Assassin Initiate

A one-drop that pays mana to pick a keyword is an old idea, but the specific menu here does more than pad a stat line: flying, deathtouch, and lifelink each answer a different problem in combat, and the choice happens on the turn you need it. Deathtouch turns the 1/1 into a threat any blocker respects, trading up against anything on the board for one mana. Flying lets it slip past a ground stall to chip at a life total or connect for a triggered effect. Lifelink stabilizes the race when you are the one under pressure. Because the ability recurs each turn as long as you have mana, the same body wears whichever mode the board demands, and nothing stops you from stacking activations to hold two keywords at once. The friction is that every point of relevance costs real mana, so a creature meant to attack early competes with your other plays for the same resource. That is the discipline of the design: the keywords are individually strong on a body this cheap, but the card asks you to spend to unlock them one at a time, turning a plain one-drop into a mana sink that stays useful long after the aggressive turns are over.