Why Are Players Cutting Sol Ring? | Magic: the Gathering | Commander 

I have an enchantress deck that used to run 0 artifacts. One game, another player cast a spell that let them look through another player's deck and steal an artifact. They chose me. I cackled for days afterward.

My definition of an auto include is something you have to actively choose not to put in a deck. Sol ring is a choice your making to remove it, not to add it. Very few cards can hold a candle to that.

I wonder how much Pauper Commander impacts this statistic. Since it’s never received a common printing, Sol Ring won’t appear in the thousands of PDH decks the EDHrec is probably pulling from.

Did anyone else think Joey was gonna say he made this episode so he could finally challenge some stats?

The funny thing about sol ring is also that the power level affects sol ring's impact so much. In casual, drawing your sol ring t1 can warp the game, whereas in a pod also running mana crypt, jeweled lotus, etc, the two mana boost is practically business as usual.

low colorless pip count is legit. I forget which deck it was in particular, but I remember finding that I couldn't really make good use of the ring in some decks when the main deck just didn't have a lot of colorless in it's costs.

Super interesting data dive, Joey! I personally dropped Sol Ring from most of my decks because it swings games too much. Sol Ring in the first 3 turns just catapults you so far ahead.

Commander is a format that allows for deck creativity in a way that you just don't see in other formats. Sol Ring is absolutely a great card, but it is one of those cards that just feels kinda "paint by numbers" when you look at it while deckbuilding. It gives no "Ok, where are they going with this" feeling when I see it hit the table, it is just a simple efficient tool. And that is fine, every deck needs some efficient cards, personally I would rather play a less efficient mana source with some synergistic upside further down the road.

I personally want to make my decks less same-y. I only put it in whenever I play a color combination that lacks good ramp of its own and/or if im playing an artifact deck

I play Sol Ring, but certainly don’t have anything against those that don’t, nor do I mind having the discussion as a playgroup. Heck, I wouldn’t mind having one extra deck slot in all of my decks! 😂

My reasons are entirely power level based. I just didn’t like the feeling of opening sol ring and winning due to my early leads. Granted, my experience is mostly 2 or 3 player with the same handful of casual players, so my decks are tuned accordingly. When I built for higher-power (and consistently multiplayer) metas, I definitely was throwing it in everything. Definitely appreciate the mindful strategic analysis here that even I never really considered.

I remember a playgroup I used to play with that wanted to ban fast mana and sol rings. A month in we saw a huge swing to green decks and my Darien deck sat on the shelf due to not being able to catch up before they went off. We actually saw less variation of decks when fast mana went away.

I played a game with some friends over the weekend, one of whom was brand new to the format, and it was intended to be a "opportunity to learn your deck" kinda game... I gambled on a 2-land hand with card draw and rocks in my Alibou deck, which IMO is the clunkiest and weakest of my decks... but the hand had a sol ring in it. It immediately threw me way ahead of my friends in a way that my deck does NOT normally do. On turn 4 I realised I would likely be able to get both casts of an Approach Of The Second Sun off before the end of my next turn. I sighed - a turn 5 win against a brand new player was not what I or anyone wanted. After checking with the group, I played it out - we prefer to do our sandbagging during deckbuilding, not during play - and yeah. The game was over within 10 minutes. All because the speed of sol ring meant I could pop off before my friends had a reasonable chance of doing the same :/ The experience has made me much more skeptical of giving it leeway that other fast mana rocks don't get. If I knew people around me were also interested in cutting their fast mana, I'd be happy to reenact LOTR's Mt Doom scene...

I really don't like playing against and with sol ring. Often when a player draws sol ring they become the arch enemy or put them so far ahead that it is hard for everyone else to catch up. Most people don't play cards like mana crypt for a reason, even if money isn't an issue. I tend to play lower power games and it tends to dominate said low power games. Which is why, unless it's on theme, I tend to cut it from all of my decks, only 1 of my 20-ish decks having it at the moment.

wonderful video as always Joey!!! i personally don’t put Sol Ring in many of my casual low MV commander decks just on the basis of owning a lot of EDH decks, and i want to look at different pieces of cardboard. giving more niche ramp pieces or synergies a spotlight just makes me enjoy the game a little more.

