MTG Salvation

Golden Guardian - 4

Artifact Creature - Golem

Defender

4: Golden Guardian fights target creature you control. When Golden Guardian dies this turn, return it to the battlefield transformed under your control.
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Golden Garrison

Land

T: Add 2 mana of any one color to your mana pool.

4, T: Creature a colorless 4/4 artifact creature Golem token.


This card is very cool. But hard to flip, slow, expensive, and takes out two of your biggest creatures. The fact that it has defender really makes this hard to play. The engine you get when it does flip is ridiculous though, you basically get a land that ramps and mana fixes you while being a finisher in itself.

Pass. Too hard and expensive to flip.

Removal? As currently translated it reads like it has to fight your own creature. This is awful?

I updated my post, I read it wrong. Would have been awesome though. Shame.

It has to fight your own creature, and die? That's a pretty big hurdle. Easy pass.

Are we sure the transform is only if it dies to its activated ability? If it's

Defender
2: ~ fights target creature you control.
When ~ dies, return it to the battlefield transformed under your control.

that's a bit better, as it plays well with Tinker, Wildfire, Smokestack, dying in combat, etc. Providing ramp and grinding out 4/4s is strong, but if it has to fight to transform, that kills its chances of being playable.

Edit: If the transform is tied to the activated ability, this can just fight itself, though, right? I don't know if that helps it at all. Probably not enough.

The way it's templated, it has to fight a creature and die in order to transform. Otherwise the transform trigger would have it's own line instead of being built into the activated ability's text.

Alright, that's unfortunate. Its a cool card, but that limits it too much.

It doesn't have to die from the fight; you could fight a creature and then shatter it, for example, but it does have to fight a creature you control and then die in the same turn in order to transform.

Yeah, that's a pretty tough hurdle. A 4/4 defender for 4 isn't the absolute worst in a lower power environment, but it's still pretty dubious.

I misread it and thought it could target opponents creatures, it would have been pretty good, but as is I am not really interested. Getting it to die is pretty awkward, I guess you can use it so sac your big guys in response to removal but it's not like that is something I need.