Fanatical Fever

Four mana for +3/+0 and trample reads as a finisher on paper: hold it through combat, let a blocked attacker push the rest of its power through. The pricing is where it falls apart. Green has always given more for less in this lane, with Giant Growth handing over +3/+3 for a single mana, and the trample riders that came later kept the cost honest rather than inflating it. Strip away the trample clause and you are paying premium rates for a small power bump; the trample is the only part doing distinctive work, turning a creature into something that punishes chump blocks. The instant timing is supposed to be the saving grace (you wait for the surprise blowout), but a +3/+0 swing rarely repays the discount you forfeit by waiting. This is green pump from before the color's combat-trick math had settled, when designers were still guessing at how much an instant-speed swing should cost and tended to guess high. It survives as evidence of a mid-1990s instinct that overrated trample and underrated the raw efficiency green would eventually be trusted to keep.