Hooded Brawler

The 3/2 body is the honest part; the exert clause is where the math gets interesting. Attack normally and you have a fair green two-drop's worth of stats for one more mana. Choose to exert as it swings and the creature reads as a 5/4 that turn, but the bill comes due on your next untap step: it stays tapped through a full turn of your opponent's attacks. That is the whole transaction, a self-contained tempo loan that trades a defensive turn for a burst of damage now, and this card states the deal as plainly as the mechanic ever does: no triggers to set up, no counters to track, just a yes-or-no question asked once per combat. What makes the choice live rather than automatic is that the downside is real. A creature you exert cannot block, cannot ambush, cannot chump while it sits tapped, so the +2/+2 only pays off while you hold the initiative and mean to keep swinging. In a race it is free value; against a board you need to survive, it is a trap you set for yourself. The design reads as a deliberately legible teaching card for the mechanic: a clean rate, an unambiguous cost, and a decision that punishes exerting on reflex.