Zelyon Sword

A pump effect priced in tapped time rather than mana, and one of the era's clearest examples of a designer treating a card's own untap step as a resource. The +2/+0 lasts only as long as the Sword stays tapped, so the "may choose not to untap" clause is not a quirk: it is the entire cost structure. You pay three mana once to apply the bonus, then keep paying by leaving the artifact unavailable, turn after turn, for as long as you want the buff to persist. Releasing it (untapping during your next untap step) ends the boost. The result is a static-feeling enhancement built entirely out of activated-ability and untap-timing parts, decades before keyword shorthand for that kind of effect existed. The friction is real: a Sword locked into propping up one attacker cannot redirect to a blocker or pump a different threat without first surrendering the bonus and re-paying the three mana. That tension (commit the artifact to a creature, or keep it flexible) is the whole decision the card asks for, and it is why the rate reads cheaper than it plays. It is a fragile design, vulnerable to anything that untaps or removes the equipment-less buff target, but it is an honest one: a window into how early Magic encoded "ongoing effect" before the toolbox of counters and persistent keywords arrived to do that work more cleanly.