Blessed Defiance

Most combat tricks are a straight gamble: you spend the card to win a fight, and if the opponent has removal in response, you have thrown two cards into their one. This one hedges that gamble with a delayed trigger. The +2/+0 and lifelink do the ordinary work of pushing a trade or squeezing life out of the swing, but the reward for losing the buffed creature is the interesting wrinkle: because the token fires only when the pumped creature dies during the turn, sequencing matters. Cast it precombat and the buff has to resolve first, so a removal answer thrown afterward still hands you the flier when the creature eventually dies. That clause answers a trick's oldest weakness: normally the card evaporates the instant the target is gone, but here a target that outlives the spell and then dies in combat or to later removal converts into an evasive 1/1 you keep. The lifelink and the flier both serve the aggressive plan: a board that goes wide wants reach to close over a stalled front, and a Spirit going over the top is often worth more than the two power ever was on the ground. The hole to respect is the fizzle case, where an opponent kills the target before the buff resolves; there the trick dies with it, and no token follows.