Swooping Talon

Provoke usually wants a body that can absorb the swing-back, and a 2/6 is built for exactly that: send it into the defending player's biggest creature turn after turn and it rarely dies for it. The keyword already lets this Bird pick its fight rather than wait for whatever the opponent leaves open, untapping a chosen blocker and forcing it into combat. The wrinkle is the flying. Provoke can target any creature the defending player controls regardless of evasion, but a flier's chosen target cannot actually block it, so the "block if able" clause does nothing against a ground creature while the Bird is in the air. Paying to shed flying is what completes the lock: now the untapped creature is legal to block, and Provoke drags it into six toughness whether it wants the trade or not. You decide, swing by swing, whether to fly over a stalled board or wade into it to start a fight on the ground. The cost is the speed. At six mana with two power, this is a defensive engine that picks off attackers on the provoke far more reliably than it threatens lethal: a wall that occasionally decides to go pick a fight. Provoke was an early-era answer to how a low-power, high-toughness creature could matter on offense, and the toughness-heavy frame is the half of the design that pays for the keyword, letting the same blocker provoke repeatedly without trading down.