Leonin Den-Guard
A naked 1/3 is a defensive body that asks to be ignored: it blocks, it trades down, it sits. Strap any Equipment to it, though, and the whole posture flips. The +1/+1 makes a 2/4 that can attack into open boards, and the vigilance is the real prize, because Equipment costs already pin you to one creature carrying the whole load. A guard that can swing and still hold the fort solves the central liability of Equipment decks, where the equipped attacker historically leaves the board defenseless on the crack-back. The conditional nature is the cost: unequip it, or run it in a deck with no gear, and you have a slow common with a clumsy body. But that conditionality is precisely what makes it a clean piece of early-era artifact-block design, a creature built to make the set's headline mechanic feel intentional rather than incidental. As a role-player it rewards committing to a plan: a stable handle for whatever artifact wants a body, doubling as an early wall before the gear shows up.
