Rampaging Geoderm

Read the second clause carefully and the word doing all the work is instead. Aim the attack trigger at a player or planeswalker and one attacker gets a fleeting +1/+1 that evaporates at end of turn: ordinary combat math. Aim it at a battle and the same buff hardens into a permanent +1/+1 counter, which is the difference between a tactical spike and structural board development. That is a body built to prosecute the siege-and-defend loop battles introduced, because cracking a two-sided permanent stops being a one-turn power spike: the counter stays on the attacker after the battle falls, so the reward outlasts the objective. Haste and trample are enablers rather than the payoff. Haste makes the trigger live the turn it arrives; trample lets the pumped creature push its extra power past a blocker and connect with the objective it needs to reduce. The angle worth sitting with is how completely the good mode leans on the opposing mechanic showing up at all. The counter clause is inert unless a battle sits on the battlefield to be assaulted, so this design outsources its ceiling to a permanent it does not provide. Strip the battles away and it still hands one swinging creature a temporary buff each combat, a serviceable floor; the half that justifies the card waits for a two-sided permanent worth attacking.