Ironclaw Orcs

A pure expression of Alpha-era design philosophy: red gets a 2/2 for two mana, matching the green grizzly-bears rate in another color and undercutting red's own vanilla baseline (Gray Ogre asked three mana for the same body), and it pays for the discount with a blocking restriction that maps directly onto the color's flavor. Orcs do not stand against warriors larger than themselves; they swing, and they run from the giants. The drawback is load-bearing in a way modern designers rarely commit to. A 2/2 that cannot block anything of 2 power or greater is, in practice, a creature that cannot block at all in most games, since the things you most want to stop (the opposing 2/2, the 3/3, the evasive threat with a pump spell behind it) are exactly the things it whiffs on. That is the trade Richard Garfield was offering: aggressive red creatures would be priced at or under the curve, and the cost would always be paid on defense. The lineage runs from here through Jackal Pup, Mogg Fanatic, and Goblin Guide, every red one- and two-drop that has ever been called a burn spell with legs. The drawback got smaller, then conditional, then vestigial, but the underlying contract (red pays for offense by surrendering defense) is the one Ironclaw Orcs wrote first.