As I've said a few times in the past and as I will continue to say in the future: Gladiator makes for great Magic cards!

When describing the Gladiator format's parameters, mostly involving its basis in Magic Arena, there's a shortcut line of hesitant thought that makes it come off to some as a really crappy version of another format, because you know, Arena is basically Ixalan forward. Isn't it just some kind of lame recent Extended Pioneer Historic Frontier blah blah whatever?

How wrong you are, imagined skeptic!

Thanks to supplemental releases, forgotten reprints, and various other confusing phenomenon involving the most oversaturated release schedule in gaming, a bunch of fantastic classics are flying under the Gladiator radar. At least I hope that's what's happening. It might just be that they're suddenly embarrassing next to cards like Elder Gargaroth and Uro, and so nobody is willing to shame themselves by playing them.

Gladiator isn't just a Dinosaur with a Standard hat on. Take a look on these (somehow) underrated and over-looked but very legal Gladiator cards:

Hellrider's job is to finish the job. And like I've said before: twenty life ain't forty.

Aggro Red decks already have plenty to work with in the format, but this is a card that hasn't shown up to fin-ish as many games as I'd have expected by now. I think it's mostly because it's not easy to end up with one in your collection unless you go look for it directly. That's probably the reason for many of these absentees. Mark your filters when building decks, kids. The call of the wildcard is upon you.

Speaking of insane Red cards, these are all ripe for Gladiator, whether you know it or not:

A few less famous Red cards that probably get more mileage here in the Gladiator arena than they did else-where before are Dragonlord's Servant and Dragonspeaker Shaman. I imagine it's been a long time since those cards saw the winning side of a twenty life format, but Gladiator is where those dreams come true. Sometimes.

Moving over to Green, Green has what Green gets, which is everything.

Yes, this is legal. Yes, it's sad that it's not even that great anymore. It's more or less Fangren Maraud-er in these games, which is to say, present but not amazing. Then again, I've never drawn Thassa with it either, so what do I know?

Thragtusk is a passable thing to do and all, but it's amazing what current perspectives offer a once supposedly despised card like this. I wish cards today only four for one'd me.

Strangely, Green is also assembling a Bogles and Enchantress inevitability, something I wouldn't suspect is reasonable in singleton, but the cards you'd want for it are definitely growing in population. Beware.

Last but certainly not least in Green is Fauna Shaman, a card that shines brighter than ever in sin-gleton. Tutoring is at a premium, and she enables combos along the way. Kill on sight or perish. (Thankfully for Fauna Shaman, Perish is not currently on Magic Arena.)

Meanwhile, White, uh, well... White has some cards I'm sure you don't remember, just for different reasons.

There's some Commander scale lifelink cards, and there's a bunch of Unicorns that showed up out of no-where? Tempered Steel is in there, but I haven't been able to make it do a damned thing.

You know what? Big Teferi has a White mana symbol in it and it's legal. Let's just put a picture of Teferi here in case anyone forgot it was legal.

Look at that one! You go, White! You're a color and everything.

In more dignified waters, Black has all kinds of insane stuff that didn't take the Standard train into town.

In addition to increasing amounts of supported classic reanimation spells, there's also an unbelievable amount of Zombies legal at this point, including the very robust Liliana, Death's Majesty.

Somehow, this forgotten Zombie classic found its way in as well:

There are a lot of players that have never seen this utterly degenerate card in action. Teach them without mercy, Zombie fans.

Here's another surprise for you in "Black."

It's not as flashy an activation as Priest of the Forgotten Gods, but it's a hell of a lot faster. I pre-fer that my opponents' tilt episodes enter the battlefield untapped.

It's not the only crazy old school land to find its way into the format, either. Behold, value addicts!

You need not long for a Snapcaster Mage when there are so many other reasonable Wizards available. Silvergill Adept (or Cloudkin Seer, if you please); Barrin, Tolarian Archmage; Frilled Mystic; Dualcaster Mage, Sea Gate Oracle, and so forth.

Barrin is especially so naughty! Goodness me.

Things aren't particularly bright on the colorless front. Yes, there are lots of good additions, but it's the really good one that bugs me. While it's pretty kosher that Steel Overseer gets to do what it was always sort of designed to do without being an obnoxious Affinity accomplice, I could have really done without this one:

I know it's a recent reprint, so it's fresh, but we may as well establish it as the most obvious top game in the format, alongside Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Not being exposed to them every game will be helpful, but Ugin is a card that I don't long to see available here. Convoluted mana bases doing cool things is always welcome, but this giant dork being available to any mana combination whatsoever in enough quan-tities is a deck-building negative for Gladiator. Mana acceleration is already going to swing things how it always has, but boy, Ugin is a lame way to create at the top of your curve.

On a brighter note, Platinum Angel is also legal. She's the most beautiful Fog I'm always ashamed to resolve.

Stay Glad!

While I'm taking a break from streaming to cope with my growing work schedule, I hope to be back up playing Gladiator again in no time. And don't forget: Gladiator duels count for those quests! So, open up your Magic Arena col-lections and get to brewing!

The scene is strong with this one.

Now all we need is someone to make some Gladiator videos. Hashtag content.

(~_^)

The Rascal

The "Indestructible" Danny West