Diversion Unit

Counterspell-on-a-stick is an old idea, but the wrinkle here is that the interaction lives entirely in an activated ability rather than in a card you cast off the top. This 2/1 flier sits on the battlefield chipping in evasive damage until an opponent tips their hand, then converts into a soft counter by paying one blue and eating itself. Two clocks fold into one card: an evasive attacker with a tempo tax held in reserve on its death. The Force Spike-style "unless its controller pays three" tail is where the deal stays honest. It is useful for taxing an early ramp spell, a removal spell aimed at your board, or a combo piece before the opponent can spare the mana, but it stops mattering once they can leave three untapped, so the design leans on that timing window: it wants to trade at a point where three extra mana is a real ask. The catch is that the ability needs a legal target on the stack to fire, so the counter mode is not something you can dump for value on an empty turn; if no instant or sorcery ever appears, the sacrifice simply never comes up and the card stays a flier. Restricting the ability to instant and sorcery spells is the constraint that pays for stapling a counter to a two-drop body: it cannot answer a threatening permanent, which is the tax a hard counter with legs would never accept.