I think it would be very interesting for you guys to discuss how the game dynamics change when playing in a game of 3 or 5 players. It's something that comes up very often in normal playgroups. I think sol ring in a three player creates very bad game experience for example.

Straight up, I just don't play sol ring if a deck is meant for purely casual play. Like sure, if you're playing a powerful deck that aims to win and everyone is playing that way, then sure, I'll play one of my decks with it in it. But otherwise, I'll just replace sol ring for a 2 mana rock bc that's the type of ramp that is most common. Plus, helps with not becoming archenemy right away at the start of the game 😉

Our playgroup banned sol ring/all other fast mana, and we've never looked back. It frees up slots in the 99 and helps keep our pod's power level tame.

I’m a little late to the party, but I chose to remove Sol ring from my Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres deck in favor of other mana rocks. I started out with the Sol Ring, but it was very quickly replaced by normally worse mana rocks such as astral cornucopia and everflowing chalice. Part of the problem was that even with a turn 1 Sol Ring, it simply doesn’t move with the engine and often felt like dead weight on the field. Worse still was that drawing it after the first 3 turns felt like a waste as there was usually other cards that were taking priority to cast and added mana simply wasn’t worth casting as it wasn’t impacting the board state any longer. This is anecdotal, but smoothing out the draw engine was more important in this case than the extra mana early. It’s important to consider whether a card is truly moving the deck forward or not at all points.

I think the one deck I have that I seriously considered cutting Sol Ring was my Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief deck since I was going with an aura enchantress theme to it. I still have it in the list as one of only 2 artifacts but I don't think I'd really miss it were I to actually cut it (except for missing the Pride secret lair art)

I spend a lot of time tuning my lists, more so than my playgroup and as a result my decks are noticeably more synergistic. In order to keep myself from stomping my friends every game, I've cut a lot of powerful staples, Sol Ring included.

I think a lot of these can go either way. You can argue that ring is great regardless and put it in, or argue that some other option is more synergistic. I think both are probably correct, but the question of which is more fun to play/what you want to use that slot for is what it comes down to

Our play group decided not to include fast mana like Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus etc. and this includes Sol Ring. If you think about it the only difference conceptually between Sol Ring and Mana Crypt is a lot of money because Wizard decided to continuously print the card in comparison to the other card. The card is that over powered that it’s hard to find the next best card in the line. Compare it to Worn Powerstone which costs 2cmc more and enters tapped.

You bring up so good points not to use Sol Ring using mana colored spells. Our group always use Sol Ring in our decks. Wouldn't it make sense to use Sol Ring because each time your Commander goes back into the Command Zone, it cost two additional mana each time you bring your Commander out. Thanks for the video Joey.

Because it is generic power with no flavor to the deck and sours the taste in my mouth when I play it, it feels like I'm cheating haha

I recently made a list for the new Thalia and The Gitrog Monster and after testing decided to remove Sol-Ring. I found that due to the high land count, land based ramp, and color pips in the commanders mana cost, Sol-Ring didnt work as well as I thought it would.

I think another small point that was never brought up was that online not everyone makes decks that are finished and complete or that have been played. They might start making a deck but abandon it half way and the system does not account for decks that are not trying to win. So I would say there is a small percentage of decks on edhrec that are simply waste stats.

To throw my 2 cents into the conversation, I use EDHREC to have a digital catalog of my Physical Decks, which is about 12. I don't own 12 copies of Sol Ring (No matter how much I want to) I don't use Online Card Sellers so I only Buy from Local Game Stores, and they are frequently our of Stock for Sol Ring.

It also makes you a huge target. If you play it, it can absolutely cause the entire board to focus you down. Also it being so common insures that people will frequently bring counterplay

Great video and insight, thank you! I've recently started not Auto including it in my decks with the intention being to evaluate the ramp after the main strategy has been established. Additionally, to lessen usage of sol ring, a person in my playgroup recently made the comment that adding more draw should be weighed higher than ramp so I'm currently testing that notion out. 🤔

I tend to not use Sol Ring in my decks for a reason that my playgroups end up just agreeing to disagree with. Most people want to have that mana out early and so they put in rocks like Sol Ring or Jeweled Lotus expecting it on turn 1-3. My rebuttal is this: In a casual game where you're having fun with friends at a table, would you like to draw a Sol Ring turn 4-8, or a synergy card?

