How does Planeswalkers with abilities that transform themselves in creatures are any useful?
Asked by Jho_on 5 years ago
For exemple, Gideon Jura , his +2 make all creatures target opponent controls attack him, but if planeswalkers' abilities are sorcery speed and only one can be activated per turn, how does this can be a good thing? I Mean, if you you could use his 0 ability on the target opponent's turn after the +2 is used it, would make sense, otherwise he just dies.
I never really get this, and I know that probably it's something easy and silly that I'm not considering, but it would be really helpful if someone could point that out.
Thanks for the attention and sorry if this was already answered (I didn't found).
In the case of Gideon Jura , his first ability draws all enemy attention toward him, saving yourself and your other creatures from attack. You can also use this to force attacks from a weak board state in order to strategically block.
Gideon Jura 's third ability is good for turning him in to a large creature that can be used to attack, and which won't take damage while doing so.
As far as I'm aware, to date there is only one way to directly activate a planeswalker loyalty ability on an opponent's turn (when you would want to use Gideon's third ability to prevent the attacks from damaging him), and that is through the emblem from Teferi, Temporal Archmage .
May 4, 2019 6:16 p.m.
In addition to forcing a weak board state to attack when they don't want to, you can also force attacks into creatures with deathtouch, or force all of an opponent's creatures to attack into a Settle the Wreckage , and so on. As ClockworkSwordfish mentioned, it just takes some creative thinking to work around that first ability's limitations.
And if you do run Gideon Jura with Teferi, Temporal Archmage and get that emblem out, you can actually turn Gideon into a creature on your opponent's turn in order to just tank the whole hit himself.
ClockworkSwordfish says... Accepted answer #3
I guess the trick is to plan around forcing your opponent to attack! For instance, if he has some small but useful creatures and you have a big beefy blocker, you can force them to charge in to their death. Or you can ensure he sends his creatures into an Immolating Glare or Condemn if they weren't likely to attack otherwise.
Considering the +2 puts him at 8 loyalty, he should be able to take some hits from any creatures that get through - after which your opponent will be tapped out, meaning you can counterattack with creatures of your own, or even use Gideon's -2 to destroy a creature that attacked him last turn. Like with most any abilities in Magic, the trick is to get creative with it!
May 4, 2019 6:09 p.m.