[Deck] Elves Combo

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Originally Posted by TheInfamousBearAssassin

There's basically no excuse not to run Wish if you're running 8 mana lords. It obviates so much need to actually find/resolve Glimpse, much more so than Pact or GSZ which can't straight up win when you're producing a shit ton of mana.

And if you're not going for the Vengevine or NO plan you really need 8 mana lords, as you're not going to be able to reliably play Glimpses in Misstep.metagame.

If nothing else, do as Ruckus said and run 2-3 L. Wish where you would normally run Cradles/Emrakuls. The only absolutely necessary Wish targets are those two, Regal Force and Symbiote. Not that I know what the Hell you're going to board against Deedstill that's going to significantly improve that matchup.

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It appears people are talking about the use of Living Wish in completely different Elves builds.

From what you're saying with respect to using Living Wish w/ a build having 8 mana lords...I assume your list is more centered around hard-casting Emrakul with mana Lords and untap effects from Ranger/Symbiote....in which Living Wish is leaned on for Cradle and Emrakul, mainly?

I'm talking about Living Wish and its use in a more combo-oriented build (more Glimpse-centric).

I assume you like the Living Wish/mana generation build for Emrakul as it attemps to side-step Mental Misstep (on Glimpse) more by way of 2 and 3 mana lords? That sort of build would seem to do that, but seems to be much slower in its potential turn to "go-off".

Correct me if I'm wrong on my assumptions, but I'm trying to get a basis so we're all talking on the same baseline.

And Buried Alive/Vengevine is very difficult for BUG lists to beat games 2 and 3 if resolved.

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Originally Posted by Absolutflipz

It appears people are talking about the use of Living Wish in completely different Elves builds.

From what you're saying with respect to using Living Wish w/ a build having 8 mana lords...I assume your list is more centered around hard-casting Emrakul with mana Lords and untap effects from Ranger/Symbiote....in which Living Wish is leaned on for Cradle and Emrakul, mainly?

I'm talking about Living Wish and its use in a more combo-oriented build (more Glimpse-centric).

I assume you like the Living Wish/mana generation build for Emrakul as it attemps to side-step Mental Misstep (on Glimpse) more by way of 2 and 3 mana lords? That sort of build would seem to do that, but seems to be much slower in its potential turn to "go-off".

Correct me if I'm wrong on my assumptions, but I'm trying to get a basis so we're all talking on the same baseline.

And Buried Alive/Vengevine is very difficult for BUG lists to beat games 2 and 3 if resolved.

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The numbers don't actually shift much for the turn 3 kill, and the loss of turn 2 kills is very marginal. And that's goldfishing. The reality is that the deck can't survive being Glimpse-centric, even if it could have pre-Misstep (which I don't think it should have).

I'm also pretty sure you can make a Wishboard work with seven-eight slots pretty easily, running

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Gaea's Cradle
Wirewood Symbiote
Heritage Druid
Nettle Sentinel
Regal Force
Terastodon
Phyrexian Metamorph

Or something like that.

4x Green Sun's Zenith, 4x Summoner's pact, & 1x Finisher means 9 spots, and these tutors would only run in 2 directions: an specific green creature (any), card advantage (regal force).

4x Living wish + 4x "Tutor", means only 8 cards, and 5 possible routes to take: a specific elf (symbiote, heritage, importants), card advantage, mana advantage (Cradle), Finishing the game, Any creature in magic to deal with threats, not just green (masticore, sylvok replica, etc)

This is actually quite simple for all of those who don't understand it. Relying heavily on the glimpse combo doesn't work anymore, therefore we need to find another possible win-con, thus Living Wish being an Awesome tutor + a Wincon.

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Originally Posted by NihilObstat

4x Green Sun's Zenith, 4x Summoner's pact, & 1x Finisher means 9 spots, and these tutors would only run in 2 directions: an specific green creature (any), card advantage (regal force).

4x Living wish + 4x "Tutor", means only 8 cards, and 5 possible routes to take: a specific elf (symbiote, heritage, importants), card advantage, mana advantage (Cradle), Finishing the game, Any creature in magic to deal with threats, not just green (masticore, sylvok replica, etc)

This is actually quite simple for all of those who don't understand it. Relying heavily on the glimpse combo doesn't work anymore, therefore we need to find another possible win-con, thus Living Wish being an Awesome tutor + a Wincon.

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Possibly.

