Armor of Shadows

The design puzzle of an instant-speed protection spell is that the printed rate always looks trivial next to what it does. One black mana at sorcery speed would be filler; at instant speed it folds a combat answer and a removal answer into one card. Point it at your creature in response to a burn spell or a "destroy target creature" removal spell, and the threat survives; point it at your attacker before damage and the +1/+0 nudge can turn a mutual trade into a one-sided one, since indestructible ignores lethal combat damage. The narrowness is the balancing element: indestructible does nothing against exile, bounce, -X/-X, or a sacrifice edict, so the card covers exactly one class of destruction and one line of combat math, and asks you to read the board correctly before committing the mana. It is the kind of small, exact effect black rarely gets in a single-target instant, where the color's protection usually comes stapled to regeneration or a life payment. Here the shielding is clean and the cost is minimal, which loads the entire weight of the card onto timing: held up, it is a bluff and a blowout; spent early, it is a wasted card.