Farrel's Zealot

A small white creature that fights at first-strike range without first strike. The trick is in the trigger condition: the damage only fires if the Zealot connects unblocked, which turns it into a question the defending player has to answer in the declare-blockers step. Leave it open and it can pick off a creature for free; block it and you trade a blocker for a 2/2 that does nothing, since the ability is the alternative to its combat damage, not a bonus on top of it. That clause (deal 3 to a creature, but assign no combat damage if you do) is what keeps a three-mana 2/2 from being a repeatable removal engine. You get the kill or the body, never both in the same swing, and the opponent gets to decide which by choosing whether to commit a blocker. It reads as a combat puzzle rather than a stat line: a card whose entire value lives in the gap between an open attack and a contested one. Subtle, slow, and very much of its era, when white's aggressive creatures were priced to ask these kinds of yes-or-no combat questions rather than simply outclass a board.