But what about not having a true sideboard...with things such as Vengevine/Buried Alive, which is very necessary/helpful in several matchups. I suppose you could run the 8 Living Wish targets plus the 7 cards for Venge/Buried...but then you lose out on Cabal Therapy, K-Grip, and Mortarpod/Beast Within (i.e. outs to Peacekeeper/Meddling Mage-type cards).

Further, you're now heavily relying on resolving Living Wish...especially for Emrakul...who effectively went from uncounterable to counterable.

I don't mean to be shooting down the idea by any means, but I want to point out that the use of Living Wish does not come without any opportunity costs (those listed above and the fact that it effectively costs 1 to 2 mana more than the other tutors).

That said, I wish I had time to test both versions before Baltimore this weekend, I'm intrigued by the Living Wish build.

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Originally Posted by Absolutflipz

Possibly.
But what about not having a true sideboard...with things such as Vengevine/Buried Alive, which is very necessary/helpful in several matchups. I suppose you could run the 8 Living Wish targets plus the 7 cards for Venge/Buried...but then you lose out on Cabal Therapy, K-Grip, and Mortarpod/Beast Within (i.e. outs to Peacekeeper/Meddling Mage-type cards).
Further, you're now heavily relying on resolving Living Wish...especially for Emrakul...who effectively went from uncounterable to counterable.
I don't mean to be shooting down the idea by any means, but I want to point out that the use of Living Wish does not come without any opportunity costs (those listed above and the fact that it effectively costs 1 to 2 mana more than the other tutors).
That said, I wish I had time to test both versions before Baltimore this weekend, I'm intrigued by the Living Wish build.

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A possible Living Wish + Vengevine + Krosan sideboard:

1x Masticore (no Mortarpod nor Beast Within) This guy you can tutor for, and has a 4/4 Regen, body.
1x Regal Force
1x Emrakul / Mirror entity
1x Sylvok Replica
1x Gaea's Cradle
2x Krosan Grip (I usually never side in more than 2 Krosan, add more if you want)
3x Vengevine
3x Buried Alive
1x Wirewood 1x Heritage. I have played Wish for months, and I don't run these guys in the side, so they could be 1x Buried alive, 1x KG, 1x Joraga Warcaller.

You are right on Emmy being counterable, but in 4 months and tons of games I haven't had a problem with that yet. On the other hand, I've won many games for tutoring Cradle, or Masticore game 1, or playing 2 Regal Forces....

I don't see the need for a dedicated Wish-board either. If I ran both VV and Wish targets, I would run this:

4 Vengevine
1 Emrakul
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Regal Force
1 Viridian Shaman/Terastadon
3 Krosan Grip
4 anti-combo

I'm not sold on Buried Alive anymore. Its strictly worse than most other options, and by the time you're boarding them, along with Grips, and other tools, the amount of creatures left in the deck don't make Vengevine rebuys very effective at all. Peacekeeper can be answered with Terastadon, and Humility with KGrips.

You still need a 1-mana creature (eg Symbiote) for LW to do anything productive when you cannot ramp up mana. Essence Warden is a neat little 1-drop that can improve the burn and sligh matchups at little cost as well.

@IBA: What gamestates do you propose Metamorph for? The problem legends can already be answered preemptively by fetching Faerie Macabre (Reanimate), Emrakul (S&T) or Viridian Shaman (Jitte). It does get Progenitus for a medium amount of mana but that's quite the specific situation, and the 5-mana + life copy best creature play looks underwhelming when compared to Symbiote in most situations.

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Originally Posted by Infinitium

You still need a 1-mana creature (eg Symbiote) for LW to do anything productive when you cannot ramp up mana. Essence Warden is a neat little 1-drop that can improve the burn and sligh matchups at little cost as well.

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I disagree. Whenever I've played Living Wish, it has been primarily to get Cradle (setup) or a finisher (Terastadon, Emmy). On occasion, I've gotten Shaman when I've seen SFM being cast for Jitte.

Game 2-3, this is different, as I typically board out at least 1 Heritage Druid, 1 Nettle Sentinel, and/or 1 Llanowar Elves to make room for KGrips, Therapies, or Vengevine. This allows LW to be used mid-combo when the plan does not typically involve "comboing" off.

I won't ever play the deck without access to 4 Wirewood Symbiote in the maindeck.

