Blister Beetle

The 1/1 body is a formality; the trigger is the product. A stapled -1/-1 does two jobs in a single cast: it removes the X/1s outright and shrinks the X/2s into combat range, then leaves a small attacker behind to trade or chip in later. The targeting is mandatory and points at any creature, which usually reads as clean spot removal but turns awkward when the opponent has nothing worth hitting. Because the trigger must find a target and the Beetle carries only one toughness, an empty board forces it to point the -1/-1 at itself and immediately die, so this is removal that punishes you for casting it when there is nothing to kill. That is the whole arrangement of an enters-the-battlefield removal creature: you pay full price for a body that barely qualifies as one, and in return the removal arrives attached to something you can flicker, recur, or reanimate to fire the trigger again. This is an early take on the mold, and a modest one: later -1/-1-on-entry bodies tended to land bigger or carry wider effects. But the structural idea is durable. An effect that wants to be reused rewards anything that recasts or blinks it, and the self-targeting clause is the discipline that keeps the trigger from being free: it only works when you can aim it elsewhere. A utility piece wearing a creature's clothes, built for decks that value the trigger far more than the swing.