Cutthroat Contender

Firebreathing at the cost of life instead of mana: that swap is what places this small vampire in a long line of aggressive bodies that convert a resource into extra reach without asking for a floated mana or a card. Because black already treats its own life total as ammunition rather than armor, paying one point per turn to add a point of power fits the color's instincts cleanly. The once-each-turn restriction is doing all the balancing. Left uncapped, a stalled board and a healthy life total would collapse into a lethal alpha strike; capped, it becomes a slow one-life-per-turn drip that compounds across an aggressive curve but can never singlehandedly steal a race. That extra point matters most in combat: it upgrades a 1/1 into a 2/1 that trades up or pushes more damage through, and since the ability fires at instant speed, you can wait until blocks are declared and spend the life only when it actually buys damage or a favorable trade. This is a common-rarity role-player meant for the front of a low black curve, earning its slot through accumulated pressure across many turns rather than any single flashy one.