Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo

The bodyguard mechanic, rendered as a creature. The tap ability redirects a single source's damage to this fox before it lands, turning a 1/4 wall into a damage sink that can soak a burn spell aimed at your face, eat a combat blow meant for another blocker, or interpose itself between a removal-by-damage and its target. The second ability then lets you whittle that incoming damage down a point at a time, so a redirected attack the fox could not survive on raw toughness becomes survivable for per point. Bushido layers on top: when it blocks, it grows, so the toughness it presents on defense is larger than the body printed at rest. The flavor is exact (a samurai's personal guard, throwing itself in front of every blow meant for the lord), and the mechanics are a faithful translation of that idea into the stack: redirection happens by choosing a source, prevention happens in one-point increments, and the creature itself is built to absorb rather than attack. It is a defensive engine that asks you to value soaking damage as a resource, the kind of design that rewards a board where keeping one specific permanent or player alive matters more than racing.