Mana dorks

The inclusion of mana dorks in Magic: the Gathering decks has been a game-shaping dynamic ceded in the mana dorks MTG sets and that's where today's history lesson begins, mana dorks. Mana dork is commonplace MTG slang for a creature with a low converted mana cost typically a one or two-drop that produces mana to help a deck cast its spells more efficiently.

While one-mana dorks usually just tap for mana, two-mana dorks can do anything from provide pressure to win the game with infinite mana! One-drops tend to just offer you one extra mana and very little else - but if you jump up to the two-drop slot, all of a sudden you're getting mana dorks with significant upside. Whether it's producing more than one mana, providing some sort of utility in combat, growing their own stats or even being the centerpiece of a powerful combo, some of Magic's two-drop mana dorks have ended up being extremely powerful cards in their own right. Let's have a look at some of the best of them! Llanowar Loamspeaker. We've seen two-drop mana dorks that end up turning into more sizeable threats as the game goes long Drover of the Mighty , Reclusive Taxidermist , but Llanowar Loamspeaker seems to have the potential to be a reusable source of decent threats that never has to get into combat itself.

Mana dorks

Your Magic: The Gathering decks need mana. It doesn't matter what style of deck it is, what colours, or how fast it is, if you don't have the mana to play the spells, it's as good as dead in the water. While some colours, like green, are brilliant at ramping out lands, every colour can benefit from mana rocks and mana dorks. Mana rituals may be a little bit more limited, but the effect is still the same: with just a few choice spells, you can have access to more mana than you thought possible, and hopefully outpace your opponents. Here is everything you need to know about mana rocks, mana dorks, and mana rituals in MTG. Updated May 2, Mana is essential for any MTG deck, and one of the quickest, most efficient ways to gain it is by playing mana rocks, mana dorks, and mana rituals. This guide has been updated with more information about the three. Mana dorks are usually one or two drops that have the ability to produce mana. These all have the ability to tap and add one green mana to your mana pool. These mana dorks all have very low power and toughness, and will act more as an extra land over something to use in combat - unless you are incredibly desperate. Of course, green is not the only colour to have mana dorks, but it is the most common. Other colours that have mana dorks will often have some drawbacks to them. For example, the blue creature Apprentice Wizard will give you three colourless mana if you tap it, but you will also need to pay one blue mana first. One of the main things to be aware of is that, when you tap your mana dork for mana, it will only stay in your mana pool for that phase of your turn.

That or the mana can only be used on specific things.

Deathrite Shaman Illustration by Steve Argyle. Mana dorks are a usually cheap creature that does nothing but generate mana and accelerate you. For the purposes of this article, I'm going to cast a wide net and include any utility creature that adds mana, filters mana, or searches up lands. Mana dorks may not seem that powerful at first. But any experienced player will tell you that getting early mana acceleration like that can slingshot you ahead in the game, allowing you to deploy cards your opponent can't handle. Acceleration is always powerful in Magic, especially when you can get it on turn 1 or 2, which is where most mana dorks land in mana value.

Magic: The Gathering 's popular Commander format is filled to the brim with unique and distinct strategies and archetypes for players to utilize when building their decks. Regardless of the type of deck a player may be building, there are various types of cards that can be a great asset to nearly any type of deck. In addition to mana-generating artifacts, often referred to as mana rocks , a popular mana ramp choice for many players to utilize creatures that are capable of being able to produce mana. Referred to as "mana dorks," these types of creatures have been part of the game since Magic's very first set and have made an impact ever since. However, between elements such as flexibility and efficiency, mana dorks come in various forms, ranging significantly in quality. So we're going to examine the mana dorks of Magic's history and see which are the most powerful within the Commander format! Noble Hierarch And Ignoble Hierarch are cards with the same mana costs and nearly identical abilities only possessing differing creature types and color identities. A green Human Druid and Goblin Shaman respectively, these one mana creatures each possess the exalted ability whilst being able to be tapped to produce one of three colors of mana. This allows them to function as flexible low-mana mana ramp in their respective color identities that has the added upside of being able to push damage into an opponent through its access to exalted.

Mana dorks

Your Magic: The Gathering decks need mana. It doesn't matter what style of deck it is, what colours, or how fast it is, if you don't have the mana to play the spells, it's as good as dead in the water. While some colours, like green, are brilliant at ramping out lands, every colour can benefit from mana rocks and mana dorks. Mana rituals may be a little bit more limited, but the effect is still the same: with just a few choice spells, you can have access to more mana than you thought possible, and hopefully outpace your opponents. Here is everything you need to know about mana rocks, mana dorks, and mana rituals in MTG. Updated May 2, Mana is essential for any MTG deck, and one of the quickest, most efficient ways to gain it is by playing mana rocks, mana dorks, and mana rituals. This guide has been updated with more information about the three. Mana dorks are usually one or two drops that have the ability to produce mana. These all have the ability to tap and add one green mana to your mana pool. These mana dorks all have very low power and toughness, and will act more as an extra land over something to use in combat - unless you are incredibly desperate.

Nun tattoo

We generally call this dynamic "chip damage," in the sense that we are chipping away at an opponent's life total or planeswalkers. A turn one Birds of Paradise into a Stone Rain or Ice Storm was a fairly defining interaction of early Magic and represents a huge swing in tempo and access to mana in the early stages of a game. It does evoke Deathrite Shaman with its conditional mana production and opportunities to produce other resources in this case, life via Food tokens. STE is a mana dork that goes into decks that want to play Wrath of God and come over the top. Somberwald Sage. Here is everything you need to know about mana rocks, mana dorks, and mana rituals in MTG. Devoted Druid. I like this Myr and you should too, but there are still three much stronger mana dorks to look at. What it does mean is that our early mana acceleration is far more likely to come in the form of 2-drops or 1-drops with downsides in comparison to the elves. Sylvan Caryatid is just about the gold standard for five-color fixing when you don't have access to Birds of Paradise.

Deathrite Shaman Illustration by Steve Argyle.

Playing this card with your second land being something other than green makes it a pre-upgraded Joraga Treespeaker and a slightly worse Black Lotus once you hit three uniquely colored permanents. The card pretty much did it all when it was printed in Champions of Kamigawa and to me represents an anti-mana dork because while it is similar in function to other mana dorks in the sense that it ramps and fixes mana, we'd typically put STE into exactly the opposite type of decks where mana dorks tend to provide synergistic upside. Wall of Roots. Some other notable cards that haven't been mentioned yet are Arcane Signet for Commander decks, Mana Crypt , and Noble Hierarch for a very powerful mana dork in Modern. Bloom Tender. Simply paying one generic to get an artifact that can tap for two colourless back is incredibly valuable, and can be used in any coloured deck. I tend to spend a lot of time in my articles talking about how fundamentally important I believe understanding how mana works is to playing Magic well; perhaps going so deep into making sure I can always cast my spells on time and on curve makes me a bit of a mana dork! Table of Contents show. Make no mistake - both of these cards are mana dorks that play with the conception of what a mana dork can and should do. If there's a reason why green has slowly been trending from the worst color in Magic make no mistake - it was the worst color in Magic by a wide margin in the early years into debatably the best color in Magic presently, it's because green has been given and retains a monopoly over effective ways to have efficient mana in terms of quality and quality of new options printed each year. Renowned Weaponsmith is an artificer that produces a Sol Ring -like effect you can use on artifacts or activated abilities. I like Caryatid a lot in decks where it's going to function as a combo piece because it protects itself with its own ability.