I was expecting this video to be a push to ditch Sol Ring. Very glad that it was nuanced and a well argued discussion. Thanks for the insight.

I don't run Sol Ring in my Sigarda, Host of Herons Voltron deck because I do have quite a few artifact hate in the deck. As an enchantress, she draws and ramps me decently being in green. If others depend on their rings and artifacts and I can shut those down, I am repelled forward even further! I also have Serra's Sanctum in the deck so I am usually good on making a lot of mana. I was on the fence about running it in Hamza, Guardian of Arashin, but I am keeping it there. The cost reduction is on colorless mana, but it is nice being able to cast creatures prior to Hamza coming down, or casting instant and sorceries that ramp or protect.

“High on their own supply” was the best way to describe it in my opinion. Definitely made me bust up 🤣 great video!!

I’m on the verge of taking Sol Ring out of everything I play, and it may be for dumb reasons, but I’m probably going to stick with them. There’s a six percent chance to hit it in your opener, and until your fiftieth draw you have a 2% chance onto hit it. Early game, it draws more heat than I am usually setup to take. Mid game, I’m trying to stabilize and get my closers out, I either need it in play already or I want to draw something else. Late game, I need something other than acceleration almost universally and it has always felt like a dead draw. It’s just always a bad vibe to me. In the opener? “Wellp, I’m the target now” bad vibes. Draw it mid game? “I really need my engine pieces, I wish I had this sooner” bad vibes. Late game? “I really needed my removal or some kind of draw right now” bad vibes. But it changes entirely when it’s on board already. Early game ring? “Thank the Magic gods I have the mana for this wipe” mid games. Late game? “Time for the combo pain”. Then there’s the table dynamics. One person has one? Well, that persons the threat until it’s gone. Two people? Well, now there’s two people behind while half the table throws hay makers. Three people? Well, someone’s getting dunked on or ignored for having a normal game and doesn’t get to feel relevant. None of those are scenarios that I personally feel are what people’s decks showed up to do. I get the power of a Sol Ring. I have it in everything right now. But it just never passes the vibe check for “what’s gonna be the most fun right now”. I know that’s short sighted, but to me I don’t play commander to win. I play to hang out, have stories about this one time someone did something stupid crazy. And just like that, to do the stupid crazy, you probably need a Sol Ring to do it. So I’m obviously conflicted.

I play Sol Ring now, but when I first started, I was a lot more strict about budget and the ring was a bit more expensive than I felt was justifiable (I tried to keep each card under $2 and it was over $3). Some of my decks still don't have it since I haven't bothered to 'upgrade' that specific card

Interesting, I doubt my Animar deck compares to a CDH version but I do use Sol Ring in it because of some colorless creatures I use as well as powering up my X cost creatures. Also helps with casting some of my enchantments, though I do experience a bit of frustration when it's time to cast creatures and my arcane signet ends up being more useful most of the time. When people say that frustration isn't a good enough reason to exclude it, you have to keep in mind that being stuck with the wrong mana just one or two times is often a game ender at higher levels of play and may get removed because the extra speed sometimes doesn't make up for being inconsistent.

One of the big reasons for a deck with no ring will be color pips in my experience. When Crypt and ring aren't helping you cast your mother of Runes into dauthi into necro etc, you might have to make some changes.

My problem with sol ring has always been what I like to call the "donning the target mask" problem. Whoever gets a turn 1 sol ring is likely to be the first person to suffer at the hands of an opponent, be it a 1/1 creature, a burn spell, or removal. My one aggressive deck, Winota (aka Spin to Winota) runs it, but I often have to put some thought into whether it's worth that risk in other decks. I like to actually establish a board state before I get punched, personally. I usually prioritize putting Hans/Sad Robot in over a sol ring. It may not tap for mana, but it's ramp, card draw, AND HAS LEGS.

My most recent deck to omit Sol Ring was helmed by Maelstrom Wanderer. I decided to use absolutely no one-drops or two-drops in this deck, so that they couldn't get in the way of cascading into Hypergenesis. In the past, I've also sometimes build decks without Sol Ring to keep them within a specific budget.

