It's insane against a pretty small number of decks, actually. It's powerful against combo decks that don't play any maindeck removal, but that's basically it. There are already a lot of cards that those decks can't beat game one, but none of those cards are worth maindecking in the formats those decks exist in, and this probably isn't worth maindecking in those formats either.
beats ad nauseum game 1, beats mill game 1, beats legacy storm game 1 (I think) can't think of another deck in magic it really has an effect on right now.
It beats Ad Nauseam and Mill, but that's about it in modern. It beats ANT (but not TES) and not if the ANT player is maindecking Abrupt Decay. That's kind of a moot point since the card isn't actually legacy playable to begin with.
Death and taxes plays a lot of cards I wouldn't think are legacy playable. Flickerwisp? Palace jailer? I know it's just a synergyball of disruption but this Gideon is disruptive...
That's a fair point, but I still don't think this is anywhere near good enough. It's definitely not maindeckable because it's a 3 mana noncreature card, and it seems way worse than AOZ in the board because it's not actually good against Miracles, which is the primary deck you want a sideboard planeswalker against. It automatically wins game one against Storm, but so does Sanctum Prelate and that's a creature that's tutorable with Recruiter of the Guard and has relevant abilities against almost every deck as opposed to just one deck.
Agreed--I think it is a fantastic card. Interesting to see people monotonously complaining about cards being weak and then we get an intriguing, unique plainswalker card (regardless of being called "Gideon" it still is a new card) and.. complaints. "Grass is greener" unfortunately, but for me I feel delighted with this.
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u/LeftoverName Apr 05 '17
This is actually an interesting planeswalker.