Gallant Strike

The toughness gate inverts the usual profile of white removal. Most of white's cheap conditional answers key off aggression, keying to attacking, blocking, or converted mana cost, and they punish the beatdown: this one draws its line at the body's own resilience instead, killing the big blockers and midrange threats that white's small creatures cannot fight through while leaving the fast one- and two-toughness aggressors untouched. That makes it worst against the deck most white removal is best against, structured instead to crack open a stalled board or drag a fatty out of a race. Pairing that narrow window with cycling is what keeps the printing honest. A two-mana unconditional kill spell would be a staple; a two-mana kill spell that only answers half the board would be a liability without an escape hatch. Cycling for two is the hatch: against a low-curve opponent where the toughness restriction bites hardest, the card that would rot in hand becomes a fresh draw instead. The base rate can stay aggressive precisely because the dead-draw floor is covered, so the card never asks to be mulliganed around.