Caravan Escort

The whole pitch of Level Up was a creature that arrives playable and grows on its own dime instead of asking for outside enablers, and this Knight is the white-weenie expression of that idea at its most stripped-down. A one-mana 1/1 that turns into a 2/2 after a single sorcery-speed activation, then sits at the first plateau through four counters before paying off with a 5/5 first striker at the top end. The spread between the two bands is the tension worth noting: levels one through four buy you nothing but the initial step from 1/1 to 2/2, so the real reward is gated behind a heavy mana commitment that only resolves at level five. That structure makes the card a mana sink that wants the late game while still being castable on turn one, which is the squeeze every Level Up creature lived inside. First strike on the 5/5 is the part that matters most: a 5/5 first striker is a genuine combat anchor that wins races and trades up, so the climb is paying off a real attacker rather than just a fatter body. As a design it asks a clean question of the player: spend your early turns developing other threats, or feed this one until it becomes one.