Pointed Discussion

Grows as quickly or quicker than Ajani's Pridemate, and without Soul's Attendant or Soul Warden. I doubt it will have much impact in standard, playing out better as a casual card.

he hates serra angel

I don't know, this seems pretty ridiculous. I imagine a racing situation where every swing lets me hit you harder the next turn. Discourages an attack following the turn that I play it. Four please.

I wouldn't say that this grows faster or even as fast as Ajani's Pridemate. Ajani's Pridemate can be grown using your own creatures, while Gideon's Avenger can only grow as fast as your opponent lets it. If the opponent has one flyer hitting each turn, this card will take awhile to become powerful. Ajani's Pridemate can grow much much quicker imo, especially with multiple Soul Wardens or Soul's Attendants out.

let's say i have Kismet in play with this and my opponent plays a creature. Avenger would not get a bonus, right? since it doesn't become tapped, it starts that way. I am 90% sure about that, but anyone have any objections? there aren't any rulings on this yet.

@jsttu: you are correct, it doesn't trigger. go read kismet's rulings.

Cast Sleep with a Gideon's Avenger on the field followed up by a Sunblast Angel and swing for a lot of damage.

Of course, your opponent will need to have quite a lot of creatures for this to be decidedly dangerous but It's sounds like fun against just such a deck.

im sure peolpe have noticed this but still i'll say it
this guy+gideons lawkeeper+gideon himself

tap their creature w/ gideons lawkeeper
Gideons Avenger gets +1/+1
-2 gideon to kill the creature

Ajani's Pridemate was better. While this card doesn't require a deck to be built around it nearly as much, the big issue is that, in most cases, it requires your opponent to both be running creatures and tapping those creatures. At least with Pridemate you could force him into being a big beater on the back of your own deck.

Will be a standout in limited though.

Seems like a fun card, but I think the artwork is hideous. It could have been so much more beautiful.

Extremely effective if your intent is to slow your opponent. She'll think twice about every attack or activated ability If you have one (or more) of these out.

Bonus points for being a soldier.

This card was an absolute beast at the prerelease, and it was the 2nd most effective card in my deck behind the sun titan. My opponents held back constantly out of pure fear, only to eventually eat a frost breath or get tapped down by gideon's lawkeeper. It's so awesome how all the gideon cards work together. It definitely earned a place in my personal hall of fame.

"Come at me, bro!"

Awesome creature. Has old white's ability to leave opponents weary to attack, and new white's ever strengthening creature power. A stong and awesome soldier who works wonders with Gideon's Lawkeeper and the plainswalker himself... perhaps one of the best in the set- for sure one of the most fun :)

Also, artwork is awesome. Reminds me of Game of Thrones...

This guy is going into my EDH deck. He and War Elemental are gonna have a great time together.

Combos well with Narcolepsy.

I would love to make a deck based off thise guy with just stuff like Gideon's Lawkeeper, Blinding Mage, and whatever other cheap repeatable taps you can find.

I don't like this card at all.

First of all, I believe this card and Gideon's Lawkeeper should be both blue and I would rather swap the color with Wake Thrasher. This creature combos MUCH better with Sleep, Frost Breath, Frost Titan, Cryptic Command, Narcolepsy, Gigadrowse, Deluge, Flood or Siren's Call than with Gideon or Gideon's lawkeeper. And it feels even more strange that the Avenger gets stronger when an opponent taps a Bird of Paradise or a Ghost-Lit Redeemer.

This brings me to Gideon himself. His "all creatues must attack him" is a failed way to print a Veteran Bodyguard as a Planeswalker. FORCING an opponent to attack is strictly contrary to any white flavor concept. Therefore, I would have printed Gideon with "until your next turn, whenever a creature attacks you, that creature attacks Gideon instead". Even the Siren's Call or the Alluring Siren are questionable design concepts, since Sirens never caused attacks, but misguided steps. So I would return this forced attack theme to black Imps (see Imps' Taunt) or to red (see Incite)

But what really bothers me, is the flavor text. Since when does white send human beings into war and probably death so eagerly? No peaceful thoughts anymore? No mercy? No "rather convicted than killed"?