I use Sol Ring in decks where it actively helps me ramp into a commander but not in decks where the commander isn't part of the engine or expensive enough to warrant using it like a mini ritual effect.

The secret reason for not including Sol Ring: I forgot to put a Sol Ring in my deck! Oops! The second secret reason: Thada Adel player stole it!

I have an Omnath, Locus of Rage deck with 60 Lands and no Sol Ring. My Goal was to have a functioning and very strong deck with as many Lands as I could cram in there. It is also my most expensive deck and it is really fun to play.

For me it always start with a sol ring and arcane signet in my list, BUT if I’m getting close to finishing the list and have a card or two that I REALLY want to play in the deck but just can’t find room for, they are the first cards to come out

I have removed all "fast mana" and downgraded Sol Rings to Sol Talismans. And now I am removing Sol Talismans. I like playing higher power decks and I mitigate that by not using any form of fast mana. I like my decks to have actual weaknesses to encourage more dramatic play experiences.

I've built most of my decks through dumpster diving through some LGSs and friend's bulk lists, and at a time if I had about 10 of my local currency, I'd rather spend on a couple of key pieces for my decks (which were usually green, and therefore easier to subsidize its lack). The one Sol ring I've got now is in my Tianna deck that is very color intensive, but also very reliant on her to be out, so any help is welcome.

Great Video! Tuvasa player here and I absolutely agree, between her color intensive casting cost, and the cheapness of most enchantments I am running, Sol Ring actually ends up slowing her down.

To me it just depends on the type of deck I want to build. If it’s a fast deck or something that I want to make compete but not at a level like that. If I’m going for a chill deck, especially if it’s a different commander, I choose not to simply for variety

I think one non-thematic consideration you didn't mention might be in a deck or a group meta where artefact hate is prevalent. Sol Ring probably isn't worth it if things like stony silence or vandalblasts and farewells are extra common.

Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Jeweled Lotus and low mana tutors are the only cards we banned in my playgroup, and honestly we regret nothing, makes the decks and matches much more unique and entertaining. The fast mana those artifacts give sometimes make the match spiral out of control and just un-fun or it turns into an Arch Enemy match.

I personally have two examples at the moment. One is straightforward. I built a Sithis deck (which I love) where I decided that every nonland card would be an enchantment (literally every one). Since that was a deckbuilding requirement, easy answer. The second one I think is slightly more interesting. I have an Eriette of the charmed Apple deck (which I also love). It is a deck that I have officially named Aurazhov, but also refer to as "we've got goad at home". The deck is basically a very slow deck where I enchant my opponent's biggest or more dangerous threats with beneficial auras so that they can can keep on swinging with a bit of a buff, just not my direction. Then I use my commander's effect (and a few similar effects) to drain my opponent's while they hit each other. I think the biggest strength of Sol Ring, and why it is such an incredibly powerful card, is the potential for that crazy early play where you turn one or two a Sol Ring and then play out your commander early or have another explosive play. My Eriette deck does not have big explosive plays, just a slow, grindy playstyle. At best if I turn one a sol ring (which is very rare statistically) I can get my commander out one turn early, which usually doesn't matter that much, since early in the game, I usually don't have enemy creatures I want to enchant. Ultimately, I just think it doesn't provide much benefit to the deck, and I would rather play other cards, such as another aura, or protection piece, or piece of draw (STILL haven't gotten around to picking up Ashiok's Reaper, Hateful Eidolan, and Kor Spiritdancer yet).

I have a couple of decks that don't run Sol Ring. Some of those indeed fall into the pip heavy requirements (with indeed Johda being an example). The more interesting reason are my three intentionally low-powered decks, where including Sol Ring would make the deck better but it would be against the purpose the deck was optimised for. Not every deck is optimized to be powerful, some decks are optimized for a gamestyle where that kind of acceleration would be disruptive. But we also have the rule where mana positive ramp costs at least 3 in the first three rounds (which is where Sol Ring really shines).

Sol Ring and similar cards were fine 10 years ago, when the base power level of cards was pretty low but, nowadays it is very easy to to gain a huge advantage with 2 extra mana on the first turns.

Back in 2011 my friends and I agreed to ban Sol Ring from our decks. We felt it ruined too many games if someone got it turn one. Though my friends have quit playing since then I still don’t play Sol Ring.

