Arvad the Cursed

A legendary anthem stapled to a deathtouch-lifelink body, built for the historic-matters era when the legendary supertype briefly became a deckbuilding axis worth chasing. The +2/+2 only touches other legends, which is the constraint that defines what kind of deck wants this: not a generic midrange goodstuff pile, but a board built deliberately around named permanents, where every legendary creature you commit becomes a two-size threat the moment this resolves. On a singleton-legendary table the anthem reads small, but the design assumes density, rewarding the player who has loaded up on legends rather than punishing the one who hasn't. The own keywords matter less for the anthem and more for survival: a 3/3 with deathtouch and lifelink trades up in combat and clogs the ground long enough for the legendary count to climb, which is precisely the body a fragile legends-tribal board needs to buy time. What balances it is that it does nothing for itself; the static buff explicitly excludes Arvad, so it asks to be the support piece, the card that makes your other legendary creatures and engines bigger rather than the centerpiece. That is the honest read on the design: a mono-purpose enabler for a tribal hook that the broader game has only ever flirted with, sharp inside the narrow shell it was drawn for and inert outside it.