Swift Justice

Three pieces of combat math stacked onto a single white mana, and the bundle is more lethal than the +1/+0 admits. First strike means your creature deals its damage before the blocker swings back, so the lifelink gains you life on damage the attacker is now guaranteed to land; pairing the two turns a routine combat trick into a one-sided exchange where you take nothing and gain everything the creature hits for. Against a larger blocker it lets a smaller body trade up or survive outright, since the first-strike damage can finish the defender before it ever connects. The instant timing is doing the work that makes the trick honest: it commits no information until blocks are declared, so the opponent has to attack or block into the threat of it rather than play around a visible buff. It is a narrow card by construction, a one-shot edge with no value outside a contested combat step, but the design packs the two riders that most reward a fight (immunity to retaliation and a life swing) into the cheapest possible shell, with the point of power tipping the damage race in the attacker's favor. The lineage here is the pump-and-keyword combat instant that white has printed in many shapes; this one's distinction is how cleanly first strike and lifelink reinforce each other rather than sitting side by side as separate riders.