by Elton Gahr

Created on: November 01, 2009

One of the best ways to create a winning magic the gathering decks is to create a situation in which many of the cards in your opponent's hands become generally useless. This can be achieved in numerous ways, but players have taken most of those into account. Building a deck without artifacts or enchantments for example can make naturalize a blank card, but most players won't be overly harmed by that and they will be able to sideboard them out after the first game. More effective if possible may be making a deck with no creatures that can be targeted, making any spot creature removal pointless and likely making 8 or 12 cards in their deck effectively blank.

Gaddoc Teeg is another possibility. A rare legendary Kithkin adviser from the Lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering. He costs one white and one green, is a 2/2 creature and if your opponent can not kill him he has the potential of turning large chunks of your opponent's decks into blank cards.

This is because of his ability which reads "Noncreature spells with converted mana cost 4 or greater can't be cast. Noncreature spells with x in their mana costs can't be cast."

The first problem of course is that most creature removal cost three or less, and if he is killed all the cards your opponent has been unable to play become playable. And so it is a reasonable choice to play Whispersilk Cloak or some other type of defense on him. This can help make this far more difficult on your opponent.

The other issue is that they are still able to play creatures. This is not a negative so much as a limitation on the positive of the card, but since you are playing green it should not be a major problem. If you are able to keep Gaddoc Teeg out a green player should be able to win the creature battle.

One of the main cards that this works on is wrath of God and other wrath of god effects that almost all cost more than three. But just because it is more difficult for your opponent to do so does not give you an excuse to over extend yourself. If your opponent is able to remove Gaddoc Tegg he can still wipe out the rest of your army in a single card but no matter how you play this card it is one that your opponent is forced to deal with and that alone makes it a fantastic card at two mana.

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