Case of the Filched Falcon

The finisher hiding inside an artifact-count engine. The floor is a single blue mana buying a Clue, which is exactly the kind of noncreature permanent that pushes you toward the three-artifact threshold the Case wants to reach. The solved clause is where the design gets sharp. Rather than animating a fresh token or attacking directly, it targets a noncreature artifact, staples four +1/+1 counters onto it, and turns it into a 0/0 Bird with flying, which lands as a 4/4 flier. The counters live on a permanent that was never built to attack, so the effect sidesteps the sorcery-speed sweeper timing that catches ground creatures: the thing that was a Clue, a Treasure, or a piece of equipment is suddenly a clock in the air. And because the artifact keeps its other types and abilities, your Bird is still a Clue you can crack for a card or a Treasure you can tap for mana; the animation stacks a threat on top of the value rather than trading it away. The real cost is exposure. Promoting a value token turns your own fallback into a creature that dies to a Doom Blade it would otherwise have dodged, so the decision is not whether the counters are worth it but whether you can afford to make a durable artifact killable. It reads like a value engine and plays like a combat trick you set up two turns in advance.