Underdark Basilisk

Two mana buys a green deathtoucher that no attacker wants to run into, and that deterrence is the entire pitch: a 1/2 body priced low enough that it costs almost nothing to leave sitting in the way, taxing every attack step the opponent considers. Deathtouch on a small green creature is one of Magic's oldest fair-fight equalizers, the mechanic that lets a common-rarity blocker threaten a dragon, and this is that idea at its most stripped-down. The 1/2 toughness matters more than the power line suggests: it survives a single point of damage, so it doesn't fold to incidental pings the way a 1/1 deathtoucher would. But the deterrence is a bluff the board can call. As a 1/2, it dies the moment it trades with anything that has two or more power, so it deters attacks all game without being able to physically block all game; once it engages, it's gone. What it lacks is any way to force the trade on its own. Without a fight effect or a ping to pair the deathtouch with, it waits for combat to come to it, a defensive floor rather than a threat. It's the kind of card that shapes an opponent's math from across the table more than it shapes the battlefield itself.