Feat of Resistance

Two combat tricks bolted into one instant, and the counter is what makes it more durable than either piece alone. The +1/+1 counter is permanent, so even after the protection wears off at end of turn your creature stays bigger; that single counter turns what would be a fizzled trick into a lasting board advantage rather than card disadvantage. Protection from a color of your choice is the bigger lever, though, because it answers more than damage: removal that targets, an aura or equipment trying to neutralize the creature, a blocker of the wrong color, all turned away at once. Pick correctly against a known threat and the spell can blank a kill spell while also winning a combat step, the kind of two-for-one that fight-style and pure-pump tricks cannot reach. The cost of all this versatility is that it does nothing to a creature you do not already control: this is protection in the literal sense, a defensive instrument for a board you are already invested in, not a way to break open a stalled game from nothing. That narrows when it is live, but the payoff for being live is steep, and the choose-a-color clause means the same card answers an entirely different threat depending on what is pointed at you. It rewards reading the opponent's hand and holding up two mana rather than slamming a creature into the red zone blind.