Chub Toad

A defensive trick stapled to a body, which is a stranger design than it sounds. The 1/1 frame invites attackers and blockers to ignore it, but the moment combat actually engages it, the creature reads as a 3/3, and the +2/+2 fires whether it blocks or gets blocked. The two-way trigger is the whole point: it punishes an opponent for blocking a small green creature and rewards you for throwing it in front of one. The buff is a combat-only conditional, so it sits dormant outside combat and offers nothing to a sacrifice plan, a removal target, or a pump-it-to-survive-a-burn-spell line; the toughness only materializes against another creature. The +2/+2 triggers during the Declare Blockers step, the moment blocks are locked in, so the size-up is settled before any combat damage is dealt, which is what gives the printed stats their bluff: they advertise a 1/1 while the real trade is with a 3/3. This is the work of a green-design school whose power lived in combat math rather than the type line, trading clean baseline stats for situational spikes. The era loved this kind of puzzle: a body that lies about what it costs to trade with, asking both players to remember a rules-text clause that the board state does not advertise.