Goring Warplow

Prototype is a dial for the same body, and this Construct sits at the extreme end of the value it offers: pay for a 1/1 deathtoucher when the board is thin and you need an early trade, or pay the full for a 5/4 when the game has opened up and you want the deathtouch stapled to a real threat. The keyword's genius is that deathtouch scales the same regardless of which cost you choose: a 1/1 with deathtouch kills anything it blocks or is blocked by, so the cheap mode is never a wasted body, and the mode simply moves that same "trades with everything" clause onto a frame that also races. Most modal creatures ask you to pick a floor and a ceiling that feel like different cards; here the ability line is identical across the split, so the only variable is how much mana you want the deathtouch to cost and how much combat presence you want stapled to it. That makes it unusually clean as a curve-filler in artifact-forward decks: it is a two-drop deterrent when drawn early and a six-drop closer when drawn late, and the graveyard-agnostic, colorless-castable side means it slots into shells that never touch black at all. The design lesson is that a keyword which does not care about the creature's size is the ideal partner for prototype, and deathtouch is the cleanest such keyword there is.