Guardian at the Gates

Any suggestions for how best to use this card? Also seems a bit…meh. Answers on a postcard…

In addition to hearing peoples thoughts on Guardian of the Gates I’d be curious to hear if people have had success with Law Tech II stuff in general. If you’ve done well with Law Tech II how did you go about it?

In the case of mono blue when would you go Law Tech II (or for that matter Truth) over Peace?

I’ve not played blue yet, and certainly not Tech 2 Law - but I would say the utility is rather obvious. You put a guy with a very large number of HP in their way, and mean that however many units they attack him with, those units will be able to neither attack nor even patrol the following turn. (Or use any exhaust abilities, either.) I can’t comment on how good or bad it is as a card, but it seems to fit in well to me with Law’s general theme of “stopping the opponent from doing stuff”.

I would guess GotG is better than DA, both because it is cheaper, and because it fits in better with your general plan of the spec as a whole. But again, I don’t have any experience to back this up with.

In my experience, Guardian usually gets killed by a hero, but as a 3 cost speedbump, it’s ok.

Censorship Council is really, really good. Like, you should preemptively grab a Detonate or Nature Reclaims (or similar) when you see law tech 2.

Insurance Agent is also increddible. It usually gives you 3 gold and a card, then leaves a 2/2 behind, as long as you have some board presence.

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Besides the problem of being killed by heros, if the enemy has access to Deteriorate or -1/-1 runes, you just built Tech II and paid 3 gold for a worse Ardra’s Boulder that doesn’t even synergize with Mythmaking.

I guess Guardian of the Gates has only niche uses. It might be one of those safety cards that are built into card games in case some specific strategy grows out of control, although I have a hard time seeing what that strategy would be in this case.

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As it can’t attack, it is obvious that any use for it would be as a defender. I imagine it’s main use would be to defend against a bunch of little units rather than against a beefy attacker. It seems well suited for the elite patrol spot.

As Mono-Blue when I go Tech II Law (mostly in FFA but some times in 1V1 against specs that tend to play a lot of cards each turn (Past, Peace, Anarchy)), I usually don’t tech any other Tech II units than Insurance Agents and Justice Juggernaut.

Usually, my tech tree is something like that :

Don't look at it if you're playing with me in FFA currently


Tax Collector + Overeager Cadet/Scribe (2 Tax Collectors in 4-5 players FFA)
Insurance Agent + Injunction (Judgment Day in 2 players game)
Insurance Agent + Judgment Day
Boot Camp + Boot Camp
Justice Juggernaut + Censorship Council or Liberty Gryphon + Liberty Gryphon or Lawbringer Gryphon + Censorship Council

I don’t think that Censorship Council is a really powerful card… IMO, it’s only useful against very few specs. Even without this card, opponents tend to spend all their gold on heroes or to rush to Tech III, things that Mono-Blue don’t have answers for.

IMO Guardian of the Gates is a bad card, even considering multicolor builds… But IMO, it’s not as bad as Arresting Constable !

your spoiler isn’t working

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GotG is amazing. Opponent has to throw 7 damage into it and these same 7 damage wont be able to attack next turn, so basically, it tanks 14 damage or more. And if you can cycle between 2 of them, they can make a pretty impenetrable fortress.

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Every time there is a thread like this people go “well it can block right?” and some top players go “why not tech something that will win you the game asap instead?”. Then people can’t really respond against one of the big guy because they have probably never actually used the card themselves.

Gaurdian of the gates + censorship counsel completely stymied my Blood offense one time. That’s all my experience right there. I think they whole idea of “tech II units whose sole job is to block” is largely under explored.

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It is cheap, and that is about it. It might stall a turn or two, but in the case of Guardian of the Gates, that is not enough, even if you are playing blue.

Compare it to Voidblocker, which is a 2/6 that exhaust a unit as long as your opponent has more than 2 units on the board. Even attacking with a Hero will stall against your opponent, and it costs the same amount.

Of course, Blackhand Scourge doesn’t have Judgement Day to back it up, but still, in what situation after tech 2 do you want to see Guardian of the Gates instead of Judgement Day anyway? And in those fringe cases, would you like to see a Censorship Council instead?

Law is great because of the Censorship Council and Insurance Agent. Insurance Agent is probably the only card in all of codex to give you both gold and card advantage at the same time, combine that with the limiting ability of Censorship Council and your opponent will have a hard time getting back from that kind of deficit.

While I love the idea of Guardian of the Gates, I believe it really needs to be able to have its ability affect heroes as well to be even remotely playable.

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I can’t speak fro anyone else, but Guardian of the Gates certainly taught me a lot about Codex.

GotG is very Blue inasmuch as it is much more a Don’t Lose card than it is a Win card. I am told Blue’s gameplan is to get to Tech III and get a Griffin rolling, with Tech II being mostly just to stall until you can get there.

I am not good at winning with Blue, though, so I’m not a great source when it comes to details of how one actually WINS with Blue, admittedly.

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I’ve successfully used Guardian of the Gates as a delaying tactic against both Blood and Necromancy aggression. It’s not going to win you the game by itself, but when you’ve gone Law Tech 2, it’s the best “I need something durable to stick in Squad Leader to protect my squishies” option you’ve got. The Guardian + JJ combo won me the game against Necromancy token spam - in that case, Guardian was actually perfect because it slowed the attack rate of Bone Collectors, but didn’t kill things to proc Necromancers. In the Blood game, it was just a convenient meatshield to keep replaying on turns that looked like “Judgement Day, Bigby attacks your X, Guardian” with a few gold to spare. It was convenient in that it could actually “trade” with a Crashbarrow, and was also a terrible, terrible target for Kidnapping. Eventually I got things lined up to get a Censorship Council down and protect it (behind another Guardian) which made my opponent’s aggression grind to a halt.

But in both of those games, going Peace tech 2 probably would’ve worked just as well.

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I know that in a lot of games you don’t have a choice, you need Tower or Heroes’ Hall. But does GotG (or Alpha) work really well with any other Tech IIs, using a Tech Lab? Tech Lab is so cheap. I could see it or DA being added to a Blood or Fire strategy to add defense where there isn’t much.

I would love to see someone run Tech Lab Blue, playing GotG and Debilitator Alpha, and just stalling until Gryphons. Or Voidblocker GotG multicolor.

I did just look at Arresting Constable, though, and y’all are right: that’s a bad card. Man he is expensive for what he does. And no haste? Why would you ever tech that over Injunction? (Although, now that I think about it… 2x Injunction and 2x Arresting Constable could be very annoying. Still think the Officers would need some Bloodlust or Now! to make it worth it, though. How else could you keep them alive long enough to arrest anybody?)

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I feel that the value of these cards really shouldn’t be evaluated in a vacuum. DA might not be that bad in and out of itself (especially Soul Stoned… shudder), but its presence in the Peace spec means that you’re often better off winning with Peace engine aggression rather than using a tech slot on a mediocre defender to not lose until tech III comes out. GotA might be bad compared to, say, Voidblocker, but as Law’s only major defender it has more value in holding off opponent aggression like Caphriel said, even if it just means that it managed to tank 7 hero damage that could’ve gone to a tech building or a Censorship Council, to buy you time to set up a Law Lock.

Arresting Constable, though… why anyone would ever go for a delayed disable spell with a health bar, with Arrest and Injunction on the table, is beyond me. If you have the luxury to be able to tech him and use him, you’ve most likely won anyways. Save up one more gold and build a Tech III.

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