Godo, Bandit Warlord – Double Masters MTG Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

The Kamigawa block has a lot of interesting cards and some with quite powerful effects, but where they don’t all necessarily fit together very clearly. Godo is a great example of that – a Samurai lord with the Barbarian type, an equipment tutor that costs way more than the kinds of creatures who like to be equipped. This has always held him down a little in constructed, though to be fair, the advent of Commander’s dominance has helped him. Samurai are a hard tribe to do in Commander, but he goes great with the ever-expanding Sword of X and Y collection, Sunforger, Lightning Greaves, and other equipment commonly seen in that format.

Constructed: 1/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 3/5 (you basically win any Kamigawa block draft where you get a Jitte, much less two. No-Dachi, Kusari-Gama, and O-Naginata are also things)
Multiplayer: 3/5
Commander: 3/5

Godo is an interesting creature from Kamigawa, sort of a weird Samurai support card in spite of not being a Samurai and an Equipment tutor for red. His body is rather pitiful without assistance (which is ideally what his tutor effect can help with, and there are definitely some strong equipment spells to cheat out!), but Relentless Assault can be nice, especially if you have the means to untap creatures between combat (or run him with Samurai). There are definitely some interesting features to Godo, Bandit Warlord, and he was definitely a scarce card before Double Masters, so having him back is nice for the decks that wanted a bit of everything in a single creature…though he’s definitely a dud in Constructed these days.

Constructed: 1.25
Casual: 4
Limited: 3 (contingent on getting good Equipment to pair with Godo, as a 3/3 is not winning a whole lot of games)
Multiplayer: 3
Commander: 3.75