While it certainly can be very strong, I have cut it from every green deck I have made thus far for being worse than a Forest.
To consider playing it, I would consider a creature count in the high 20's, or a way to consistently generate multiple tokens as mandatory. More importantly, those creatures &/or tokens need to be available early; Gaea's Cradle in a deck with 40 creatures at CMC 4 or higher is largely useless.
I don't even know how to properly respond to that.
While there exist green decks which do not have enough creatures to support Cradle, they are not the norm. Even just 2 creatures in play makes Cradle better than a forest, barring abilities that target forests (like Nissa, Worldwaker). You're guaranteed to have your commander available, and you're in the color that cares about creatures the most; almost all green CA requires creatures, green tutoring is split between creatures and lands, most green recursion is capable of targeting creatures (although many can get other card types as well), and many of the best green cards in the format are creatures and/or produce tokens.
A more justifiable reason to exclude Cradle from a deck is budget; it's far from a budget card, and I can totally understand not running it because you can't afford it.
If you cannot have it consistently producing two or more mana on turn three, I would strongly consider removing it for a basic land.
The drawback of it not producing mana on turn 1, in my experience of playing with it for years, was considerably greater than the benefit of it producing more than 1.
There is also the consideration that sweeper effects tend to be very common in this format, and it does nothing after a sweeper. There are actually far fewer decks I would consider playing it in than decks I would not. Yes, it is amazing in Animar, Soul of Elements, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, or Ghave, Guru of Spores. It is terrible in many more.
Again, you need to have a deck with a high creature count, with a low CMC, for it to be worth including.
It may be worthwhile in The Gitrog Monster, even without those criteria, because you are likely running enough lands for it's inability to produce mana to be relevant early in the game, but even then only if you expect it to produce three or more mana by midgame.
If your plan is to accelerate into your frog via mana dorks, it is probably worth running. That being said, the ceiling of such a card is not incredibly high, as mentioned before. Unless you plan on expecting Avenger of Zendikar and his crew to untap the turn after you play it.
Notably, if you only have the frog out, feeding the cradle to it on the upkeep trigger is a viable option.
First, I'll tell you what I tell everyone that is trying to enhance their decks: Cards like this are amazing and will often increase your deck's power level, but any time you consider adding a $200+ card, think about what $200 of other cards could do to enhance your deck. Usually this is in reference to people that was to slam ABUR duals into a precon, but it's something to think about.
If you cannot have it consistently producing two or more mana on turn three, I would strongly consider removing it for a basic land.
The drawback of it not producing mana on turn 1, in my experience of playing with it for years, was considerably greater than the benefit of it producing more than 1.
There is also the consideration that sweeper effects tend to be very common in this format, and it does nothing after a sweeper. There are actually far fewer decks I would consider playing it in than decks I would not. Yes, it is amazing in Animar, Soul of Elements, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, or Ghave, Guru of Spores. It is terrible in many more.
Again, you need to have a deck with a high creature count, with a low CMC, for it to be worth including.
It may be worthwhile in The Gitrog Monster, even without those criteria, because you are likely running enough lands for it's inability to produce mana to be relevant early in the game, but even then only if you expect it to produce three or more mana by midgame.
By this logic, Tolarian Acadamy should be unbanned because the only way it produces U on Turn 1 is with subpar 0 mana artifacts, and it does nothing after an Austere Command or Shatterstorm.
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You don't call "dying to removal" if the removal is more expensive in resources than the creature. If you have to spend BG (Abrupt Decay), or W + basic land (PtE) to remove a 1G, that is not "dying to removal". Strictly speaking Goyf dies to removal, but actually your removal is dying to Goyf.
It's awesome. I own two and play them in four of my nine decks: Derevi Enchantress, Marath, Kamahl Goodstuff and Zegana Merfolk Tribal.
If I don't have much of a low cmc creature count but still want to include it, I don't consider it a land for the sake of deckbuilding. If you're running it, consider a suite of support and enablers - like Crop Rotation, Life From the Loam and Knight of the Reliquary.
I use mine faithfully with Marath, Will of the Wild, for obvious reason. There are times I find it lackluster, such as in open hand where I need the initial green mana, but it's not like a green deck would have issue getting mana, I just have to manage the mana-ratio in my deck accordingly.
Decks that untap lands like Derevi would probably make good use of it as well.
It depends on the number of creatures you run, their mana costs, etc.. If you regularly have 2-3 creatures by turn 3, then you're probably free to run Cradle, maybe even Crop Rotation if you're really feeling it (now it's Shulk time).
