Rattleback Apothecary

Most crime payoffs hand you a static reward for pointing removal or a graveyard raid at an opponent: a static boost, a token, a counter. The design here converts that same aggression into a combat decision, offering menace or lifelink on one of your creatures the instant you commit the crime. That modal choice is the whole point. Menace when the swing needs to slip past a wall of blockers; lifelink when the race is close enough that a few points of life decide it, resolved fresh every trigger rather than baked in at deckbuilding. The deathtouch on its 3/2 frame compounds both halves. Deathtouch plus menace forces two blockers into a trade neither wants; deathtouch plus lifelink means even a chump-block hands you a life swing alongside a dead defender. The engine hums when crimes are cheap and repeatable: each targeted removal spell, each pillage of an opposing graveyard, each pinger aimed across the table becomes a free rider that reshapes a combat step you were already entering. The governor is that the trigger goes dark on an empty board and on any turn you play entirely to your own side; the reward is tethered to aggression you were committing to regardless, which keeps the deathtouch body from ever spiraling into value on its own.