“Gideon,
Champion of Justice” has an appropriately hammy name for an appropriately meaty
Planeswalker. Unlike his Gatecrash cohort Domri, and much more in the vein of
RtR’s Jace and Vraska, Gideon’s newest incarnation explores some new ground in
our planeswalking. He costs 4, and starts with (at least) 4, which is nothing
impressive, but solid.
Gideon’s new +1
is something exciting, to be sure. He gets one counter for certain, and an
additional counter for each of your opponent’s creatures (but only one
opponent, to prevent him from becoming bonkers in multiplayer), allowing him to
rocket up to an impressive height. It’s not unreasonable to assume he could get
to 10 or 12 counters inside of 3 turns, especially… Well, we’ll get to that
later. His 0 ability is similar to his 0 ability, but a little better. His
power and toughness now scale to the number of counters on him, instead of just
being 6. This allows him to trundle on in as his own win condition. Finally,
his last ability, -15, is to exile all other permanents. It’s incredibly
expensive, but his juicy +1 ability provides an opportunity to actually get him
there in the right deck… And if you manage to get him to 20 or so, before using
that -15, it’s basically a forced concession, as while you’re both scrabbling
to get land back down, he’ll come barreling in for 5 every turn.
Gideon’s new
home is most likely going to be in a new planeswalker-themed control deck, much
like the one from Zendikar block, where he hung out with Jace, Elspeth and
occasionally Ajani. This time, though, it will be Jace, Tamiyo and Sorin
holding down the fort while G-Dubs charges up to make it a 1-man show. Jace and
Tami are excellent at controlling a crowd, and Sorin’s legion of 1/1
lifelinkers can provide ample blocking, especially if he’s had time to throw
down a couple emblems. I can see a deck like this taking off. Gideon is a
little awkward in that it takes him a long time to build up against an empty
board, but that’s probably when you’d just use him as a straight creature. He
has some trouble protecting himself, too, which is why you want a shell of
other planeswalkers to distract your opponent with.
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Good:
- -Dat
-15
- -0
Ability is better than old 0 ability
- -Innovative
+1
- -Cheaper
than last Gideon
Bad:
- -Not
as strong defensively as last Gideon
- --15
is a LOT, and you need more if you want to be sure he can survive it
- -Needs
a lot of support/protection from other cards
Scully Rating: 9.3 out of 10