Paragon of Fierce Defiance

One of a cycle of mono-color anthem lords that each pair a static color-buff with a tap ability aimed at the attack step, and the red one takes the most aggressive read on that template: it hands out haste. The anthem rewards flooding the board with red bodies, but the haste-grant is what turns a static creature-count check into a tempo engine. A threat cast this turn can swing immediately; a topdecked creature becomes an attacker rather than a summoning-sick liability. The cost keeps the ability from tipping into combo territory: it fires once per turn, targets a single other creature, and spends the lord's own tap plus a red mana, so it can never accelerate itself and can never wake the whole board at once. That single-target activation is the friction that offsets a passive that wants a crowd; a haste-enabler this narrow can never read as a one-card blowout. The 2/2 body is fragile and contributes little combat weight beyond the bonus it distributes, but it is never idle: even with an empty board it still points at a red creature the moment one arrives, and its own anthem lifts the next body cast alongside it. Cast it into a table already committed to small red creatures and the anthem plus the haste-grant compound into fast pressure; drop it early and it is a lord waiting for the crowd it was built to lead.