"Dovin Baan - The "Frustrating Opponents" Diadem"

"Dovin Baan - The "Frustrating Opponents" Diadem"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. MD

One look at Dovin Baan and you would instantly know that he is a stickler for rules and regulations. He has that whole sour , stick up his butt look that all nitpickers for rules have. Some people like him. Some people don't. The latter probably the reason why he isn't getting any serious game play or there is the slight probability that even the control players are not making room for him despite the things that he has to offer.Either way it makes me happy that I could get him on the cheap and experiment a bit. 

At 2 colorless mana and Azorius colors too expect this guy to be included in some pretty oppressive decks and I already suspect that one guy in our play group to have a set of this somewhere tucked away and will spring it on us the soonest possible time he could. When you summon Dovin Baan he has 3 starting loyalty counters.Not the sturdiest planeswalker but you hope that he sticks around to help you.

So let us take a look at this guys skills.

-3/0 to target creature and you gain a loyalty counter serves as protection to early to mid creatures. Mostly mid creatures. This also allows you to probably survive the next couple of turns so that you could set up what nefarious scheme you have under your sleeve. As an added bonus that creatures activated abilities cannot be played as well. So no tappers , no discarders , no destruction from those who could tap and do you harm. Yey.

Dovin Baan's second ability is a -1 which allows you to draw a card and gain 2 life. This would come in hand since you are probably trying to control the board state and there is a high probability that you have been taking hits from faster decks. The 2 life is no joke and the card draw might turn out to be that Fumigate or Yahenni's Expertise that you might need to stop your bleeding life points. All in all I might just play Dovin for this ability if there is no good target for his first skill.

For Dovin's ultimate ability he makes a good impression of Stasis or Static orb. For -7 Loyalty counters you get an emblem that says "Your opponents can't untap more than 2 permanents during their untap steps. At this point when you are able to activate Dovin Baan's final skill chances are you might have totally controlled your opponent. You are the only person on the battlefield able to untap everything and prepare for what ever your opponent will dish out next. Expect a rather frustrated opponent to just scoop as no one wants to sit through an experience of Draw-Go again and again.

Dovin Baan can be a lot of fun but only for the planeswalker who summons him and takes advantage of what he has to offer. In the end Dovin Baan might not receive any love from Standard players but he might have a place in EDH  decks that has Frustrating Opponents as a General strategy.