Gideon's Defeat
Instant
Exile target white creature that's attacking or blocking. If it was a Gideon planeswalker, you gain 5 life.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- W
- Rarity
- uncommon
- Set
- Hour of Devastation
- Price
- $0.10
- EDHREC rank
- #27112
Gideon's Defeat exiles a white creature or planeswalker — hard removal with no return trigger — for a single blue mana. The catch is the color restriction: it blanks entirely against non-white threats, making it a sideboard tool rather than a maindeck staple.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Gideon's Defeat is a metagame call — white is the most popular color in the format, so the targeting restriction stings less than it looks on paper, but one mana for unconditional exile of any white creature or planeswalker is genuinely strong when it hits. In Legacy and Vintage, it exists primarily as sideboard hate against white creature and Gideon-heavy strategies, where the one-mana price tag earns it consideration. Modern and Pioneer see it occasionally in sideboards for the same reason, though dedicated hate pieces in those formats tend to be more flexible. Gideon's Defeat is never the right maindeck answer in any format — its ceiling is a clean one-mana exile, and its floor is a dead card.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.10 bulk tier
At $0.10, Gideon's Defeat is deep bulk — cheap enough to throw into any sideboard without a second thought. Bulk removal with color restrictions rarely climbs in price, so there's no urgency either way.
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Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.