Ignoble Soldier

Three power for three mana reads like a fair beater until the conditional bites: the instant a blocker steps in front, every point this creature would deal that turn evaporates. The intent is pure offense with a defender's hand on the throttle. On the attack, the opponent decides whether the 3/1 connects simply by interposing a body, and because the prevention zeroes out all of its combat damage, that body does not need to be sturdy. A 1/1 chump walks away untouched and still puts its single point back into the Soldier, killing it outright while the attack is neutralized for next to nothing. The leash is one-directional, though: it keys off becoming blocked, which can only happen while attacking, so on defense this is an ordinary 3/1 that lands its full three damage on whatever it stops. The design is an early, blunt take on a template later sets refined many times over: the cheap attacker shackled by a combat restriction. Subsequent versions learned to soften the lock, handing the creature evasion to dodge the trigger entirely or letting the penalty lapse once the attack resolves. Here the restriction is total and permanent, a record of how completely one conditional can hollow out an otherwise serviceable rate, and of how cheaply a defender can answer a clock they fully control.