I've heard the Gatewatch compared to the Green
Lantern Corps. Much as I love DC Comics' work, I
have to give the Gatewatch a lot of credit for
having variety in their outfits and in not
having a lot of confusing shots with generic
aliens standing around in the background! In any
event, if the Gatewatch are going to fill a
similar role to the Corps for Magic's storyline,
they need game effects that reflect that, and
Call the Gatewatch is the simplest and often
most effective way to get that across. Sound the
call, turn the tide. Planeswalker-based control
decks have been strong ever since the days of
Lorwyn, and even if you are playing a theme- or
story-based deck and only searching for
canonical members, remember there are rumors
that Ajani (as in Vengeant) is about to join the
Gatewatch . . .
Three mana, get a planeswalker. Seems simple
enough. The issue I have with this card is that,
while the mana cost isn't unreasonable, you're
spending a good amount of mana to tutor out a
card from the most uniformly expensive class of
spells in the game, and you have to wait for a
turn unless you're extremely late in the game to
put your planeswalker onto the board.
Call the Gatewatch is as powerful as the
planeswalkers of the format it's in...but, even
then, you have to ask if it's worth giving up a
three-mana play for something on your next turn,
one you may not be guaranteed to get. And all
but the worst planeswalkers are pretty much
impractical to do a Call + cast on the same
turn.
It's cool in theory, but this card is honestly
not all that good in practice. I say to stay
clear of it unless you're desperate to do a "superfriends"
deck. If you are interested in using this, ask
yourself: is potentially four more copies of my
best planeswalker worth waiting a turn and
spending space in my deck that could go
elsewhere?
