The 42 Best Animate and Attack with Wall and Defender Cards in Magic Ranked

Last updated on February 27, 2024

Arcades, the Strategist | Illustration by Even Amundsen

One of the highlights of deckbuilding in Magic is when you feel like you’ve broken something, that you discovered some way to win that seems like it shouldn’t be possible, which you can then unleash on your unsuspecting opponents. Some players gravitate toward broken combos with this impulse, like Tibalt's Trickery, whose abuse led to a rules change for the cascade mechanic. Others have more humble aims, like the Sleight of Mind plus circles of protection decks we all messed with in the ‘90s.

Perhaps the humblest of aims is breaking the rule set right there on one type of card. Walls, and later defenders, can’t attack. If you read that and think, “But what if I really want them to?”, this article is for you.

Let’s explore how to animate your walls!

What Are Animate and Attack with Wall and Defender Cards in MTG?

Sentry Oak | Illustration by Warren Mahy

This isn’t really a broken space, as the only ways to get around the restriction on walls and defenders attacking are printed on cards that explicitly let you do that. We’re talking minor rebellion against the rules here, at most.

Walls have been a creature type since all the way back in Alpha, and the rule for the creature type used to be that they couldn’t attack. So, a card like Trickery Charm could make something a wall and then it couldn’t attack, and it could also make a wall, say, a goblin, allowing the ex-wall to attack. That changed with the creation of defender, which is a static ability on cards that means they can’t attack. Things that aren’t physical walls like Sylvan Caryatid can be given the non-attacking space in a set as a result. It also means that changing the creature type doesn’t affect the ability to attack, important for the invention of the changeling creature type.

Animate and attack with wall and defender cards can be many types of cards. They can be spells or permanents that grant a defender the ability to attack or even all defenders. They can also be defender creatures that, when a certain condition is met, can attack.

#42. Vodalian War Machine

Very few cards, even in Magic’s first decade, encouraged you to, like, 10 for 1 yourself, but Vodalian War Machine wants you to know the sweet, sweet nectar of total defeat. Even if the card just allowed you to tap three merfolk to attack as a 4/6, it would be outstandingly terrible.

But, wait, there’s more! Someone at the table just needs to Doom Blade this thing and you lose everything you tapped!

Yet there are people who sleeve this up in their EDH merfolk decks. Not many. Like a dozen. Why? Perhaps there’s no flex like the Magic boomer flex? You get your control suite solid and then kill someone with this thing when you ostentatiously tap your side? Maybe in celebration you unsleeve it and show the wear from years of ‘90s sleeveless riffle shuffling. You just won with a Fallen Empires card! Time to tell a Mike Long anecdote to the rapt table! They’ll love it!! For sure.

#41. Dark Maze

Your eyes don’t deceive you! Dark Maze costs 5 (?!?) mana to cast. And somehow it destroys itself collapsing on the maze interlopers, maybe that’s the flavor? Terrible. Even for the ‘90s.

I can’t think of another list where this would not be the dead last card but this one with the War Machine.

#40. Warmonger’s Chariot

Warmonger's Chariot is one of very few cards in the history of Magic where it seems like the artist is warning the player about using the card through the art. Whatever was in Warren Mahy’s art brief was seemingly enough to let him know that this card would have to be awful, so he gives us a goblin apparently asphyxiating nestled up to an ass’s ass.

#39. Wall of Wonder

This unplayable nonsense got upshifted to rare in Seventh Edition. Put that in your pipe and smoke it while you stare at the crazy original art for Wall of Wonder by Richard Thomas.

#38. Guardian of the Ages

Unplayable? Check! Rare defender? Double check!! A 7/7 trampler for 7 if someone attacks you. Guardian of the Ages isn’t good.

#37. Slithering Shade

More sweet art on an unplayable card. Slithering Shade is mid-tier for shades, for what that’s worth.

#36. Sentry Oak

How many of these bad cards did WotC assign to Warren Mahy!? Thankfully he also did Amulet of Vigor so he can know people play with his cards! Sentry Oak is bad even if there were enough clash synergies to matter, which there aren’t.

#35. Prison Barricade

A 2-mana 1/3 wall or a 4-mana 2/4. Even if you’re desperate for kicker cards in Invasion Draft, I don’t see how you can play Prison Barricade.

#34. Ogre Jailbreaker

Even the gates deck can’t want Ogre Jailbreaker.

#33. Shoal Serpent + Spire Serpent

Somehow not the worst blue serpents, Shoal Serpent and Spire Serpent are totally different cards if you squint hard at them while they sit in your shoebox of unplayable blue commons.

