Order of the White Shield

Protection from black is the entire reason this 2/1 exists, and everything else is built to make that one keyword sing. The two white-mana abilities are color-keyed busywork by comparison: first strike and a temporary +1/+0, both demanding white mana you would usually rather spend elsewhere, both paying off only when you have surplus and a body worth keeping alive through combat. Against black, though, the protection does work that no amount of stats could buy. It dodges targeted removal, refuses to be blocked by black creatures, and shrugs off their combat damage entirely, turning a plain beater into a clock the opponent can barely touch. The catch is the toughness: at 2/1 it folds to nearly anything that ignores the protection, so it walks through black's interaction and dies to a stray ping from anywhere else. The card reads as a statement from an era when protection was a color-pie declaration rather than a tuning knob: white knights were meant to march through black's removal and trample black's creatures, and Wizards committed to that rivalry early enough to print pump knights like this whose protection is aimed squarely at their opposing color. Strip the keyword and you have a forgettable two-drop; with it, the card is a deliberate piece of the old white-versus-black grudge match.