Blood-Toll Harpy

The symmetrical drain on a flying body is the tell of an old design philosophy: when the same life loss hits both players, the card is built for the deck that can afford it, not the one that fears it. A 2/1 flier that pings everyone for one is close to a wash in a vacuum, but the symmetry is only nominal. The aggressor already racing has the life total to spare, and because the loss keys to the creature entering rather than dying, any shell that can flicker or rebuy the body converts a one-shot ping into a repeating tax. Evasion carries the rest: the two power is reliably getting through, so the life-loss clause is a rider on a clock rather than the whole plan. This is the kind of small black common that does honest work in a creature-heavy attrition deck, chipping the opponent from the air while the entry trigger nudges both totals into a range where reach and burn can finish. Nothing here is flashy; the design is a clean expression of how black has long paid for incremental advantage by spending life as a shared resource, then leaning on the gap between the player who can absorb the cost and the player who cannot.