Ravager Wurm

Riot resolves the oldest tension in a beefy Gruul midrange creature: do you want it to hit now, or hit harder later? A +1/+1 counter turns the body into a 5/6 that fights up the curve; haste sends the 4/5 in immediately, and if the enters-the-battlefield fight is pointed at something small, that damage arrives the same turn. The counter mode also makes the fight better, since a bigger power means it can pick off a larger blocker and survive. That modularity is the whole appeal, but the destroy-a-land clause is what gives the card teeth against decks that never present a fight target. Choosing to blow up a land with an activated ability that isn't a mana ability is a narrow, deliberate hoser: it answers creature-lands, cycling utility lands, and the value-engine lands that fair decks lean on, while pointedly leaving basics and mana rocks alone. Most Gruul beaters ask a single question. This one arrives with a body sized to your tempo, a removal spell stapled to the front, and a land-destruction option held in reserve for the games where the first two do nothing. The "up to one" wording matters too: against an empty board it simply comes down as a hasty or oversized creature and gets to work, no wasted trigger, no fizzle. A midrange threat that refuses to be a dead card is a rarer thing than the rate suggests.