Ixalli's Diviner

The clean illustration of explore's two-mode payoff, with a body built to make either outcome land. A 0/3 wants nothing more than to soak up early attacks, so the +1/+1 counter that explore leaves when the revealed card is a nonland turns a wall into a 1/4 that keeps stalling the ground while quietly thinning your draws. Hit a land instead and you've smoothed your curve without spending a card. That is the elegance of the mechanic: it never whiffs, only branches, and this creature is happy in either branch because its job (block, survive, accrue value) doesn't depend on which way the reveal falls. The design lesson is in the stat line: explore on an aggressive creature rewards the counter and resents the land; explore on a defensive one is comfortable with both. Put the trigger on a 0/3 and you've removed the downside entirely. It is the cheapest way the explore keyword was packaged to demonstrate what the ability is for, a common-rarity tutorial in how a single trigger can serve card selection and board presence at once without ever feeling like a dead draw.