Foul Imp

Black has always bought above-curve stats with its own life total, and a 2/2 flier for two black mana is a fine rate priced with a flat two-life bite on arrival. The friction is the whole point of the deal, but notice what kind of friction it is: the loss resolves the instant the creature lands, a single transaction rather than an ongoing upkeep tax or anything it asks of you afterward. That puts it in a long line of black two-drops where the body outruns the price tag and the downside is just a bill you settle at the door. The design reads as deliberately unglamorous: no upside on the life loss, no synergy hook to pay it off, just a slightly painful evasive beater that asks whether you can afford the trade. Later black aggressive creatures would learn to turn that self-damage into a resource (a payoff for going low, fuel for some other engine), but here the loss recoups nothing. It documents an era when even a modest flier came with an itemized cost, and the cost came due the moment it hit the battlefield.