This was awesome! It's incredibly interesting to listen to what sound like some valid reason not to run a SR and then to still see that over 50% of people are still including it. It just leaves me wondering what is the percentage of people who included a SR because of its fame and hype? I wonder how low the percentages could go or if the 50+% of people running it in some of the decks mentioned would miss it if they cut it? It's in my prosper deck but on games where I don't pull it I don't miss it or at least I don't think I do.

The pips can play a huge role depending on how central the commander is to your strategy. In animar for example, his ability is central to the deck so cutting any ramp that can't help cast him as early means you are eliminating dead cards from t1-t3 plays edit:shouldve watched the rest before commenting

Thanks for this video. I know it's going to be sub-optimal, but i'm going to give myself a restriction of making a deck without colourless mana rocks. In an act of forcing myself to be more creative and think more laterally about my card choices.

Outside of it being a wasted slot in my landfall deck, I don't really play it and colorless mana rocks much anymore due to how much I've smoothed out the mana curve. The decks care more about getting the right colors rather than huge colorless mana.

I don't have a Sol Ring in my black/white cleric deck. I am constantly drawing and playing low-cost clerics, and don't usually have much need for two colorless mana. I chose to put a two color land in instead.

I made a feather the redeemed decklist recently and it's the first time I've considered cutting sol ring from the list in a commander deck. It's not just the commander herself costing 3 color pips, the deck as a whole is extremely pip heavy to the point where I feel as though mid-game treasure token generators like storm-kiln artist or smothering tithe are a lot more useful. I still ended up keeping sol ring in the end though because my list has more equipments than average, but I can definitely see myself mulliganing starting hands even if they contain a sol ring.

I only recently started taking sol ring out of some decks. It was a conscious decision as I realized the colorless mana wasn't doing what I needed. Other ramp pieces worked better.

Don’t forget extreme budget decks. Sol Ring wibble-wobbles between $1 and $3 and if you’re trying to build in a deck under $10 you literally don’t have the space for a ring when you need to include 60 other five to ten cent cards to fill out a list.

I started a personal rule in *most* of my decks to only run cards that are modern legal. It takes out many of the power crept cards printed specifically for EDH, as well as removing the possibility to play the somewhat contentious Reserve List cards. The benefit overall that I've seen from it is that it opened up many new slots in my deck from removing several staples to allow for more diversity in choices, which imo makes them more interesting to play with and against

what's the card which scores the highest % use rate across commander? just curious, other than land of course, i would of put it down to sol ring before seeing this vid but now i just have no clue.

My biggest gripe with Sol Ring is that in most builds you really don’t want to draw it after turn 6, or so. At that point my mana is set and I’m looking for answers to the board state. I don’t want to draw a Sol Ring on turn 8 when I really need a removal spell or a board wipe. As has been mentioned, when you really want it is in your opening hand, but if you play a turn one Sol Ring you’re going to be the arch enemy.

Don't forget rule 0. I've been in some playgroups that have Sol Ring banned because it ended up being the deciding factor of a game and that isn't always appreciated in some circles.

As mentioned in the video, Jarad Golgari Lich Lord is my deck I took sol ring out of. I have a lot of cards that care about creatures in GY like boneyard wurm or spider spawning. Overall I have 52 creatures and only one non-creature artifact (witchbane orb for GY protection). Sol ring in the bin doesnt +1/+1 my creatures or get hit on a living death

I like replacing some very popular good cards like sol ring with some group hugish ramp or draw cards that can help someone who may be having a rough start to a game. If I'm in green my go to us avatar of growth, if I am in white I like cards like cut a deal or flumph, and if I am in red I like Descend into Avernus. Those cards can spark joy which I appreciate because sometimes people get stuck with just the lands they started with and the complaining can really bring the mood down for the table. The nice thing about having these types of cards in your deck is that you can always choose not to play them if the situation is inappropriate (like if some one brings a cEDH deck to FNM, I am not going to help that person get ramp/draw since their deck is more efficient than mine), however those situations are rarer than if you get a sol ring early and the hostility of the table is pointed at you for being lucky enough to get such a powerful temporary ramp source.

