Gaea's Cradle
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Gaea's Cradle

Legendary Land

: Add for each creature you control.

Kjacobson6800 on What happens if counterfeit Magic …

1 month ago

I for one would be super upset. I've been playing for decades, and it's unfortunate that we went from cool art to IMO some really weak art and strange not so fun sets. Don't even get me started on 'Vehicles'- I HATE THEM. Some of the new mechanics are downright garbage, confusing, and hard to follow. That being said, the fakes are getting really really "good". I have no problem with their use in casual play or someone using a Counterfeit or Proxy....let's say.... Gaea's Cradle -IF THEY OWN A REAL ONE AND ARE SIMPLY TRYING TO PRESERVE the VALUE OF THE ACTUAL CARD AND CAN PROVIDE PROOF OF OWNERSHIP OF A REAL COPY (or playset, however many they would like to use) -Are open and forthcoming about their decks containing proxies, and provide a list of said proxies -If their playgroup is ok with this, or to build an amazing CUBE never intended for resale at market value. -Mark the Cards with a simple black sharpie dot or something suitable. -DO NOT INTEND TO RESELL THE CARDS FOR PROFIT OR MARKET VALUE -DO NOT INTEND TO RESELL TO MOM AND POP SHOPS>>>> WIZARDS WILL BAN YOU FROM ALL SANCTIONED EVENTS IF YOU ARE CAUGHT DOING SO ( True Statement)

Currently, if you overpay for a counterfeit card, it is your own fault for not sourcing your cards from reputable vendors. If something is too good to be true, it likely is. I have never bought a card from EBAY, nor would I....Etsy, Etc. Big purchases; I usually seek an in person sale/trade/actual shop, or buy from a trusted Vendor. I usually use TCG but on a major purchase I would likely spend the extra on Card Kingdom or something graded.

If someone you know is trying to pass counterfeits off as real, call them out!! At least make it known to your play community-- who is doing it --and what to be on the lookout for. No one deserves to get duped and quit playing or have their shop go under over someone ripping them off. Jewelers Loops aren't super expensive considering the topic. Educate yourselves, and stop a counterfeiter dead in their tracks. Nothing stings quite like a public spanking...you'll literally be holding evidence of fraud in your hands while calling someone out and depending on the level of attempted fraud/sales-situatuion, they could be in some serious legal trouble. Like i said earlier....trying to pass these off as real in sanctioned tournaments or Reselling at market value to DCI involved shops WILL GET YOU BANNED FOR LIFE BY WIZARDS Good luck out there.

legendofa on Commander bracket recommendation

1 month ago

Femme_Fatale Thanks for the response and for taking action!

I have the same experience with Blood Moon. I'm not sure there's a good way to print a card that shuts down Tundra, Gaea's Cradle, and Tolarian Academy but not Bloodfell Caves and Rupture Spire, so it's kind of all or nothing for non basic land hate.

Is this a good thread to post further feedback on?

hyalopterouslemur on Testing brackets with Merfolk combos

1 month ago

I was lucky. I started playing back when duals were under $100. If I'd known Magic would be around this long, I would've invested in even more duals.

FWIW, you can just use pain lands or shocks or something like that instead of OG duals. The most important thing is that they don't enter tapped. Though with pain lands, you can't Nature's Lore, Skyshroud Claim or Farseek into them.

I have found that mana bases tend to be where most of my money goes. Well, if I had to buy OG duals and Gaea's Cradle and Serra's Sanctum and the like today, that would be where most of my money would go. I'll give you an example: My Ghave, Guru of Spores deck

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ghave-guru-of-spores-aristocrats-1/?cb=1744497806

costs $3.2K at Card Kingdom. The mana portion of that costs some 40 times what the non-mana portion costs.

legendofa on The New Commander Brackets Beta

1 month ago

I've been struggling with this for a couple of my decklists recently, and I'm trying to summarize my thoughts here without starting a new thread. So this is semi-stream-of-thought, and I apologize if it gets a little rambly.

There are several criteria being tracked by the current bracket system, including resource generation, speed, reliability, and oppression, and possibly others.

Game changers: A combo like Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact + Thassa's Oracle gets a key card on the game changers list, because it's fast and reliable, ending a match on turn 3-4. These are speed game changers. Other game changers generate resources just by playing the game, like Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe. This group often also includes oppression, since a lot of them tax the opponent. Another group is cheap (1-2 mana) tutors, like Vampiric Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, or Survival of the Fittest, that increase a deck's reliability for very little opportunity cost. Most game changers can be sorted into one of these four categories. Ancient Tomb and Gaea's Cradle are speed and resource generation, Drannith Magistrate and Force of Will are oppression, and so on.

Bracket Guidelines: From Gavin Verhey's announcement article, here's what each of the brackets mean and expect. Important to note that the system is still in beta testing, so this is probably going to be different in the future.

