Dukhara Peafowl
A 2/4 artifact body that pays blue mana for flight is filler, and there is no use pretending otherwise. The stat line wants to sit back and block; the activated ability wants to push through the air. The card never forces a choice, though, because the ground game is free: it can wall a board or chip in for two without spending anything, and the blue payment only enters the picture when you decide a particular point of damage needs to fly over a stalled front. That makes the colored cost a luxury upgrade rather than a tax, which is the most charitable thing to say about a creature this modest. The artifact type is doing the real load-bearing work here, opening it to colorless ramp and affinity-style payoffs that a plain Bird would never touch, and the splashable blue activation lets a colorless-leaning shell reach for evasion without committing to the color in its mana base. Outside of that narrow appeal (a body for decks short on bodies, with an optional reach into the air), there is not much case for sleeving it.


