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Moxonomy

Gargantuan Gorilla

Creature — Ape4 generic manaGreen manaGreen manaGreen mana

A creature that taxes you for the privilege of keeping it alive. The upkeep clause is the design pivot: each turn you either feed it a Forest or it eats itself and takes seven of your life with it, so the body is rented rather than owned, and the lease comes due every turn whether you have the land to spare or not. The snow-Forest reward (trample for the turn) is a deliberate hook into Alliances' snow-permanent subtheme, a nudge to build a snow-mana base rather than a generic green one. The tap ability is the older, nastier half: a fight effect printed before fighting had a keyword, where the Gorilla deals its power to another creature and takes that creature's power back. At 7/7 it survives almost any single trade and clears most of the board one creature at a time, but it has to take return damage every activation, so the engine wears on itself the same way the upkeep does. The whole card is an exercise in self-inflicted friction: every line of text asks you to pay something you would rather keep (a land, your life total, the creature's own toughness) in exchange for a payoff that never quite outruns the cost. That tension is the point, and it is why the card reads as a relic of an era when green's big threats came with strings attached rather than clean, stapled-on value.

Gargantuan Gorilla (me1)
ME1 · #119rare
Pricing
Normal: $0.76
Foil:
Oracle Text

Rules text

At the beginning of your upkeep, you may sacrifice a Forest. If you sacrifice a snow Forest this way, this creature gains trample until end of turn. If you don't sacrifice a Forest, sacrifice this creature and it deals 7 damage to you. Tap: This creature deals damage equal to its power to another target creature. That creature deals damage equal to its power to this creature.
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
N/A
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
N/A
Brawl
N/A
Historic
N/A
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
N/A
Standard Brawl
N/A
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
Legal
PreDH
Legal
Pauper Commander
N/A
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
N/A
Penny Dreadful
N/A
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
N/A
TLR
N/A
Printings elsewhere

Other printings

1 set
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