Gideon White: Feature Article from Jeff Zandi Jeff Zandi 7/8/2015 11:00:00 AM (Standard)

We are very close to the arrival of Origins. The set's spoiler has filled in a little bit more each day as we grow nearer to this weekend's prerelease events. My friends and I have been trying to figure out what cards we need to grab in order to fill our Constructed decks. A friend asked me the other day what cards I was trying to load up on. I gave him kind of a dull look; I didn't have any extremely good answers. Uh...the planeswalkers?

It's very obvious that the new planeswalkers from Origins will be even more popular, right off the bat, than previous new issues. It's not that we're sure that they are going to be great in Constructed; it's more that we are extremely curious about how the Constructed world is going to be different with planeswalkers that start out as creatures.

Gideon, Battle-Forged is the new planeswalker that has created the most buzz. This is the cheapest to play planeswalker of all time with a casting cost of just one white mana. Of course, you have to start by playing the “kid,” Kytheon, Hero of Akros. Technically, Kytheon is the card that costs one white mana. Gideon doesn't have a casting cost; Gideon is the flipside of Kytheon.

In order to turn your 2/1 legendary Human Soldier into Gideon you have to attack with the kid along with at least two other creatures. At end of combat, as long as Kytheon is still on the battlefield, you exile Kytheon and then return him to the battlefield “transformed” into Gideon, Battle-Forged.
Once Kytheon turns into Gideon, what is he actually good for? Gideon likes to battle. When you activate his third ability, Gideon turns into a 4/4 Human Soldier creature with indestructible that's still a planeswalker. All damage that would be dealt to this creature this turn is prevented. Gideon, pictured in a pretty sweet suit of armor, can't really be hurt while he's a 4/4 creature. He attacks with confidence. When he isn't attacking, his other two abilities help him to stay alive while also hassling your opponent. Add two counters to Gideon and a target creature of your opponent will be forced to attack Gideon next turn. Assuming the creature targeted is unable to kill Gideon, you have essentially moved a potential blocker out of the way for your next attack. Gideon's second ability makes one of your target creatures indestructible until your next turn and untaps it. This ability is a good choice when your opponent has a creature that could possibly destroy Gideon. Using this second ability, you basically move one of your pieces in front of Gideon to guard him from damage.

The Shortest Distance between Two Points Is a Straight Line

Kytheon, Hero of Akros, has some use as a blocker all by himself. For 2W you can make Kytheon indestructible until end of turn. Now you can block any enormous creature without losing your blocker. I think we can assume, however, that the best use of this card is going to require switching from Kytheon to his transformed alter ego Gideon. Therefore, the best use of this card is going to be in a deck that can get Kytheon transformed into Gideon as quickly as possible. The shortest distance between two points, I'm told, is a straight line. How quickly can we turn Kytheon into Gideon? The best I've come up with is this: play Kytheon on turn one. On turn two, add two more creatures. On turn three, attack with three creatures. If you were fortunate enough to play a third land before attacking, you are able to protect Kytheon from being blocked to death by using his activated ability to become indestructible until end of turn. At end of combat, whether you want to or not (don't worry, you want to) you exile Kytheon and he returns to the battlefield transformed into Gideon, Battle-Forged. It's just that easy to have a Gideon on turn three. In many cases, we're talking about having Gideon on turn three with two other creatures in play. That's a very decent turn three board position.

To optimize having Kytheon on turn one we play four copies of Kytheon. Two problems. Kytheon will be a hot little number for a while; it won't be easy to get four copies of this card. More importantly, for actual gaming reasons, Kytheon is a bit of a problem because he is legendary. Well, man and boy, when you want a one-drop like Kytheon in play on turn one, the answer is to play four of them, regardless of his legendary status. You won't be able to play Kytheon on turn one followed by another Kytheon and some other one-drop on turn two. However, you will be able to play another Kytheon once your first one has transformed into Gideon. This effect greatly mitigates the problematic nature of having four copies of a legendary creature in your deck. There will be suboptimal opening draws with three copies of Kytheon, though rare. Now that you have Kytheon in play on turn one, what do you want to do next? In order to play two creatures on turn two you can go one of two different ways. You could play a spell that puts two creature tokens in play. In Standard, that would be Raise the Alarm if you're playing monowhite and Dragon Fodder if you choose to play white/red. I've decided to go monowhite in order to keep the deck as tight and consistent as possible. If you put two token creatures onto the battlefield on turn two, you might decide instead to play a pair of one-drop creatures. At no point in the history of Magic have there been so many 2/1 creatures for one mana available at the same time.
My deck is built around the plan of playing and flipping Kytheon as quickly as possible. The deck is full of one-drop 2/1s. The point of the rest of the deck is to make the most of this rather straight-ahead strategy. Here is the deck I came up with:

Monowhite Aggro by Jeff Zandi

Main Deck
Creatures [34]
2 Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit
4 Bonded Construct
4 Dragon Hunter
4 Knight of the White Orchid
4 Kytheon, Hero of Akros
4 Loyal Pegasus
4 Mardu Woe-Reaper
4 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Vryn Wingmare

Spells [8]
3 Ajani's Presence
3 Spear of Heliod
2 Valorous Stance
Lands [18]
18 Plains

Deck Total [60]

Sideboard [15]
4 Arashin Cleric
4 Banishing Light
3 Enlightened Ascetic
2 Hallowed Moonlight
2 Valorous Stance

View a Sample Hand!

