Aspect of Manticore

The flash clause is what turns a cheap pump enchantment into a combat trick with a residue. Most Auras ask you to commit mana on your own turn and pray the enchanted creature survives to matter; this one arrives during combat, hands the blocker or attacker first strike and a two-point swing in power, and then stays behind as a permanent buff rather than evaporating the way an instant would. That split personality is the design idea: it wants to be read as a trick in the moment (ambush a bigger creature, blow out an attack) while functioning as an anthem-of-one afterward, so the card recoups its value even when the immediate combat fizzles. The cost of that permanence is Aura-shaped fragility. Because it enchants a specific creature, a removal spell in response to the trigger eats both the Aura and your mana, and the two-for-one exposure is the friction the flash speed is paying down. First strike is the effect doing the heaviest lifting here: paired with the +2/+0, it lets a modest body kill something it could never trade with at sorcery speed, and the enchanted creature keeps the boosted stats for the rest of your assaults that turn. It sits in a long line of red combat-trick Auras that try to justify the card disadvantage of a targeted enchantment by front-loading a surprise, and the instant-speed window is the whole justification.