#32. Hightide Hermit

If an energy counters EDH deck ever becomes a thing that works, maybe Hightide Hermit will be okay to blink. But I doubt it.

#31. Mobile Fort + Walking Wall

If I invest 3 mana a turn, I get a 4-drop 3/5. Freudian psychology talks of the fort-da game we play as kids, where we throw things away and want them back, which he links to the neurosis of repetition compulsion. I don’t think that has anything to do with Magic players on social media, at all, but it means that “fort” in German means something like “begone.” That’s what I think of Mobile Fort. Oh, and Walking Wall as well.

#30. Roving Keep

“Keep” is an interesting word, and it’s not the boss of me when it comes to what to do with Roving Keep.

#29. Gargoyle Sentinel

How about if Mobile Fort could fly? Three mana for activation is always too much, Gargoyle Sentinel.

#28. Pillar of War

Pillar of War was playable in Theros Limited. That is all.

#27. Loyal Gyrfalcon

A white Phantom Monster that encourages you to play more white cards? I’m not falling for your tricks, Loyal Gyrfalcon, even though we know Magic boomers have a deep weakness for a Phantom Monster when they see one!

#26. Glade Watcher + Returned Phalanx + Wishful Merfolk

So there’s this stream of 2-mana 3/3s or 3/2s that you can pump 1 or 2 mana into to make them attack. That’s better than Mobile Fort, but that’s not saying much. Usually better than you think in Limited, but not by much. I can’t see myself playing Glade Watcher, Returned Phalanx, or Wishful Merfolk.

#25. Mirror Wall

Is this better? Mirror Wall is sorta better, but it’s a 4-drop, so also sorta not. Whatever! None of these cards is really “playable” yet! We’re getting there!!

#24. Wall of One Thousand Cuts

In Modern Horizons, no less! The name, Wall of One Thousand Cuts feels like how this design space has affected defender/wall fans all these years. This card is the literal early dream of slapping Animate Wall on Wall of Swords, which still might be the best creature you’d see in an Alpha draft.

#23. Backstreet Bruiser + Drowsing Tyrannodon + Expedition Lookout + Geist of the Lonely Vigil + Steelclad Spirit + Skyclave Squid

So there’s this stream of 2-mana 2/3s or 3/3s that are better than the previous cards in that they lose defender if you meet the conditions. Reasonable in Limited; Drowsing Tyrannodon, for example, was surprisingly decent in M21 Draft. Geist of the Lonely Vigil is a spirit and it flies, so it might be fringe playable in EDH, but Backstreet Bruiser, Expedition Lookout, Steelclad Spirit, and Skyclave Squid don’t really have a home.

#22. Nivix Cyclops + Piston-Fist Cyclops + Prismari Pledgemage

The Izzet versions of this template are slightly better. An Izzet deck is spoiled for choices, and these don’t make the list, but Nivix Cyclops, Piston-Fist Cyclops, & Prismari Pledgemage will always be “on.”

#21. Karsus Depthguard + Novice Knight

They’re amping up these cards a bit, making them vaguely more Limited playable, like Karsus Depthguard in the bigger space and Novice Knight in the more nimble.

#20. Manor Gargoyle

So this is yet another unplayable rare(?!) defender that can wake up. Toggling indestructibility on the cheap makes Manor Gargoyle potentially useful in a deck that doesn’t yet exist.

#19. Skyclave Sentinel

Still, a bad rate in a deck that distributes +1/+1 counters, Skyclave Sentinel was like the 23rd playable in the Roost of Drakes Draft deck, hungry for kicker.

#18. Scuttlegator

Still a bad rate in a deck that distributes +1/+1 counters, but Scuttlegator was okay in Ravnica Allegiance Limited.

#17. Ageless Sentinels

Ageless Sentinels is another rare! If you ever feel like you are being trolled for opening boosters, this kind of thing is why! Still, I might play this in a slower build of the Kangee, Aerie Keeper birds deck. At some point, we’ve tipped into grudgingly playable! Hooray!

#16. Thoughtbound Phantasm

Decent in surveil decks in its Draft environment, Thoughtbound Phantasm makes a lot of counters in those decks. And you can move ‘em with some help.

#15. Torpid Moloch

Did you know this card existed? If you’re playing a deck that wants to recur lands from the graveyard and you can play red, Torpid Moloch is the cheapest and easiest way to put multiple lands in the graveyard quickly. Sure, Mana Seism and Squandered Resources do it better, but as a renanimatable creature, this is interesting!

