Lumbering Battlement – MTG Card Review

David
Fanany
Player
since
1995

Lumbering Battlement is quite interesting. A 4/5 with vigilance for five mana is decent on its own, and you can often simply add it to your side of the table without using its exile ability and not feel bad about doing so. The fact that you can eventually get any exiled creatures back means that there is little risk in using its ability, although I do note that there are a lot of Pacifism effects in recent sets. You can even re-use any comes-into-play abilities that your creatures might have, albeit on a usually slower scale than more straightforward flickering effects. I’m not sure this has many applications in competitive Magic, especially while Lyra Dawnbringer is in Standard, but there are plenty of fun decks to be built around the idea of converting early creatures into something that can one-hit-kill (and/or rushing with those creatures if the one-hit-kill gets hit by Vraska’s Contempt).

Constructed: 2/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5

Load up your creatures on one bigger creature? Sounds fun. Lumbering Battlement is a potentially big, stupid creature that actually can help protect your board from board wipes if you fear for them, while still offering a sufficiently large body to smash faces with. No trample does make it less likely to wreak havoc (unless you give it trample), but one creature makes this a 6/7 with vigilance. I have no idea how good this creature is, and it definitely offers some intriguing ways to take advantage of comes-into-play triggers and blink effects. It feels like a puzzle piece waiting for a place to put it…but even without that, it’s still an intriguing creature all the same.

Constructed: 2.75
Casual: 4
Limited: 4
Multiplayer: 3
Commander: 3.75