  • Bracket 1: Decks with more focus on a gimmick than on winning. "Winning is not the primary goal here, as it's more about showing off something unusual you've made. Villains yelling in the art? Everything has the number four? Oops, all Horses? Those are all fair game!" This bracket doesn't allow extra turns, two-card infinite combos, mass land denial, or game changers, and restricts tutors.

  • Bracket 2: Decks that can win, but are not tightly focused, or slow to develop. "While Bracket 2 decks may not have every perfect card, they have the potential for big, splashy turns, strong engines, and are built in a way that works toward winning the game. While the game is unlikely to end out of nowhere and generally goes nine or more turns, you can expect big swings." This bracket doesn't allow any game changers, mass land denial, two-card infinite combos, or multiple extra turns in a row, and restricts tutors.

  • Bracket 3: Decks that are focused on winning efficiently, but are not optimized. "They are full of carefully selected cards, with work having gone into figuring out the best card for each slot. The games tend to be a little faster as well, ending a turn or two sooner than your Core (Bracket 2) decks." This bracket does not allow mass land denial or multiple extra turns in a row, and restricts game changers and two-card infinite combos, and allows tutors freely.

  • Bracket 4: Decks that are optimized for their strategy. "Bring out your strongest decks and cards... This is high-powered Commander, and games have the potential to end quickly. The focus here is on bringing the best version of the deck you want to play, but not one built around a tournament metagame." This bracket has no restrictions.

  • Bracket 5: Decks that expect to win at the most competitive levels. "There is care paid into following and paying attention to a metagame and tournament structure, and no sacrifices are made in deck building as you try to be the one to win the pod." This brackets has no restrictions.

Deck Analysis 1: The deck I've been struggling most with is Clear Waters. As I listed in another thread, it has an infinite turns combo (Wanderwine Prophets + Deeproot Pilgrimage + Merfolk Sovereign) and mass land denial (Opposition + Seedborn Muse, Quicksilver Fountain), and a selection of tutors to pull these together (Forerunner of the Heralds, Idyllic Tutor, Merrow Harbinger, Seahunter, and Sterling Grove). This should put it squarely into Bracket 4.

My concern is that it's neither high powered nor optimized. On the axes of speed, resource generation, reliability, and oppression, I would score it high on oppression, pretty good on reliability, and low on speed and resources generation. Looking at examples of other Bracket 4 decks around the internet, all four of those criteria need to be high in this bracket. The infinite turns combo is slow and easily removed, and the land denial is optional (Opposition can have other targets) or temporary (Quicksilver Fountain can remove its own effect).

It would be easy to simply add a big pile of game changers to improve all of these facets. Right now, it has one game changer in Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, and that one's not essential to the deck. That's not the direction I want to go with the deck, though--I want to keep it reasonably budget, and even adding the three least expensive of the game changers I'm considering would basically double the deck's cost.

I know that people in brackets under 4 want to be able to play their deck, and the infinite turns and land denial shut that down. These are clearly stated in the announcement article -"A single extra-turn spell can be fun and splashy. However, extra-turn spells take a ton of time away from other players and their ability to play the game and tend to be unfun when repeated."- that's why they're forced into brackets 4 and 5. But if a deck isn't able to compete against high power, optimized Bracket 4 decks, can it be considered Bracket 4?

Deck Analysis 2: Another deck that I've been struggling with is an enchantment deck, Do Not Mistake Peace For Passivity. The point of concern for this deck is land denial. Blood Moon is classic mass land denial, and the deck is designed to play around it with Abundant Growth, Fertile Ground, Prismatic Omen, and similar cards. It also has a combo that doesn't directly deny lands, but punishes their play and use: Manabarbs + Citadel of Pain. Otherwise, the deck fits all the criteria of a Bracket 2 deck--no game changers, no infinite combos, few tutors, and no extra turns.

This deck can be converted into a pure Bracket 2 deck without much effort by replacing Blood Moon and Manabarbs. But as it stands, a single card pushes the deck up two brackets, according to the guidelines. Again, I don't feel the deck is high powered or optimized, and would not be able to compete in a Bracket 4 match. It could probably survive in Bracket 3, since it's highly synergistic, but nothing any higher.

In this case, adding a bunch of game changers and power cards would somewhat dilute how the deck functions. A few, like Smothering Tithe or Trouble in Pairs, could slot in, but most others would be more gratuitous.

Conclusion: To quote the article again, "There's some wiggle room, and while playing against decks that are all inside your bracket is ideal, you can usually wiggle within one bracket away from you safely." "You should play where you think you belong based on the descriptions." All of this can be discussed in a Rule 0 talk. I strongly believe the brackets are intended to help this conversation, not replace it. As an example, for the Clear Waters deck, I would say that the deck is not optimized to Bracket 4, and I think it fits best into Bracket 3, but it's controlling and has a potential three-card infinite turns combo. I'm willing to announce when the combo is assembled and ready to start, to give everyone a turn cycle to react, and reduce the use of Opposition to creatures and artifacts.

