Jubilant Mascot
A repeatable counter-spreader on a body small enough to need the help itself. The math is the catch: a 1/1 that asks for each combat to hand out two counters pays more, total, than most one-shot anthem effects cost, and it spends mana you would otherwise commit to casting or holding up attackers. What separates it from a static buff is the choice that recurs, but the timing constrains that choice as much as it enables it. The ability wants to fire before attacks are declared, and the two targets get locked in when it goes on the stack; you commit the counters to specific creatures before you know how the opponent will block. So this is a planning tool, not a combat trick: you decide which two bodies deserve to grow while the board is static, then attack into the distribution you already chose. Given the
open, it can even support the turn it lands, so it starts accumulating immediately rather than idling. Support as a mechanic was built for exactly this incremental, board-wide growth, and gating it behind a payment window rather than a flat cast keeps the engine from snowballing on its own. The Homunculus rewards a board already wide enough to make two counters a turn meaningful; without bodies to grow, it is a 1/1 with an expensive button nobody presses.


