Eh, In cube I think his ultimate has non zero value but it's very little.
Maybe if you are curving this Gideon into Gideon Jura vs a burn deck or something heh.
You have to
A)forgo activating his powerful defensive ability for a turn
B)playing against a deck where they want to kill you, want to ignore Gideon.. but can't (ie you are at 3-4 life and then have two attackers, one of which you are locking down with Gideon)
So like, you'd need to activate the ultimate on a board stall and THEN have it be relevant later in the game.
I agree, the emblem is the least powerful ability and is usually more flashy than useful. But more abilities are always good. White had a whole in the cheap planeswalker department which is now filled.
When it is useful, you have a card that is literally saving the game for you. And then if you can live the dream and keep on chaining gideons, it continues to supply a permanent you can't ignore. And the other two abilities are really good on a 3 mana Planeswalker. This is probably one of the best white cards we've gotten for cube in a while; maybe a lofty statement, I haven't thought too long into it, but it's a pretty amazing spell.
I want to like this card. It's clearly powerful but it just seems like it will be miserable to play against. Especially with Gideon Ally of Zendikar still in standard, which is already considered oppressive by many and is now much better due to the existence of this card.
On a side note does this make Gideon Champion of Justice playable. That guy can rack up loyalty like no one's business. In the right matchup
I want to like this card. It's clearly powerful but it just seems like it will be miserable to play against. Especially with Gideon Ally of Zendikar still in standard, which is already considered oppressive by many and is now much better due to the existence of this card.
On a side note does this make Gideon Champion of Justice playable. That guy can rack up loyalty like no one's business. In the right matchup
Sorry man, but:
1) this is the cube forum we all know standard sucks!
2) it does not make Champion of Justice playable
Do you guys just plan on swapping any of the current walkers for it? If not, looks like most people are going to be running 5 white walkers not including flip ones.
To make sure our cube doesn't have the planeswalker density problem, our group caps the number of non-flip walkers in each color to 2 in our 360. Elspeth Knight Errant is a main-stay but now we're pretty unsure what to do with the plethora of strong Gideons. We were thinking Gideon Jura previously but this new seems seems almost too good of a card to not include ahead of Gideon Jura.
I will probably replace gideon, ally of zendikar with this. Not because it is not good enough, but I like variety and different casting costs. 3cc this gideon, 4cc elspeth, 5cc gideon jura, 6cc elspeth suns chanpion. I don't want more planeswalkers on white.
As strong as this card is, it might actually be the worst Gideon. Not trying to hate on this card at all, because it's great and I'm gonna be stoked to cube with it, but I think the other ones are better.
As strong as this card is, it might actually be the worst Gideon. Not trying to hate on this card at all, because it's great and I'm gonna be stoked to cube with it, but I think the other ones are better.
Worse than Gideon, Champion of Justice? I ran him for quite a while and he is easily my least favourite Gideon, but i guess a lot of people forget about him.
As strong as this card is, it might actually be the worst Gideon. Not trying to hate on this card at all, because it's great and I'm gonna be stoked to cube with it, but I think the other ones are better.
Worse than Gideon, Champion of Justice? I ran him for quite a while and he is easily my least favourite Gideon, but i guess a lot of people forget about him.
As strong as this card is, it might actually be the worst Gideon. Not trying to hate on this card at all, because it's great and I'm gonna be stoked to cube with it, but I think the other ones are better.
Worse than Gideon, Champion of Justice? I ran him for quite a while and he is easily my least favourite Gideon, but i guess a lot of people forget about him.
We're talking cube cards, bruh
Yea I was thinking that, but I cubed it, for much longer than I should have.
Terrible Gideons aside, this new one looks pretty solid and I think I might take him over the others because of the lower cost (I already have elspeth at 4). I really like the "you can't die emblem" but it has me wondering if this (or the next) is the set that gives us a way to remove emblems; its a pretty dangerous effect to print into standard without a release valve, maybe in the form of a "Destroy target planeswalker and exile(?) all emblems its owners controls or destroy target creature", how would they deal with emblems? so you destroy them? exile them?
As strong as this card is, it might actually be the worst Gideon. Not trying to hate on this card at all, because it's great and I'm gonna be stoked to cube with it, but I think the other ones are better.
As time goes on, I'm starting to believe ally of zendikar ~= gideon jura. Though they are somewhat apples and oranges.
Apples to oranges yes (so run what your cube needs), but I do agree they're on the same power level. Some guys in my group believe Ally of Zendikar is on par with Knight Errant power-wise and their arguments are very reasonable.
This pretty much reflects what we think about Gideon of the Trials. Good B+ walker!
This is a good planeswalker for sure but it is a well contained level of good. This may seem nuts on paper but there is something lacking from Gideon of the Trails that should keep him nicely fair. The thing with most planeswalkers is that they will generally attain you incremental value each turn when stable, be that card draw, token generation or some other advantages. Gideon doesn't do this at all. If they can block a 4/4 then Gideon isn't helping to win the game. His loyalty gains only make him a little harder to kill. Gideon never threatens a game ending ultimate, quite the opposite infact! Offensively Gideon seems like a 3 mana 4/4 indestructible which is certainly a good threat but he isn't nearly as scary as a 4/4 indestructible creature would be as you can just attack him back and kill him that way. Gideon of the Trails is a fairly poor threat only really able to apply pressure on a pretty empty board or when you are so far ahead they cannot afford to swing back at you. Odds on in a big board stalemate where you can attack safely with Gideon he won't be achieving anything.
