Asphodel Wanderer

Regeneration always asked the same uncomfortable question: how much mana is too much to keep a one-drop alive? The answer here is three, and that gap is the whole identity. A 1/1 for one is among the most disposable bodies a black deck can field; spending to save it costs more than the creature is worth on its own, and the design wants that imbalance. The regeneration is not a shield you raise casually but a long-game promise: a recurring blocker that survives combat, eats removal that has to deal damage rather than exile or sacrifice, and grinds down trades once a board has stalled. The card is a throwback to the era when regeneration was black and green's signature toughness mechanic, before the keyword largely gave way to indestructible and cleaner death-replacement effects. Where a more recent design might hand a one-drop a static keyword and be done, this one makes resilience an ongoing mana tax, payable only in games slow enough to afford it. That conditionality is the entire pitch: cheap enough to be irrelevant when the board floods, sticky enough to be a genuine nuisance when the game grinds long and mana sits idle.