MTG Salvation

Hello,

When Gideon of the Trials was spoiled there were a few thoughts that immediately crossed my mind. First, it's a unique card at a pushed casting cost so at some point there could be a place for it. Second, the emblem really helps control decks as long as they can protect him. And third, all of a sudden if you don't care about your life total at all, Death's Shadow becomes a strong control finisher and cards like Night's Whisper and Sign in Blood become some of the best draw spells in the format, and Anguished Unmaking doesn't look so bad all of a sudden. With Fatal Push and Path to Exile along with the previously mentioned Unmaking and wraths, W/B now has the best draw, board control, hand disruption, and great finishers in Gideon himself and Shadow. Relying heavily on Gideon's emblem makes you want more than 4 Gideons in your deck, and I think the next best Gideon for this type of deck in Modern is Gideon, Ally of Zendikar.

The pile of cards I'd like to build around includes:


Here's a first stab at a deck list, just theory crafting,



However, that's missing Dark Confidant and I think he'd be another strong card in a shell that's taking such good advantage of Gideon's emblem. It's also land-light for what it does. The Wraith and Whisper draw, one for "free", and Ally of Zendikar is the only 4-drop, but 20 is still greedy. Any thoughts on helping brew this up?

I'm just missing the Gideon Ally of Zendikars for this and want to pick them up now or at rotation anyway. I don't think they'll drop much below $10 so I'll probably pick them up soon. Once I have them I'll take this for a spin and see how it plays.

A buddy let me borrow 2 Ally of Zendikar to complete the deck and I took it for a spin at a smaller Modern FNM on Friday. Where I live near Boston there's the "big" store in Cambridge where a number of grinders play but there's a smaller store in my town that is much more casual, and I took it there. We only had 8 and only played 3 rounds, but I went undefeated.

Here's what I took:


I played a Trials and landed an emblem in every matchup, though not ever game, and it was back breaking each time. The deck has enough card draw to get what I need and enough board presence, board control, and hand disruption to keep Gideons around when I cast them.

Matchups:
1. Elves - 2-1. I lost game 1 but after bringing in Bile Blight, Drown, and Wrath both SBed games were easy. Purely a board control matchup and then once you turn the corner you've got the tempo to do it, either with a huge DS or Souls tokens or one of the Gideons themselves.

2. Burn - 2-0. Gideon emblem here means I really don't care about my life total. And once he's top-decking, he can't keep pace with plus-ing the Gideons to get them off the battlefield. Game 1 he kept killing my Bobs but my Wraiths and Night's Whispers were enough to keep me with enough Gideons for the emblem. Game 2 I had a Leyline in my opener and that was all she wrote.

3. Ad Nauseam 2-1. In a weird way the Gideon emblem does the same thing as Phyrexian Unlife, except for longer. He won game 2 with Labratory Maniac, which I admit I had forgotten about, but I didn't let that stick game 3 my Gideon emblem out did his Unlife.

Deck felt good. It has a nice flow with the 12 cards that draw, and there are some decent synergies. No idea how good it actually is, but I felt encouraged enough that I'll bring it again next week.

I realized I had all but a few cards for this online so bought/traded for the remainder and have been having some fun in the tournament practice room. I haven't had the guts to enter a league with it yet since it's just an untested brew.

But it's been doing well. I'm not undefeated anymore but I'm winning more than I'm losing. I've found at least one terrible matchup though - tokens. A bunch of flyers and an intangible virtue make VERY quick work of planeswalkers. I had a Bile Blight in hand for game 2 but he stripped it. Thinking of putting back the Drown in Sorrow that got taken out for the 4th Path.

I also have never boarded in Charm so that may simply come out. With 4 Death's Shadow, 4 Lingering Souls, 4 Dark Confidant and 5 Gideon walkers I should have enough win conditions that I don't need to bring a Shadow back from the grave.

Hello. I'm interested in this deck.

Did you see the MTGGoldfish Against the Odds with the Tribal Gideon?
He did 4-1 (and could have done 5-0).

It looks like a sweet deck.

There's also another thread about it, see my sig. I was just about to update, funnily enough!