Deepwood Tantiv

The reward structure here runs exactly opposite to what green usually wants. Most green beaters are priced to push damage through, and a blocked attacker is a wasted attack; this one turns the block itself into the payoff, gaining 2 life every time it becomes blocked. The 2/4 frame is the tell: a wall that wants to attack, big enough behind to survive a swing or two, small enough in front that no single hit ends things. It is a defensive creature wearing an aggressive trigger, and the catch is that the opponent decides whether it ever fires. A five-mana 2/4 is easily outclassed in combat, so a blocker that eats it for free is a trade the opponent makes gladly, two life be damned; the life gain is small enough that they will often pay it just to remove a vanilla-sized body. That asymmetry is the design's honest ceiling: you collect on the margins, when the board is gummed up and trading down to stop a 2/4 is genuinely the worse line, not when an opponent has a bigger creature ready to feast. The result is a piece built for grindy, attrition-minded green that wants incremental life to outlast burn and aggression rather than race it. A small, specific engine whose payout the opponent controls, and one that wins by not losing rather than by closing fast.