I feel like the current setup is a little too restrictive of the kind of combo-control decks I like. I can have fun smashing big creatures into each other and outmaneuvering everyone else, but I will enjoy locking down the board and establishing my inevitability, and I'm having a harder time trying to find ways to do that in lower brackets. Some people have already offered me excellent feedback and suggestions that I'm taking into consideration, but I'd also like to see how people are responding to the bracket system so far.

For comparison, here's a few more of my decklists:

lhetrick13 on Gishath Spared No Expense!!!

3 months ago

Mortlocke - "Interesting philosphy regarding your commander getting combat damage - instead of trying to sneak by, you just hit them harder." Yes, that summarizes my play style very well, lol. I am not to much for gimmicks or shenanigans...I just love a good ol' beatdown!

In terms of card draw/tutoring, ya, the Naya colors are not great at it and I could definitely add in things like Trouble in Pairs to get more draw or Smothering Tithe for arguable some of the best ramp out there, but nominally, I am not playing to much from my hand once I get Gishath out as she is tutoring creatures for me. The deck is kinda centered around having 50+ either lands, ramp, or cards I deem an accelerate like Hunting Velociraptor so pretty much every other card in the deck helps get Gishath out fast. From that point on, it is more focused on protection of my boardstate. I am running Forerunner of the Empire, Savage Order, and Congregation at Dawn for creature tutors. So they are in there but jsut not some of the classic ones you would expect. I like the flexability those provide over Worldly Tutor. Finale of Devastation is a beast of a card but since I am not running Ghalta, Primal Hunger, the card kinda loses some of its flair with this decklist. Growing Rites of Itlimoc  Flip I actually dropped for Welcome to ...  Flip! Very similar cards and I just like the Jurassic Park cards soooo much. Hard not to add those in!

I am working on the Gaea's Cradle! Hard to justify dropping pretty much 6 months of my monthly MTG budget on a single card but hoping some of my side hustles this summer will let me pick that up. It is not phenominal in this deck like it would be in something like Chatterfang, but it would still be more effective than some of the other lands/cards I have in the decklist!

Thanks for all the thoughts you are posting, I do greatly appreciate the questions and recommendations! It has been about 5 months since I played this deck so I need to sit down and take a look at it again and ask some of the hard questions about why I included some things and why I dropped others.

Mortlocke on Gishath Spared No Expense!!!

3 months ago

Oh! and I can't believe I didn't say this, but thank you for they very nice compliment regarding my own take on Dino Tribal. I appreciate the nice words. I was half-joking about Gaea's Cradle, by the way. I full well understand that it's often a prohibitively expensive card and to some can feel a bit "win more", but in my eyes it significantly lowers the bar for hitting "critical mass" with your mana. As you build your board with creatures - something your deck wants to do, Cradle simply rewards you for "free" effectively. It helps keep the deck explosive - Growing Rites of Itlimoc  Flip is a considerably less over powered viable alternative, but why not have both?

Mortlocke on Gishath Spared No Expense!!!

3 months ago

Ah! You're right about that Roaming Throne! I missed that. Sorry for the wasted suggestion. Interesting philosophy regarding your commander getting combat damage - instead of trying to sneak by, you just hit them harder. Well i'm glad you're considering Finale of Devastation as it fits this ethos quite nicely. I do wonder about your deck's consistency though - have you ever found yourself needing to tutor for creatures? I see you're considering Worldly Tutor, what about Sylvan Tutor? Both place creatures on top of your library, so it synchronizes perfectly with your Commander's triggers. What maybe more ramp? There's Kodama's Reach, the sibling to Cultivate that you could also include.

Now lastly, this suggestion is very expensive - but why settle for Three Tree City when you could go for Gaea's Cradle? Gishath Spared No Expense, so why should you? Just hear me out - this card is indeed a game changer, and a very splashy one. You don't have purchase it, as you can proxy. But if that's not your style, I won't slight you. On the other hand if you have a full trade binder with some pricey goodies you could go to an LGS you trust and work out a deal. I've done something like this before and it's worked out for me. But again, this is a very subjective thing. If that doesn't seem appealing, you could also try Growing Rites of Itlimoc  Flip. It can help you get another creature in hand/filter the top of your library. What're your thoughts?

Crow_Umbra on Adding brackets to commander decks

3 months ago

Linking the Bracket article for reference to anyone who hadn't read up on it yet. Given that today's announcement is for the Beta version of this system, with a proposed revisit in late April to account for feedback, I'm fine with Tapped Out rolling a flag/feature closer to then.

From some discussions I've seen across social media today, I'm seeing a sentiment that the "Game Chargers" lists are still kinda incomplete. I don't expect these lists to be exhaustive out the gate, but having a general sense of the Bracket parameters is helpful.

I think a more complicated future wrinkle for the Brackets will be taking mana base consistency into consideration beyond fast mana or powerful utility lands like Gaea's Cradle or Glacial Chasm, etc.

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