Aerial Maneuver

The combat trick that wants to be a removal spell. The stat bump and the two keywords look generous bundled onto a two-mana instant, but none of them does much in isolation; the value lives in the timing window, not in any one rider. First strike is the load-bearing piece: your creature deals its damage before the blocker swings back, the +1/+1 nudges it across the threshold where that early damage is lethal, and the result is a trade flipped into a one-sided kill. Flying does its work the other way, at the moment attacks are declared: a flyer can be blocked only by flyers and reach, so granting the keyword to an attacker before blockers are chosen lets it sail past a ground wall entirely, turning the trick into evasion when the board has stalled. Sequencing decides which mode you get, and instant speed is what gives you the choice: cast it during your declare-attackers step to hand out flying before a ground creature can be assigned to stop it, or hold it until blocks are locked in and let first strike settle the defensive math. Grant flying too late, after a blocker has already been committed, and it does nothing to unstick a creature that has been stopped. That split makes this a tempo play wearing a pump spell's clothes. White has printed plenty of tricks that hand out one of these riders alone; stacking the stat bump, flying, and first strike at instant speed for this little mana is the kind of efficient, low-ceiling design that rounds out an aggressive curve without ever defining one.