Kor Firewalker

A sideboard card so pointed it became shorthand for hating one color. Protection from red on a 2/2 turns off burn aimed at it, lets it attack through red blockers untouched, and blanks any red creature trying to trade in combat; the life-gain trigger then taxes the opponent's entire game plan, draining a burn deck's clock with every Lightning Bolt and Goblin Guide they cast. The double-white in the cost does the gatekeeping: only a deck committed enough to white to land it on turn two gets the insurance, which is exactly the turn it matters against an aggressive red curve. What makes it a genuine design landmark rather than just a hatebear is how completely it answers a specific archetype while doing almost nothing elsewhere. Against decks with no red spells the trigger never fires and the protection has nothing to prevent, leaving a plain 2/2 body, and that asymmetry is the whole point: it is a scalpel, not a wall. The protection keyword does quadruple duty here (damage prevention, can't-be-blocked, can't-be-targeted, can't-be-enchanted-or-equipped by red), and against a mono-red deck that translates to near-total immunity from a single white body. Few cards draw a line so cleanly between "I crush this matchup" and "I am a blank," and Kor Firewalker has spent its life as the answer players reach for precisely because the line is that sharp.