#14. Tidewater Minion

There are a lot cheaper untappers than Tidewater Minion, but few have this kind of toughness, if that matters. And only this and Tidal Force are elementals, if that matters.

#13. Colossus of Akros

Colossus of Akros isn’t particularly good, even for cards with monstrosity, but it just feels like the perfect Timmy/Tammy card.

#12. Animate Wall

Inexplicably a rare (!) through Sixth Edition, Animate Wall is the card that started the dream. Walls had higher stats in the ‘90s days of bad creatures, so you can imagine the fever dream of plopping this on a Wall of Swords. Of course, this isn’t just good enough, even for a walls centric deck. I’d probably run it just for the memes, and then I’d laugh as I tossed it on my Wall of Stolen Identity and feel awesome for a second.

#11. Grozoth

In big sea creature typal Grozoth fetches a bunch of fatties. A normal player would want something more exciting for 9 (!) mana, but leviathan typal players aren’t what we’d strictly call “normal.” It transmutes for 9, which probably matters in that deck.

#10. Weathered Sentinels

Now we’re talking! This is a wall that self-animates in a way that matters for Commander. I think you always run this in your Breena, the Demagogue or other pillow fort decks.

#9. Faithbound Judge / Sinner’s Judgment

The Faithbound Judge side seems like a decent bit of beef for a spirits deck. The Sinner's Judgment backside is an always looming player killer. It's inefficient but kind of neat.

#8. Surge Engine

Figure of Destiny card design has hit a wall. And this wall, Surge Engine is okay. Everyone wishes it were a 1-drop. The card draw is a bit inefficient, but in a deck that’s running shenanigans like Grand Architect, Unctus, Grand Metatect, and Omen Hawker along with some blink, that seems interesting.

#7. Walking Bulwark

A noise early play for your defenders deck, Walking Bulwark can awaken one defender for 2, which isn’t super good on rate, but can be helpful in a pinch as you wait for the rest of the deck to start working.

#6. Guardians of Oboro

Guardians of Oboro doesn’t see a lot of play, but being able to make more than itself attack is potentially valuable.

#5. Wakestone Gargoyle

Another card that can wake up all your walls Wakestone Gargoyle is fine. These last two cards aren’t better than Faithbound Judge in isolation. But as synergy pieces for defenders decks, these are decent.

#4. Assault Formation

Assault Formation lets your walls do damage based on toughness and the can buff that toughness, colloquially and hilariously called “buttbreathing” after Firebreathing, which buffs power. It’s cheap to cast, but you’ve got to be able to keep pumping green mana, so join the squad, Overgrown Battlement.

#3. Rolling Stones

Defenders players, you know you can’t always get what you want. But Rolling Stones is what ya need.

#2. High Alert

The best noncreature card on the list High Alert is an auto-include in a defenders deck.

#1. Arcades, the Strategist

The best walls commander, Arcades, the Strategist makes your walls and defenders able to attack, draws cards, and lets your defenders do toughness-based damage. This is the reason for trying to build a walls deck, and the fact that this is a decently popular commander is what still endears me to the Magic community.

Best Animate and Attack with Wall and Defender Cards Payoffs

There still just isn’t enough support for defenders to make a great Commander deck. That might be part of its charm. But we can work with that!

Normally helmed by Arcades, the Strategist, with occasional guest stars Pramikon, Sky Rampart and Doran, the Siege Tower, a defenders deck really aims to stabilize early, play value cards like Overgrown Battlement and Wall of Blossoms, and then hit with toughness for a late win. And sometimes that seemingly impossible plan works because…

You just can’t, with a straight face, say, “I’m going to Go Blank (or whatever) Steve because he has all those walls. Looks scary!” I mean, sure, the walls player can get scary, but there are only a handful of cards that make the walls go ham, and a few pieces of spot removal pretty much saps its chances.

If your table likes to allocate things in the early game using the common political tactic of saying you’re just evening out an early advantage, the defenders deck doesn’t seem like a reasonable early target. Maybe that can be useful for you?

Wrap Up

Assault Formation | Illustration by Kieran Yanner

Attacking with cards that say you can’t attack with them fulfills a deep need we have to feel like total rebels while totally conforming. And I’m okay with that!

The defender/walls deck is a nice budget deck that brings something new to game night if you’re jaded with the old Commander patterns. And it can be strong in the right matchups. Plus, it feels a bit like a bucket list item to win with, so give it a shot!

Are you a player who loves defenders? How good is it in your local meta? Let us know what you think in the comments or Discord.

Thanks for reading, and see you later!