Sunhome Stalwart

The first striker that pays its team forward the instant it swings. The whole design hinges on a piece of combat math: first strike lets this attacker enter almost any early ground exchange without dying, so the Mentor trigger that fires when it swings is rarely a desperation gamble. You distribute the counter during declare-attackers, before blocks are even chosen, so a one-drop grows regardless of what the block step does to the Stalwart itself. First strike is the cheapest insurance white had for keeping the attacker alive to mentor again next turn. The restriction inside the keyword handles the balancing without any outside help: Mentor only finds an attacking creature with lesser power, so the engine wants a board of smaller bodies beneath it and stops cooperating the moment your creatures even out at the top. That is the tell for what the keyword was designed to reward, the first creature into the red zone rather than the last one out. Field two or three and the counters compound turn over turn, escalating a flat go-wide board without a single anthem in play. It is the clean two-mana shell for the mechanic: small, aggressive, and most dangerous in numbers.