Boros Mastiff
Battalion was the mechanic that tried to make a 2/2 for two pull its weight in a deck built to go wide, and this is one of its plainest expressions. The keyword only switches on under a specific board condition: three or more attackers, this one included. Meet it and the Dog gains lifelink for the turn; fall short and you have a vanilla body. That conditionality is the whole arrangement. A token strategy or a low-curve aggressive shell can clear the threshold reliably, turning every connection into a swing on the life total as well as the damage race, the sort of incremental edge that decides aggro mirrors and outpaces a burn clock. The cost of that lifelink is paid in commitment to the attack: you cannot hold creatures back and still profit, so the ability rewards the same all-in posture the deck already wants. Outside that context it reverts to a body with no relevant text, which is the honest limit of the design. A common-rarity reward for committing to the board, built for a go-wide white aggro plan and unremarkable anywhere that plan does not exist.
