Bull Rush

One mana for +2/+0 at instant speed is a pump effect with no upside beyond raw damage: no toughness, no evasion, no trample to carry the boost over a blocker. The design lives entirely in the combat math. As a trick it is honest pressure, turning a chump block into a trade or pushing an unblocked attacker two points past a clock the opponent thought they had read. On defense it still only adds power, so it can help a blocker trade up or kill an attacker but never survive one. That narrowness is the whole calculus: pump spells that add toughness, or grant trample, or hedge against death triggers all ask the caster to weigh more variables, while this one resolves to a single question of whether two extra power closes the gap. It belongs to the long lineage of one-mana red combat tricks that trade flexibility for the cleanest possible rate, the spiritual cousins of effects that simply add power and walk away. The instant-speed window is the only leverage it offers: held up, it threatens the block that does not come, and the opponent has to respect a two-point swing they cannot see. Outside that combat step it is a dead card, which is exactly the trade red has always been willing to make for a spell this cheap.