Rabid Wolverines

Punishing the block was a green design idea the color toyed with for years before trample swallowed it whole, and this is one of the period's more literal attempts at it. The clause keys to the act of being blocked, firing once per blocker, so a gang-block stacks the growth: the 4/4 swells to 6/6 against two blockers, 7/7 against three. That escalation is where the design actually bites, because it asks the defender to commit more bodies to a beater that grows harder the more they throw at it, nudging them toward eating four to the face instead. The trouble is the reward is reactive and lives entirely on the defender's terms. A single blocker nets only one round of growth, and a removal spell or one sufficiently large creature shrugs the rider off completely, since nothing fires at all unless the opponent obliges by blocking. Compare what trample does to the same problem: it spills damage past a block regardless of who survives, punishing the chump unconditionally. This only enlarges a creature that can still be stopped cold, which is precisely the corner green eventually designed its way out of. With no evasion and a trigger handed to the opponent's choices, it lands as a midrange beater for an aggressive green deck that wanted attackers the defender hated to absorb, a fair-fight reward from an era before green found the cleaner answer.