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Gladiator's First Big Metagame Burst!

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While the parochial Standard base was mourning the loss of yet another Simic debacle, Magic's most hopeful format continued its ascent! (Quick related recommendation you might like.)

Card Kingdom put on a Gladiator event, Ben Wheeler bless them. Let's take a look at the format and see if we can figure out some fundamental tent pole theory on how to engage with this format when building decks.

Lesson 1: Planeswalkers are Bananas

Teferi, Master of Time
Gideon of the Trials

Planeswalkers are like Mulldrifters except they also necessarily cast Fog a lot. Hav-ing an abundance of cards that guarantee multiple effects and modalities per turn is a great way to make sure you're competitive in most Gladiator games. By the same token, the removal for most of them is unreliable in a singleton format, not to mention terrible on tempo.

U/W Control | Gladiator | EricZhou


Check out how our Gladiatorial Champion here*, our Magic Arena Russell Crowe himself, EricZhou, has ensured his Planeswalkers get on the battlefield; not only does he feature nine of them but other than Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, they all cost three and four mana.

*(Elle Morrow and Jake Madson also had undefeated records. I'm posting their decklists at the bottom of this article.)

Lesson 2: Don't Try To Expect the Unexpected. It's All Unexpected.

There are a few decks in my personal stable that have a resemblance to some of the top finishing archetypes. The closest may be this very competitive deck from Justin Burdett:

Izzet Control | Gladiator | Justin Burdett


Naturally, I began to compare my build with this one.

Which decklist is better for optimizing Niv Mizzet, Parun? Should I put Lava Coil back in my version after cutting it weeks ago? Maybe I should consider the adventure cards again?

Then I realized something.

This is Gladiator, my dude. Lighten up.

Don't try to beat everything all the time. Just make sure your deck is good at functioning.

Even the meta in this format isn't a real meta! Man, that's meta.

Lesson 3: Orange is the New Gold

I don't know what you thought the mythic rarity was originally supposed to be, but here's what it is now: how you get things done in Gladiator.

Elder Gargaroth
Liliana, Dreadhorde General

I've talked about this before, but it can't be overstated: When you're going to go several games without see-ing certain copies of cards, due to the singleton nature of Gladiator, you need as much raw, redundant effi-ciency as you can get. You want cards that, on average, can pocket game wins on their own. You want Grave Titans, not Kuldotha Forgemasters.

Synergy is great and all, but game to game, there's just no accounting for the nukes. In a strange way, the building principles for Gladiator feel a bit like Sealed Deck, of all things.

Lesson 4: Lands, Still

Even the lowest of the low in this format are still running over 30 lands. There are sightings of low 30s in spe-cialized decks, but the general rule seems to be 37+, trending toward 40. Assuming the ancient wisdom that players generally don't play enough lands is still going strong, make sure you're not fooling yourself on your resource allocation. Even Gladiator isn't fun if you keep yourself stuck on two or three lands game after game (like I do).

Stonecoil Serpent
Expansion // Explosion

This will also make your X spells more relevant, more often.

Lesson 5: You Can Play Aggro If You Want

Rimrock Knight
Gutterbones
Pelt Collector

You don't get as many slots to screw around with bombs, but be warned: 20 life is all a reasonable curve needs to eat you alive. It's a format where you can be creative and surprise opponents, but it's still restricted to competently built decklists that can survive the onslaught of efficient creatures that can come from aggro decks on early turns.

Glad They Played!

Allosaurus Shepherd
Hostage Taker
Archon of Sun's Grace

Though there are a few minor (and obvious) expected trends from this event, the general lesson is clear: If you'll be reasonable about playing enough bombs and you respect your mana, with a little creativity and re-spect for the format's fastest vectors, you can do whatever you want. It's a format so great, even Uro is wel-come!

Gruuuuuuuuuuuu.

Here are the previously promised decklists. Congratulations to everyone involved in that event. I'm thrilled I'm not the only one in love with this way of play.

Sultai | Gladiator | Elle Morrow


Mono-Green Hoof | Gladiator | Jake Madson


And lastly, feel free to stop by my stream on Thursday morning at 10am EST if you're looking for a few hours of Gladiator games! My subs are currently going toward animal welfare, as there are a lot of organizations in my vicinity struggling as badly with 2020 as most of the rest of us. Let's convert some Magic games into good will for the puppers and kits out there!

(~_^)

The Rascal

The Indestructible Danny West

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