Consul's Lieutenant

Renown was the experiment in rewarding the player who landed an unblocked attacker, and this two-drop shows why the mechanic leaned so hard on evasion-adjacent help. First strike is not there to win combat against blockers; renown counts only combat damage dealt to a player, so a chump blocker stops the trigger cold, and a 2/1 with no trample cannot push past it. What first strike actually buys is survival in races and clean swings into open boards: it lets the Lieutenant trade up or attack into a hesitant defender and live, so it gets to keep coming back for the connection that turns it renowned. That is the gate. Before the counter lands it is an aggressive, evasion-hungry beater with an attack trigger that does nothing yet; after it connects, every other attacker swings for an extra point each combat. The structure is a two-stage clock where stage one has to thread an unblocked hit before stage two pays out. The balancing act is that the lord effect costs no mana but a full turn of tempo and exposure: you have to get the body through, and one removal spell at the wrong moment resets the entire plan. Unlike a static team-buffer that works while it sits on the board, this asks you to commit to attacking to earn the same payout, which is exactly the instruction the card keeps repeating: keep swinging.