Roterothopter

A pet rock with wings and a money sink bolted on. The chassis is a one-mana 0/2 flier, a body that blocks small evasive threats and trades with almost nothing, and the pump asks two mana per point of power while capping at two activations a turn. Do the arithmetic and the ceiling is a 2/2 flier for one mana plus four mana invested, paid out in increments, at a rate of return that no era of play has found a use for. The card predates the design instinct that prices activated abilities against the tempo they cost: the mana to make this thing threatening is mana you are not spending on anything that closes a game faster. The two-activation cap reads as a balancing reflex with no problem to balance, since nobody was going to sink unlimited mana into a 0/2 regardless. It survives as a specimen of the stretch when Wizards was still calibrating how much a body and a colorless pump engine were actually worth, and landing well under the line.