Crimson Roc

A defensive specialist built backward from how flyers usually fight. A 2/2 flyer at five mana is a deliberately soft body in the air, but the block trigger turns it into a wall against the ground game: when it stops a non-flyer, it becomes a 3/2 first striker, eating attackers up to three toughness without taking a scratch. The design discipline is the trigger's condition. It only fires on a block, and only against creatures without flying, so the card pays nothing for an ability that does nothing on offense. You cannot push the bonus onto your own attacks; the Roc is a gate, not a weapon, and the rate reflects a body that spends most turns holding ground rather than gaining it. It reads as a curiosity now, but the template (a flyer whose entire combat value is locked behind blocking grounded creatures) is an early, honest stab at making the evasive creature the defender rather than the aggressor, an inversion of the usual reason you pay a premium for flight.