Swift Kick

Fight removal lives or dies by the math, and the +1/+0 here is the thumb on the scale: it pushes your creature's power up one point, just enough to clear the toughness of whatever you're punching, so a creature that would otherwise bounce off comes out the other side as a kill. It does nothing for your own toughness; you still take the full counterpunch, and a fragile attacker can die in the exchange. What it buys is the swing in damage dealt, not survivability. The instant speed is where the card earns its keep. Most fight effects of its era were sorcery-speed, forcing you to commit on your own turn against a board already laid out; this one waits, ambushing an attacker mid-combat, finishing a creature the opponent just pumped, or answering a trick with a point of your own at the last possible moment. The cost is heavy for two-sided removal that still demands a creature on your side to throw the punch, which is why cleaner red answers always crowded it out. But the structure is honest about red's bargain: it does not get unconditional kill spells, so it pays for removal in combat math and board investment. Swift Kick is that deal in miniature, a fight spell that hands you exactly one extra point of power at the instant you need it to win the trade.