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Originally Posted by rukcus

I don't see the need for a dedicated Wish-board either. If I ran both VV and Wish targets, I would run this:

4 Vengevine
1 Emrakul
1 Gaea's Cradle
1 Regal Force
1 Viridian Shaman/Terastadon
3 Krosan Grip
4 anti-combo

I'm not sold on Buried Alive anymore. Its strictly worse than most other options, and by the time you're boarding them, along with Grips, and other tools, the amount of creatures left in the deck don't make Vengevine rebuys very effective at all. Peacekeeper can be answered with Terastadon, and Humility with KGrips.

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I'm sorry I think I missed something somewhere, what other options are there to put Vengevine's in the GY besides Intuition and how is BA strictly worse than them? "Strictly worse" can be used to describe Shock relative to Lightning Bolt given that they're the exact same card but one is simply better in it's entirety--in no circumstance is Lightning Bolt ever worse than Shock. If you're referring to Intuition, it's kind of a different beast than BA--for one, it has uses beyond just putting Venge's in the yard, but one of the problems there is that we already have better options to do what other things Intuition does: tutor.

BA hits 3 of the 4 vengevines as early as turn 2, allowing you to start swinging for 12+ on turn 3 with consistency.

Personally I'm just not a fan of devoting 7-8 card slots for this aggro plan..

Nah. rukcus is advocating the use of Vengevine without Buried Alive or Intiution. You just draw into them or GSZ them out or whatever works.

That way you still get access to the creature without filling up your sideboard.

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Originally Posted by rukcus

I disagree. Whenever I've played Living Wish, it has been primarily to get Cradle (setup) or a finisher (Terastadon, Emmy). On occasion, I've gotten Shaman when I've seen SFM being cast for Jitte.

Game 2-3, this is different, as I typically board out at least 1 Heritage Druid, 1 Nettle Sentinel, and/or 1 Llanowar Elves to make room for KGrips, Therapies, or Vengevine. This allows LW to be used mid-combo when the plan does not typically involve "comboing" off.

I won't ever play the deck without access to 4 Wirewood Symbiote in the maindeck.

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So what do you wish for in the fairly common "opponent answered my first three creatures, now what" gamestate?

I actually began playing my Wish builds with my usual 4/2 split between Symbiote/Ranger with access to the third ranger in the board, but quickly swapped this for the 4th Symbiote for a 3/3 split instead. Symbiote performs far too many functions in the early game besides generating mana not to maximize the amount of virtual copies run, and it's still broken at 3 mana. It also helps preserve the Elf count MD whilst making room for wish.

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Originally Posted by NihilObstat

Thanks for the info ;)

Alright so, after some math, I have this results:

Hands//////13 Lands deck////14 Lands + 4 Cradle
0 Land-----16%---------------14% counting that a single Cradle doesn't work
1 Land-----36%---------------24%
2 Land-----31%---------------34%
3 Land-----13%---------------23%
4 Land-----3%----------------9%

There's almost no difference in getting 0 lands from both lists:
13 Lands: 16%---------18 Lands: 14%-------We have a +2% of having to mull for not seeing any
A single Cradle wouldn't do the work, so we should count the chances of drawing 0 lands as though you ran 14 lands, which would be 14%

I think we can ggree that either 1 or 2 land are the best hands, and are what we usually want to get. So adding those up:
13 Lands: 67%---------18 Lands: 58%-------We get a +9% of having Sweet hands

The difference of getting 3 or more, which I usually consider weaker hands, is:
13 Lands: 16%---------18 Lands: 32%-------Therefore a +16% of slower hands

I hope this shows that for drawing more Fuel, having a better combo clock, and having optimal hands, 13 lands is probably the best for our deck.

14 Lands + 4 Cradle only grants slower hand, and you don't have any better % of not having to mull than we do. So, the only thing left to test is better those Cradle are actually worth some very, very tight spots.

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It appears that the change shifts the distribution from a peak between 1-2 lands to a peak more evenly distributed around 2. I would argue that the latter is better, since I very much dislike 1 land hands. These hands are far more vulnerable to Mental Misstep and spot removal, since you are relying on your early creatures to accelerate you in the early game. This analysis also discounts the power of Gaea's Cradle, which is much better than any lord the deck could run. Having cradle as a "lord" replaces vulnerability to spot removal with vulnerabilty to wasteland, which is a trade I will gladly make.


