Gate Colossus – MTG Card Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Wizards of the Coast has gone in heavy on the Gate theme in Guilds of Ravnica and Ravnica Allegiance, and it’s much more aggressive and hard-hitting than ever before. This guy doesn’t have quite the same level of devastating power as his Darksteel cousin, but he can be cast almost as early – turn three or four, depending on how many Gates you have in your deck and the luck of an early Growth Spiral or the like, comparing favorably to Tinker or Show and Tell-assisted summonings. He’s not the most reliable self-resurrecting creature, as the condition is quite specific and cards like Conclave Tribunal stop him while being generally useful in main decks, but that can still catch out a lot of decks that aren’t expecting him. 

And the best part is, since Maze’s End is a land, you can theoretically run it as a backup plan in case somebody did expect it and overloaded on Tribunal variants!

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5

The Gates deck has always been an appealing target, and Gate Colossus offers decent payoff…a hard-to-block threat that can cost zero mana and recur itself! Even with a few Gates, this can be a decent threat, dropping around turn 5 if you hit a Gate each turn. The downside is that it asks for you to use some suboptimal lands…and the iconic Gate deck is more apt to try and grind out a win through Maze’s End. But this can be a budget way to enable a big finish with Gates, and it’s a Limited threat thanks to the guarantee of Gates in every Ravnica Allegiance booster pack.

Constructed: 2.25
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 3.75
Multiplayer: 2.5
Commander: 2.75