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Pojo's Magic The Gathering Card of the Day
Daily Since November 2001!

Cyclops Gladiator
Image from Wizards.com

Cyclops Gladiator
M11

Reviewed August 11, 2010

Constructed: 3.13
Casual: 3.50
Limited: 3.87
Multiplayer: 3.67

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst.  3 ... average.  
5 is the highest rating

Click here to see all our 
Card of the Day Reviews 

BMoor

Cyclops Gladiator

When your goal is to attack attack attack, nothing is more frustrating than big walls that do nothing but block or seemingly limitless armies of insignificant tokens that just clog up the gears of your war machine. Cyclops Gladiator solves that problem handily. Wall of Omens? The Gladiator punches it down before it can even be declared a blocker. Eldrazi Spawn tokens? It may seem weak to shoot one down only to have him block with another, but you'll have to kill them all to get at the player behind them, and if he was planning on using them to chump, it's good to make him spend two to stop a 4/4. Birds of Paradise? It may not pose a threat itself, but what was he going to spend that mana on? Sure, there's the little problem that if you use the Gladiator to take out a creature with power greater than zero, that means that a smaller creature could kill the Gladiator by blocking it. But that's still a good thing as long as you destroy both the creature you target and the blocker-- that's two creatures down with one card. Cyclops Gladiator will doubtless become a powerful tool in monored decks, as those have long lacked ways of gaining card advantage, and struggled to keep up once they play out their hands.

Constructed- 3.5
Casual- 3.5
Limited- 3.5
Multiplayer- 3.75

David Fanany

Player since 1995

Cyclops Gladiator
 
You might not think that red would need any more help dealing with potential blockers, but it's far from unheard of to run out of damage spells before your opponent runs out of creatures. Reminiscent of the popular Planar Chaos rare Magus of the Arena, Cyclops Gladiator can strike down hordes of creatures and live to tell the tale. It's a very dangerous card to face in limited matches, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it find a similarly dangerous niche in larger decks.
 
Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno

Today's card of the day is Cyclops Gladiator which is a four mana 4/4 that can deal damage whenever it attacks to a creature in addition to any normal combat damage with a bit of a drawback.  Obviously skilled at eliminating zero power targets, but also quite good at dealing with multiple 1/1 creatures barring combat tricks.  With any kind of evasion added in, generally from an artifact such as Whispersilk Cloak thanks to the heavy Red cost, this can strike down most creatures with impunity. 
Not the strongest creature in constructed, but solid and decently priced with some potential to be a bigger threat.
 
For Limited the triple Red is a very difficult price to play which places it deep into the later stages of a game outside of a single color deck.  It is possible to draft mono-Red in Booster, but without a few playable artifacts not likely in Sealed.  With burn and removal as support this could lock an opponent down and can still be a top pick. 
If the pool can support it draw it early and try to build around it for the best results.
 
Constructed 4.0
Casual: 4.0
Limited: 4.0
Multiplayer: 4.0


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