Setting aside the fact that I will forever be correcting myself from writing Gideon of the Trails, how will his emblem work?

I get that, as long as you have one of the many Gideon planeswalkers, it is in effect, but how will that manifest? If you are reduced below 0 life, the game just keeps going? If your library is milled out entirely, do you just keep playing with whatever you have in the battlefield? If your opponent has 8 or more Mechanized Production artifacts, the game just keeps going?

Also, what are the odds that Stainless manages to drop some serious buggery into that emblem for the first couple months?

Honestly a little pissed we got him but not Dovin Baan. If they've learned to do one they could surely have done the other. Ah, well. Brainless Stainless.

Pretty much this. You can't lose for any reason and the opponent can't win for any reason (except you forfeit).

And yes, this means that games could end in a draw (Gideon vs. Gideon, Gideon continually +1s targeting the opposing Gideon). Edge case, but I wonder how Stainless implements this...

The game continues even if you get decked or fall below 0 life. You simply cannot lose unless you concede. The game keeps going until your opponents breaks the emblem hardlock.

Edit: The effect it's not new to duels, I am pretty sure we had platinum angel as one of the puzzles duels 2012.

Right and we even got the angel from AER that prevents game loss but that was too expensive to play so no-one really noticed I guess. Also I don't see how Gideon has anything to do with Dovin Baan.
Baan is more complex and bullies the opponent out of the game because they can barely play any cards, at least with Gideon you can still kill him to win.

I'm waiting for the gameplay video where 2 players get an emblem out and run out of cards and have no way of winning or losing. Wonder if it will crash Duels?

Who's up for trying that in a video? Just a WU deck with Gideon, Call the Gatewatch and a ton of Blue draw spells until we both hit Gideon.

I waffle on this Gideon. He's certainly no Ally of Zendikar.

On the one hand, he's a competent beat stick. And his +1 kind of protects himself....but what deck is he trying to go in? Is it control, just trying to be a renewable beater that dodges removal, ala big Gideon? Aggro as....something? He really doesn't fit aggro.

Midrange as....I guess a generic 4/4 most of the time?

Maybe I'm being overly pessimistic, but is he even better than 3cmc Nissa? He's certainly worse than 3cmc Lili.

Totally must try that, but in all truth the system could just let the game keep going.
Gideon itself can turn in a creature and attack, so even in a scenario with no cards left in deck and hand, no creatures on the board and no GY interaction, it'd just let each Gideon smash the other one's face.

Other Gideon just +1's your Gideon. Have fun.

First to give up or forget about their game loses.

That could make for the best, the worst, or the bestworst Duels video ever and I want to see it.

Its an open invite, Steam players only.

You don't understand, it says "as long as control a gideon, you can't lose" that means you can't quit, if your internet goes out the show must go on, you'll be stuck there, playing Duels for all eternity as guess what? You can't die, not even in real life as it'll break the rules.

Yeah, in the scenario where both sides have no cards, no boards, no library, and just Gideon of the Trials on each side, it would stalemate forever.

I mean, it's a corner case for sure, but it'd drag forever. At least with Ally of Zendikar, you could poop tokens and win/die at some point.

>tries to exit Duels to watch TV

>

We could've tried to code Emrakul.

I suspect this guy is why we got Never // Return. If they'd printed him last set Wizards would have said "We gave you Universal Solvent, quit your crying!"

I'm thinking he's got something for everyone. Control he can protect himself/other walkers by turning off damage on a permanent (no burning your Walkers with little Chandra's +1 exile damage, or OoC eot damage trigger, turn off Towers, or just a big dumb creature), and offers a slightly downgraded beater ala big Gideon.

I think he's a fine option for W based aggro. 4/4 indestructible beater hitting T4 is good. Attracting attention from your lifetotal in an aggro mirror seems fine too. I'd think he fits right in w/ W(X) humans, and that's one place you might actually use his emblem.

I don't know if there will be a deck he's as valuable in as baby Nissa is to say, GB Snek, but as a general rule I think he'll offer more to more decks than baby Nissa does.

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but a 4/4 indestructible beater sounds pretty good.

Neat. Anybody's going to test if Stainless got that part right? Just try to kick the bucket with the emblem in play. Don't worry, we'll file a bug report for you if it doesn't work.