Impeccable Timing

The restriction is the whole design: three damage, but only to a creature that has already committed to combat. White rarely gets clean removal at instant speed, so the price of efficiency here is a timing window. You cannot pre-empt a threat or kill a blocker before it is declared; you wait until the creature is tapped into an attack or tied up on defense, then punish it. That makes this a reactive trick rather than point removal, closer in spirit to a combat-step pump-and-burn than to a spell that answers anything on board. Three damage clears most early aggressors and the bulk of midrange bodies, but the attacking-or-blocking clause means a player holding it is betting on combat actually happening: against an opponent who never sends creatures into the red zone, it sits dead in hand. That is the trade white common-rarity removal of this stripe has always made, trading unconditional reach for combat-only efficiency. The card asks its pilot to read the board well enough to know the attack or block is coming before spending the mana, then rewards a correct read with a blowout: an unfavorable block turned lethal, an overconfident swing punished. It is a trick that lives entirely in combat math, which is exactly why it is priced the way it is.