Angel of Retribution

A finisher with no second clause: a 5/5 flyer with first strike, and the transaction ends there. No enters-the-battlefield trigger, no activated ability, no protection. What seven mana buys is a body that wins the air and survives most combat it picks, and that is the entire deal. It belongs to the long line of French-vanilla Angels stretching back to Serra Angel, which set the template of a white flyer with a single keyword stapled on. But where Serra Angel offered vigilance to attack and hold the ground at once, this trades that flexibility for first strike, an aggressive choice the cost never quite earns: first strike only matters when the Angel is in combat with another creature, so it pays off against an opposing flyer or a desperate chump, and contributes nothing the many turns this attacks into empty skies. It reads as a curve-topper for a white creature deck that arrived alongside little interest in supporting one. The Angel name and the wings have kept it in casual circulation, but as a design it is honest about being nothing more than its keywords: a clean, unremarkable finisher from an era when seven mana still bought you a creature that did nothing the turn it landed.