Putrid Warrior

Drain and restore are framed here as two halves of a single attack, and the trigger fires fresh every time the body connects: a 2/2 that decides turn by turn whether it is wearing black's life-loss or white's life-gain. The symmetry is the catch. Both modes touch every player at the table, so the loss option only pulls ahead when you can connect more reliably than your opponents do, and the gain option reads less like a gift to the room than a brake on a race you would otherwise lose. That choice, remade on each hit, gives the creature its character: drain on the turns you are ahead on board, restore on the turns you are behind on the clock. The clause worth noticing is "deals damage" rather than "deals combat damage." That widening unmoors the trigger from the combat step entirely: route any noncombat damage through this creature, a ping from equipment like Viridian Longbow or a bite effect that names it as the source, and you bank the modal choice without ever attacking. It is honest W/B craftsmanship from an era when the two colors were being defined against each other rather than blended together, drain and restore set up as opposing faces of one swing, the contrast itself doing the design work.