Hokori, Dust Drinker
Most prison pieces tax growth; this one freezes it. The lock here is total: nobody untaps lands the normal way, and the upkeep clause doles mana back out one land at a time, in single-file increments that no amount of ramp can outrun. The symmetry is the trap. Hokori's controller is supposed to have already broken parity before it lands, ideally with a fast white start that no longer needs more than a land or two a turn, or a way to untap lands outside the untap step that the opponent does not share. Against a deck still trying to deploy from a full grip, locking everyone to one land per turn is functionally one-sided: the player further behind on board feels the squeeze first. The design lineage runs through the Stasis school of resource-denial, but where Stasis asks you to keep paying upkeep and eventually break under its own weight, this puts the lock on a 2/2 body that also applies a clock. That dual role (taxman and beater on the same card) is the wrinkle, and it is also the vulnerability: a single removal spell or chump-then-block ends the stranglehold and hands the lands back. The Spirit's whole job is to buy the turns its controller has already arranged to exploit, then close before the opponent claws back to parity.
