Aven Surveyor

A 2/2 flier at this cost reads ancient, but the modal choice is doing the real work: the card asks which half of a tempo play the board actually needs. The bounce mode resets a target creature's summoning triggers and buys a turn against a developing position; the counter mode turns the body into a 3/3 that keeps applying pressure when there is nothing worth returning. That choose-one frame puts it in the lineage of blue creatures built to staple a soft removal effect to an evasive body, the line Aether Adept handled at three mana with a flat bounce trigger. Stapling the same effect onto a five-mana flier and making it optional is the trade: more board presence, a fallback when bounce is dead, and a worse rate on the bounce itself. The asymmetry between the two halves is what dates the design more than the converted cost does. Against a real threat the bounce is what you want; against an empty board the counter at least makes the turn do something instead of nothing. It is a serviceable midrange flier from an era when modal value creatures were expected to fill the back half of the curve, asking only that a flying body plus a sometimes-relevant tempo swing was a fair use of a midgame turn.