Alpine Watchdog

Vigilance on a plain 2/2 is one of white's oldest low-stakes tools, and this Dog is a distilled version of it: a body that presses the beatdown without surrendering the ground behind it. The tension the keyword resolves is old. An attacker normally taps to declare, which means every point of pressure you commit is a hole in your defense on the crack back. Vigilance closes that hole for free, so the same creature that pushed two damage stays untapped and available to block when the turn passes. On a 2/2 that costs two, the effect stays honest: the body is small enough that neither role is decisive, so the card is buying flexibility rather than power. The design is deliberately unfurnished otherwise: no enters-the-battlefield trigger, no activated ability, no tribal payoff to reward building around it. That plainness is the whole intent. Not every slot in a set can carry a mechanic, and white has always leaned on workmanlike creatures that make combat math annoying while the expensive threats come online. Attack when you have the initiative, drop back to defense when you do not, and never pay a tempo tax for the switch: that is the entire pitch, and it has been a reliable one for a long time.