All 15 Red Mana Rocks in Magic Ranked

Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind | Illustration by Lars Grant-West

Mana acceleration is pretty common in EDH because of the multiplayer format and high life totals; they both give you the time to spend ramping and demand high-impact threats that often cost lots of mana. Though green is king at ramp, other colors have plenty of mana rocks at their disposal.

Red’s mana rocks have a dash of dragon flavor and lots of unique abilities. Some of the mana rocks are desirable because of the things they do other than make mana, which is a great sign for a good card. These are the best red mana rocks for your next brew!

What Are Red Mana Rocks in MTG?

Fire Diamond | Illustration by Lindsey Look

Red mana rocks are artifacts with a mono-red color identity that tap for mana. Because we're focusing on color identity, these cards either cost red mana or tap for exclusively red mana; colorless rocks that tap for any color aren't here.

#15. Red Mana Battery

It's rather funny to evaluate old cards compared to powercrept ones—the idea that Red Mana Battery has so many costs associated with its ramp in a game with Badgermole Cub is funny.

This is just unplayable: It costs 6 mana to get from Red Mana Battery, and the scaling sucks because you invest at such a high rate. If you want a mana rock that scales, play Empowered Autogenerator.

#14. Foriysian Totem

Foriysian Totem could be cute in a casual Cube. A 3-mana rock that becomes a creature works with decks that want both ramp and artifact creatures, though the activated ability costs too much to be worthwhile outside of Limited formats.

#13. Orb of Dragonkind

Orb of Dragonkind‘s restrictive mana keeps it down a few tiers; a mana rock whose mana you can only spend on certain spells has much, much less utility than a general one. The mana fixing is nice, though, especially with a commander like The Ur-Dragon.

#12. Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind

Though Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind is also pretty restricted to just dragon decks, it gets the edge by letting you spend the mana on other spells. A haste enabler is also very strong with dragons that have good attack or saboteur abilities, like Drakuseth, Maw of Flames and Ancient Copper Dragon.

#11. Ore-Rich Stalactite / Cosmium Catalyst

Ore-Rich Stalactite still has a restriction on its mana, but instants or sorceries is a much smaller sell. This rock works best in decks focused on big instants and sorceries to craft with like Breach the Multiverse or Soulfire Eruption instead of cantrips.

#10. Vulshok Factory

Vulshok Factory gives artifact creature decks a mana rock with late-game utility. It pairs best with commanders like Kilo, Apogee Mind that can proliferate its charge counters for a bigger artifact creature later.

#9. Glittering Stockpile

Red Mana Battery wishes it could be Glittering Stockpile. It scales with the game but actually has early game relevance, and you're pretty happy to cash in the 3-mana rock for an extra 4 or 5 mana later in the game.

#8. Heart of Ramos

Heart of Ramos‘s sacrifice ability gives it lots of flexibility. It helps to build a gameplan, then sacrifices itself for an additional mana the turn you need to win. It works extremely well with cards that care about sacrificing artifacts or getting them back.

#7. Loki’s Scepter

Act of Treason but on a mana rock is great for sacrifice decks that want to steal and sac opposing threats. This is a major upgrade to many Threatens; the going rate is already 3-mana sorcery speed, so leaving a mana rock behind is often a strict upgrade.

#6. Lavabrink Floodgates

Lavabrink Floodgates is the only combination board wipe and mana rock in the game, which gives it unique points. It's a cool Commander card because of manipulating the doom counters and also perfectly on-rate as a 4-mana rock that taps for 2 mana. I don’t see it often, but it's a cool card, especially with commanders like Smaug the Impenetrable that want to be damaged.

#5. Pyromancer’s Goggles

Pyromancer's Goggles gives spellslinger decks some oomph to scale up in the late game. Copying instants and sorceries makes up for the hefty cost associated with a 5-mana rock. Devastating Onslaught is particularly fun to copy as you can make Goggle copies to make more copies of other things.

#4. Cursed Mirror

Red has some of the most novel mana rocks in the game; we saw Threaten on a rock, and now Clone on a rock! Cursed Mirror works best with commanders that have strong enters abilities, like Etali, Primal Conqueror and Deadpool, Trading Card. There are also a handful of infinite combos with cards like Astral Dragon and Felidar Guardian to exploit.

#3. Fire Diamond

Fire Diamond gets so many points for costing 2 mana. Even entering tapped is a fine tradeoff for that. It belongs in 1- or 2-color decks without a bunch of Talismans and Signets to draw on and is often one of the first cards in my red EDH decks. The faster you accelerate, the stronger your deck becomes.

#2. Tablet of Discovery

Putting Tablet of Discovery over Fire Diamond might be my Standard bias showing, but the card is amazing when you're playing instants and sorceries. It taps for 2 mana for those card types, but it also taps for other spells. And it cantrips, for some reason?

#1. Mox Ruby

Mox Ruby topping the list is no surprise to anybody who has played Magic for any time. Going up a mana for no cost is a significant advantage, and that's before you factor in synergies: It's an artifact for Legion Extruder, a noncreature spell for Monastery Swiftspear or Saheeli, Sublime Artificer, and so on. Red Deck Wins is also one of the stronger archetypes to get its Moxen in Vintage Cube since it ends the game so fast.

Red Cards That Create Mana Rocks

A handful of red cards from The Brothers' War create Powerstones, an odd mana rock whose mana you can't use to cast nonartifact spells.

Excavation Explosion and Sibling Rivalry are Draft chaff. The abilities aren't bad, but the costs are unwieldy for formats that don't involve opening boosters.

The Brothers' War works very well in artifact decks. Four mana for two mana sources is on rate, and this one comes with a burn spell for later so it's still relevant towards the end of the game.

Visions of Phyrexia is effectively a red Phyrexian Arena with a kickback of a Powerstone if you don't use the card you draw. I wouldn't really consider this a ramp spell because you would prefer to cast the spells, not make tokens.

Wrap Up

Glittering Stockpile | Illustration by Brock Grossman

As long as we ignore Red Mana Battery, red has a host of decent mana rocks. Even the dragon ones aren’t unplayably bad, just heavily niche. With cards like these, your opponents have very little time before you smack them around with dragons or Crackle with Power.

Which red mana rocks do you play? Where would you rank Tablet of Discovery? Let me know in the comments below! If you want more Draftsim, check out our YouTube channel, The Daily Upkeep!

Stay safe and thanks for reading!