creature |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aragorn, the Uniter | Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice | Birds of Paradise | Chromanticore | Corpsejack Menace | Dryad of the Illysian Grove |
| Faeburrow Elder | Fallaj Wayfarer | General Ferrous Rokiric | Illuna, Apex of Wishes | Jenson Carthalion, Druid Exile | Jodah, Archmage Eternal |
| Maelstrom Archangel | Maelstrom Wanderer | Omnath, Locus of All | Progenitus | Shalai and Hallar | Two-Headed Hellkite |
| Blasphemous Act | Conflux | Cultivate | Farseek | Kodama’s Reach | Nature’s Lore |
| Rampant Growth | Ruinous Ultimatum | Three Visits | Villainous Wealth | Abzan Charm | Beast Within |
| Brokers Charm | Crosis’s Charm | Endless Detour | Growth Spiral | Jund Charm | Naya Charm |
| Path to Exile | Sultai Charm | Swords to Plowshares | Unite the Coalition | Void Rend | Arcane Signet |
| Chimil, the Inner Sun | Chromatic Lantern | Commander’s Sphere | Door to Nothingness | Fellwar Stone | Fist of Suns |
| Lightning Greaves | Ozolith, the Shattered Spire | Sol Ring | Swiftfoot Boots | The Ozolith | Timeless Lotus |
| Annie Joins Up | Hardened Scales | Innkeeper’s Talent | Leyline Immersion | Leyline of Mutation | Leyline of the Guildpact |
| Maelstrom Nexus | Mayael’s Aria | Simic Ascendancy | Widespread Thieving | Canopy Vista | Cascading Cataracts |
| Cinder Glade | Clifftop Retreat | Command Tower | Deserted Beach | Dragonskull Summit | Dreamroot Cascade |
| Drowned Catacomb | Exotic Orchard | x2 Forest | Glacial Fortress | Haunted Ridge | Hinterland Harbor |
| Island | Isolated Chapel | Karn’s Bastion | Mountain | Path of Ancestry | x2 Plains |
| Prairie Stream | Rockfall Vale | Rootbound Crag | Smoldering Marsh | Stormcarved Coast | Sulfur Falls |
| Sundown Pass | Sunken Hollow | Sunpetal Grove | Swamp | The World Tree | Woodland Cemetery |
This deck includes 18 creatures, 11 sorceries, 13 instants, 13 artifacts, 10 enchantments, and 34 lands. Most of the cards are multi-colored, ensuring that Ramos can trigger its abilities consistently.
Key Cards
Ramos, Dragon Engine
Ramos is the centerpiece of this deck, capable of growing its stats quickly with +1/+1 counters, which can then be transformed into up to ten mana. Since each color of a spell grants a counter, casting a spell that utilizes all five colors allows Ramos to gain enough counters to activate its ability immediately. This means even lower-tier WUBRG spells can be worthwhile, enhancing the growth of Ramos.
While Ramos is seen as colorless due to its mana symbols, it is categorized as WUBRG regarding its color identity. This duality makes it versatile for both damage output and ramp potential. Easily generating ten mana allows you to cast powerful spells without relying on land tapping, while its rapid stat growth also makes it a dangerous attacker, helping to secure victories through commander damage.
Aragorn, The Uniter
Casting spells in various colors makes Aragorn a strong addition to the deck. If you cast a spell that includes white and blue mana, Aragorn’s ability will trigger, creating 1/1 tokens and providing a scry effect. This means multiple effects can occur simultaneously when casting multi-colored spells. It’s worth noting that black is the only color that does not trigger Aragorn.
Thanks to Aragorn’s casting cost, it can aid Ramos by adding four counters, enhancing your board presence with every spell you cast. The 5/5 creature is a solid attacker and defender.
Omnath, Locus of All
Omnath serves both as a ramp tool and a way to generate extra mana without losing it. Any unused mana is transformed into black mana, which you retain until you use it or through the next phase after it leaves the battlefield. You can add any remaining mana to your mana pool at the end of your turn, enabling you to start your next turn with a substantial amount of black mana.
Omnath also allows for extra mana generation, which can be particularly useful for casting other spells. The mana symbols needed don’t all have to be unique—this flexibility allows you to generate additional resources without much difficulty.
Conflux
Conflux is an essential component of a WUBRG deck, providing you with the ability to tutor for up to five individual cards and put them into your hand. While it carries a high cost, if Ramos has five counters, you can utilize them to cover the entire cost for the spells you searched for. Each spell only counts for its individual color, allowing for strategic versatility in your card draws.
How to Play the Deck
A deck centered around Ramos, Dragon Engine revolves around casting multi-colored spells rapidly to accumulate +1/+1 counters. Each turn, you can sacrifice five counters to add two mana of each color, allowing for substantial spell casting. This is further amplified through cards like Jodah, Archmage Eternal and Fist of Suns, which let you use just one mana of each color, simplifying casting costs.
Playing a five-color deck necessitates the inclusion of cards that can generate any color of mana, ensuring you have the resources needed for spellcasting. Cards like Dryad of the Illysian Grove, Chromatic Lantern, and The World Tree facilitate this greatly, supported by a robust ramp package.
The deck has multiple win conditions, with the easiest being through commander damage. Ramos can swiftly expand its stats and has flying, enabling easier combat damage to opponents. Instant win conditions like Simic Ascendancy and Mayael’s Aria also exist, particularly when combined with The Ozolith, which helps maintain counters even if Ramos is removed.
The primary challenge of a five-color deck is managing mana colors effectively, as they can sometimes prove difficult to balance. Nonetheless, once you establish access to all your colors, you can capitalize on the game with ease, especially since Ramos itself does not require any colored mana to cast.
