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View Full Version : [Single Card Discussion] Undead Gladiator



Cane818
11-26-2007, 12:27 PM
I was just looking at this card, and I was wondering if any decks have used him to create an effective draw engine.

The best I could come up with is Undead Gladiator + Squee, Goblin Nabob.

Cavius The Great
11-26-2007, 12:31 PM
How would this be better than Life from the loam+odyssey cycling lands?

Lemuria
11-26-2007, 01:00 PM
I used to run him in a mono black control, that use cabal coffers to produce a lot of mana, so I could draw up to 3 - 4 cards in my upkeep. Really slow deck though.

Maybe he could be of some use in Train Wreck.

Nihil Credo
11-26-2007, 02:05 PM
I tried it, both in Extended and later on in Legacy. 2BB for "Discard a card, then draw a card" is hardly sexy in Legacy - heck, Jayemdae Tome is a better card drawer. A three-mana 3/1 is underwhelming, too. Oh, sure, it trades with Mongeese forever, but decks that can afford his price tag (read: Coffers deck) already slaughter Thresh. Against other decks, it would just be a massive tempo sink.

I'd stay the hell away from it. There is a lot of playable black card draw around (Whisper, Arena, Bob).

Arsenal
11-29-2007, 10:56 AM
I've always liked this type of card (Nether Spirit, Pyre Zombie, etc...), and I really wanted to find a home for him in a competitive Legacy deck. Not so much as a draw-engine (think of cycling as added bonus or a card filter), but just as a really nice recursive beater/chump-blocker. Vaka Pox looks like it might have a home, but Tombstalker seems to be the creature of choice in that deck.

Cabal-kun
11-30-2007, 08:35 PM
...but just as a really nice recursive beater/chump-blocker.

If you have the time, mana, and cards to recur him, why are you not playing a better card? I would rather win than mess around with a recurrable 3/1. And if I'm chump blocking with him, then I'm either a) losing, or b) wasting resources chumping with him instead of winning.

It isn't that he's bad, it's that there are alot of better options.

troopatroop
12-01-2007, 12:21 AM
He's too tricksy and not enough oomph. Danger of cool things, imo.

Agent J
12-12-2007, 09:11 AM
I think people should not do like Undead Gladiator is a draw engine or something he simply isn't (like Nihil pointed out). I'd rather consider him as a utility card and especially in decks like Train Wreck/MBC/BW-Control he is quite good.
I replaced the 26th Land in my approach on Train Wreck with him and I am definitely satisfied. He is never rearly bad and at the same time fullfills a lot of different purposes (chump blocking, searching for answers if you have lots of mana, recycling dead cards and sometimes even attacking).
You could put it like this: There's nothing he is awesome at but there is lots of stuff there he's good/ok.

Arsenal
12-29-2007, 12:32 PM
I've been using this guy in a fun, casual Nether-Go deck I threw together. The deck has a fair mix of discard/disruption, spot removal, mass removal, Sword of Light and Shadow, Nether Spirit, and Undead Gladiator. I like him. Definitely a "Danger of Cool Things" card, but he's pretty fun.

Alfred
01-03-2008, 03:11 AM
He's good with Lightning Rift. I could see him working in something like Train Wreck, but splashing red instead of green for stuff like Rift, Burning Wish, etc.

With a coffers, 5 mana per shock isn't as hard to get as you would think, and running a tutor like Shred Memory would mean that you wouldn't have to run an excessive amount of Rifts.

Just throwing it out there.

JDunkin00
01-10-2008, 08:54 PM
I've been using this guy in a fun, casual Nether-Go deck I threw together. The deck has a fair mix of discard/disruption, spot removal, mass removal, Sword of Light and Shadow, Nether Spirit, and Undead Gladiator. I like him. Definitely a "Danger of Cool Things" card, but he's pretty fun.

I guy at our shop runs a B/g nether spirit deck and every time I play him it seems underwhelming but it does have versitility turning late game lands into a threat but cycles early to find lands or control spells. Very "Danger of Cool Things" Also back in ONS block he rockedas a recurable cycler alongside EDragon for bw slide.