Troyan, Gutsy Explorer

Ramp with a leash: the two mana this taps for cannot buy anything under five mana value, unless that cheaper spell has an in its cost. That gate is the whole design, because it aims the acceleration at exactly two kinds of payoff. This is not a mana dork for curving out a turn early; it is a fixer for the top of the curve, a Vedalken pointed at the giant X-spells and the seven-drops that green-blue decks are built to eventually cast. Left alone, a Sol Ring or a Signet accelerates everything indiscriminately; here the mana comes stapled to a condition that keeps it from smoothing out an aggressive early game. The second ability is why the body earns its slot on turns when the ramp has nothing to point at: a repeatable loot that keeps the card doing work once your hand is empty of the fat payoffs it was built to enable, and that quietly fuels graveyard synergies and pitch effects along the way. A 1/3 that lives through most early removal, holds a blocker's ground, and never sits dead: the constraint on the ramp is paid back by a card-selection engine that always has a job.