Pointed Discussion

they're actually graves

They look like Tombstones to me. Meh

"Wall of Tombstones"? Really? What were you smoking R&D!?

Card: "At the end of your upkeep"
Errata: "At the beginning of your upkeep"

@Tiggurix This set was before the modern structure behind magic formed. Legends was mostly made by one guy.

so a wall which is 0/1 your opponents turn and x/x+1 your turn? How interesting!

@bagilis

It's 0/1 only for the first turn, when it's toughness gets set, it stays set until your next upkeep.

This seems really cool. If they're gonna remove it, they'll be able to, but that's true of most creatures. And it can get BIG.

I never did figure out why it never got into a core set, considering that black is supposed to draw power from what's in graveyards (before and after reanimation). Admittedly, I don't think we're going to see EXACTLY this particular card again; they'd retemplate it so that it changes at the same moment your graveyard's creature content does, not each upkeep (I have a hunch the upkeep timing was about making combat calculations a touch less irksome; if it received exactly lethal damage at the same time you lost another creature, would that new creature save the wall?).

It's not going to directly win you any games, but if you're playing a deck that puts a lot of cards in your graveyard this can bring some serious blocking to the table for a relatively low cost. Unfortunately its overshadowed by some newer cards, particularly Wall of Tanglecord, a 0/6 for two mana. Late-game the Wall of Tombstones might be bigger than a 0/6, but on turn two, not a chance. On the other hand, if you put out Doran you get a black Lhurgoyf with defender.

This has a few things working against it, mostly its toughness being updated during your upkeep, which makes its useless on its first turn. I'd also be a lot more impressed if its toughness was based on the number of creature cards in ALL graveyards, not just yours. If Mortivore can function like that with a regeneration ability for four mana, I don't see why a zero-power defender couldn't work the same way for half the cost.

Gee, I'm glad it told me the * was below. I'm not sure I could have figured it out otherwise.

The 1+* mechanic is fun, though. Sooner or later an opponent will ask, "one additional toughness per dead creature, ok, I get it -- but where's that extra 1 coming from?" At which point you get to respond, "That tombstone's for you."

Pretty flavorful, at least.

I like the idea of your oppenents creature trying to smash through a graveyard to get you, only to keep tripping over the increasing amount of headstones whenever your creatures are buried.

This should have been in Innistrad.

Suddenly tombstones EVERYWHERE