Veteran Armorer

Toughness anthems are the road less traveled, and this 2/2 is a clean specimen of why. Most lord-style buffs pump power because power wins races and pushes through blockers; a flat +0/+1 does neither. What it does is harden a board of small creatures against damage-based removal and unfavorable combat: a grid of 2/2 soldiers becomes 2/3s that shrug off the symmetrical pings and one-toughness reach aggressive decks lean on, and survive trades that would otherwise be even. The wrinkle sits right in the wording: the bonus reads "other creatures," so the card that protects your team stays a vulnerable 2/2, the first thing an opponent picks off to collapse the whole effect. That asymmetry is what keeps the anthem in check, and it explains why toughness-pumpers have always been the quieter cousins of their power-boosting counterparts. The job is narrow and unglamorous: built for a white swarm that wants to weather attrition rather than hit harder, it turns a board that bleeds out to incidental damage into one that does not. Filler next to a flashier lord, yes, but filler that does a specific structural thing nothing in the power-pumping camp can replicate.