If I could get away with it, I wouldn’t include a mana base in most decklists. It’s not that I think it’s a waste of my time (I won’t pretend that isn’t a tiny part of it), but I think it’s pretty subjective. I don’t think there is an ideal 75% mana base that we need to try for, and I would rather people built with what they had. You can build a fine mana base that is 90% or more basic lands in Commander, especially if you have fixing in the form of mana rocks or are playing two or fewer colors. I think some utility lands are important, and if they fit in with the theme of the deck, so much the better. Still, I wouldn’t obsess over the lands in my article if it wouldn’t look odd to present someone sixty cards and call it a deck. My readers want to see a finished deck, and so I present one, and that means spending more time tinkering with basic-land-distribution ratios than I’d like. Don’t feel sorry for me—it’s my job.

Gaea's Cradle is an expensive Magic card. Printed seventeen years ago, the card would be a surly teenager by now. There weren’t a ton of cards printed back then, and demand has far, far outpaced supply. When the legend rule was updated recently, Gaea's Cradle’s price spiked in anticipation of Legacy Elves players jamming four copies to gain a real advantage. That didn’t really come to fruition, but the price hasn’t come down much either. A judge-foil printing hardly helped supply, and Cradle seems relatively unlikely to be reprinted due to its place on the Reserved List next to Citanul Centaurs and Zephid. Cradle is an expensive investment, but the advantage you can gain from it is substantial. So, what’s the 75% policy on Gaea's Cradle?

I hope I have made the case so far that I don’t care about your mana base. If you’re losing games to your mana base, make it better. Make it as sketchy as you can get away with, and save your money to build more decks, or to foil out your 100% Maelstrom Wanderer deck, or to spend it on sleeves. I don’t even make 75% rules about mana because it doesn’t matter unless it loses you games. So I don’t care about Gaea's Cradle.

That is to say I don’t care if you run it. If you can afford it, run it. If you didn’t sell the Cradle you picked up for $30 three years ago like some financiers who shall remain nameless, and thus you have one to run, jam it. I’m not the police. However, what I have avoided doing is building a deck in which Cradle felt necessary. So my topic today is a deck in which Cradle is good but not necessary to the extent that, whether or not you run it, the deck is still 75%. Mana shouldn’t make or break a 75% deck, and that should still hold true if you build correctly. I have wanted to build another tokeny deck for a while, so let’s get to it.

A Fun Guy ? Commander | Jason Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (28)
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Citanul Hierophants
• 1 Craterhoof Behemoth
• 1 Creakwood Liege
• 1 Deathspore Thallid
• 1 Elvish Farmer
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Genesis
• 1 Mold Shambler
• 1 Mycoloth
• 1 Psychotrope Thallid
• 1 Regal Force
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Savage Thallid
• 1 Spore Flower
• 1 Sporesower Thallid
• 1 Sporoloth Ancient
• 1 Thallid Germinator
• 1 Thallid Shell-Dweller
• 1 Thelonite Hermit
• 1 Thorn Thallid
• 1 Tukatongue Thallid
• 1 Utopia Mycon
• 1 Verdant Force
• 1 Vitaspore Thallid
• 1 Yavimaya Elder
• 1 Nemata, Grove Guardian
• 1 Verdeloth the Ancient

• Spells (32)
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Putrefy
• 1 Sprout Swarm
• 1 Death Mutation
• 1 Maelstrom Pulse
• 1 Parallel Evolution
• 1 Saproling Symbiosis
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Spontaneous Generation
• 1 Attrition
• 1 Beastmaster Ascension
• 1 Doubling Season
• 1 Fecundity
• 1 Fungal Bloom
• 1 Golgari Germination
• 1 Grave Pact
• 1 Mana Reflection
• 1 Muraganda Petroglyphs
• 1 Necrogenesis
• 1 Night Soil
• 1 Perilous Forays
• 1 Phyrexian Reclamation
• 1 Primal Vigor
• 1 Sporogenesis
• 1 Verdant Embrace
• 1 Contagion Clasp
• 1 Contagion Engine
• 1 Eldrazi Monument
• 1 Golgari Signet
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Sword of the Paruns

• Lands (39)
• 14 Swamp
• 15 Forest
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Gilt-Leaf Palace
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Llanowar Wastes
• 1 Tainted Wood
• 1 Temple of Malady
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Gaea's Cradle
• 1 Phyrexian Tower
• 1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Buy This Deck

There are some fun cards in here—such as Sword of the Paruns and Muraganda Petroglyphs—that you’re not always given access to. Running a lot of Saprolings specifically makes Saproling Symbiosis and similar cards fun. If you have trouble keeping track of tokens that aren’t Saprolings, cut Avenger of Zendikar and jam Thallid or something like that. It’s too bad white has some cool Saprolings we don’t have access to, but I like what we have.

I normally go a little heavier into thematics, but I want to have access to Craterhoof Behemoth. If you draw him too often (you might with Shamanic Revelation), maybe cut him if you’re winning way too many games, but I think he’s easy enough to play around or counter that he’s not such a problem. Again, if he terrorizes the table, go full theme build with it and cut all non-Saprolings. The deck should be fun to play, and the synergy you add should offset the cut in raw power.

There we have it: a deck in which Gaea's Cradle could fuel some stupid shenanigans with Fungal Bloom but in which you’re not screwed if you don’t have it. Citanul Hierophants is like Gaea's Cradle number two, but not as good. If it’s a second Cradle, sweet. If it’s your closest approximation, good, you didn’t drop a car payment on a Gaea's Cradle. Either way, the deck is fun, it can spiral wildly out of control if unchecked, and it is very, very 75%. Just don’t ask me any questions about the mana base. I don’t care, remember?