Crossbow Infantry
Untapped, repeatable damage on a body is one of the most dangerous templates in the game: Prodigal Sorcerer style "tim" effects let a single creature grind out any X/1 on the board at any moment, which is why they get costed and watched carefully. This archer keeps the body and the recurring ping but bolts it to the attack and block step, stripping out the menacing half. It cannot snipe mana dorks before they tap, cannot pick off a defenseless utility creature, and cannot reach across to chip the opponent's life total. The job is purely defensive and combat-shaping: it kills an attacking 1/1, finishes off something already wounded, or trades up by adding a point to a block. The 1/1 frame reinforces the role, since the fragile body is just a delivery vehicle for the activation. What the combat clause solves is a real design question: how do you give white a repeatable removal effect without handing it the same board-control engine that makes blue pingers so oppressive? Confining the damage to a fight is the answer, and that clause recurs in archers and defenders printed across white and green, where "tap to ping, but only when there's a fight" has stayed a deliberately humble corner of repeatable damage.