I have started playing less and less sol ring in decks for power level. Yes it's legal and good but I don't enjoy games where I am too ahead of my opponents. I will sometimes choose to mulligan if it's in my opening hand Edit: honestly I play less and less traditional ramp cards these days in general. Slow mana rocks don't get you very far in 2023. There is so much accidental removal that it sometimes only give you a temporary boost of mana

Sol ring helps me play 6 mana commanders, which I’ve grown to love.

My sythis deck has sol ring. But I'm always questioning if maybe I should take it out for a different card like a ramp enchantment.

All three of my green decks (Lathril, Sythis, and Imoti) don’t play Sol Ring for reasons all mentioned in this video - caring about Elves, being enchantress, and wanting to cascade + having a Keruga companion - respectively.

I would not cut a Sol Ring. Not with a scissors, not with a knife. I just couldn't do it.

I play sol ring in nearly all my decks, the only one that doesn't have it is my Yarok Landfall deck. I had originally forgotten to include it, and due to the fact land ramp is currently taking up the slot for it, I haven't found missing it.

I have 2 decks without it, one that focuses on colour pips with Krrik and one that just didn't happen to have a lot of generic mana costs and had quite a few landfall triggers which benefited more from another land tutor on that slot instead.

Uhm, acshually, Jodah Archmage Eternal technically doesnt have an activated ability 🤓

One of my oldest decks is a Grixis vampire deck. It used to be headed by Garza Zol, but I switched to Evelyn, the Covetous awhile back. Neither version has ever included a Sol Ring for thematic reasons, namely that vampires traditionally avoid the sun. I later built an Edgar Markov deck and it has Sol Ring because it includes a bunch of the Ixalan vamps who aren’t as sun-avoidant as many vamps, but the Grixis one will never run it because I prefer it that way. It is very heavily vamp themed even beyond being heavily tribal.

When I see “I cut all fast mana because I want to nerf my deck” what I really see is “I hate life and I want these games to last an hour but they won’t because I’ll just lose first so I can pack up and head home”.

Joey VERY subtle on the Tatyova joke 😂

The first deck I took sol ring out of was my smart omnath deck, after that I started taking it out of my 3+ color decks, I don't normally miss it at all. And one sided games happen far less often too.

I play a lot of 5 color decks and some factors I take into consideration when I think about adding or cutting Sol Ring is 1) what is my commanders cost, 2) how necessary is my commander to my strategy and 3) do I need a lot of generic mana to cast my game winning cards. For instance my Scion of the Ur-Dragon deck needs a lot of specific colors and needs to get him out as quickly as possible so I didn't add Sol Ring to it since I needed to focus on getting colors on the field whereas my Jenson Carthalion/Lurrus deck is an Ad Naus deck so I need Sol Ring to help me potentially get a turn 2 Naus. You can add Sol Ring into any deck and it be helpful but the degree to which it helps will vary with power level and playstyles

i was gonna mention yuriko but it was in the video! awesome!

My favorite deck is my Rhys the redeemed elf / token synergy deck. Sol ring doesn’t help me cast my commander and I almost never have a mana problem due to the elves. After all of this sol ring is still one of the best cards in my deck. The only deck I’ve ever built that hasn’t had a sol ring was a Garth one eye / Jegantha companion ( WUBRG tribal) deck.

This is totally unrelated, but how to you get data on the decks? Is it just decks uploaded to mtg goldfish and other popular sites or do you extend to more niche sites?

Great Video! More of this stuff please :)

I built a three color extort deck years ago and I played soul ring initially but ended up cutting it for cards that helped produce more black pip mana. I had cabal coffers and urborg combo and found the deck ran a heck of a lot better than when I had soul ring draws. Having multiple instances of extort and casting a 1 mana draw spell soul ring would hinder my decks game plan. I needed color fixing more than a quick hit of colorless mana to power out early plays. Was my choice 100% correct? Probably not, but I felt like my deck ran better at the time. It was the only deck I ever cut soul ring from and won a lot more games because of it.

I have a Child of Alara lands deck. Sol Ring doesn't help get lands from my hand into play or get lands out of my deck or interact with Child. It can help me cast a more expensive ramp card, but it's usually not in play for longer than a turn or two before Child needs to clear the board for me. It also doesn't help cast child. When I'm playing this deck, I'm rarely thinking "I need more mana" I'm always thinking "I need more cards"

I have both a Hogaak and Feather deck. I do run Sol Ring in Hogaak and I'm thinking about taking it out of Feather as I lower the avg CMC closer to three.

