Pinion Feast
Conditional removal that pays you back for the condition it imposes. Green has never been allowed clean, unrestricted answers to creatures; what it gets instead are spells that demand a tag (an attacker, a blocker, a creature with a specific keyword) and trade efficiency for the restriction. Here the tag is flying, the historical color-pie gap green covers by reaching skyward rather than casting reach itself, and the rate is deliberately steep for a removal spell. The Bolster rider is the design move that makes the price legible: rather than refund mana, the card refunds board presence, dropping two counters onto your smallest creature so the same instant that clears a flier also turns a mana dork or a chump into something that matters. That coupling tells you what the card is for. It is not a tempo answer; it is a midrange swing, a single card that subtracts from the air and adds on the ground in one motion, best when you already have a board worth growing. The instant-speed window matters more than the cost suggests: holding it up lets you Bolster in response to a combat trick or after blocks, choosing the moment your counters do the most work rather than committing on your own turn.

