Rishadan Brigand

The whole Rishadan Pirate cycle ran on the same engine: an enters-the-battlefield tax that forces each opponent to either sacrifice a permanent or pay an awkward sum that does nothing for their board. What distinguishes this one is the price (three generic, the steepest in the cycle) and the body that carries it, a flying 3/2 that demands the tax twice over if it can be bounced and recast. The design is honest about its disadvantages: the creature can block only fliers, so it offers no defense on the ground, and at its cost the tax usually lands on a turn where opponents can afford to pay rather than bleed a permanent. That tension is the point. The cycle was built to punish tapped-out players and slow, resource-light openings, not to win attrition wars on its own. The pay-or-sacrifice template (later echoed by cards that ask for a Rhystic-style toll) reads as a soft Stone Rain that respects the opponent's right to keep their land if they have mana to spare. The flavor seals it: this is a pirate boarding a ship, extracting tribute or taking cargo, and the choice belongs to the victim. Read as a tempo-and-tax piece rather than a beater, the brigand is the most aggressive expression of an idea Mercadian Masques was unusually committed to, taxing opponents for the crime of having things.