Divine Deflection

White's prevention spells usually close the transaction with damage simply not happening: a fog absorbs the swing, a shield blanks the burn, and the turn moves on with no return address. This one keeps a ledger. The X damage you stop does not evaporate; the spell tallies exactly how much it prevented and then, as a fresh instance of damage from Divine Deflection itself, sends that amount at a target of your choosing. The distinction matters. This is not redirection, so the counterpunch carries none of the original attacker's coloring: the damage's source is Divine Deflection, a white spell, so it will not trigger lifelink on the creature you blocked, and nothing keyed to that original source comes along for the ride. (Protection from white still applies, since the spell and its damage are both white.) The scaling X means the payoff is only ever as large as the incoming attack, so it answers an alpha strike with force sized to that alpha strike. The prevention covers you and your permanents collectively, which matters during a multi-attacker swing, while the return clause cares only about how much you actually stopped, so the damage dealt is always honest to what landed. It resolves white's chronic weakness with reactive prevention: surviving normally leaves the defender down a card with nothing to show for it. Folding shield and counterpunch into one instant lets a defensive color mine tempo from being attacked. The cost is dependency: with no incoming damage to prevent, there is nothing to deal, so the spell lives entirely inside a hostile combat step or a burn spell on the stack.