Advanced Hoverguard

The activation gives shroud to the creature without targeting it, which is the precise design choice that makes the protection clean: a flyer that can step out from under a removal spell already on the stack, but only by spending blue mana you might rather hold for a counterspell. That tension is the conceit. The 2/2 body does little on its own, but in a deck looking to win on the back of a single evasive threat, the ability turns it into a clock that refuses to die to spot removal. The wrinkle is that shroud cuts both ways: it stops every targeted spell, friend or foe, until end of turn, so the moment you protect it you also lock yourself out of your own combat tricks and pumps for the rest of the turn. Auras already attached stay put (shroud only prevents new targeting, not what is resolved), but you cannot add anything once the shield is up. This is the blue evader that defends itself rather than leaning on countermagic to clear the path: the kind of design that asks whether you would rather answer your opponent's removal or just make it whiff. At for a 2/2, it pays for that resilience in raw stats; the question it poses is whether a threat that protects itself is worth a body that does so little else.