Frilled Sparkshooter

The counter here isn't a build-around; it's a rider on the exact behavior a menace archer already wants. A 3/3 with menace pressures the board, but the +1/+1 counter only lands when an opponent has already bled that turn, so the card is at its best sequenced after your other threats have connected, not opening the assault. That ordering is the point: the body that closes a game arrives once the aggro deck is already ahead, so the reward compounds a lead rather than manufacturing one. Reach is the quieter half of the package, letting a lizard that reads as pure ground beatdown also patrol the air, which matters more in a color that historically pays a premium for interaction with fliers. Menace and reach together give it two jobs on defense and offense without asking for a keyword tax. Nothing about the counter is guaranteed, and that conditionality is what keeps a four-mana body with evasion from being overtuned: the payoff is real only in the deck that was going to be attacking anyway.