I use mana rocks that tap for 3 colorless in my mono green ramp deck because it helps get that many more elves and spells out. I have hydras and a Junkyard Golem in that deck that benefit from them.

I have a Kaalia of the Vast EDH, it's played in casual "kitchen tabletop" with friends and others at my local lgs. I don't run Sol Ring because Kaalia puts my creatures into play for me. I also run nykthos, shrine to NYX as it helps with mana fixing while generating more than 2 colourless mana in the deck. So I haven't had any issues with it by excluding Sol Ring. The only thing that slows me down is keeping Kaalia alive. But it's still fun to play.

I was just playing my mina and denn deck and I had sol ring turn 2. There is no telling how much mana that saved me, and it reliably let me play spells even after I used her ability once or twice.

I have a lot of reps over several years now with my Ramos, Dragon Engine deck. I have reasons to not play it, but they are subjective and/or dependant on specific playgroups. 1. It doesn't trigger Ramos if drawn after he's in play. 2. The deck wants me to play 3-5 ramp spells in the opening turns before casting Ramos. If I cast him on turn 3 which is much easier with a Mana Crypt or Sol Ring, he'll get removed or countered and I'm back to square one having wasted 6 mana. Whereas, if I spend my first four turns casting ramp, by the time I cast Ramos, some of the table's opening-hand interaction will have already been used up. Or, I have accesss to 8-9 mana now which means I can cast him with protection. 3. It's "memey". I enjoy having these discussions with people in the game whenever it comes up. "This deck doesn't play Sol Ring" is an interesting conversation starter and challenges some pretty strong assumptions people have made. I don't care if they're right, I have limited the number of colorless spells in the deck to two: Greaves and Orrery, and even then I'm frequently testing for replacements to Greaves. Now that I think about it, maybe Orrery could be replaced with a tutor for Leyline of Anticipation.😮

On more than one occasion I've only realized i forgot to add a sol ring until after I've already uploaded the deck and gone through it online. Simply forgot, but now the list is possibly being added to data.

I go back and forth with running Sol Ring in my Spellslinger deck since it wants to run a lot of cost reduction and low-cost Instants and Sorceries with an emphasis on colored mana pips, which I can cover with ritual effects if necessary. The one big reason I keep Sol Ring in my Veyran deck is because it uses an Isocron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal, so it's just a hyper-efficient way to generate infinite mana of any color between it an an Izzet Signet and/or power the handful of more expensive haymakers I use to end the game, otherwise I would probably cut it.

In "the first sliver" it doesn't help cast the commander, but also it can brick your chain of sliver cascades, it's probably still kinda good, but if you add too many rocks or non slivers then the deck won't chain cascade as consistently into getting free profain tutor or draw 3

Very interesting cut for yuriko decks as it tends to be stuck in the hand in the first 2 turns when you open it as your lines consist of turn 1 creature, turn 2 yuriko.

I always just have a set amount of mana rocks in all my edh decks. The more ramp the deck has the less rocks I run but I always auto include sol ring and arcane signet even in my obuun landfall deck. 1st turn forest to sol ring to arcane signet allows for a turn two obuun and enough mana to start ramping hard turn three which can lead to a win that turn depending on hand but usually turn 4 or 5 if not hit by removal.

i got curious and checked my lists, turns out i'm running Sol Ring in only 14 of my 28 decks. there's a fair few where i'm surprised i wasn't. i think i just didn't have one on hand when i put the deck together as there's no reason not to be running it. one that i explicitly excluded Sol Ring from is Sidisi Brood Tyrant as she specifically wants to mill creatures, so i'm only running 10 nonland noncreatures

I have a grolnok the omnivore deck and the focus is getting out hedron crab and a lot of extra land drops, which triggers hedron crab, to self mill, which can give me more lands = more triggers = more lands = more triggers and I also have tireless provisioner and lotus Cobra, ashaya soul of the wild, aesi, azusa, Steve, arboreal Grazer, lab man, exploration, rites of Flourishing, ect

I find it crazy the Sol Ring causes so much uproar just because it gives two more mana.