@IBA: When generating a ton of mana with lords, any tutor will be able to find Regal Force to win the game so there is no great advantage to Wish here. As for my comment about the extended versions of the deck not running Wish, they still retained access to most of the utility targets that are commonly used such as Viridian Shaman, Enchantment Removal, E Witness, and various parts of the combo. They could've easily shaved the MD Eternal Witness, a Symbiote, and a Heritage Druid for 3 Wishes and had nearly all the utility you gain in the legacy version. They also could've had access to cards like Essence Warden and Wirewood Hivemaster, which were used in the mirror to effectively negate the Grapeshot win condition. This is all in a format that is slower than legacy, and thus elf players would not have been punished as much for sacrificing power for having flexible answers to a variety of threats. The issue with playing Living Wish, even in a format as wide open as legacy (which would logically incentivize flexibility) is that this trade is not worth it in an explosive combo deck like elves. Various hate cards do not exist in maindecks, providing no incentive for having maindeck answers to them while most of the hate (E Plague, Canonist, Perish, Humility, Peacekeeper) can be more effectively answered by Vengevine, Krosan Grip, Beast Within, Dismember and Mortarpod or by simply having a consistent turn 3 win since opponents cannont realistically mulligan aggressively for their few hate pieces. Living Wish is a worse tutoring spell than Summoner's Pact that gains its advantage by providing tactical solutions to various problems. However, there is no need to devote the space in the sideboard to give Wish tutoring power when those slots can simply be used to directly give tactical solutions (See the list above for examples) for post-sideboard games when they are necessary. Wish also fails to give any strategic flexibility (Which Vengevine does) so as to fight decks which have hate in addition to other cards that are effective in the matchup. (currently these decks are mostly BUG---Team America with hymns etc and BugStill with Deeds etc)

On vulnerability to Wasteland: Upon a comparative analysis, an 18 land list with 4 cradles is essentially playing 4 cradles over 4 lords, which replaces vulnerability to spot removal with vulnerability to wasteland, as I've mentioned above. Thus, the only 2 lands I play in a streamlined combo version are Dryad Arbor and Bayou, both of which are protected by a tutorable 4 of in the deck, Quirion Ranger. This should (and in my experience has) mitigate the vulnerability so much so that it is not an issue. Playing 18 lands also allows for a single wasteland not to bring you down to 0-1 lands that often, which also softens the blow.


@NihilObstat: The other possible win condition in the deck is Regal Force. In order to more reliably find/cast it one must run the cheapest, most powerful tutors available: GSZ and Pact.

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Originally Posted by Kich867

I'm sorry I think I missed something somewhere, what other options are there to put Vengevine's in the GY besides Intuition and how is BA strictly worse than them?

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You're relying on naturally drawing Buried Alive to activate the Vengevines. Instead, on that turn 3, you could be developing the game plan as usual, for instance Wirewood Symbiote + Visionary. The game is going to be an attrition war regardless, and Buries Alive adds more spells to the deck that needs to be playing creatures nearly every turn. It taxes the manabase too much to make it effective. I prefer Fauna Shaman to fill that role.

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Originally Posted by danyul

Nah. rukcus is advocating the use of Vengevine without Buried Alive or Intiution. You just draw into them or GSZ them out or whatever works.

That way you still get access to the creature without filling up your sideboard.

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Correct, and also Fauna Shaman.

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Originally Posted by Infinitium

So what do you wish for in the fairly common "opponent answered my first three creatures, now what" gamestate?

I actually began playing my Wish builds with my usual 4/2 split between Symbiote/Ranger with access to the third ranger in the board, but quickly swapped this for the 4th Symbiote for a 3/3 split instead. Symbiote performs far too many functions in the early game besides generating mana not to maximize the amount of virtual copies run, and it's still broken at 3 mana. It also helps preserve the Elf count MD whilst making room for wish.

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In the matchups where "opponent answered my first three creatures" occurs - you wish for Vengevine. it's pretty clear that these decks pack enough removal/counters to deal with a swarm plan, so a recursion plan is better suited.

Can you post your current list theross?
I was never a fan of cradle, but your arguments make me curious to test this in goldfish/real life.

@Catamint: If I were playing a streamlined combo list, it would be nearly the same as my list from the GP, which is posted earlier in the thread. I doubt more than 2-3 of the 75 would be changed, if any. I'd most likely try to make some room in the board for Dismembers but I doubt that is possible with 4 BA, 4 Vine, and 4 Therapy. I'd most likely just have 3 Beast Within as a catch-all.

