Torch Slinger

Pay the base cost and a Goblin Shaman shows up with nothing else to say; pay the extra and the same creature arrives with two damage already aimed at a small body. The cleanliness lives in the intervening "if" baked into the enter trigger: the condition is checked the instant the creature resolves, so an unkicked Torch Slinger never triggers at all. The damage ability does not go on the stack, hunt for a target, and fizzle; it simply does not exist that turn, leaving a body with nothing to track. Kicked, the slot becomes a creature plus a two-damage shot, with the entire decision resolved at cast time rather than deferred. That is the structural appeal of stapling a burn spell to an enter trigger: one card answers two board states, trading up against an early aggressive curve when there is something worth shooting and just developing when there is not. The cost discipline is real. The kicked mode asks five mana total to land a 2/2 and deal two damage, a rate that only reads as fair because you are buying optionality rather than raw efficiency, and the two-damage ceiling caps what it can kill. This is a curve-smoother and a small-creature answer, never a removal centerpiece: a Goblin that refuses to commit to aggression or utility until the mana is actually on the table.