Numai Outcast

Regeneration here is paid in life, not just mana, and that distinction reshapes the whole card. A creature that swells when it blocks already wants to trade up in combat; one that can keep coming back wants to do it again and again. Charge five life on top of a black mana every time, though, and the recursion turns into a clock ticking against its own controller. The body invites the bargain: a fragile 1/1 that puffs up to a 3/3 the instant it touches combat, favored in any block it survives, and the regeneration cost punishes whoever leans on it too hard. This is early black resilience working out how to be durable without being free, with the life payment as the lever: a recurring tax that scales with abuse rather than a flat, one-time fee. What emerges is a midgame blocker that holds the ground well against the right attackers and quietly drains its own pilot if asked to do too much, a sharper rendering of black's risk-reward bargain than the stat line alone would promise.