@Ruckus: You're not relying on Buried Alive, just using it to supplement the new plan as a means to make it as explosive as the original combo. Turn 1 mana elf, turn 2 buried alive, turn 3 recur is just as fast as the previous combo, although it doesn't ever end the game entirely on turn 3, it effectively does. You can still naturally draw Vengevines (great against hymn) and tutor for them with GSZ. I found Fauna Shaman to be incredibly slow, even when supplemented by untap effects, and also vulnerable to removal (Note the decks for which you want Vengevine will be playing a lot). However, I still think 1 is necessary as a tutorable way to start the chain. Intuition is slightly worse at enabling Vengevines but much better as a means to begin combo-ing with Glimpse or Regal Force since it can find a missing piece such as Heritage Druid, Zenith, Cradle, or Glimpse. Thus, I prefer a blue splash when MDing Vengevines but black when sideboarding since you also gain access to Cabal Therapy, the best combo hate. Splashing a 2nd color when you have access to fetch lands does not tax the mana base at all in the abstract, it merely exposes you slightly to Wasteland, which as I've argued before is not significant enough to overcome the strengths of the Vengevine plan itself.

@TheRoss:

1) Drawing 5-7 cards with Regal Force is not winning. It may or may not lead to winning. Casting Emrakul is winning.

2) Extended Elves decks were, at least in themselves, faster than in Legacy. This is because Legacy has more instant speed removal, Force and now Mental Misstep to worry about. Extended Elves lists are much more streamlined for the combo, but this is not something that Legacy elves can afford to be. You need a fallback plan.

3) Living Wish's role is more of a hate grabber than a hate solver. It's useful to have maindeck answers to Jitte, graveyard decks, Emrakul, Affinity, planeswalkers. Most successful combo decks have some ability to disrupt or control the flow of the game, and are not just relying on being able to piece together an offensive combo, and this for a very good reason.

1) Have you ever lost a game after resolving Regal Force for 5+ cards? I haven't, even with 5 of 7 cards being lands. Has anyone on this thread ever lost after drawing that many cards and landing a 5/5 beaststick? (Note that Goyf is typically a 4/5 against elves given the lack of artifacts and enchantments)

2) LSV won PT Berlin with a streamlined deck for the metagame since he expected that he had the best deck and wanted to be prepared to race in the mirror but most players at that event opted for less streamlined versions of the deck in order to have an aggro plan using Essence Warden, Wirewood Hivemaster, and Chord of Calling as an additional tutor. Many also had MD Elvish Champions and most had Jittes in the board to supplement this plan. LSV cut these cards for more mana elves (He was the only one with Elves of Deep Shadow) and a 2nd Viridian Shaman main since he understood that winning the Jitte war in the mirror was paramount, and would also be important in other matchups to hit Chalices as well as other Jittes. He also ran Weird Harvest as a 2nd tutor option as it is clearly the more powerful than Chord of Calling, (I would assume that casting this card for 2 or 3 will nearly always win the game) but he was the only player in top8 who made these choices. Despite these choices made to streamline the deck and decrease its fundamental turn, LSV's list is not faster than a list of Legacy elves due to the inclusion of mana lords, Quirion Ranger, Gaea's Cradle, and GSZ. These cards are incredibly powerful and certainly allow the deck to win on turn 3 more often than extra Birchlore Rangers would despite the synergy with Nettle Sentinel. Moreover, both decks have a natural fall back plan of going aggro and grinding the game with card advantage gleaned from Symbiote/Visionary and Regal Force. This is why Symbiote is so important to the deck, he is integral to both MD plans. 10+ creatures will end the game quickly, even if they are 1/1s.

3) You contradict yourself here. The line, "It's useful to have MD answers to Jitte, GY decks, Emrakul*, Affinity, P-Walkers" implies that you are primarily using Living Wish to combat these weapons, and all but the GY decks are examples of hate. Thus Living Wish is a hate solver rather than a hate grabber as you claim. Furthermore, MD answers to these cards are not important enough to devote 10+ of your 75 slots to a clunky wish package. 1 MD V Shaman answers Chalice and when supplemented by Symbiote, answers Jitte. An early SnT-->Emrakul can be answered by putting in Regal Force/Priests/Gaea's Cradle and then going off. Note here that Summoner's Pact is much more useful in this capacity than Living Wish, allowing you to find the necessary piece to win on your following turn. Jace is not a problem for this deck unless supplemented by Pernicious Deed in BUG-Still, where Vengevine helps much more than any single wish target. Thus I see wish providing more value as a utility spell than a tutor, and a more efficient tutor such as pact coalesces with what the deck naturally wants to do.

