Gorilla Chieftain
A green beater with one job: it does not die to your opponent's combat math. The 3/3 body for four mana was never the selling point; the repeatable regeneration is, turning an unremarkable midrange creature into a roadblock that demands a real answer. Regeneration as a keyword has aged out of modern design (Wizards retired it in favor of indestructible and ward, which sidestep the "tap it, remove it from combat, the shield is spent" bookkeeping that regeneration always carried), but the structural idea this card embodies remains intact: pay a small recurring cost to keep a threat on the table through chump blocks, burn, and one-for-one trades. The friction that balances it is twofold. The regeneration costs mana every time, so leaning on it competes with casting spells; and it only saves the creature from destruction, not exile or bounce, so an opponent with the right answer still gets through. What makes the rate honest is the size of the tax: cheap enough to use freely, small enough that it never lets one body dominate a board on its own. This is the platonic green "creature that won't stay dead," the role-player a fair deck leans on when it wants a body that survives the grind rather than ends it.





