Stormbound Geist

Undying turns a 2/2 flyer into a two-stage clock: kill it once and it returns larger, and only the second death sticks. The keyword quietly rewrites what counts as removal. A burn spell or a favorable block on the first body just resets it into a bigger threat; the answers that actually land are the ones that sidestep the death trigger entirely (exile, bounce) or, more precisely, the ones that put a +1/+1 counter on it before it dies so the return clause reads false. Note the exact wording: the keyword checks for the presence of a counter, not raw size, so temporary pumps and combat buffs do nothing to stop the loop. That lopsidedness is why undying reads as an aggressor's keyword rather than a defender's. The block restriction is the price the design pays for the resilience: a flyer that can only intercept other flyers is barely a blocker at all, so the card commits fully to offense and dares an opponent to spend two answers on one attacker.

It is worth setting against persist, undying's black-leaning cousin that returns shrunk instead of grown. Persist creatures bleed toward sacrifice loops and value engines; undying creatures get bigger and pressure the opponent into trading down. Here the keyword rides a bare evasive frame with nothing else attached, which is the point. The body is just a vehicle for the resilience, a recurring two-power threat in the air that asks a control deck to break even rather than profit on the first removal spell it draws.