Maybe R&D should watch Battlestar Galactica. This TV series are MUCH more white flavored than anything Wizards gets printed. It's about democracy, mercy, righteous dedication and anything white stands for and not just fanatical religious smite... like this card suggests.

"The good sit and wait for the evil to act. Since they don't prejudge people, honor peace and life itself. Rather a fragile peace treaty than a 'preventative' war."

This card has the guts to stand toe to toe with Ajani's Pridemate. For one thing, it is a lot cheaper and quicker to grow, will cause some serious disorder with your opponents deck, assuming that they're not obsessed with vigilance, and comboes with a ridiculous amount of cards, white and blue. So, I definitely think this card is amazing, with the only disadvantage being the cost. Two would have been a more fair, at least to set store by its rival.

4.5/5

Love this card with Aether Shockwave and Sunblast Angel

If you are attacked and gideons avenger is a valid defender does his bonus take affect before or after the attack is complete? This has been an ongoing debate among the group I play with and we've yet to see or hear anything conclusive either way. Any thoughts or known rules on this issue would be helpful Thanks.

I don't c y people are hating on this card. It could become a 5/5 on like turn 4 or something. Besides if it dies sun titan can bring it back

Excellent design, your opponents are S.O.L. for not drawing into removal early on. However, much like Dauntless Escort, which dies horribly and doesn't do anything vs control, this is going to eat the removal spell quickly against a creature deck. It's just counter-intuitive; its ability is so good that it's probably not going to get used. I prefer my bolt-bait to cost 2 mana or less. I'll make an exception for Mentor of the Meek because he's pure card advantage and Mirran Crusader because he has pro-black and double strike.

This guy can become unmanageable quickly.

I keep a soldier/golem deck that helps itself out more than a sliver deck, and this would be a gold addition.

Insane against elves. With all those mana tapping creatures, this gets big REALLY fast!

Magic needs to do more White "Avengers". Preferably ones with Intimidate. Soon, very soon, I feel like we will get to the point where White will have a card that vaguely resembles the goddamn Batman. There will never be a better time than whenever (not if ever) they return to Ravnica. Here is a not-so-vague completely-insane broken-worse-than-Time Vault version to tide us over until then. If you're opponent is actually agrees to let you play this card, they deserve what they get. If not, no harm done. ;)

2WWW
Gothic Avenger
Super Mythic Rare- Slums of Ravnica (?)
Legendary Creature- Human Vigilante
Gothic Avenger is Black and not White* (use new color indicator doohickey.)
Flash, intimidate, triple strike**, vigilance, reach, shadow, Ninjutsu 0***
Gothic Avenger can only be blocked by creatures with flying or reach.
Protection from creatures with shadow.
Whenever Gothic Avenger enters the battlefield or attacks, up to three target creatures can't block this turn.
W/B: Gothic Avenger fights target creature without shadow. It's control may return up to two creatures they control to their hand.
T,U,T,U,T: Target creature that would return to it's owners hand is instead tapped and loses all abilities until end of turn. (Batarangs!)
Sacrifice Gothic Avenger: Scare the shit out of defending player. (If they are still reading this card, they concede the game instead)
2/4

*I figure with all the other crazy stuff they've done with the color pie, this isn't too much. Well, it IS too much, but hey- the Goddamn Batman needs protection from Doom Blade, ok?!
**/***Yes, they will NEVER give a creature these abilities. I am excercising my right to nutty nutty dreams of awesomeness. Broken as hell. Much worse than Jace, the Mindsculptor probably.
I'm not sure what it all works out to, but I'm pretty sure this would hands down be the most powerful creature in Magic. Use only if you are sick of That Guy using his dumb Tier 1 Net Decks and get the Ultimate Revenge :D
DISCLAIMER: You KNOW that you have all on occasion designed similar cards (broken things that just win because you were bored and it's funny) out of desperation, or just for fun.

a lot of fun using it with feeling of dread to tap four and get four counters for four mana.

I predict this card to be fairly popular once Mirran Crusader rotates out of standard. Is it as good? Hell no, but it might have its place...

Combo with Freed from the Real.

Stun Sniper has found another friend!

Whoever rates this card under 4 is either retard or mentaly ill.

Doesn't Combo with his master as well as the others do, also, I thought there was only one sural in the multiverse...
4/5 Stars