Engine Rat

Two cards live inside this one body, and they answer to different decks. Deathtouch on a black one-drop makes it a menacing early blocker and a willing trade partner: anything that swings into it dies, which is exactly the profile a swarm-and-sacrifice shell wants from cheap fodder. It is a death trigger waiting to happen, a chump that takes something bigger with it. The activated ability belongs to a much later chapter, when six mana is a rounding error and the board has stalled or emptied out. Two life stripped from each opponent per activation is a slow squeeze, and note that it only takes life away: no lifegain rides along, so this is symmetry-free attrition rather than a drain. What it offers instead is repeatability and self-containment: it needs no other cards, so a grindy deck can spend its floating late-game mana pointing the whole table toward the same exit. The trouble is that these halves rarely fire in the same deck. The aggressive shell that wants the deathtouch on turn one has usually closed things out before six mana is ever available, and the deck that can afford the activation would rather run a body that does more than sit and block. What reconciles them is the humble sacrifice-fodder job black one-drops fill so reliably: it is a cheap blocker and a death trigger first, and the repeatable life loss is quiet insurance for the games that run long enough to need a finisher no blocker can turn back.