They serve to give your side of the board tempo by allowing your creatures to attack (removing defenders), giving you more time to set up the board (removing attackers/expensive creatures), and allow for combat tricks (saving your creatures after damage is on the stack
If the answers to all these questions are yes, then go ahead and add Gilded Lotus in your deck
Inspiring Call or Silkguard for counters decks, or Veil of Summer if youre playing at higher levels of play and trying to resolve a combo
It feels like this item should work better with Robin Hood - Capable Fighter, as he has the ping effect you need to enable the Forest's Gift ability
That could lead to some fun combos, but again, it depends on which cards he can combo with
If you put a +1/+1 counter on it, its base power is still 4/5