Stonehorn Chanter

Six mana for a 4/4 buys almost nothing on rate, which is the point: the printed body is a placeholder for the activated ability, and that ability is the card. What you pay for is a way to convert a flooded board into a repeatable engine of vigilance and lifelink, re-purchased each combat because the grant lasts only through the turn it is paid for. That recurring tax is what holds the design in check, and the activation cost is exactly the casting cost: to play the creature, then again every turn you want it live. So the card sits idle while the game is still being raced and only turns on once the board has stalled and your mana has nowhere better to go. The vigilance clause is the quieter half but the structurally telling one. Stapled to lifelink, every swing both inflates your life total and leaves the attacker upright to block, so a single creature presses the offense and guards the ground on the same turn. That is a profile cut for the long attrition fight, where outlasting the opponent matters more than the speed of the clock, and it belongs to a long line of midrange white creatures whose value is measured not in the turn they land but in every turn after, when leftover mana finally has somewhere to spend itself.