Butcher of the Horde

Four mana for a 5/4 flier with no built-in defense is already an aggressive rate, but the sacrifice ability is where the three colors earn their keep. Rather than locking in a single evasion-plus-keyword package, the design hands you a menu and a recurring cost: feed it a creature and choose the mode the turn demands. Haste lets it swing for five the moment it lands; vigilance keeps it back on defense while it attacks; lifelink converts a dying token into a meaningful life swing in a race. The activation is free and repeatable, so a wide board can stack two modes in one turn, and the sacrifice reads as an asset rather than a tax in any deck already manufacturing bodies. That alignment is the whole point: the card was built to sit atop a creature-generating engine and turn spare attackers into reach, resilience, or speed on demand. The body alone justifies the slot; the modal sacrifice ability is what makes it the payoff at the top of an aggressive Mardu curve instead of just a beater. It is a clean example of putting flexibility behind a recurring resource cost rather than behind extra mana, which keeps the rate sharp while making the sacrifice fodder a genuine input instead of a footnote.