Not a whole lot of people are running this card, which I feel is terribly wrong. As cube cards get better and cuts become harder, making sure your lands do work is important. Every time I've seen it or casted it since it's inclusion has been a beating. Like Rofellos, it can power out 6+ drops without much setup as long as your deck is equipped to do so. Even tapping for GG is way ahead of most lands, but being able to pay for echo of Deranged Hermit off of one land is just stupid.
We tried it but in cube it was far less trustworthy as in constructed. Too often it was not producing mana and a land that does not produce mana better have some killer ability. It was great sometimes, it was ok a lot of times, but it did nothing at least 1/4 for a turn in all games. That proved to be too much.
Unless you support aggro full out in green with tons of 1 drops, I don't feel this card will be good enough.
I play cradle in 600 and it's always just overwhelming advantage. Well, except when it's one of your two lands in your opening hand and all you have a 2 drop.
Putting mana dumps into your cube like jade mage makes this card ridic.
Because of the inconsistency with the land, I have to count it as a spell during deck construction. Every time it took up a land slot it caused me to mulligan (or lose).
Sometimes you have a bunch of creatures and the card taps for a ton. Sometimes you don't have any out and it does nothing. That's not something I'm really looking for from my lands spells, because green has a plethora of better ramp spells available.
It was consistently underwhelming for my playgroup, and we cut it. With no intention of adding it back in.
This card made me mulligan way too many times. I cut it a while back and I don't miss it at all. In fact, I sold mine and bought much better cube cards with the money (like Survival of the Fittest and Sinkhole).
Cradle is a fantastic cube card. Treat it and Tolarian Academy like spells (think Maze of Ith and Bazaar of Baghdad) and you will mulligan far less. It impacts the mid-game in a huge way and is playable in even non-green decks.
It's been in my cube twice and only been significant a few times, whilst the fact it costs me a land drop is sometimes problematic. I haven't missed it in the slightest. It's probably quite good at larger cubes where there are a lot of token effects available, but I still don't really want a single archetype card very often.
This card was absurd for me tonight in a GB aggro deck. I took the challenge of drafting this archetype since black and green aggro get so much hate. Gaea's Cradle was the reason I went undefeated, as it let me cheat out really early Deranged Hermits (and quite easily pay the echo...), Garruks, and a Grave Titan after I played out my one drops and bears. This card shouldn't do 'nothing' in a Cube deck unless you decide to keep a terrible hand. You only play it in a deck where you can abuse it, which is quite frankly most green decks. In my opinion more people should play this card.
Like the Cradle, it's even better with a token theme, and has allowed some insane turns (especially for the ramp decks). I've seen people with 6 mana on turn 3 quite often because of it, which is pretty solid.
Agreed with many of the posts above about this card being awesome. It has done tons of things for me like hardcast turn three Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and turn five Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. While it requires a bit of setup, the payoff is well worth it.
I play it at 540, mostly because it's my favorite card in the game, favorite art in the game, and I also have the Judge Foil making it that much more awesome. But it sees quite a lot of play in my Cube and the Opposition deck is drafted quite frequently. Typically I see the people playing it count it as a spell and not a land, though. This might cause me to include it as a green card instead of a land.
I once again had the pleasure to play with this card. I was playing Junk stax with Elespeth 2, Sorin 2, Garruk 1, and Hornet Queen. Only one game out of five I saw it in did it not produce G while the other games it made GGGG and enough to Nezumi Graverobber my opponent's graveyard of about 12 cards in 3 turns.
The one game it under performed was when my Lotus Cobra died to removal on an iffy keep. That game I was drawing my top end and no lands.
Cut from Cube for the inconsistency. It's either a total blow out or a total whiff and not something I want to encourage from a mana-producing land in my Cube. When straight up compared to pure ramp spells I think Cultivate and [/card]Kodama's Reach[/card] are much better since they accelerate you and give you a card in hand for various fuel in addition to fixing you. The only deck this card is insanely good in is in a heavy or mono green deck which rarely ever happens.
Nothing in this game is degenerate or completely dominant. They haven't banned anything in standard in a long, long time. Hell they should have banned affinity right away, but they didn't until boxed sales collapsed too. Hasbro had to come in and fire people.
I'll enjoy watching all the whiners eat crow monday.
This card and Hornet Queen have really been beating people up, literally the last three drafts I've held had this combo blowing people up (three different drafters have built it).
Whoever hasn't played it before should, it's a house.
This card and Hornet Queen have really been beating people up, literally the last three drafts I've held had this combo blowing people up (three different drafters have built it).
Whoever hasn't played it before should, it's a house.