If not... then don't run Gaea's Cradle. It's not strictly better than a Forest, and there's also a great deal of dependence on whether or not your meta game is full of control/prison/lockdown decks that regularly wipe your board state. It's strong acceleration, but if your group regularly Wraths and Staxes you, Cradle is probably going to be dead weight much of the time if your deck isn't capable of comboing out and winning before they can do so (if your deck is capable of doing that, then run Cradle. If not, and your meta is rough, don't bother with Cradle for obvious reasons).
lol, I have Cradles and they're only in my Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Ghave, Guru of Spores decks (I have 5 Commander decks in green: The aforementioned, Sliver Overlord, Uril the Miststalker, and Roon of the Hidden Realm. Overlord is probably my only other deck that truly wants a Cradle, and I've been lazy and just haven't put one in for months lol).
It rewards you for something Green already does better than the other colors, play creatures. I played it most in mono-Green where it was very good (I have played it in other color combinations too, just not as much or as well), it fueled huge plays and numerous "Oh Damn!" moments. While it is totally useless without creatures, green wants you too play a lot of creatures,creatures are kinda green's thing. I played it in a deck with 30 or more creatures representing every cmc, I also played several token makers, so the choice to put it in was super obvious as I already had it. In your case with your commander being Gitrog, unless you are playing a high creature count with the lower cmc slots being well represented it probably will not shine. It will probably be okay simply because of its ridiculously high power level.
Gaea's Cradle is a 100% busted mana engine that is objectively the best land in any green deck with a reasonable amount of creatures. It craps out mana at an alarming rate and makes Mana Crypt look pokey by comparison. It was originally part of a three-card cycle with Tolarian Academy (a card so powerful it was once seriously debated whether it should be banned in Vintage) and the very build-specific Serra's Sanctum, which basically requires you to be playing Enchantress to do anything good. There are only three ways to deal with a Gaea's Cradle in EDH:
1) boardwipes
2) targeted land destruction like Strip Mine
3) Sabotaging the personal finances of the Cradle owner so they are forced to sell it
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If your deck has over 25ish~ creatures then it would be worth including. If you can afford it, then you should run it. If your deck is more creature based (azuri for example), then good lord you should absolutely run it.
Think of the temple of the false god argument. Some people don't like temple of the false god because it is too whimsical in early games, or your deck may never need 5x lands. Similarly Maze of Ith also doesn't tap for mana unless you have some enabler like Urborg out, and cabal coffers in a two-color deck without that Urborg out also sucks. If you are willing to run something like those, then there shouldn't be any harm in running Cradle.
I think it's less about the deck and more about the sinks. What do you get out of 20 green mana and an empty hand?
Honestly, I'm not a fan of Cradle. It's strength is also it's biggest weakness. EDH is wrath heavy so the likelihood of a giant board state surviving a spin around the table isn't that high. It requires overextension to do what it wants to do. The alternative is that your deck is combo, and that you just plan to tap/untap for 10 minutes, in which case you shouldn't have sat down anyways.
I've got a copy of Cradle, and I've tried it in a few decks (it's currently residing in Titania), and in many ways I consider it more of a ritual type effect than a traditional land. I tend only to play it (or Crop Rotation for it) when I have a reasonable board, and there's enough land destruction (usually in the form of Ghost Quarter, Tectonic Edge, Strip Mine and so on) that I don't really expect it to stay around for that long (though of course, if it does, great). But often that single infusion of mana is all I need to turn a decent board into a game winning one.
If you can produce any number of creatures and you can afford the budget, you run cradle. Even if you add it to the deck not to replace a basic forest but to replace a lategame ramp spell instead because your deck may not have a lot of low CMC creatures to make it tap for mana in the early turns.
If you cannot have it consistently producing two or more mana on turn three, I would strongly consider removing it for a basic land.
The drawback of it not producing mana on turn 1, in my experience of playing with it for years, was considerably greater than the benefit of it producing more than 1.
There is also the consideration that sweeper effects tend to be very common in this format, and it does nothing after a sweeper. There are actually far fewer decks I would consider playing it in than decks I would not. Yes, it is amazing in Animar, Soul of Elements, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, or Ghave, Guru of Spores. It is terrible in many more.
Again, you need to have a deck with a high creature count, with a low CMC, for it to be worth including.
It may be worthwhile in The Gitrog Monster, even without those criteria, because you are likely running enough lands for it's inability to produce mana to be relevant early in the game, but even then only if you expect it to produce three or more mana by midgame.
By this logic, Tolarian Acadamy should be unbanned because the only way it produces U on Turn 1 is with subpar 0 mana artifacts, and it does nothing after an Austere Command or Shatterstorm.
Artifacts are usually easier to get out and harder to remove than creatures, but even then Academy would probably be fine to unban.
I run it in my Gitrog deck and it's been awesome. I rarely play it early, but it's such a great extra land to drop after an Avenger of Zendikar or Worm Harvest or after milling your deck with Zombie Infestation. Essentially, it's not at it's best in the deck, but it's certainly still way better than a basic forest.
