Bomb Squad

A timer you build by hand, one tap at a time. The fuse mechanic is delayed-blast removal wrapped in a 1/1 body: tap once to mark a creature, then watch the upkeep trigger compound the count every turn until it crosses four and the thing detonates, billing its controller four life on the way out. The catch is the math. A single tap puts one counter on; the upkeep clause then adds one to every fused creature, so a freshly marked target is three full turns from dying, and the Dwarf doing the marking dies to anything that breathes on a 1/1. Faster removal kills the target before the fuse burns down, or kills the Squad before it ever finishes the job. The timer is fragile in a way the four-damage payoff makes plain: if the marked creature leaves the battlefield first, by sacrifice, bounce, or combat death, the counters vanish with it and the detonation never happens. The backlash only fires when the fuse runs all the way to four on a living creature. This is red answering the old "removal must be permission-free" problem with patience instead of mana efficiency, a destroy effect that asks for time rather than tempo, and that trade has kept it a curiosity. It rewards fusing several creatures at once and letting the upkeep do the accounting, which is a slow plan in a color built to end games before slow plans pay off.