Kjeldoran Elite Guard

The +2/+2 it hands out every combat would be a runaway rate for the era if it came free; instead the guard mortgages its own survival to pay for the swing. Boost a creature and the two are bound together for the turn: if that creature dies, gets bounced, or otherwise leaves play, the guard is sacrificed with it. That leash reshapes the math wherever the buff is spent. An opponent who kills the pumped attacker isn't trading one-for-one anymore; the removal spell cashes in two creatures, taking the engine down alongside its target. So the question becomes whether to commit the pump into open mana at all, knowing it widens the value an answer can extract. The "only during combat" restriction tightens the window further, preventing the ability from being tapped for incremental value outside the one phase where the +2/+2 actually changes a fight. The result is an early experiment in tying a permanent's life to the advantage it grants, a tension later combat enablers would revisit with cleaner templating but rarely this much exposure baked in.