MTG Keywords: Defender

Magic the Gathering is a complex game (and that’s why we love it). These ScryFox Keywords articles will help you make sense of the 150+ keywords you’ll find on Magic cards. These articles are designed for players just starting out with Magic, and are hopefully useful primers for more experienced players too.

Assault Formation art by Kieran Yanner

Welcome to the third ScryFox Keywords article! In this article, we’ll talk about the defender keyword…

Wasn’t Rampart a film?

Defender means that the creature can’t attack.

Ok, on to the next article!

Just kidding. Even though it’s about as simple a keyword as you’re going to get in Magic, defender is intriguing because at first glance it seems like an awful restriction. Stopping your creatures from doing something usually isn’t great. It seems to make sense for this card though, Fortified Rampart can’t attack because, well, it’s a wall. It is, however, pretty cheap at only {1}{W}. Imagine for a moment that it didn’t have defender, and that it could attack. If you were able to add a few +1/+1 counters to this card it would suddenly become quite a tough creature to defend against for not very much mana. Defender is a way to keep cards with imbalanced stats like this from becoming too overpowered in the right shell.

This is like when my kids wake me up too early

Guardian of the Ages has defender, but can also ‘lose’ the keyword if an opponent’s creature attacks you (and gains trample!). Defender is used like this on a number of cards, in that you have

Let’s look at a different card with defender: Dragon Egg.

I don’t like getting out of bed either

Well that’s interesting. Dragon Egg almost wants to block something and die (or be destroyed by a removal spell or be sacrificed), because afterwards, its controller gets a 2/2 flying Dragon. The defender keyword here is a flavourful description of the creature’s abilities (or lack thereof). This seemingly harmless card at 0/2 is actually very tricky to play around for your opponent, because you could just throw it in front of a bigger attacking creature with the intention of killing Dragon Egg. Whilst your opponent might not worry about a 0/2 defender, I guarantee they’ll be thinking carefully about what a 2/2 flying dragon with a boost effect (firebreathing, where you can pay {R} to boost a dragon creature’s power) might do on the battlefield.

Staying with a dragon theme: Dragon Throne of Tarkir

But it’s a pretty cool seat, still

Holy smokes that’s a spicy card. There’s a lot going on here, let’s break it down.

This card is an artifact, costing 4 mana. You can ‘equip’ or attach this artifact to a creature by paying its equip cost of 3. When you’ve equipped a creature with this artifact you can then pay a further 2 mana and tap the creature. Doing so pumps up your other creatures and gives them trample (yep, another keyword).

This, in my opinion, is one of the most interesting and flavourful ways the defender keyword has been used. Imagine a game where you cast this and effectively make your most powerful creature “sit on the throne”. This creature can then give your other creatures a massive boost, but it can’t attack.

Last but not least, I’d like to share with you one of my favourite cards using defender: Dormant Sliver

These Slivers are thirsty.

A good friend of mine routinely beats me at kitchen table magic with his (admittedly awesome) Slivers deck. I think Dormant Sliver is awesome because you could, in theory, side it in against Sliver decks, play it and laugh maniacally as their tribal synergies amount to nothing because their Slivers can’t attack — because all Slivers have defender. Ok, this card dies to removal, it draws them more cards, and even if it lives you still have to attack through their Slivers, but hey, let’s enjoy the fantasy for a moment.

In defence of defender

In summary — is defender a useful keyword? Yes, but often it’s in very narrow situations. Playing a 0/6 wall might win you the game against decks playing lots of small creatures, but could be completely irrelevant against decks with removal spells or flying creatures (assuming our wall doesn’t have flying).

Of course, it wouldn’t be the game of Magic we all love without an enchantment that turns all this on its head.

Step 1: Play Assault Formation

Whoops, I win

Step 2: Play all the Walls

The old 3.2 turn clock, eh?

Step 3: Profit

An on that roadmap for success we’ll bring this article to a close. Thanks for reading!

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