Abyssal Hunter

The interesting part is the tap, not the damage. The "Tim" lineage this descends from, Prodigal Sorcerer chief among it, built whole strategies on grinding a point per turn, and a 1/1 body does the same one-point chip on its own. But the front half is what sets it apart. Tapping a target creature first neutralizes it for the turn (no attack, no block) and then deals damage equal to this creature's power, so the lockdown matters more than the ping. Point it at the opponent's only attacker every turn and that creature simply never gets to do anything. The scaling clause is the upside the fixed-damage pingers never had: pump the body, and the lock turns into a kill button. A single anthem effect or aura makes the tap-and-burn lethal to bigger and bigger creatures. What restrains it is the activation: black mana plus the tap allows one use per turn, and you have to hold mana open to keep the lock running. The body is fragile in the bargain. A 1/1 that wants to police the board over many turns is itself the easiest thing on the table to kill, and any opposing pinger or one-damage effect ends the engine on the spot. Built as a slow, mana-hungry control valve, it is one of Mirage's early attempts at repeatable tap-down removal, with the immobilization as the answer and the scaling damage as a finisher that grows with the board.