Falkenrath Noble

The trigger fires on any death, anywhere, with no controller restriction: every creature that hits the graveyard drains a life and refunds one to you, regardless of whose body it was or how it died. Critically, the wording counts the Noble itself, so even its own death squeezes out one final drain. That self-inclusion is the difference between a real aristocrats engine and a one-sided death tax. Token swarms, sacrifice loops, attrition trades that go nowhere: all of them convert into a life swing the moment a creature dies. Board wipes are the clearest demonstration. When a sweeper kills the Noble alongside a dozen other bodies, all those deaths happen simultaneously, the creatures are already in the graveyard, and then the death triggers go on the stack together: a dozen separate drains, the Noble's own among them, all resolving afterward. The flying body matters less than the function; this is an enchantment-on-legs that happens to chip in for two. Black has produced plenty of drain-on-death effects, but most key off creatures you sacrifice or creatures that die under your control. The open scope here ("or another creature dies" with nobody named) widens that reach: an opponent's chump blocks and their own sweepers feed your clock as readily as your own fodder. At for a 2/2, it demands the death-generating shell already be assembled; off-engine, it is a fragile body and a dead card. Build the engine first, and every exchange, yours or theirs, becomes ground you gain.