Maze of Ith

A defensive land that costs nothing to play and answers any single attacker, every turn, forever: that combination of zero mana cost and repeatable, color-free damage prevention is the design's whole story. The mechanic untaps an attacker rather than simply fogging it, which is the friction that keeps it honest. It neutralizes exactly one threat per combat step, so a wide board walks past it. The targeting restriction is what makes the rate work; it blanks one body and leaves the rest unanswered. The damage-prevention clause is just as load-bearing in the other direction: because all combat damage to and from the chosen creature is prevented, you cannot use it as a removal trick, throwing up a blocker and denying the trade. The attacker survives, the blocker survives, nothing dies. The card buys time against a single large body better than almost anything else, asking nothing of your other lands or your colors to do it. The land slot is what makes the rate work and what dates the design: a permanent that fits any deck, generates no mana, and demands no upkeep, from a stretch of design when free defensive utility on a land was not yet understood to carry real strategic weight. Its closest kin are prevention effects that gate themselves behind activation costs or one-shot timing; this one gates itself behind the targeting restriction and its lack of mana production instead, trading mana production for the ability to blank an attacker turn after turn.