Akki War Paint

The wrinkle is in the enchant clause: this Aura latches onto artifacts as readily as creatures, but only pays out while the enchanted permanent is actually a creature. That conditional is doing more than it looks. On an ordinary bear it is a plain one-mana pump, a modest rate for the risk of two-for-one blowouts that has kept generic Auras marginal since the earliest sets. The upside lives in the gap between enchanting an artifact and that artifact being a creature. Point it at a Vehicle or an artifact that animates itself and the buff sits dormant until the thing crews or turns on, then reads as a live +2/+1 the instant it becomes a creature. It rewards permanents that toggle between creature and noncreature rather than punishing you for the ones that start inert. The design reflects an era experimenting with artifacts that blur the creature line, and this Aura is built to sit comfortably on both sides of that blur: dead when the target is a plain artifact, active the instant it becomes a creature, and legal to cast on either. Most one-mana combat Auras give you a body and a prayer; this one gives you a target set most pumps cannot legally touch.