Let's start with the one-drops, there are twenty-four of them in the deck. Eight of these little terrors are unable to attack alone, Loyal Pegasus and the all-new common artifact creature Bonded Construct. That's okay, each of my twenty-four one-drops have twenty-three friends to play with. There are ten more creatures, four Knight of the White Orchid to help us block small creatures and to help us get lands out of the deck, two Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit to help the little creatures pump each other up, and four Vryn Wingmare to help slow down our opponent's spells. Of course, playing Vryn means we have to be more careful with our own spells. Spear of Heliod is a must, and I'm playing three so that I can get one onto the battlefield reliably. That leaves five card slots for other spells. I went with a couple of Valorous Stance in order to deal with big win conditions on the other side of the battlefield and three copies of Ajani's Presence to help keep my creatures alive while attacking through for value. Even though it sounds like a kid's card, I think Mighty Leap might not be too bad. You're trying to do something fairly specific with the small number of non-creature spells in the deck. The move could be to play Relic Seeker and some of the cheap new equipment cards from Origins. Throwing Knife could be an interesting way to add direct damage to a white weenie deck like this one. Also, Sigil of Valor plays right into this deck's strength, which is having a lot of creatures in play.

Put on Your Safety Goggles, It's Time to Test

I put this deck through its paces against a couple of tried and true decks that have been popular in Standard for a while. The matchup against monored is a little bland, very one-for-one and frankly, not super-great for the white deck, at least so far. I'm more interested in telling you what happens when you run this little white deck into various Abzan strategies.

Against midrange or control Abzan, I can tell you that Thoughtseize didn't get much done. That's not a big surprise. Thoughtseize is often bad against aggressive decks because the cards in the aggro deck aren't typically powerful enough, taken individually. Not powerful enough, at least, to spend two or three life points on turn one in order to take away from the aggro player. A popular turn two play, Fleecemane Lion, isn't much better against the white deck. When I attack in with Kytheon and two pals on turn three, the Lion probably does block and take out a 2/1, but I also was able to transform Kytheon into Gideon, so it's probably worth it. Randomly, Soldier of the Pantheon can't be blocked by Fleecemane Lion or Siege Rhino, and can block either all day long. I had a game where I attacked into Fleecemane Lion with two Soldier of the Pantheon and Kytheon, transformed Kytheon into Gideon, and then used Gideon's second ability to untap Soldier of the Pantheon and make him indestructible until my next turn. The Lion blocked my Kytheon but I had three lands and therefore the ability to make Kytheon indestructible.

I will admit that a couple of popular Abzan spells were troublesome, none more than Bile Blight. My deck has seven different four-of creatures and the deck tends to load up the board with creatures pretty greedily. Bile Blight can certainly eat my lunch sometimes. Dromoka's Command is good when it's putting a counter on one of Abzan's creatures and fighting it against one of the little white guys. Abzan Charm is not as useful, at least not for removing the many two-powered creatures in the white deck. On the other hand, Abzan Charm can exile Gideon when he attacks, and that is a definite bummer. Hero's Downfall feels like a waste when it is used to kill a single 2/1 creature but I guess Abzan decks do what they have to do against the white deck in game one. Also, Downfall is always relevant against Gideon whenever he's not indestructible.

Abzan control decks have board sweepers in their main deck and they can ruin the white deck's day, no doubt. Abzan Midrange would probably bring in a few board sweepers for a deck like this one. The good news for the white deck is that it has a number of ways to make a creature indestructible in order to survive cards like Crux of Fate or End Hostilities. The new card, Languish, is a different story. Languish is a real board clearer for the white deck, indestructible or not. Gideon, however, does survive Languish (because he's not a creature during your opponent's turn) and most other sweepers. In order to make this factor matter, it is important that the white deck get as much damage dealt as quickly as possible.

The most important thing to remember when you play a White Weenie deck, or any other aggro deck, against a deck with larger creatures in it like Abzan, is not to be afraid. You're game isn't over just because your opponent has played a large monster. Far from it. With any luck at all, you should be ahead in the race even after Siege Rhino takes three of your life points and adds them to his own. Very often, this white deck is in the business of pushing through damage. Have you ever seen the picture of the tiny mouse bravely offering an obscene gesture to the giant bird of prey that's swooping in to eat him? This deck is like that. You very often send everything you've got into the red zone even when you can expect to lose several attackers and net only a few more points of damage on your opponent. You'd like to wait around for Spear of Heliod to make your team a lot stronger, but you rarely have the time. After turn three, your board is just about as good as it's ever going to get. You can't play the waiting game because everyone else's deck is drawing better (and more expensive) cards than yours. You push through damage every chance you get. Your variety of creatures can sometimes help you push through damage without losing board position. I already mentioned how Soldier of the Pantheon is simply coincidentally good against Abzan and its multi-colored creatures. Similarly, there will be times when the only creature on the other side is a dragon. Dragon Hunter has protection from dragons. He can block them all day long (blocks dragons as though it had reach) and attacks without dragons being able to block him. A couple of Loyal Pegasus turn into a very tight clock for an opponent with no flyers in play. For these reasons, I feel that it's good for the deck's small number of instant spells to be able to protect these fragile board advantages. Valorous Stance will often be used to take out a big creature, but it will also come in handy as a way to keep one of your creatures alive one turn longer.

The sideboard is obviously a work in progress. I know I want the rest of the Valorous Stances for various reasons. I know I need to bring in something to help me against red. I'm not sure what to do against pure control decks. I'm working on it, though. The goal of this exercise is to figure out if the new kid, Kytheon/Gideon, has any game. The best way to do that is to go aggro. I think we will find out the answers regarding this card very quickly.

Thanks for reading.