I like the Gideons in Pioneer, so I tried to brew a deck to support them. This deck wants to control the game through difficult-to-remove creatures, sweepers, and spot removal, and then swing in with a Gideon or 2 & Rhonas or Heart of Kiran. Shatter the sky has given this deck an excellent sweeper with lots of synergy. Oftentimes, you’ll get to draw a card and wipe the opp’s board without losing any creatures, since most Here are indestructible.
Gideon, Blackblade is an unsung hero in this deck. BG decks will often try to destroy him on your turn without knowing he’s indestructible. He can be tapped on your turn to attack with Heart of Kiran. A great play is casting a sweeper, then removing a loyalty counter from Gideon BB to crew HoK, giving HoK lifelink / indestructible and swinging with both. Gideon, Blackblade + Rhonas are also great pals. Giving Rhonas life link or vigilance can force the opponent into some really bad decisions. As you would imagine, they’re also great after a sweeper.
Gideon of the trials should probably be something else, but he’s been either decent or an all star. He can lock down a single attacker or keep a combo opponent from going off if I have multiple gideons in play.
Bond of flourishing is there to provide some card selection. Before I ran it, I had games where I got locked into LANDLANDLANDLANDLAND draws. It's been good so far. I wouldn't say it's been great, but it gets the job done. It does gain life, which is helpful against aggro or burn. An unban of oath of nissa would help, since it was banned for OUaT’s sins. The deck needs some sort of card advantage beyond Tireless Tracker, but I can't figure out what to do about it.
I don’t run ramp, because I have a lot of W casting costs, and tbh I haven’t needed to. There is enough control in the deck to slow the game and let my bombs do work. Knight of Autumn is a great example; in control matchups, she can come down with counters to allow my Rhonas to attack a PW or remove enchantments. Vs aggro, she is life gain or a threat.
Cast out either draws cards or removes something Troublesome and allows me to get aggressive.
Declaration removes indestructibles like opposing Rhonas’, Scarab God, creatures, or lots of tokens.
I think dromoka’s command has done enough work in the past to speak for itself. It’s not always optimal if I’ve drawn only 1 or 2 creatures and had them removed.
Gideon’s intervention is a maindeck way for me to prevent Ulamogg or other game ending threats. G ramp has been a bad matchup, but using field of ruin in conjunction with intervention gives me enough time to attack with my threats, and it only takes a couple of turns to end the game once I’ve stuck multiple.
The gearhulk is usually another 1 sided sweeper. The opp gets to choose the permanents they keep, but it usually works out in my favor. If I drop him with only Rhonas, I get to keep both because gearhulk can count as the artifact. Ditto for Heliod. And yes, I’m using the old heliod. He’s a beast against control as long as he can stick. There was a game where I had no permanents but lots of mana against a uw control player who had both teferis out. I was able to create a bunch of tokens that eventually beat down both of his Teferis and then won the game.
