Guma

Protection from blue on a red beater is exactly the tool red was meant to carry against the color that historically lacks clean answers to creatures. Once it resolves, a tempo deck cannot target it to bounce it, blue spot removal cannot touch it, and it cannot be blocked by blue creatures or take damage from blue sources. The keyword stacks four effects at once, but the one that matters is immunity to targeted blue removal and bounce: land it, and it sticks. Note where that immunity starts and stops: protection does nothing while the spell is on the stack, so a counterspell answers it as cleanly as it answers anything. The 2/2 body is too small to threaten on its own, and that smallness is the price red pays for the immunity; this is a hatebear sized to be a footnote in any matchup that is not blue and a genuine clock in the one that is. Cats as a creature type were sparse in this era, so the tribal angle carries no weight. What is left is a narrowly pointed answer dressed as a creature, the kind of color-pie statement red made early and often: blue gets card advantage and inevitability, so red gets a threat blue cannot target after it lands. The card lives or dies entirely on whether the opponent is casting Islands, which makes it a narrowly pointed answer rather than a flexible roleplayer.