Sure Strike

The combat trick stripped to its two highest-leverage clauses: a power boost large enough to change what a blocker can survive, and first strike to make sure the boosted creature lands its damage before anything hits back. The +3/+0 is the part that does the math, turning a two-power attacker into a five-power threat that outscales most early blockers; first strike is what makes the exchange one-sided. Cast it in a block where the defender expects a clean trade, and the attacker resolves its damage first, killing the blocker without taking a scratch. That asymmetry explains why this pattern keeps getting reprinted: a pure power pump can still cost you the creature if both bodies die in the same combat-damage step, while pairing the buff with first strike removes that risk and turns a fair-looking block into a profitable one. Note the shape of the exchange, though: you spend a card to keep your creature and take theirs, a clean one-for-one rather than a blowout in raw card count. The value is in the tempo and the body you keep, not in trading up. The deckbuilding cost is real: it does nothing in hand if combat never develops, and leaving toughness untouched means targeted removal or a larger first-striker on the other side still answers the attacker cleanly. It rewards the player holding mana open during attacks and punishes an opponent who blocks assuming the math is symmetric.