Gideon, Battle Forged: Official Thread

This is one very basic deck I've been toying around, with good ratios and pretty "cheap" to build (mainly commons and uncommons). This is not an endgame deck, full of rares and mythicals. It's a starter deck with (usually) easy to get cards. Most of the cards can be popped in 1-2 turns if you get 3-white combinations, the only cards with 10+ cost are the Oracle (11), the Vanguard (14) and a fully awakened Ondu (12).

The idea is to simply drop a big enough healer so that you can overheal all damage done every turn, while keeping enemy threats at bay until you place your pieces together. Once you get an Oracle and a steward, start looking actively for Call to Arms planeswalker power, unless you need to drop something.

-- CREATURES --

War Oracle. UNCOMMON. Your main damage dealer and healer. You want to pop her first if possible, so she takes first slot.
Serene Steward. UNCOMMON. Not only she's brutal by herself (4/4 for 6), but also comboes great with the Oracle, specially if you popped the Oracle first (+1/+1 for 2 mana every turn on your first creature). Sometimes you can drop her straight at turn 1. Unless you have an Oracle on your hand, do it.
Munda's Vanguard. RARE. If you can get her down, it's a nice addition because her activate 2 (+1/+1 to all your units) skill.

-- SUPPORT --

Supression Bonds. RARE, but basic white board control card. Disables first unit from your oponent, limiting his board to 2. A shame it has only 1 shield.
Grasp of the Hieromancer. COMMON. Multipurpose card. Further buffs your first creature, disables any pesky defender unit and nets you yet another target for reckoning.

-- SPELLS --

Encircling Fissure. UNCOMMON. Main board control. For 5-8 mana you get a full turn without enemy creature damage. For 9 mana you get the same plus a 2/2 elemental with haste. Keep this charged and disabled until the need arises.
Alchemist's Vial. COMMON. Secondary Board control, also a cantrip.
Smite the Monstuous. COMMON. Basic board clear if you cannot pop reckoning.
Swift Reckoning UNCOMMON. Secondary board clear. Be either bonds, Fissure or Vial, this card permanently deals with the issue.
Ondu Rising. UNCOMMON. For 4-11 mana you get great heal if you have creatures, and up to +3/+3 to your first creature if you have a Steward down (you should mostly use Ondu for this effect). 12 mana also nets you a 4/4 elemental with haste (stacks with the Fissure elemental

Have Gideon Battle Forged maxed out at level 60. It took me a while to figure out this deck, but now that I have and end game build for it, I absolutely love it. Total powerhouse Deck build if you can get the cards.

The Angel Deck

Creatures

Archangel of Tithes (Mythic) - Mana Cost 18 - 7/9 Angel with flying. Every time a creature attacks you, you gain two mana for each creature. Really like this card for the effiecient mana cost for what it is, and for the major mana battery effect. Who doesn't love a big beast mana battery that flies?

Emeria Shepherd (Mythic) - Mana cost 11 - 4/4 Angel with flying. Every time you landfall white, a creature that has died comes back on the board. Every time you landfall, a creature that has been killed goes back in your hand. Very effiecient mana cost for a 4/4 with flying. Not to mention the revive effects.

Linvala the Preserver ( Mythic ) - Mana cost 17 - 8/8 Angel with flying and Regen 4. Gain 10 life when this enters the battlefield. If your opponent controls 3 creatures, summon 2 4/4 angels along with Linvala. Again, very efficient mana cost for a very nice high end beast, with a pair of huge bonuses.

Support

Suppression Bonds - mana cost 6. First creature your opponent controls is stunned. Very low mana cost for this effect. The one draw back is that this support only comes with one shield. So you need to protect it, or reinforce it. I like this card for the effect, and because it pairs quite nicely with a support heavy deck. It also pairs with the spell swift reckoning.

Shrine of the Forsaken Gods - Mana cost 5 - Very low cost automatic mana battery. I love this card, and use it in almost all of my decks, even when I don't have a colorless heavy roster. I prefer it over the other option for white, which is the various dual land supports.

Mirrorpool (rare) - Mana cost 4 - Another card that I love, and will use in most of my decks. Very efficient, and sneaky reinforce. Pairs quite nice with the already big Linvala, and Archangel. When paired, it creates a 14+ damage super angel, and mana cost of total at most 22 mana. Very efficient card.

Hixus, Prison Warden (Mythic) - mana cost of 6 - Every creature that hits your plainwalker is permanently stunned while this support is in play. Fantastic lockdown stun card. Like suppression bonds, the drawback is that it only comes with one shield on it, so it needs to be supported, or protected.

