Sorin of House Markov // Sorin, Ravenous Neonate

Most transforming creatures flip on a timing trigger you can plan around: nightfall, a mana threshold, a saga chapter counting down. This one flips on a resource you have to generate, and the front face is engineered to generate it. The 1/4 body with lifelink and extort is not a clock; it is a lifegain machine bolted to a transform condition, and the postcombat check for three or more life gained the turn is the toll you pay to unlock the planeswalker. Lifelink handles combat, extort taxes every spell you cast into an opponent's life total, and the moment those add up to three the front face retires and Sorin arrives with loyalty and a minus ability that reads the same total you just used to flip him: damage equal to life gained this turn. That is the tidy part of the design. The card wants you to be gaining life anyway, then rewards a big life-swing turn twice, once to transform and again to point the accumulated total at a face or a blocker. The Food token from the plus is not filler either; it is a slow, repeatable path back to the three-life threshold on the front half's own terms if you replay him, and a lifegain hook worth building an entire deck around. A vampire lord's worth of design compressed into a two-drop that has to earn its second half every time.