Unworthy Dead

Regeneration on a body this cheap is the kind of common Wizards printed by the handful in late-90s sets: a creature whose entire value proposition is refusing to die, asking only black mana to keep standing back up. The Phyrexian Skeleton template is the design archetype here, a deliberate riff on the old Drudge Skeletons mold that traces back to the earliest sets. The trade it offers is friction against attrition: chump-block forever, hold a ground stall, or sit in front of an attacker that costs more to remove permanently than the skeleton costs to recur. The ceiling is fixed by the floor, though, because regeneration shields against damage and destruction but does nothing against exile, sacrifice effects, or being bounced, and a regenerating 1/1 contributes nothing to the board it cannot already block. That narrow window is exactly what kept cards like this at common: a resilient speed bump that asks for mana every turn it wants to survive, never a threat, only a wall that refuses to fall over.