Bogardan Lancer

A deliberate collision of two old mechanics that point in the same direction: get in for damage early and you are rewarded twice. Bloodthirst 1 wants an opponent to have already taken damage before this resolves, which means it slots behind one-drops that connect; cast it on the heels of a hit and you get a 2/2 instead of a 1/1. Flanking then punishes the ground creatures that would normally trade up into it, shaving a point off any blocker that lacks flanking of its own and turning what looks like an even exchange into a one-sided one. The two abilities reinforce a single game plan rather than pulling apart: bloodthirst presumes you are the aggressor, and flanking keeps you the aggressor by making the defense flinch. Neither keyword was new even when this was printed: flanking dates to the Weatherlight era's Knights, and bloodthirst rewarded the same early-pressure decks across its own run. Stapling both to a small red body is the design statement, a piece of curio-cabinet aggro that only ever does its job when the curve in front of it has already done theirs. The 1/1 base is the honest part of the bargain; whiff on the early damage and you are left holding a creature that trades down to almost anything, flanking or not.