Ambush Viper

Green almost never gets to play removal at instant speed, which is precisely the gap this Snake fills. Flash and deathtouch on the same small body turn a creature into an ambush: hold up the mana, pass the turn, and let an opponent swing into open green mana, then drop it in the declare-attackers step to trade with anything they sent. The deathtouch makes the 2/1 frame irrelevant to the exchange; it kills the 6/6 just as dead as the 2/2, so the body's job is to die in combat while taking something larger with it. The design is a green concession dressed as a creature: rather than handing the color a true instant-speed kill spell (which would erode the color pie), it routes the same effect through a creature that has to physically block or be blocked. That constraint is what keeps it honest. It cannot pick off a creature at arm's length the way burn or a targeted removal spell would; it has to win a combat. The flash also lets it function as a surprise blocker or a flashed-in attacker when the deathtouch threat is enough to deter a block. It is the cleanest expression of green's "fight, don't shoot" removal philosophy, the same logic later compressed into bears that ambush on a wider scale.