Where Gideon shines is as a defensive tool. A three mana planeswalker with a strong defensive +1 is just dandy. It is not far off the good Kiora +1 and Gideon is one less colour, one less mana and has an extra starting loyalty! This Gideon is pretty safe against stuff in play. Then we have his ultimate which is what makes him so different to other planeswalkers. With just his first two abilities this Gideon would frequently find himself being ignored as he has ceased to be relevant enough. There is always a point at which aggro decks just start going face regardless of you having viable planeswalkers to attack. Gideon ensures that you have to go through him first. With at least 4 loyalty and a lockdown on your best threat each turn that could be a pretty tall order. Gideon of the Trials is on of the best defensive planeswalkers going regardless of cost. That is a pretty big deal and means you are not so worried about his inability to yield ongoing value or his relatively poor status as a threat.
I think Gideon is good enough that you would play him in aggressive decks despite it being unlikely you will want to use the "ultimate". He is simply quite efficient, quite versatile and a royal bugger in a race situation. The ability to use the +1 on a potential blocker to prevent it killing one of your dorks is handy and allows you to be more aggressive than Kiora does. Control decks are the place I see this being best despite this being pretty broadly playable. The synergy with most mass removal Gideon has is lovely. He will offer immense protection while being reasonable planeswalker control and ultimately a win condition if you need. I also like how the ultimate can very effectively shut down a number of combo decks too. Overall a very powerful planeswalker but I think a lot of people will initially misunderstand how to use him or what he offers and use him poorly.
I feel this card may be overhyped it still test-worthy. All other cubeable 3cc walkers (jace, nissa, dack, loyv, lotlh) gain material advantage whIle this one does not. In terms of quadrants, he's only good when you're at close to parity. The emblem sems cool but I think it's more like the lure abilities of other Gideons except it gives your opponent more options. Good enough but IMO worse than the other white walkers I'm currently running (Gids, Elspeths 4&6).
I think new Gideon is all that and a bag of chips, but I think he's a hair below other top shelf 3-cmc walkers like Liliana of the Veil / Dack Fayden / Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast.
I agree with djkensai that he's being overrated. He's good, but some folks are reacting to it as if it was the next JTMS or something. I'll be happily playing him at 540, but I think he'll probably be my worst white planeswalker.
While I agree that he's probably the #5 white planeswalker (not counting Kytheon), comparing him to the other 4 walkers isn't exactly doing this Gideon much justice unless you have a PW cap. The other walkers cost more mana, and being the #5 white planeswalker can easily translate to the #3-#4 in other colors (especially in non-powered lists). As far as a white 3-drop goes, I think this is on par with Brimaz, and as a 3-cmc mono colored walker he seems somewhere between Jace Beleren and Liliana, the Last Hope.
I was guilty of a knee-jerk evaluation where I thought he was pretty bonkers. I still think he's very good, especially since the white 3cc noncreaure slot isn't particularly jammed up, but it's certainly not a 360 staple or anything like that.
Maybe if you are curving this Gideon into Gideon Jura vs a burn deck or something heh.
You have to
A)forgo activating his powerful defensive ability for a turn
B)playing against a deck where they want to kill you, want to ignore Gideon.. but can't (ie you are at 3-4 life and then have two attackers, one of which you are locking down with Gideon)
So like, you'd need to activate the ultimate on a board stall and THEN have it be relevant later in the game.
That's quite the parlay.
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On a side note does this make Gideon Champion of Justice playable. That guy can rack up loyalty like no one's business. In the right matchup
Sorry man, but:
1) this is the cube forum we all know standard sucks!
2) it does not make Champion of Justice playable
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Worse than Gideon, Champion of Justice? I ran him for quite a while and he is easily my least favourite Gideon, but i guess a lot of people forget about him.
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Yea I was thinking that, but I cubed it, for much longer than I should have.
Terrible Gideons aside, this new one looks pretty solid and I think I might take him over the others because of the lower cost (I already have elspeth at 4). I really like the "you can't die emblem" but it has me wondering if this (or the next) is the set that gives us a way to remove emblems; its a pretty dangerous effect to print into standard without a release valve, maybe in the form of a "Destroy target planeswalker and exile(?) all emblems its owners controls or destroy target creature", how would they deal with emblems? so you destroy them? exile them?
Gideon of the Trials < Kytheon, Hero of Akros/Gideon, Battle-Forged < Gideon, Ally of Zendikar < Gideon Jura
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Of course not. I'm talking about cubeable Gideons.
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As time goes on, I'm starting to believe ally of zendikar ~= gideon jura. Though they are somewhat apples and oranges.
I tend to pick Parrallax wave unnecssarily high, and may be biased by how well they go together.
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That's also what I think since day 1 of spoiling. He's good but certainly not insane.
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