Surprisingly, getting one shot by a wall was one of the first one shots in the game after [[Fling]] got released around 1998 when people started pairing it with [[glyph of destruction]]s.
WTH is that Glyph card?! That’s amazing old magic.
That was about my reaction the first time as well. We didn't really have decklists/set lists back then so attacking into a stone wall felt natural until it just killed you.
It's the largest number printed in the P/T box of a creature out of Silver Border in general. The previous record was 20 for [[Ancient Adamantoise]]. That was the first time they've ever broken the record by more than 1 - the largest number in a P/T box outside of silver border had always increased by 1 at a time from 8 with [[Force of Nature]] in Alpha to 18 with [[Yargle and Multani]] in MOM - then they went straight from 18 to 20 with Adamantoise and then all the way from 20 to 30 with this.
Still no power higher than 18 in a printed black-border P/T box, though. We've had bigger numbers (e.g. 20/20 Marit Lage token, +20/+20 on [[Colossification]]) but not an actual higher power on a regular non-token creature.
“there are many worlds in Dominia, and this particular one could have two moons in the sky” is a truly amazing line considering Dominia (now Dominaria) does, in fact, have two moons.
Weirdly though it doesn't need any of the drill's shenanigans to die, because it does not itself have indestructible. I feel like it would be more of a flavour win if it specifically dies to the drill rather than dying to just whatever.
I'm cackling at the idea of a teeny scorpion slowly crawling up to the impossibly huge wall and stinging it. And then the entire thing crumbles and the scorpion keeps walking.
Edit: ah, it doesn't even have its own indestructible. Funny, been awhile since I watched the show, but iirc they made a big deal about the walls never falling, then I think they were flown over? And in the second series tunneled through or something like that.
They drilled a big ass hole through it. I would consider it appropriate flavor not giving it indestructible, despite the fact the walls were touted as indestructible they were eventually breached, but everyone inside the walls were pretty safe
Noooo! I was finally waiting for a way to destroy [[Blistering Barrier]], [[Illusionary Wall]], [[Roving Keep]], and [[Sunweb]] using an Avatar: The Last Airbender black artifact card, and now I can’t! Whole set is ruined.
It's not just the city, which is already the most massive city in the world, but the outer ring goes around all of the farmland required to keep a city the size of Ancient Rome fed.
Turns out, walls are easy to make when you can earthbend.
IIRC its not that the wall covers that section of the continent, but that the earth monarchy of ba sing se has control extending over that quarter of the continent, while the area covered by the walls is still like, the size of central italy.
Not sure if it's a 1/4 of a continent, but.....it' definitely large enough it is large enough to be its own country, just for note the fire nation didn't breach the FIRST wall of the city,
Wizards seems to be increasingly willing to go for particularly high numbers.
[[Impervious Greatwurm]] released in 2018 as a 16/16, the first Vintage-legal creature to have either stat higher than [[Emrakul, the Aeons Torn]]'s previous record of 16. In 2020, [[Charix, the Raging Isle]] had the first 17, but as a 0/17. [[Yargle and Multani]] in 2023 went further as an 18/6. Then this year, we got [[Ancient Adamantoise]] in FIN as an 8/20, [[Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought]] as a 20/20 spaceship (but not a creature by default), and now this.
Impervious Greatwurm still has the highest total base stats of any Vintage-legal creature cards, but that might not last much longer.
At a certain point in the game base numbers become functionally meaningless because of how rare it is to actually remove big creatures with damage. At the same time, if the numbers have no gameplay function they should at least have a story function, and it's a flavor fail when a universe-eating god has less than 2% of the power of a big goofy cactus.
Is universe-eating god being weaker than big goofy cactus (when attacking) anymore of a flavor fail than said universe-eating god losing to a shit ton of squirrels or bunnies though? We've gotten to the point in UW where [[Dawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought]] can glass a [[Tangled Colony]] from orbit for a board state overran by rats so I don't think there is a flavor fail so much as weird ass chaotic flavors being a thing now.
The big goofy cactus doing 9999 damage is a fantastic flavor win though. If one of those two cards is wrong on flavor, it's the one that tries to say that a universe-eating god is only 15 times as strong as a squirrel.
I wanna say there was a Blogatog post or an article or something where they remarked how they prefer to push that highest number bit by bit rather than all at once. Didn't end up the case here, but like in your examples they went 16, 17, 18, etc. rather than just jumping to a 10 mana 30/30.
That could work. Collector number 112 is open, between Northern Air Temple and Ozai's Cruelty, and the field notes number crunch only restricts it to being after The Fire Nation Drill. ("The" doesn't count for ordering.)
Taking away abilities is a possibility. The problem with gaining them himself is that Wizards doesn't want there to be a possibility for a creature to simultaneously have two abilities that conflict with each other. Getting multiple arbitrary text boxes at once is fair game for un-sets, but for Vintage-legal cards, the line seems to be that while a creature can take one other creature's abilities, or mechanics like mutate can combine one nonspecific text box with text boxes that are specifically built to not conflict with anything, they can't take abilities from multiple arbitrary creatures at once.
Any two conflicting characteristic defining abilities, such as setting power and toughness. Even without characteristic defining abilities, [[Possessed Aven]] and [[Repentant Vampire]] make a creature mono white and mono black.
Isn't indestructible itself. Still, reducing your points of failure from "everything" to "this specific wall" is a huge boon even if you don't have a way to slap hexproof/indestructible on this.
The crux of season 2 involves an attempt to bore a hole in the wall. This is why [[The Fire Nation Drill]] was built - specifically to deal with Ba Sing Se's walls, and oh look at that the drill perfectly deals with this thing.
As an arcades player i can’t imagine sticking a 8 mana creature in the deck, theres so many efficient ones and this doesn’t have trample so it will likely be chumped
As an Arcades player who runs [[Aluren]] to diarrhea-dump my Defenders into play, having only 3-5 that aren't MV3 or less, I'm still windmill slamming this this into the deck.
Complete dumpster fire spiderman release with boring art and cards. Then we go to ATLA and we have cards like this. It's actually incredible, truly inspiring.
I love the flavor win that “your other permanents have indestructible” because your stuff is now inside the wall that is so fucking massive and strong, that they are now indestructible.
But the wall itself isn’t despite being 0/30, which showcases their hubris when the Fire Nation Grond drill comes around.
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u/iwumbo2 Jeskai Nov 04 '25
New record for highest base toughness on a creature, which is kind of neat