Ceremonial Guard

A 3/4 body for three mana is a fine rate; the catch is that you only get to use it once. The self-destruct clause turns what looks like a sturdy midrange beater into a single-use threat: swing or chump, and the Guard is gone before the turn ends. The design logic is a defender that bluffs as an attacker. Opponents have to respect a 3/4 in front of them, but the moment it commits to combat in either direction, the clock starts. It will block one big creature and trade up, or push one attack through, and then it is fuel for nothing in particular (no sacrifice payoff is baked in, just a body that expires). This is the era of Mercadian Masques pricing aggression carefully, where Wizards was still willing to staple hard drawbacks onto otherwise-overstatted creatures rather than charge more mana. The Guard is the conservative version of that bargain: the stats are real, but the card is engineered to leave the board after a single decision, which keeps it from ever becoming a recurring problem. What you are buying is one good combat step, dressed up as a wall.