Hidden Blade

Most Equipment demands a second activation before it does anything: you pay to cast it, then pay again to attach, a two-step tax that keeps it out of combat math on the turn it lands. This one folds the attach into an enters-the-battlefield trigger and prices the whole package at instant speed, collapsing that tax entirely. Cast it after blockers are declared and a creature it never touched a moment ago suddenly strikes first, killing before it can be killed. The conditional deathtouch is where the design shows its hand. Attach to any creature and you get a modest one-drop buff; attach to an Assassin and the entry trigger tacks deathtouch onto first strike, converting a single point of combat damage into a removal spell wearing a body. That gating is the lever: the same two mana buys either a fine trick or an assassination depending on what was on the board when it landed. The discipline is that the venom lives entirely on the entry trigger, not the equip ability. Move the blade to a fresh Assassin on a later turn and you get the +1/+0 and first strike but no deathtouch; the killing mode is a one-time reward for the turn it arrives. It is a compact lesson in how attachment timing, not the printed stat line, defines what an Equipment can do inside a combat step.