Night Market Lookout

The drain trigger keys off becoming tapped, not off attacking, and that distinction is the whole point of the design. Most one-mana drains in black are stapled to combat damage or to a sacrifice cost; this one fires on any tap, which means combat is only the most obvious way to pull the trigger. Convoke, crew, tap-to-activate abilities, and any mechanic that asks a creature to tap as a cost all feed the same one-point swing, and each one is a window where the body does work without ever entering combat. The reward is small (one life drained, one life gained) and the body is fragile, so the card lives or dies on how many times you can flip it from untapped to tapped across a turn cycle. Untapping effects compound it; vehicles that need a creature crewed turn the lookout into a recurring pinger that pays you for doing something you wanted to do anyway. It is a low-rate piece built to reward a board that taps creatures for reasons other than attacking, the kind of attrition engine that does its work a point at a time rather than in a single hit.