Daru Lancer

A 3/4 first striker at six mana is a body no white deck would buy face up, and the entire wager lives in the morph line. Cast hidden for , it sits on the board as anonymous defense until the controller pays mid-combat and the body gains toughness and first strike in the same beat. That is morph's whole proposition compressed into one creature: a generic blocker or attacker first, a delayed combat lie second, with the timing of the reveal kept entirely in the controller's hands. First strike is the punchline that punishes a wrong guess, since an opponent who blocks or attacks into the unflipped creature is committing against a 2/2 and discovering a 3/4 that deals its damage before theirs lands. The flipped creature is unremarkable on its own (a defensive 3/4 first striker is no clock), but the face-down option reframes it as a question the opponent has to answer before they know what they are answering. It is a representative read on how this early era priced its combat surprises: cheap to deploy blind, paid in full only when the unmorph actually earns the mana.