The sequencing is the whole evaluation: counters accrue only on creatures that enter after the squad is already on the battlefield, so the fantasy of building a board and dropping this as a payoff is dead on arrival. Cast on turn three into an established board, it is a 2/1 and grows only on what lands later. That single detail sorts which decks want it. RW Alliance, the home the format pushes hardest through cheap hybrid commons like Mechanized Ninja Cavalry and Foot Ninjas, treats the squad as a forward investment: land it early, then chain Sneak bodies and token-makers behind it, a counter per enter. Mono-white go-wide runs the same plan a half-turn slower. Mono-red beatdown mostly passes, because a 2/1 that needs future turns to matter is a tempo cost when Bot Bashing Time and racing math want damage now.
Pick it P1P5 to P1P7 in an open Boros seat, lower if the table is contesting the pair. It is genuinely ahead once three or four creatures have entered behind it, but the format's medium speed hands opponents the same window it hands you. Grounded for Life destroys the body before a single counter lands, paying full cost to do it but answering the threat clean while it is still a 2/1. Dimensional Exile is the sharper read: it strips every banked counter and exiles the permanent, the durable version of the bounce reset the design invites. The going floor on this card reads the rate honestly but underweights how reliably this set produces the cheap enters-the-battlefield density Alliance needs.
Maindeck in Boros, sideboard-or-cut in pure mono-red.
