Skittish Kavu

Hate cards rarely carry their own flavor as cleanly as this one. The color-wheel grudge of red against its traditional rivals, the colors of order and control, gets literalized in this Kavu's body. It is a 1/1 that becomes a 2/2, with the +1/+1 active so long as no opponent has a white or blue creature on the battlefield, and the bonus evaporates the moment such a creature lands across from you. Note the precise wording: the check is for an actual white or blue creature in play, not the opponent's deck colors, so a control player with an empty board leaves the bonus intact while a single blocker shrinks the Kavu back to a 1/1. That is the unusual axis: a conditional pump keyed entirely to a creature the opponent controls rather than your own board or graveyard, which is where most stat-modifiers of the era looked. The Kavu swings between relevant and embarrassing on a matchup variable you have no way to control. As a deckbuilding piece it was never the draw; the flavor was. The mechanic exists to remind you, in the most literal terms the rules can supply, that the Kavu of Dominaria spook at the sight of their planes' methodical invaders, and that a red creature's confidence depends on who is standing opposite it.