Sunhome Enforcer

The lifegain trigger keys off combat damage dealt, not the body's raw power, which is why the firing ability matters so much. A 2/4 that gains two life on connection is a tax collector, not a clock; the pump turns each pair of mana into both a damage point and a life swing, so a fistful of mana late in the game converts a stalled board into a meaningful race. The toughness is what makes the aggression sustainable: a 2/4 trades up rather than dying to the first reasonable blocker, and the lifegain offsets the risk of repeatedly throwing it into combat. It reads as a midrange beater but plays as a mana sink, since in a deck flooding on lands every activation buys reach plus a life cushion against the mirror's own race (two mana for one extra point, the price that keeps it from running away with a game on raw firebreathing). The lineage runs through every later red-white creature that asks you to spend mana in combat for an escalating return, an early and unglamorous version of the "attack and get paid" idea that arrived in force later. It was built when the guild was still defining what it meant to win by hitting things efficiently: a creature that wants combat to happen and rewards you twice for it, with a durable enough rear to survive the blocks it provokes.