Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper
The trick is where those counters go: not onto a token, not onto an existing creature, but onto a land you already control, which stands up as a hasty Elemental while keeping every one of its land types. That dual identity is the engine. The land can still tap for mana on turns it doesn't attack, and because the animation carries no duration (the +1/+1 counters are just counters, and the "becomes a creature" clause has no "until end of turn"), it stays a live threat indefinitely rather than reverting the way a temporary manland does. Each instant or sorcery you cast stacks another three counters on a chosen target, so a single land can climb into a finisher across two or three spells, and once it carries any counters it is no longer the fragile 0/0 the animation produces. That counter math is the payoff for a deck built on volume of cheap spells: it converts a spell-heavy plan into an attacking board without ever committing a creature card from hand. The cost is exposure. An animated land is a creature, full stop, so it dies to anything that kills creatures, and a board wipe that catches your lands mid-swing sets your mana base back, not just your board. The ability also reads narrowly: only instants and sorceries trigger it, so artifacts, enchantments, and planeswalkers do nothing here. This wants a spellslinger shell, and it rewards that focus by turning the mana itself into the clock.