In response to your last point, Elf combo controls the game by applying early pressure, either with aggressive creature swarms or the threat of the combo. This forces the opponent into a defensive position in the early game, which allows the elf player to dictate the pace of the game. This plan does not work against faster combo decks like ANT, which is why I make room for some light disruption against those decks.

Abstractly, I think our differences stem from you trying to take a much more specific tactical approach to the deck, whereas I focus on a big-picture strategic approach. In the former paradigm, Living Wish acts as a tool-box, providing an array of cards, each of which is designed to answer various problems that may arise. In the latter, the Vengevine plan provides the deck an entire new angle of attack, one which completely shifts the deck's core strategy so that it dodges cards like Engineered Plague, Perish, Grim Lavamancer, and Umezawa's Jitte. My above solution to Show and Tell-->Emrakul is certainly a strategic one rather than tactical. I concede the fact that some permanents are real problems (mainly Humility but sometimes Lavamancer, Jitte, and Chalice as well) so I board some answers to those in the form of K-Grip, Beast Within, or Dismember but that's all I see as necessary. Rather than try and have a specific answer to everything, (Not possible in a format of 1K plus playable cards) I am confident that I can win matches by combo-ing before the hate hits or having one of my few answers. For the most part, single pieces of hate can be played through quite easily and if someone overloads, I'd much rather sidestep them than try to win with a single bullet. Obviously if a specific tournament has an expected metagame that is wildly different from what I'm seeing now I will adjust, but that just isn't happening. For the most part I see NO RUG, UW(r) Stoneforge decks, some residual BUG, Merfolk, and the assorted randomness that Legacy brings. I don't agree that the cards you're finding with Living Wish are changing various matchups to any appreciable degree, but threatening the combo faster certainly does. It forces opponents to play more conservatively, which plays into the strengths of such a resilient and versatile deck.

*Minor aside on Emrakul: Playing one MD has the added benefit of giving you a near un-losable game 1 against Painter decks, which is not insignificant given that otherwise they would be well positioned in the match to race you.

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Originally Posted by theross

Having cradle as a "lord" replaces vulnerability to spot removal with vulnerabilty to wasteland, which is a trade I will gladly make.
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Playing 18 lands also allows for a single wasteland not to bring you down to 0-1 lands that often, which also softens the blow.
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@NihilObstat: The other possible win condition in the deck is Regal Force. In order to more reliably find/cast it one must run the cheapest, most powerful tutors available: GSZ and Pact.

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You wouldn't even have to talk about Wastelands, if you only run basics.
Anyway, I will not comment on the Cradles thing yet, because I haven't tested. I just wanted to show you a chart with the actual percentages, so that we all can see how running 18 lands increases to chances of drawing 3 lands (x2) and 4 (x3).


I've lost quite a few games after casting Regal Force and not winning, to combo, board sweepers, lightning bolt, etc, etc.

This is the difference between people like me who have played thousands of games with combo elves, to people who maybe have played a hundred.

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Originally Posted by NihilObstat

This is the difference between people like me who have played thousands of games with combo elves, to people who maybe have played a hundred.

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Not being incendiary, but this is a very important point. While someone can pick up the deck and learn to play it within a week, it takes thousands of games, and hundreds of matchups, to learn the limits of what the deck is capable of. Its the difference between knowing when to hold back for a combo turn, and rush out the hoard to start attacking for 5-6 a turn. It's the difference between recycling Visionary ad nauseam, and attempting to untap with a mana lord. It's the difference between Living Wish for Cradle, and having the patience to not play it on the same turn in the face of removal.

There are many small interactions that only become revealed after many iterations of play - most of which will make a difference in a tight game-state.

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Originally Posted by NihilObstat

You wouldn't even have to talk about Wastelands, if you only run basics.
Anyway, I will not comment on the Cradles thing yet, because I haven't tested. I just wanted to show you a chart with the actual percentages, so that we all can see how running 18 lands increases to chances of drawing 3 lands (x2) and 4 (x3).

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Making the first 3-4 land drops is not bad however, especially when facing disruption. In any case I wouldn't count Cradle as much as a land drop as a ritual effect.