Lumen-Class Frigate

Most anthems ask for mana; this one asks for attrition. To grow it you tap another creature at sorcery speed and bank charge counters based on what you fed it, ratcheting a one-way climb toward two thresholds. The catch the design keeps honest: below twelve it is a noncreature artifact, unable to block or attack, sitting on a board slot without touching combat the turn it lands. It just waits to be fed. The +1/+1 boost for your other creatures comes online cheaply at two counters; the flying-lifelink payoff, with the frigate finally becoming a 3/5 creature in its own right, waits all the way at twelve. That gap frames the whole puzzle. You want a wide, developed battlefield to reach those numbers fast, yet each body you tap to charge it is a body sitting out that turn's swing, so the quickest route to twelve costs you the most tempo. The play pattern favors a board that already exists and can spare a creature or two, then reinvests that surplus into a standing anthem and, eventually, a lifelinking flyer that can drag a losing race back. The sorcery-speed restriction rules out ambush, and the counters only accumulate, never resetting, so there is no shortcut to twelve without an army to spend on it. The interest lies in one permanent carrying both the anthem and the finisher, gated behind a curve you pay in creatures and turns rather than in mana.