I think it's less about the deck and more about the sinks. What do you get out of 20 green mana and an empty hand?
Honestly, I'm not a fan of Cradle. It's strength is also it's biggest weakness. EDH is wrath heavy so the likelihood of a giant board state surviving a spin around the table isn't that high. It requires overextension to do what it wants to do. The alternative is that your deck is combo, and that you just plan to tap/untap for 10 minutes, in which case you shouldn't have sat down anyways.
Sounds like the forums are as conflicted as I am about the card. The deck will definetly run Avenger of Zendikar and Worm Harvest and probably some typical utility creatures such as Eternal Witness and Tilling Treefolk, I can't Imagine there being much more than 20-25 creatures in the deck.
When I acquired my Cradle, I put it in my Titania deck. It made a world of difference--as if the deck was "unlocked" because of the sheer power of that much mana in one card, while being able to look for it easily, while being able to recur it with Titania if need be.
Like some of the other people said though: its not for every deck. If your deck can properly make tokens at a consistent basis (Wort, Marath, Ghave, etc) then you run that business. As for the Gitrog Toad...it depends. Aside from the mass-token producers you listed, consider how many other creatures you are running at a low CMC. I'm talking stuff like Farhaven Elf, Wood Elves, and any other mana producers be it from tap abilities or land fetch. If you can get those sort of cards out almost every game then it may be worth to run the Cradle since it won't be such a dead card all the time.
Helix Pinnacle is more obvious, or at least a more consistent investment.
I guess my point is if you are creating 20-mana while Hellbent, it doesn't do anything for you. Its more of a combo-include than a, for lack of a better term, casual include, if that makes sense? It's not an Auto-in for green decks. It requires some set-up to take advantage of it. Bad early, and potentially dead late as well.
I just said something similar in the Avenger of Zendikar thread, and that is its not cradle as the chief offender, it's other cards that really bring out its full potential.
And if you're running any of those, Cradle gets silly, because now you can find it when you need it, sometimes put it directly into play, and each of those cards is essentially another copy of cradle to slam on the board when it most suits you. Yeah, Cradle is bad early. Pretty much all of cards like it (Nykthos, Deserted Temple, Coffers, etc.) are bad in the early turns. But consistently, all of those cards explode in power in the mid-to-late game, to such a degree that you really have to justify not running them rather than vice versa.
Cradle is so good that it's close to Ban Worthy. Unless your deck is largely creatureless, it's usually better then a forest by a fair margin, even if you are not running a multitude of creatures, it can be hugely powerful.
I understand not running it for budget reasons or because the deck doesn't suit itself well to it or because it's so overpowered that you don't want to totally outclass your friends - but otherwise this is a very solid card.
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My question is, is this something you should almost always play in green? How many creatures should a deck have before you start considering it?
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To consider playing it, I would consider a creature count in the high 20's, or a way to consistently generate multiple tokens as mandatory. More importantly, those creatures &/or tokens need to be available early; Gaea's Cradle in a deck with 40 creatures at CMC 4 or higher is largely useless.
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I don't even know how to properly respond to that.
While there exist green decks which do not have enough creatures to support Cradle, they are not the norm. Even just 2 creatures in play makes Cradle better than a forest, barring abilities that target forests (like Nissa, Worldwaker). You're guaranteed to have your commander available, and you're in the color that cares about creatures the most; almost all green CA requires creatures, green tutoring is split between creatures and lands, most green recursion is capable of targeting creatures (although many can get other card types as well), and many of the best green cards in the format are creatures and/or produce tokens.
A more justifiable reason to exclude Cradle from a deck is budget; it's far from a budget card, and I can totally understand not running it because you can't afford it.
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The drawback of it not producing mana on turn 1, in my experience of playing with it for years, was considerably greater than the benefit of it producing more than 1.
There is also the consideration that sweeper effects tend to be very common in this format, and it does nothing after a sweeper. There are actually far fewer decks I would consider playing it in than decks I would not. Yes, it is amazing in Animar, Soul of Elements, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, or Ghave, Guru of Spores. It is terrible in many more.
Again, you need to have a deck with a high creature count, with a low CMC, for it to be worth including.
It may be worthwhile in The Gitrog Monster, even without those criteria, because you are likely running enough lands for it's inability to produce mana to be relevant early in the game, but even then only if you expect it to produce three or more mana by midgame.
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Notably, if you only have the frog out, feeding the cradle to it on the upkeep trigger is a viable option.
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If you already have it, it depends on the deck, itself. I run a 48 land count list with a few "dead" lands like Glacial Chasm, Lake of the Dead, and Dark Depths. I also run things like Worm Harvest, Zendikar Resurgent, Titania, Protector of Argoth, Rampaging Baloths, and Avenger of Zendikar that support Cradle. So basically, ask yourself if a) your deck can handle it being "dead" sometimes and b) what support you play?
