Shadow Lance
A white Aura that hides its real cost in a black activation, this is built to enforce a two-color identity rather than offer generic combat utility. The first-strike grant is fixed white work that has existed since the earliest sets, and at one mana it makes for a serviceable-but-thin reason to risk a card on the board. The bottom line is where the design earns its place: a repeatable pump you can fire as many times as you have mana, turning the enchanted creature into a moving target that grows mid-combat. Stacking +2/+2 onto first strike is a pointed combination, because the buff resolves before damage and lets a small creature kill upward without taking anything back. Every Aura carries the same two-for-one exposure if the creature dies in response, and here the color split sharpens it: you spend white to set up an investment you can only cash in with black mana on the battlefield. That gating is the whole point. Rather than leave the first-strike grant as a colorless-feeling white trick, the card chains its payoff to a single guild's mana, so the deck that wants the upside has already committed to running both halves of the pair.

