Wall

A wall is a creature type usually found on defensive creatures. They depict barriers for attackers ranging from concrete Objects to intangible forces.

Originally being Wall implicitly did not allow the creature to attack. This was changed with the release of Champions of Kamigawa when the ability Defender was introduced and the creature type Wall was decoupled from it with previously printed Walls getting an errata adding that ability to them. With the exception of creatures with Changeling, no new walls have been printed without Defender. This change also meant that changing the subtype of a creature to "Wall" no longer stops them from attacking.

Being unable to attack, walls in general have a higher toughness then power but there are exceptions, like Blistering Barrier.

Walls were removed for a short time after 8th Edition because in a sense it was hard to fathom how a Wall of Wood which seemed stationary would be able to move to block a creature. In 10th Edition each color, except black, saw a wall being printed. No explanation was given as to why walls came back to print.

Notable walls

• Blistering Barrier — The first wall to have a power greater than its toughness.
• Sunscape Familiar — A white wall that was used in various decks to reduce the mana cost of blue and green spells.
• Tinder Wall — A green wall that can be sacrificed to add to the mana pool, thus providing a short term mana boost or acting as a mana battery.
• Wall of Blossoms — A green 0/4 Wall that, when it comes into play, allows its controller to draw a card; this wall saw and still sees regular tournament play. It was colorshifted to white as Wall of Omens in Rise of the Eldrazi.
• Wall of Denial — A very large Wall that can virtually not be removed due to shroud.
• Wall of Hope — A small but effective barrier for Weenie rush strategies.
• Wall of Mulch — The closest thing to a "Wall Lord," this was the first wall that rewards players for putting it in a deck with other Walls; while some cards in Rise of the Eldrazi have similiar effects, they are dependant on Defenders rather than Walls themselves.
• Wall of Reverence — A very large defensive creature that can also block Fliers and continuously replenishes the lifetotal of its controller.
• Wall of Roots — A green 0/5 Wall which can be shrunk once a turn to add to the mana pool. It is notable because it can immediately add mana as it does not use , therefore also retaining the ability to block, and it can also produce mana in consecutive turns without the necessity of untapping it in between.

Trivia

• Number of walls: 96.
• Number of walls with supertype snow: 1 — Wall of Shards.
• Number of artifact walls: 13.
• Cheapest (mana cost) wall: Shield Sphere — .
• Most expensive (mana cost) walls: Dark Maze, Illusionary Wall, Infested Roothold, Necropolis, Snow Fortress, Wall of Opposition — converted mana cost of 5.
• Wall with the highest power: Illusionary Wall — 7.
• Walls with the highest toughness: Wall of Shards, Wall of Stone and Wall of Denial — 8.
• Walls with the highest combined power and toughness: Illusionary Wall and Sunweb — 11
• Walls with the lowest combined power and toughness: Mindbender Spores, Necropolis, Wall of Shadows, Wall of Tombstones and Wall of Vapor — 1.
• Wall printed the most times: Wall of Swords (every core set except 9th Edition and Magic 2010 plus Portal).
• Expansion set with the most walls: Legends — 11.