Extremis Elite

Power-up is a once-per-object investment mechanic, and this 2/2 spends its single activation on the cleanest possible payload: two counters and a point of damage, aimed anywhere. The design tension lives in the cost-reduction clause, which quietly inverts how you sequence the card. Deploy the body on an early turn and the counters look tempting, but you cannot easily afford the activation until later, so you end up sinking a full five mana into nudging a small creature toward relevance. The efficient line is the patient one: hold the creature in hand until you can cast and activate in the same turn, since entering that turn shaves the ability down by the body's own casting cost. That is the wrinkle the whole card is built around. It rewards waiting over rushing the 2/2 onto an empty board, folding deployment and growth into a single tempo swing instead of two disconnected turns. The damage-to-any-target rider gives the power-up somewhere to land even when the board is stalled, doubling as removal or reach so the upgrade always has a job. What separates this from an ordinary counter-creature is that the effect fires exactly once and is spent: no repeatable engine, no incremental drip, just a single pump-and-ping you either sequence correctly or waste. Spend the activation early and there is nothing left to spend; the reward belongs entirely to the player who waits for the discounted turn.