You have to play the right cards to complement it (I guess some cubes cut Rofellos for some reason) but if you do, look out
You have to play the right cards to complement it (I guess some cubes cut Rofellos for some reason) but if you do, look out
I totally do not agree with this statement. While I run a few cards like Hornet Queen that work well with Cradle, you can still get way too much mana out of Cradle by playing normal old creatures. The card feels very close to powered in my unpowered cube.
I totally do not agree with this statement. While I run a few cards like Hornet Queen that work well with Cradle, you can still get way too much mana out of Cradle by playing normal old creatures. The card feels very close to powered in my unpowered cube.
Interesting! We normally see it go to a deck that really wants it and I had assumed from the negative feedback that it wasn't good enough outside of that. But I'm probably wrong because I've seen Cradle in action way too many times to underestimate its power.
We never really liked it either. I mean yes it's a 'combo' with Hornet Queen, but aren't you winning with Hornet Queen anyway and if not is 5 mana going to help?
It is really good to go Elf--> Token Producer --> This --> Whatever early on but it infuriated us more often than not and was cut.
I think this is one of the most underrated cards on these Cube boards. For this card to be bad you have to play it with no creatures in play. When you are building your deck, you might want to use this card in a nonland slot in your deck.
In 80% of green decks, you should want to pick this card highly. It takes you having 2 creatures in play for this card to be busted. I really don't understand how this card is bad in a color that is saturated in creatures in Cube. It plays extremely well with the green mana Elves in a midrange deck. If you are trying to make this a token support card, you are doing it wrong. Of course this is good in a GW token deck, but this card is good in most aggressive or especially midrange green decks regardless of whether or not you have token generators. Most of the time for me this card plays as a nonbasic Forest that makes GG in the midgame and can make absurd amounts of mana in the lategame. The synergies with cards like Deranged Hermit are a plus, but that's not why you should be playing the card.
Not a whole lot of people are running this card, which I feel is terribly wrong. As cube cards get better and cuts become harder, making sure your lands do work is important. Every time I've seen it or casted it since it's inclusion has been a beating. Like Rofellos, it can power out 6+ drops without much setup as long as your deck is equipped to do so. Even tapping for GG is way ahead of most lands, but being able to pay for echo of Deranged Hermit off of one land is just stupid.
Unless you support aggro full out in green with tons of 1 drops, I don't feel this card will be good enough.
I feel compelled to repeat everything I hear
Putting mana dumps into your cube like jade mage makes this card ridic.
360 Uncommons only Cube!
Sometimes you have a bunch of creatures and the card taps for a ton. Sometimes you don't have any out and it does nothing. That's not something I'm really looking for from my
landsspells, because green has a plethora of better ramp spells available.It was consistently underwhelming for my playgroup, and we cut it. With no intention of adding it back in.
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rant
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The one game it under performed was when my Lotus Cobra died to removal on an iffy keep. That game I was drawing my top end and no lands.
Who's eating crow?
Whoever hasn't played it before should, it's a house.
You have to play the right cards to complement it (I guess some cubes cut Rofellos for some reason) but if you do, look out
I totally do not agree with this statement. While I run a few cards like Hornet Queen that work well with Cradle, you can still get way too much mana out of Cradle by playing normal old creatures. The card feels very close to powered in my unpowered cube.
Interesting! We normally see it go to a deck that really wants it and I had assumed from the negative feedback that it wasn't good enough outside of that. But I'm probably wrong because I've seen Cradle in action way too many times to underestimate its power.
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
It kind of has to be inconsistent to not be absurd, right?
My 630 Card Powered Cube
My Article - "Cube Design Philosophy"
My Article - "Mana Short: A study in limited resource management."
My 50th Set (P)review - Discusses my top 20 Cube cards from OTJ!
It is really good to go Elf--> Token Producer --> This --> Whatever early on but it infuriated us more often than not and was cut.
On spoiled card wishlisting and 'should-have-had'-isms:
But this is cube. I want my cards to be consistently absurd
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In 80% of green decks, you should want to pick this card highly. It takes you having 2 creatures in play for this card to be busted. I really don't understand how this card is bad in a color that is saturated in creatures in Cube. It plays extremely well with the green mana Elves in a midrange deck. If you are trying to make this a token support card, you are doing it wrong. Of course this is good in a GW token deck, but this card is good in most aggressive or especially midrange green decks regardless of whether or not you have token generators. Most of the time for me this card plays as a nonbasic Forest that makes GG in the midgame and can make absurd amounts of mana in the lategame. The synergies with cards like Deranged Hermit are a plus, but that's not why you should be playing the card.