Burning-Tree Vandal

Riot's whole conceit is choosing which axis of tempo you want, and this is the card that spends it on card quality instead of raw pressure. Take haste and the 2/1 body swings the turn it lands, then rummages on every attack: a red aggressive creature that keeps its hand fresh the way its cousins cannot, converting stranded lands and dead cards into fresh draws while it chips in for two. Take the counter instead and it becomes a 3/2 that trades up and survives more removal, the choice bending toward the grindier game. The looting is the reason it plays past its stat line: attacking is already what an aggressive deck wants to do, so the discard-and-draw costs no extra mana and no separate turn, and it doubles as graveyard fuel for anything that wants cards in the bin. Because it is a rummage rather than a true draw, it filters rather than accrues; the aggregate advantage stays modest, which is what keeps the body cheap. Note the direction of that trade, though: you discard first, then draw, so it needs a card to pitch to work at all. An empty hand stalls the engine even as the board swings, which is why the card wants a hand full of situational excess (a flooded pile of lands is exactly what it converts) rather than a hand run dry. It smooths the mid-game more than it refills the late one.