Levitating Statue

A permanent that grows by watching you cast noncreature spells around it. The counter trigger keys off the casting of a noncreature spell, not its resolution, which reframes what the card is: not a creature you deploy early, but a payoff parked on the battlefield while a spellslinger or artifact shell does its work, stacking a counter each time something noncreature hits the stack. The animation clause is what closes the loop, and its cost structure is the interesting part. As a noncreature artifact, it sits outside the reach of creature-targeted removal, though it remains fair game for artifact destruction and generic permanent answers; the trick is that it only presents a creature to fight through when you pay to animate it, then reverts at end of turn. That toggle turns it into a threat that spends most of the game not being one, forcing an opponent to guess whether the two mana to activate it is coming this turn and denying sorcery-speed removal a stationary target. The base body carries flying regardless, so accumulated counters translate into evasive damage rather than a ground stall. The more noncreature spells a deck runs, the larger the eventual animated attacker, with the activation mana the only recurring tax on cashing it in: a battlefield savings account that costs two to withdraw.