All 14 Blue Mana Rocks in Magic Ranked

Trevor Galvin 4 hours ago Collecting, Deckbuilding, MTG Cards

Lapis Orb of Dragonkind | Illustration by Olena Richards

Hello planeswalkers! Whether you’re developing a well-oiled Commander deck or trying your hardest to create a usable Limited deck, ramp can be tremendously important. Ramp is one of the bedrocks of good MTG decks. Lethality, wincons, and combos are the frosting, but card draw and ramp are the cake.

Let’s get quite specific today and take a look at blue mana rocks. These artifact cards will help you to ramp up your blue strategies and fly ahead of the curve.

Table of Contents show

What Are Blue Mana Rocks in MTG?

Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass | Illustration by Thanh Tuan

Mana rocks are artifacts that produce mana, but for today’s purposes, we’re going to look at mono-blue and colorless noncreature artifact cards that produce blue or colorless mana.

We'll be ignoring creatures that produce mana, like Oaken Siren and Silver Myr, since those are better classified as mana dorks. We do have a separate list of blue mana dorks, if you're looking for more ramp options.

Honorable Mention: Mox Sapphire

Mox Sapphire is a bomb 0-mana blue mana rock! So good, it’s banned in every format but Vintage. It also happens to be one of the better moxen in Vintage Cube.

#14. Blue Mana Battery

Let’s go all the way back to the Fourth Edition for a clunky mana rock in Blue Mana Battery. At 4 mana, you’ll probably never roster this card competitively. I guess I can say it has value if you manage to charge it up, but it's not even remotely playable these days.

#13. Chronatog Totem

The slang term “mana rock” refers to a noncreature artifact that produces mana. Chronatog Totem sneaks onto the list because it acts as a mana rock that can change into a creature momentarily. It’s a bit expensive for a mana rock, but it can provide 4 damage if you desperately need it to win.

#12. Cargo Ship

Cargo Ship is a better mana rock than Chronatog Totem because of its cheaper mana value and its more elusive keywords. Now, this card still has its faults as a mana rock. It can only provide colorless mana for artifact spells and abilities. A decent card in Limited, but not in consideration for most decks.

#11. Moonsnare Prototype

Moonsnare Prototype is one of the cheapest blue mana rocks, but it requires a bit more to actually produce mana. You must also tap an artifact or creature to even produce a colorless mana. This shouldn’t be hard with artifact tokens or stray permanents like Lightning Greaves, but there are better mana rocks to come.

#10. Eye of Ramos

Eye of Ramos seems like a run-of-the-mill mana rock, but with one upside. At 3-mana, there are far better mana rocks, but this card has a one-time boost that can help you jump a curve. You can tap this artifact and sac it for 2 mana when you need that boost the most.

#9. Lapis Orb of Dragonkind

Lapis Orb of Dragonkind isn’t as good as a Orb of Dragonkind, but it’s more versatile. You get a benefit for casting dragon cards with mana from this artifact, but you can also use it for other mana needs. The Alchemy version is even better, giving you any color mana instead of just blue.

#8. Forger’s Foundry

Mana rocks with a restriction on their mana aren’t the best, but Forger's Foundry does have its value. Blue is one of the primary colors for spellslinging and cheap spell combos. You can use this mana rock to ramp up your spellcasting and then activate Forger's Foundry to cast those spells one more time.

#7. Five Hundred Year Diary

Five Hundred Year Diary is a midrange blue mana rock that could produce a ton of mana in the right build, based on the number of clues you control. It’s built in that you’ll get at least 1 mana since this book is also a clue, but alongside cards like Tireless Tracker and Lonis, Cryptozoologist, you should ramp quite quickly.

#6. Misleading Signpost

Many of these better mana rocks provide mana and some sort of activated or ETB benefit. Misleading Signpost has a decent ETB effect for multiplayer games. Once attackers have been declared, you can reselect their attacking targets. Hilarity should ensue! After you’ve made enemies at the table, you at least have more mana for protecting yourself.

#5. Machine God’s Effigy

Machine God's Effigy is a unique clone card that also works as a mana rock. It enters as any creature on the battlefield, but this artifact card doesn’t become a creature. This “clone” loses the creature types and P/T. This is used to take an easily removed creature and preserve its abilities on an artifact, and you can always tap it for mana.

#4. The Enigma Jewel / Locus of Enlightenment

The Enigma Jewel is a stellar mana rock in activated ability decks. The goal is to help your activated ability strategies like Kenrith, the Returned King and Captain America, First Avenger. And in the later game, if you can transform it into Locus of Enlightenment, you can gain a huge spell-copying advantage.

#3. Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass

A bit expensive for a mana rock, Crystal Skull, Isu Spyglass at least provides more upside than mana alone. This artifact lets you look at and play historic cards off the top of your library. This extra benefit and the bonus mana mana are quite welcome in the middle turns to ramp to your endgame strategies.

#2. Sky Diamond

Sky Diamond is a mana rock that fits well into many curves. It's not approaching Signet or Talisman territory, but in singleton formats like Commander, a few different mana rocks really balance out the deck. This card is also a great blue mana rock for Pauper.

#1. Midnight Clock

The best blue mana rock has to be Midnight Clock. This artifact provides blue ramp right in the middle of your essential curve, and “ticks” towards an even bigger payoff. Use your mana ramp to gain an advantage over opponents, or use it to add hour counters. When the clock strikes 12, you’ll get a huge wheel effect!

Blue Cards That Create Mana Rocks

There are blue cards that aren’t mana rocks but can produce mana rock tokens for you. Some can produce Treasure tokens, which aren’t strictly considered “mana rocks”, but they’re always worth mentioning.

Powerstone tokens are definitely mana rocks though. Here’s a list of blue cards that can make Powerstones and help you ramp:

Wrap Up

Sky Diamond | Illustration by Lindsey Look

Thank you for reading about the blue mana rocks, and I want to reward you with a bit of speculation. While Midnight Clock is #1 on this list, as soon as we get a blue Infinity Stone, I believe it’ll immediately become the most useful blue mana rock. I predict that it’ll be “The Space (or Time) Stone”, and once harnessed, it’ll let you draw cards to a certain hand size each turn. But this is a total guess.

Thank you again, and feel free to leave a comment below or on the Draftsim Discord. If you’re not already, you should be checking out Draftsim’s newsletter and YouTube channel, both named The Daily Upkeep.

Stay safe and remember, blue mana rocks! Sorry, I had to.

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Trevor Galvin

Trevor Galvin played Magic as a rowdy middle schooler in the early 2000s, then took a long break before rejoining the battle in 2017. He loves playing Limited and also plays Standard to grind for those coins. He currently lives in Japan and plays MTG Arena every day.