Zealous Strike
Two mana for a combat trick that does two jobs in one card: it pumps the body big enough to win a fight outright, then layers first strike on top so the creature wearing it clears the opposition before taking any damage back. That stacking is the whole calculation. A naked +2/+2 trick still trades when both creatures die; first strike converts the same boost into a clean kill against anything with toughness three or less and into a lopsided exchange against most everything bigger. The price of that ceiling is the standard one for white instants in this band: it needs a creature already on the board to wear it, it telegraphs at instant speed, and it evaporates at end of turn. This is the conservative version of the white aggressive pump effect, the kind that forgoes a protection or lifegain rider in favor of raw efficiency and the first-strike kill. It rewards a board state where your two-power creatures need to punch through a wall, or where you have a blocker waiting and want it to eat the incoming attacker outright rather than chump it.