Sigil of the Empty Throne (Gold) - Mana cost of 14 - When this support is out, every time you play a support card, you summon a 4/4 angel token with flying. While the mana cost on this card is quite high, I have found this card to be immensely useful for this deck. It is a large part of the reason for having 5 total supports, with the other 4 all being low costing. The pair allows you to summon very powerful angels, whenever you play one of the above cheap support cards. Really works well with this build. Just played a game where this triggered 9 times. I got none of my beasts to draw, however, ended up winning the game with a token angel with power of 40+ with buffs by the end!!!

Spells

Smite the monstrous (common) - mana cost of 8 - This card may be a common, but it gets the job done. I like this card a lot for my white decks, to take care of the bigger beasties

Swift Reckoning (uncommon) - mana cost of 6 - Another DD instant kill spell. Pairs very nicely with Suppression Bonds, and Hixus, to give a cheap instant kill.

Pair all of the above with Gideon's power up abilities, which are a variety of individual, and aoe buffs, and what do you get? A powerhouse stun lock angel deck that will win you most matches.

TimWebko wrote:

I'm sure there are ways to improve this even further - but I don't have many mythics (and I do have Emeria, but she has never given me a card back so far - always either gets killed herself, or the other player has no removal..)

Emeria is really really situational, and even if you get lucky her effect isn't that impressive. First you need to lose another creature or support, and you need to have her out, and you need to be able to get a white landfall (returning a creature to your hand is nearly useless in a white deck, card draw is awful and its implementation is kind of a fundamental flaw with how this game tries to emulate MTG, but oh well) and for doing all that you get maybe a single card for free. Not worth it when you can get just a creature twice as big out for the same cost.

Only use I can think she'd ever have is in some sort of green landfall deck to bring the supports those landfalls destroyed back in to your hand so you can use more fertile thickets or something. For Gideon, she's useless until maybe if Knight of the White Orchid gets buffed to be playable and then you could maybe run a weird white landfall deck if you have Oblivion Sower or something?

span_argoman wrote:

The aim isn't actually to recur your creatures. They're nice and have on-summon effects but you really want them to stay on the board and not go anywhere else. The aim is to recur Mirrorpool. You basically want your Mirrorpool to fire for every single summon you do. If you can fire it off for every single spell you cast too then go you.

This is much easier to do with Starfield of Nyx, which doesn't take up a limited creature slot and can provide you with +15/+15 stats, though it is a bit pricier.

Need help with a Gideon deck. I had been running a core of:
Consul's LT
war oracle
serene steward

suppression bonds

enshrouding mist
smite the monstrous
scour from existence

Before the addition of smite and scour I had been running more supports, blessed spirits as a secondary theme.

Through the course of the first event I modified/tweaked/changed it. It used to win 80% of the time I would guess, now I cant seem to win at all with white. I have NO white mythic cards, and only 10 white rares, which is rather frustrating as I have been playing since the game came out. Here are the rares I have:
gideons phalanx
Sentinel of the eternal watch
knight of the white orchard
kytheons irregulars
munds vanguard
sigil of the empty throne
vryn wingmare
hallowed moonlight (ive gotten like 8 of these)
suppression bonds
lantern scout

Looking for help to start from scratch for the current nodes of power event. I played once with this Gideon so I am tied to him for this go around at least. Maybe I will win enough crystals to get the other Gideon or Ajani.

span_argoman wrote:

Netatron wrote:

This is much easier to do with Starfield of Nyx, which doesn't take up a limited creature slot and can provide you with +15/+15 stats, though it is a bit pricier.

Right, I agree with you. But Emeria Shepherd has the upside of bringing back your creatures which have pretty nice on-summon effects. And it isn't that costly so providing you with the recursion ability and a 4/4 creature at the same time is nice.

Starfield of Nyx may not take up a creature slot but it usually compels you to fit in at least five supports including itself for any consistency in hitting the +5/+5 bonus. If Mirrorpool is on the list you probably need to add another support, which leaves you with few slots for creatures and spells anyway.

Luckily Oath of Gideon is so strong! And I would want to run Shrine of the Forsaken Gods anyway to make up for Gideon's low mana gains. I just wish I had Sigil of the Empty Throne to make the deck viable.

Been having fun with the reward from the Terrors in the Shadows PVP Event, Thalia's Lieutenant.

