Once this guy hits the board, your opponent will
definitely think twice before swinging at you,
at least with anything smaller than a 3/4.
Vigilance is actually a rarer ability than you
might think, and even a flying creature that has
nothing to fear from the Avenger will still give
it a +1/+1 counter, making it all the less of a
good idea to swing at you with it. Small evasive
beaters will power up the Avenger far more than
is worth the 1 or 2 damage they'll do each turn,
though in multiplayer, an opponent may tap out
to swing at another player if he thinks it'll
curry favor with you... or if he has a Doom
Blade in hand in case the Avenger comes for him.
Gideon's Avenger will no doubt be a force to
reckon with in aggressive White Weenie decks, or
even in control decks as an option against aggro
rushes-- especially if those decks have some
proliferate cards. But once he himself attacks,
he's really just a big vanilla creature. Solid,
but not exactly a game-changer.
My first experience with this card was in Duels
of the Planeswalkers 2012, where it could be
quite difficult to win a damage race against any
deck that played it. In constructed play, I
imagine Gideon himself will be preferred over
his follower for that purpose, if only because
he's somewhat harder to answer with the likes of
Doom Blade. On the offensive end of the
spectrum, it may have a hard time arguing with
Mirran Crusader's (and Paladin en-Vec in older
formats) two protection abilities. On the other
hand, it's hard to entirely write off a creature
that becomes scary huge just through ordinary
gameplay - in Duels 2012, I once saw one get up
to 10/10 without any "tap target creature"
effects! This probably won't be an instant hit,
but it is certainly one to watch.
Today's card of the day is Gideon's Avenger
which is a three mana 2/2 White soldier that
gets a +1/+1 counter whenever an opponent's
creature becomes tapped. This is a very
nice effect against swarm decks, or even just a
few creatures, and combines well with Gideon and
Gideon's Lawkeeper. A three mana 2/2
soldier is not unplayable for White and if your
opponent wants to attack with three creatures
having to deal with a 5/5 is generally a
concern. It even becomes a major target in
Multiplayer as every opponent will trigger the
effect which makes supporting it more directly a
viable strategy. Overall this is a very
solid addition to soldier, Gideon, or tap-down
decks and is likely to see a fair amount of play
as part of each.
In Limited this may not be the biggest rare and
has two White mana in a three casting cost to
deal with, but it works well enough to be a
threat in any stage of the game to justify a
first pick. Any time your opponent has an
opportunity to attack while this in play they
have to be prepared for the likely response and
the psychological impact of that alone makes
this valuable. Combined with copies of the
common Gideon's Lawkeeper, if available to draft
or in your Sealed packs, and this is a very
effective card. A fun and playable first
pick in Booster and well worth using in Sealed
if your pool is strong enough to run White as a
primary color.
Welcome to
another great card of the day here at Pojo.com!
Today we are taking a look at Gideon’s Avenger
from M12. Gideon’s Avenger is a white creature
soldier that costs two white mana and one
generic mana. He is a 2/2 that whenever a
creature an opponent controls becomes tapped,
put a +1/+1 counter on Gideon’s Avenger.
Gideon’s Avenger combos so well with Gideon Jura. Using Gideon’s
+1 ability to force all creatures target
opponent controls to attack Gideon, Gideon’s
Avenger will grow considerably in size, and
likely be able to kill off the strongest
attacker. Further combine that with Gideon’s
Lawkeeper, and you are able to lock down
creatures that could still be a threat, while
still putting a counter on Gideon’s Avenger.
And let us not forget that proliferate is still a
factor, and will be for some time now. Once one
counter goes on, proliferating them higher will
be quite simple. This of course makes for a
rather large and troublesome creature that your
opponents will need to handle quickly.
Unfortunately, this is also considerably easy,
since Gideon’s Avenger has no further way of
protecting itself. Even the powered down red
burn spell Shock can handle Gideon’s Avenger
before the threat ever presents itself.
A decent card that should see quite a bit of
action simply because of what it does, what it
can do, and how easily it combines with Soldier
decks, or control decks.
