Ollenbock Escort

A one-drop that reads like a bodyguard: its whole reason to exist is to spend itself protecting something bigger. The sacrifice clause is the payload, and the +1/+1 counter requirement steers it into a counters-matter shell rather than letting it fit anywhere. This is not a generic protection spell; it only works if you already have a creature carrying a counter, so it presupposes the archetype it was built for. When it fires, it does two jobs at once: lifelink turns a lethal swing or a combat exchange into a life swing, and indestructible walls off both a chosen removal spell and the damage from a block. Because activating it costs no mana and can happen at instant speed, it functions as a held-up trick that also happens to be a vigilant attacker in the turns before you need it. The bargain is that you cash in a body to save a body, so it earns its keep as fodder that trades up. A 1/1 that blanks a removal spell aimed at your best threat, or ambushes a would-be blocker by making the counter-bearing attacker unkillable through the block, is punching in a way its stat line never advertises. Strip the counters shell away and the ability points nowhere: it reverts to a vigilant 1/1 holding a trick with no legal target.