Searing Light

Two conditions stack here, and they point at the same prey. The creature has to be in combat, attacking or blocking, and its power has to be 2 or less: together they aim the card squarely at the small, fast threats that race white and the chump blockers that try to slow white's own advance. As a one-mana instant, it answers them at the precise moment they commit, after the attack is declared but before damage, so a defender gets removal that doubles as a combat trick and an attacker gets to clear a blocker mid-swing. What it cannot touch is the thing white most wants help against: a large creature sitting back untapped and uncommitted never enters the window. That is the trade the cheap rate buys. This belongs to white's long-running template of conditional efficiency, the same logic behind removal that only reaches attackers or blockers rather than anything on the board. The power ceiling denies it a clean kill on real threats; the combat requirement denies it proactive use against a passive board. What is left is a tightly scoped tempo answer for a deck already winning the ground war and needing only to punch one hole through it.