Land attack: What do I do with gargoyle castle?

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mattlohkamp

16 December 2009

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My knowlege of card history is kind of spotty, but I know that Urza's Judgement featured a cycle of 5 uncommon lands that both generated mana, and could be turned into a creature when needed - Forbidding Watchtower, Faerie Conclave, Spawning Pool, Ghitu Encampment, and Treetop Village - which were later reprinted in 10th edition. Before that, there was Mishra's Factory, and later there was the Mutavault - which brings us to m10's contribution: the Gargoyle Castle.

In the current standard environment, Gargoyle Castle is the only card of its kind: a land that gives you a creature. And truth be told, its lineage can almost be more closely traced to something like Dark Depths - the land doesn't become a creature until the end of the turn, it blows itself up into a creature token that you get to keep.

Nevertheless, you're getting a creature from a land. It's a cool concept, I've got to admit; I always think of the 'Night on Bald Mountain' sequence in Disney's Fantasia, where the camera pans in on a forebodding mountain peak, until you realize that the contours of the mountain are really a demon's wings. Wikipedia says that the demon's name is 'Chernabog', if you're curious.

To return to the subject at hand, you've got your castle, you've been making colourless mana with it, and that's okay. But you get to the point where you've got 5 other mana available, and you ask yourself - why would I want to turn my colourless land into a gargoyle artifact creature?

Well, you might want to Polymorph it to summon Progenitus, or an equally auspicious monster - maybe you want to lead with a Silence, or keep a Negate or Blinding Light ready to make sure your opponent doesn't counter the polymorph or Doomblade your gargoyle before the combo resolves. Mutavault was the original favorite for this technique, as my buddy Sitromis has demonstrated with his The Progeny of Progenitus (formerly known as The Progenitus.) The legendary hydra avatar isn't the only one featured in decks like this - Darksteel Colossus is another eligible Polymorph target. To be fair, even the mighty Progenitus is easily chump-blocked, and a simple Path to Exile will deal with the Darksteel Colossus, but it feels good to sneak those big guys onto the field, doesn't it? Besides, include a little hand disruption and a few counter spells, and you should be okay - maybe your opponent won't even be lucky enough to draw the right removal. Even though the gargoyle might take more mana to activate than Mutavault, it does start out at 4 toughness, conveniently out of Lightning Bolt range.

But is that all the Gargoyle Castle is good for? Is this sweet card doomed to be relegated to Polymorph-fodder? I can't guess what opportunities might be presented in future expansion sets, but let's take a look at what we've got between Shards-block, M10, and Zendikar, for the moment. What else can we do with "a 3/4 colorless gargoyle artifact creature token with flying?"

First off, let's look at what will be triggered as the card is put through its paces:

• landfall (zendikar loves it)
• land into the graveyard from the battlefield (grab it back with Grim Discovery perhaps?)
• creature token enters the battlefield Soul Warden, death greeter, etc.)
• creature token is sent to the graveyard from the battlefield (Kresh the Bloodbraided, Deathbringer Thoctar, Blade of the Bloodchief, whatever)

Additionally, note the following about the creature token:

• Afore-mentioned Lightning Bolt resistance with 4 toughness
• flyer (immune to Earthquake, yeah!)
• colourless (also playable in any coloured deck)
• un-counterable (apart from Pithing Needle or something with a similar effect)

So the castle has some interesting effects, obviously. The next question is "are these worthwhile?" There are nearly a thousand cards in Standard right now, and several niches that Gargoyle Castle could potentially fill, but will it be the best card for the job in any particular one?

I previous sets we saw Starlit Angel - you didn't have to sacrafice a land to get it out though you did have to pay two white. And, of course, there was the Wakestone Gargoyle, a distant cousin, perhaps. The angel doesn't strike me as particuarly powerful (compare it to Serra Angel, and then to Baneslayer Angel) but the other gargoyle might've at least been kind of fun to play with. Still, while a 3/4 flier for 5 colourless might be arguably decent compared to the one of blue's common drakes (think Snapping Drake or Wind Drake) it still doesn't seem like a particularly good deal as far as the economy of power goes in creatures these days.

One thing you can say in Gargoyle Castle's favor is that it shouldn't slow down a mono-coloured deck too much, and makes a viable (if only by default, with no competition from any other similar cards) last resort answer to an opponent's incoming flier. There is one card that cares about lands in your graveyard: our old friend the Knight of the Reliquary. He can sacrafice a plains to grab you a Gargoyle Castle, and when you turn the castle into a creature token, it pumps up the knight. Expedition Map will also grab the castle for you, if you need it. As I said before, Grim Discovery along with others like Nature's Spiral and Charnelhoard Wurm, although I can't imagine Gargoyle Castle will be first on your list of things you need to get back into your hand.

    

Maybe a deck with some of the cards above, plus others like Harrow and wooly thoctar could take advantage of the mechanics that the castle brings to the table... I decided to try making something like that, and thought maybe I would call it 'Reliquary Gargoyles', but after some testing and tweaking and more testing and tweaking, I came to the slightly disappointing conclusion that the Gargoyles were just not the super stars I wanted them to be. If you're interested, 'Reliquary Gargoyles' evolved into 'the Reliquary Crusades', a very 'land matters' Naya Zoo deck, that owes a lot to both Corey Lege's Blue-White-Red Control (one of my favorite pro builds at the moment) and Shouta Yasooka's Jund. The gargoyles actually won me a couple games at the last minute, after a devastating Day of Judgment took out everything else I had, which was cool, but nevertheless there are only two in there, and that's probably all I'll ever need.

In conclusion, I feel that I should confess to writing this article more or less stream-of-consciousness as I picked through gatherer looking for ideas... I really love the concept of Gargoyle Castle, the flavour is great, but I want it to be useful for more than just Polymorphing, or "I didn't need the extra coloured mana so why not-" line of reasoning.

I leave it open to you guys and gals - has anyone come up with a clever use for the gargoyle artifact token? Have you seen anyone else who has? Care to share?