Calming Licid

The Licids were Stronghold's attempt to solve a structural problem with creature-Auras: a creature is exposed to removal that an enchantment shrugs off, while an enchantment can't block or attack and sits idle when its target dies. The Licid template tries to occupy both states. As a 2/2 body it holds the ground and can trade; pay the cost and it dissolves into an Aura with enchant creature, locking down an attacker, with the optional payment letting you peel it back off and return to creature mode when the board shifts. The flexibility is the whole pitch, and the template's friction is what kept it honest: switching into Aura mode costs white mana and a tap, so the card never does two jobs in one turn and the body has to survive a turn cycle to convert at all. Returning to creature mode is cheaper (just the white payment, no tap), but the conversion still moves in one direction per window. What looks like a clean two-cards-in-one is gated behind a tax on the transition that matters most. The rules headaches the Licids generated are a large part of why the cycle was never revisited: a creature that becomes an Aura that can become a creature again raised layering questions the era's templating wasn't built to answer. The design idea was sound; the rules engine of the day couldn't carry it cleanly.