Vow of Malice
Most pump auras are a private investment: you buff your own creature and reap the value. This one is built to be given away. The +2/+2 and intimidate are a bribe, the carrot you hand an opponent's creature to make the gift palatable, while the redirect clause does the actual work: the enchanted creature still swings freely, just never into you or your planeswalkers. It is a diplomatic instrument dressed as a buff, a card built for the multiplayer table where pointing a beefed-up beater at the rival across from you while you sit untouched is a real, repeatable line. The intimidate compounds the political math, since a creature you hand to the player on your left often arrives somewhere the seat beyond can barely block (it still answers to artifact creatures and to its own color, but those are gaps your neighbors may not have). One of a five-color cycle of Vows that each turn a creature into someone else's problem, the black entry leans hardest on evasion. The honesty of the design is in the asymmetry: the protection is single-target and only ever shelters you, while the gift is real and permanent. Nothing stops you from enchanting your own creature, but the card is plainly priced for the other use. You are spending three mana and a card to buy a turn or two of safety and a wedge between two other players, not to grow a board of your own.





