Gird for Battle

The math here is more generous than a single-target trick lets on: one mana buys two +1/+1 counters, one apiece on two creatures, and that spread is exactly what white aggro keeps reaching for. It pushes two attackers past two blockers at once, widens a board that has already committed, and blunts the one-for-one trade by making two of your bodies harder to profitably block. The tradeoff is that the buff is permanent but small. This is not a combat trick in the Giant Growth mold, where a large bonus arrives at instant speed and evaporates at end of turn; it is a sorcery-speed board-development spell wearing a pump's clothes, and the sequencing follows. You cast it ahead of combat to bank the counters, not in response to a block to bluff one, which makes it weaker as a reactive surprise and stronger as a snowball. Every counter sticks, stacks with go-wide payoffs that count creatures or counters, and leaves attackers that stay bigger next turn. The "up to two" clause keeps it live with only one creature on the field, so it never dies in hand the way a strict two-target spell would. A modest, one-shot piece of the white counters-matter toolkit, built for decks that win by accumulating small permanent edges rather than landing one enormous swing.