Mana Chains

Removal that hands the timing to the opponent and trusts the math to close anyway. The cumulative upkeep the aura grafts on means each upkeep stacks another age counter, so the controller pays the first turn, the next, after that, the tax climbing one mana at a step until keeping the creature costs more than the creature is worth. The enchanted creature never gets destroyed; it gets abandoned, sacrificed the turn its controller decides the escalating bill is no longer survivable. That delay is the whole interaction: this does not kill on cast, it installs a clock and lets the opponent name the hour they let the creature go, while the accruing counters guarantee the hour arrives. The patience cuts both ways. A sacrifice outlet or a way to peel the aura can pull the creature out before the tax becomes lethal, so the answer stays contestable rather than clean. What it gives blue is a removal effect that respects the color's discomfort with outright destruction: nothing here destroys anything, it only makes a creature too expensive to keep on the battlefield. The cumulative-upkeep framing is what lets a one-mana aura exist without strictly outclassing heavier removal; it buys its low cost with uncertainty and a few turns of grace, and the opponent gets to spend that grace however they like.