Tenderize

Functionally Master's Rebuke. The set around it is the only variable, and it cooperates. TMT is a medium-speed midrange format where the common removal suite is decent but not deep, and most of the threats that matter are two-color legendary uncommons and the occasional mythic Turtle or Shredder, Unrelenting. A two-mana instant that points a green creature at any of them, without taking return damage, is the cleanest answer green has here.

The asymmetric clause is what makes it travel. Green's commons land on standard 2/2 and 2/3 bodies, which is exactly enough power to kill the things you need to kill, and Equipment like Bespoke Bō and Novel Nunchaku raise the ceiling on what counts as a target. Sneak is the format's defining keyword across 59 cards, so a lot of combat math already happens at instant speed; holding up two for this fits the way the format wants to be played. The deathtouch commons stretch the range further still, turning small bodies into answers to the largest legends.

Early pick in any green seat, with the BG food shell and the GU tempo pair the happiest homes. Draftsim's 6 reads it as clean and downside-free; the higher 8 reads are closer to right in a format this thin on premium green removal.

Functionally Rocky Rebuke, the green asymmetric fight whose read the card page already settles. In a singleton format the one thing a reprint changes is the count of legal copies in the pool: a green creature deck that wanted this cheap instant-speed fight can now run both Tenderize and Rocky Rebuke, two near-identical effects where before there was room for only one. Whether that redundancy is worth a second slot is the entire question, and the original's profile answers it unchanged. The decks already pointing a creature at things want the effect, the spot-removal-as-a-fight slot is real, and doubling up is a reasonable way to add removal density to a board-centric green build. Skip it where you were never going to have a creature to point.

Functionally Rocky Rebuke. The whole evaluation carries over: a two-mana instant-speed fight variant with the power-only, no-return-damage clause that makes it strong on a winning board and dead on an empty one.

Modern does nothing special with it. The format has had access to cleaner green removal and to fight effects with better floors for years, and this asymmetric clause still asks you to already have a creature worth pointing. It is legal but has yet to register in tracked tournament play, which is the expected outcome for a fight spell that competes with unconditional answers in a format this fast. The deck that wanted Rocky Rebuke wants this; nothing in Modern made that deck.

Functionally Rocky Rebuke, the asymmetric instant-speed fight that rewards a board you are already winning and does nothing when you are behind. Standard does not disturb that read. The catch in the format is that green's best creatures rarely need the help, and the decks that would want a cheap removal-adjacent instant tend to prefer something that works when the table is empty. So it stays at the fringe, the kind of card that surfaces only in a creature-heavy build expecting to win the ground and wanting a clean trade through a blocker, or a way to push a deathtouch attacker into something larger. Even those decks reach for it rarely, and almost never in volume. The reprint adds a copy to the pool and changes nothing about who picks it up.

Functionally Rocky Rebuke: the same two-mana green fight variant, your creature dealing damage equal to its power with no return swing, at instant speed. The whole settled read carries over. The power-only clause rewards a developed board and does nothing on an empty one, the instant speed turns a block or an attack into open mana, and a deathtouch creature trades up for anything regardless of its own size.

Pioneer adds nothing to that. It is legal and has yet to register in tracked tournament play this season, which is the expected place for a green combat trick that needs a creature already on the table and still competes with the format's deeper, unconditional removal. Whatever green deck wanted the original wants this; the rest of the format reaches past it. The reprint puts another copy in the pool and changes nothing else.

Functionally Rocky Rebuke. The fight-variant math does not change in Pauper, but the format does the card no favors: green's commons-only fight spells live or die on the board state behind them, and Pauper's green decks have not historically been the ones building the early, power-forward board this wants. It is legal and unregistered in tracked tournament play so far, which tracks with the available alternatives. As a green answer to the format's small attackers and pingers, the power-only clause is the friction: it asks for a developed board to point at anything meaningful, and the green-based shells that could maindeck it tend to want their two-drops doing something other than holding up a combat trick that whiffs when they are behind. If a power-dense green aggro deck does materialize, this is a clean removal piece for it; in the current pool it is a sideboard-adjacent consideration rather than a card any established list is asking for.

Functionally Rocky Rebuke, the asymmetric fight that has become green's preferred shape: your creature deals its power, theirs does not answer back. Nothing about Vintage changes the settled read. A two-mana fight variant lives or dies on whether you already control the board, and in a format defined by fast combo, Workshop prison pieces, and free interaction, "spend two mana and a creature to win a fight you were already winning" is not a question Vintage is asking. It is legal and has yet to register in tracked play, which is what you would expect. The card belongs to the Limited and Pioneer-creature-deck conversation, where being ahead on board is a real state; here the same copy enters the pool and the decks that wanted the original still do not exist.

Functionally Rocky Rebuke. The green fight-variant family is well understood: your creature hits theirs, no return damage, and the power-only clause means it is removal when you are ahead and a dead card when you are not. Legacy does nothing to change that math, and it changes nothing about where the card lives, which is nowhere in this format. Legal, but it has yet to register in tracked tournament play, and that is the expected result rather than an oversight. Green's fight spells compete with a removal suite Legacy decks have no reason to downgrade: the format already runs unconditional answers that do not ask you to win a board first. A two-mana effect gated behind a creature you must already be beating with is too much friction at this power level. The deck that wanted Rocky Rebuke does not exist here, so this adds a copy to the pool and not much else.