Pygmy Troll

A regenerating combat trickster built around a punishing wrinkle: blocking it makes it bigger. The growth trigger fires off being blocked, not off attacking, which inverts the math a defender runs when deciding whether to throw a creature in front of it. A 1/1 looks like a free chump-block target, but committing a creature to stop it turns it into a 2/2 with regeneration available, and the regeneration cost is cheap enough that a defender often trades down or simply bounces off. The two abilities reinforce each other across one combat step: the +1/+1 keeps it alive through the block, and the regeneration shield keeps it alive through the removal or the larger blocker the opponent reaches for next. Both effects are temporary in the right way: the buff resets at end of turn so the card stays a 1/1 on rate, while the regeneration is repeatable as long as green mana holds out. It is a small, self-contained piece of combat-math design from an era that prized green creatures with built-in deterrence rather than keywords. The troll never threatens to be more than it is, but it asks the blocking player a question every combat, and the answer is rarely worth the mana the troll spends to survive it.