"Gideon Martial Paragon: The Third Gideon"

"Gideon Martial Paragon: The Third Gideon"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.MD

With all this talk about Gideon Tribal being viable in standard and the much talked about two other Gideons hogging the spotlight I wanted to check out the third version who will complete the Gideon Triad. Gideon Martial Paragon.

There was a lot of talk that the Planeswalkers in these duel decks were actually made to be watered down versions of the other standard Legal versions but with the emergence of Gideon of the Trials  , Martial Paragon is sure to have some collectors on it's heels.

Martial Paragon has the biggest casting cost of all the existing Gideon , much like the original Gideon Jura who was similarly priced at 3 colorless mana and 2 plains. If I am mentioning Gideon , believe me I am as sick as you are at reading his name. It makes me want to do a Crisis on Infinite planes just so that other copies of him will be erased.

Now let us look at the Martial Paragons ability and what sets him apart from his other brothers. The +2 allows you to untap creatures you control and give them +1/+1 counters until end of turn. Hmmmmm. So what do we need to untap at this point? Exerted creatures that is what. I can see this pairing up with an Exerted Combat Celebrant so that the Human Warrior can also be untapped giving your armies another chance to attack and finish off your opponents. A wave of 3 successive attacks seems like a little excessive but just of the Martial Paragons strong points here. Oh and don't forget your creatures also have that added +1/+1. If you have enough mana you can even Blink Martial Paragon with a Felidar Sovereign and untap and enforce everyone for a 4th wave of attack. Overkill as my friend June Bryan once said. You just need to have Boros colors though.

Don't have anyone you can attack with? Martial Paragon is still the mighty 5/5 Soldier who cant take damage and is beyond the reach of a Dismember or Throttle. And for 0 cost activation too. Ever wondered how it felt like to have an indestructible planeswalker fight for you?Then wonder no more.

For the Martial Paragons Ultimate ability which is a -10. Creatures you control get a mass +2/+2 boost each and to make matters worse for all your opponents you get to tap all of their creatures regardless if they have hexproof of protection from anything since this is a non tar getting ability. Talk about a huge imbalance. You get to attack while even the biggest creatures are just lying on their sides absolutely helpless to defend against your march.

For a watered down card this final ability is something that most players actually want because it is all upside to whoever controls Martial Paragon and all downside to those on the receiving end of all those boosted creatures.

So there we go. Martial Paragon wasn't all that bad of a card now that I have analyzed him at length. I might just buy this planeswalker duel deck just because of him.And probably because I have an existing Mardu Superfriends deck that has a slot open for him

So what do you think of the Martial Paragon? Would you play him and if so what build would you want to put him in.Thanks for reading. Keep on Brewing.