Divebomber Griffin

The flier-as-deterrent, written in an era when white paid full freight for reaching into another creature. The body is fragile and the activation costs you the Griffin, but the design bends combat math in ways a vanilla 3/2 flier never could: tap, sacrifice, three damage to something already committed to combat. That timing window is the whole pivot. It does nothing at sorcery speed and answers nothing on an empty board; it punishes the opponent for swinging into it or for declaring a blocker, which makes it a threat held in reserve before it is ever a card-for-card trade. The five-mana price and the throwaway body mark an older philosophy, back when white's reach into other creatures came bundled with steep tax and self-destruction rather than the leaner conditional answers the color earns now. The Griffin's value sits entirely in patience: leave it untapped through combat, let the opponent commit a creature to attack or block, and the activation collapses on whatever they thought was safe. The longer it survives, the longer that threat looms over every attack step. The reward is three damage to a committed creature, paid for with a body the opponent may never get to trade with directly.