By this logic, Tolarian Acadamy should be unbanned because the only way it produces U on Turn 1 is with subpar 0 mana artifacts, and it does nothing after an Austere Command or Shatterstorm.
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If I don't have much of a low cmc creature count but still want to include it, I don't consider it a land for the sake of deckbuilding. If you're running it, consider a suite of support and enablers - like Crop Rotation, Life From the Loam and Knight of the Reliquary.
Decks that untap lands like Derevi would probably make good use of it as well.
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If not... then don't run Gaea's Cradle. It's not strictly better than a Forest, and there's also a great deal of dependence on whether or not your meta game is full of control/prison/lockdown decks that regularly wipe your board state. It's strong acceleration, but if your group regularly Wraths and Staxes you, Cradle is probably going to be dead weight much of the time if your deck isn't capable of comboing out and winning before they can do so (if your deck is capable of doing that, then run Cradle. If not, and your meta is rough, don't bother with Cradle for obvious reasons).
lol, I have Cradles and they're only in my Ezuri, Renegade Leader and Ghave, Guru of Spores decks (I have 5 Commander decks in green: The aforementioned, Sliver Overlord, Uril the Miststalker, and Roon of the Hidden Realm. Overlord is probably my only other deck that truly wants a Cradle, and I've been lazy and just haven't put one in for months lol).
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1) boardwipes
2) targeted land destruction like Strip Mine
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Think of the temple of the false god argument. Some people don't like temple of the false god because it is too whimsical in early games, or your deck may never need 5x lands. Similarly Maze of Ith also doesn't tap for mana unless you have some enabler like Urborg out, and cabal coffers in a two-color deck without that Urborg out also sucks. If you are willing to run something like those, then there shouldn't be any harm in running Cradle.
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Honestly, I'm not a fan of Cradle. It's strength is also it's biggest weakness. EDH is wrath heavy so the likelihood of a giant board state surviving a spin around the table isn't that high. It requires overextension to do what it wants to do. The alternative is that your deck is combo, and that you just plan to tap/untap for 10 minutes, in which case you shouldn't have sat down anyways.
If you can produce any number of creatures and you can afford the budget, you run cradle. Even if you add it to the deck not to replace a basic forest but to replace a lategame ramp spell instead because your deck may not have a lot of low CMC creatures to make it tap for mana in the early turns.
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This stands out to me, what would the best mana sinks other than the obvious Genesis Wave be? I'll probably run things like Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and World Breaker maybe The Great Aurora too.
Sounds like the forums are as conflicted as I am about the card. The deck will definetly run Avenger of Zendikar and Worm Harvest and probably some typical utility creatures such as Eternal Witness and Tilling Treefolk, I can't Imagine there being much more than 20-25 creatures in the deck.
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Like some of the other people said though: its not for every deck. If your deck can properly make tokens at a consistent basis (Wort, Marath, Ghave, etc) then you run that business. As for the Gitrog Toad...it depends. Aside from the mass-token producers you listed, consider how many other creatures you are running at a low CMC. I'm talking stuff like Farhaven Elf, Wood Elves, and any other mana producers be it from tap abilities or land fetch. If you can get those sort of cards out almost every game then it may be worth to run the Cradle since it won't be such a dead card all the time.
I guess my point is if you are creating 20-mana while Hellbent, it doesn't do anything for you. Its more of a combo-include than a, for lack of a better term, casual include, if that makes sense? It's not an Auto-in for green decks. It requires some set-up to take advantage of it. Bad early, and potentially dead late as well.
I just said something similar in the Avenger of Zendikar thread, and that is its not cradle as the chief offender, it's other cards that really bring out its full potential.
And where support is concerned, you're already running cards that often won't be used to produce mana at all, and that are good enough to be worth tutoring. Yavimaya Hollow, Strip Mine, Tectonic Edge, Nykthos, etc. And you only need a handful of these to justify Crop Rotation/Sylvan Scrying/Expedition Map/Tolaria West.
And if you're running any of those, Cradle gets silly, because now you can find it when you need it, sometimes put it directly into play, and each of those cards is essentially another copy of cradle to slam on the board when it most suits you. Yeah, Cradle is bad early. Pretty much all of cards like it (Nykthos, Deserted Temple, Coffers, etc.) are bad in the early turns. But consistently, all of those cards explode in power in the mid-to-late game, to such a degree that you really have to justify not running them rather than vice versa.
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I understand not running it for budget reasons or because the deck doesn't suit itself well to it or because it's so overpowered that you don't want to totally outclass your friends - but otherwise this is a very solid card.