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Format | Legality |
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Gibbering Barricade
Creature — Nightmare Wall
Defender
, Sacrifice a creature: You gain 1 life and draw a card.
legendofa on Does WotC Still Support Defensive …
1 year ago
Aside from time limits, there's the matter of perceived entertainment value. I speak from experience when I say it's not actually much fun to be sitting behind a Solitary Confinement while cracking Elixir of Immortality for the sixth time, in constant motion without actually progressing. High-level Stax decks in EDH are usually considered one of the most unfun strategies to sit across from, because they stifle activity without adding any of their own.
Defensive cards still very much have a place, but they're being treated more cautiously because too many of them at the same time, or a too-reliable lock, ends the game without actually ending it. The current development pattern encourages active and dynamic board states and effects, so that even if a player is running Clockwork Drawbridges and Gibbering Barricades, there's still an way to keep the game moving forward with Guardians of Oboro and Blight Pile, to give some examples from Standard.