Border Patrol

Five mana for a 1/6 that can also attack: this is what white defensive design looked like before high-toughness blockers had to earn their slot with a relevant body or a bonus on top. The 1/6 frame is built to absorb pressure, shrugging off the burn that would clear most blockers and gumming up the small attackers that defined creature combat of its era. Vigilance is the wrinkle that nominally justifies the cost, letting the same body hold the ground line and still tag along on an alpha strike without dropping its guard: a quiet concession that a single point of power is never going to close a game on its own. The arithmetic never quite balanced, though. A wall this size with no text beyond vigilance asks far too much for far too little reach, and white was already churning out cheaper ways to buy a turn against aggression. As a piece of midrange-stalling filler, it gives a controlling white deck a creature that outlives the early assault once it lands and chips in a point of damage later. It belongs to the long line of reassuring-looking white walls that read well in a vacuum and rarely survive the moment someone actually counts the mana.