Creatures:
Iroas's Champion
Thalia's Lieutenant
Town Gossipmonger
War Oracle
Serene Steward

Spell:
Smite the Monsterous
Ondu Rising

Supports:
Always Watching
Corrupted Grafstone
Hope Against Hope

Tactic is to use Serene Steward + Lifelink to boost creatures whilst waiting for Thalia's Lieutenant to show up. Swap out Iroas's Champion for Lantern Scout if you have it for further consistency and to lower the mana average.

Coconut99 wrote:

Hoping to get some advice/help for my Gideon OG deck...Right now, for obvious reasons, it's extremely slow and even then, a bit situational.

Creatures (4)
Serene Steward
Resolute Blademaster
Kor Entanglers
Drana's Emissary

Spells (1)
Smite the Monstrous

Supports (5)
Starfield of Nyx
Oath of Gideon
Prairie Stream
Hixus, Prison Warden
Retreat to Emeria

Basically, I think I was trying to make a lifegain pump deck without a Lantern Scout (still don't have), and it's just gotten...well, messy.

Aside from somehow trying to save this deck, my two thoughts are to either turn this into an Angel deck or a Human deck, to take advantage of some of the new SoI cards I've picked up.

For a Human deck, I'm thinking...

Creatures (2)
Odric, Lunarch Marshal
Hanweir Militia Captain

Spells (2)
Declaration in Stone
Ethereal Guidance

Supports (5)
Starfield of Nyx
Hixus, Prison Warden
Prairie Stream
Hope Against Hope
Valor in Akros

After that, I'm not even sure on the 10th card...maybe throw Serene Steward back in? (I didn't intend for that to stay at 5 supports, but somehow it did...at least they're mostly cheap....)

For a possible Angel deck, I'm thinking...

Creatures (2)
Archangel of Tithes
Odric (thinking Archangel may help as a battery to get this out faster?)

Spells (3)
Declaration in Stone
Lithomancer's Focus
Ondu Rising

Supports (5)
Starfield of Nyx
Sigil of the Empty Throne
Prairie Stream
Hixus, Prison Warden
Hope Against Hope

(Starfield/Prairie/Hixus are just such useful cards to keep throwing in...)

Sigh...still very "meh" on all three of these options. Any thoughts/help would be appreciated.

Best 2 cards to fit into this deck Smite the monstrous and reflector mage, Probably cut Lithomancer's Focus
and Ondu Rising

My Human deck is very different (I don't have any of the Mythic supports)

Just for comparison im running:

Sigarda
Reflector Mage
Hanweir Militia Captain (unsure how good this is)
Thalia's lieutenant
Town Gossipmonger
Drogskol Cavalry
Pious Evangel

Ondu Rising
Smite the Monstrous

Shambling Vent

Having a blast playing as Gideon, currently rank 3 on the leaderboard

Well...made it to rank 2 before maintenance...

I'm playing mostly life gain and knights

shafty wrote:

Hi all, I'm having decent success with this deck in QB. I'm at 70.6% win rate since I started playing and mostly been playing Gideon. I'm wondering what I can do to improve it.
Here is the deck:

Creatures
War Oracle
Knight of the White Orchid
Consul's Lieutenant
Reflector Mage
Runaway Carriage

Spells
Scour From Existence

Supports
Corrupted Graftstone
Knightly Valor
Silver Strike
Grasp of the Hieromancer

I try to get Consul's Lieutenant or Knight out and buff as soon as possible with Gideon's first ability then back up with War Oracle for a basic strategy.

These are cards I have that seem like they might fit in the deck but unsure what would be best or what to replace:

Relic Seeker
Sigil of the Empty Throne
Anointed of Champions
Gideon's Reproach
Drownyard Temple
Sigil of Vigor
Rogue's Passage
Smite the Monstrous
Sword of the Animist
Swift Reckoning
Murder Investigation

Any help is much appreciated and thanks in advance!

Relic Seeker is great for boosting your first creature cause it gives +1/+1 every turn once it's renowned. If you want a big defender then it is one of the more consistent ways to boost your first creature. However it'll have to replace Knight of the White Orchid due to the cost so it depends whether the white gem conversion from the Knight are consistently giving you free matches or not. But what it helps do is consolidate the boosts into your first creature. In any case you have Consul's Lieutenant and Runaway Carriage as defender picks already.

Smite the Monstrous is a better card for hard removal than Scour from Existence. There are rare few cases where you need to destroy a creature 3 power or less.

You can also try replacing Knightly Valor with Drownyard Temple if you find that you are short on mana.