Young Wei Recruits
Black has always rented aggression at a discount, and the can't-block clause is the rent. A 2/2 for is unremarkable on rate: standard size, standard cost, nothing the curve hasn't seen since the earliest sets. What the printed text does is strip the half of the card that would have made it worth keeping at home. A vanilla 2/2 can trade in combat, hold a flier-free ground, or sit back while you develop. This one cannot. It is a pure forward investment, fine on the play and a liability on the draw, and the design pays for nothing extra: the body stays at rate while the defensive utility is simply deleted. The lineage runs through the broader stable of cheap "this can't block" beaters, where the trade is not power-for-drawback but flexibility-for-commitment. It is a clean expression of the rate-versus-utility axis that color identity is built on: red and black get the aggressive bodies cheap, and the cost is paid in options rather than mana. Nothing here is subtle, and that is the point. The card commits you to a plan (curve out, attack, never look back) and punishes any deck that wanted these two-drop slots to double as a wall.
