Cloudskate

Fading was the cleaner sequel to cumulative upkeep: a creature that quietly counts itself down instead of taxing your mana, gone after a fixed number of turns whether you like it or not. The math is generous on its face. Three fade counters means a fade counter comes off at the beginning of each of your upkeeps, and the creature is sacrificed only on the upkeep when none remain to remove. That schedule buys you more swings than the counter total suggests: the body survives the turn its last counter comes off and attacks once more before the sacrifice clause fires. So the printed flying clock is really a fixed lease, an aggressive evasive body rented rather than owned, priced down to acknowledge that the term runs out on a timetable the opponent can simply outlast. That tension is the entire design point of the keyword: Fading let Wizards push a cheap evasive threat without handing you a permanent one, the temporary-creature dial that later mechanics like suspend would keep twisting. As a piece of the Illusion lineage it fits the pattern too, blue's fragile, here-and-then-not creatures wearing their impermanence as a mechanic rather than a flavor note.