Skewer Slinger

Reach on a cheap red body already runs against expectation, but the punishing wrinkle is what earns the slot: any creature that runs into this one, or gets thrown in front of it, takes a point of damage on top of the combat exchange. The trigger fires the moment blocks are declared, before combat damage is dealt, so its one point stacks with the creature's own 1 power in the same fight. A two-toughness attacker that gets blocked eats two damage total and dies while this blocker, at 3 toughness, has room to survive. The trigger fires on either side of combat, so an aggressive pilot can swing in and pick off small defenders rather than just sitting back to punish incoming attacks. Against fliers the reach hands it targets it can actually tag; on the ground it taxes every creature the opponent points at it. This is defensive red in the tradition of walls that bite back rather than a burn creature: a body that reshapes the opponent's combat math instead of clearing a board. What keeps the effect contained is the trigger's shape: one point, once per combat per creature, so anything with three or more toughness shrugs off the exchange and lives. It reads as a creature but functions as a piece of combat control, built to make the attack step a calculation the other player would rather not run.