Bear in mind, they were probably thinking about this: 'It's Legendary, so if you draw a few you're stuck. Useless turn 1. Too many creatures and you're mana burned.'
Still should've thought a bit harder about this really. Even with the aforementioned drawbacks, it's still obviously breakable.
Posted By:
psychichobo
(4/29/2013 2:26:24 PM)
Wicked! Tolarian Academy shouldn't even be considered for comparisons, it's broken and should have never be printed.
Posted By:
LeoKula
(9/29/2009 12:20:12 PM)
Actually, the reason why cards in the Urza block didn't seem so broken at the time wasn't only because all of them were so good, but I think it was because the number and variety of good cards available to players was incredibly limited back then. You've gotta remember that right before that, there was the Tempest Block (which was good), and then the rest of the earlier sets. Power creep hadn't really happened much, if at all, yet. Remember, Commander Greven Il-Vec was still one of the best creatures at the time.
Posted By:
nammertime
(1/1/2010 8:20:42 PM)
Tolarian Academy and Gaea's Cradle: doubly-broken and broken, respectively. Even Cabal Coffers dominated half of a Standard, and that card needed like seven land drops before it could power out vast amounts of mana relentlessly. Cradle did it in like three turns, and Academy did it in like... was it one or two?
Posted By:
Gabriel422
(1/29/2011 1:44:44 PM)
Wizards should be ashamed for printing cards such as these.
Posted By:
reapersaurus
(3/13/2010 12:48:09 PM)
Name one game you've played that, when you abused the Cradle, you didn't love?
(run more than 3 in a deck - ever?)
Posted By:
ThadeGelna
(7/29/2009 6:11:26 PM)
i wish i was playing when urza saga was type 2 legal ='
Posted By:
spacechaser0001
(11/9/2009 1:09:35 PM)
ELF DECKS!!!! CROP ROTATION!!! OMFG this shit is whack. cause green just didn't have enough mana acceleration??!? sweet mary mother of god, a Priest of Titania that only land destruction can kill. Squirrels. Saprolings. Wolves. Elves. I want to buy a condo in the Cradle of Gaea. Sure, Tolarian Academy is better, but can you use blue mana to play green spells that cost 5+? NO!! And there's no shortage of green cards that let you untap lands, IS THERE? omfg. Elf decks are only the penultimate creature decks if they have THIS CARD. final word, this land makes me want to cuss like a sailor. SHIT!
Posted By:
kronos539
(6/12/2010 11:41:29 PM)
unbelievable really. I mean how is academy broken and this isn't?
Posted By:
reanimatesucks
(1/18/2011 8:43:09 AM)
Yeah, the big thing to remember that laid a bit (not much, but a bit) of a damper on this and Tolarian was the fact that mana burn still existed. In a token deck, if you tap this, you had better have something to sink a lot of mana into every single turn, or you're going to kill yourself.
Of course, now that mana burn is gone its even more overpowered.
Posted By:
Joseph_Leito
(7/2/2011 10:16:08 PM)