Order of Leitbur

A white knight built around mana-sink modularity at a time when most two-drops were static lines of text. The protection from black is the static half, a hard wall against the era's removal and a one-sided combat advantage that bordered on uncatchable for black decks of its day; the two activated abilities are the flexible half, letting the creature scale from a 2/1 into a first-striking threat that grows with every untapped white source. The design logic is that the body stays cheap because the power is gated behind mana you spend later: a 2/1 for two is unremarkable, but a 2/1 that converts surplus white mana into first strike and an effectively unbounded power boost is a clock that punishes flooding. Order of Ebon Hand is its mirror, the black knight with protection from white and a parallel pump suite, the two halves of a deliberate color-pair tension Fallen Empires built into its knight cycle. What makes the card more than its rate is the way it front-loads a defensive keyword and back-loads the offense onto activated abilities, so the same creature is a defensive specialist on an empty board and a finisher on a full one, with the player choosing which role to fund turn by turn.