Render Inert

Counter removal has always been a niche answer wearing a broad-sounding name: it strips loyalty from a planeswalker, pops finality and stun counters, clears a +1/+1 stack off an overgrown threat, or resets a saga mid-chapter. The problem with that kind of effect is that it rots in your hand whenever the board offers nothing to point it at, which is most games. This one hedges against the dead-card problem by stapling on a cantrip. Remove up to five counters from a single target, replace the card, move on. The "up to five" phrasing does more work than the number implies: because the minimum is zero, any legal permanent will do as a target, so as long as there is a permanent in play (yours or otherwise) the spell can be cast purely for its draw. That is the design lever here, turning a corner-case answer into something you can run without warping your curve around a mode that sits idle most of the game. The ceiling stays deliberately modest: one target, sorcery speed, no reach into hand or graveyard, so the card never crosses into being a premium tempo play. It is insurance that refuses to sit dead. It belongs to a long line of black effects that pay you a card for doing something narrow, the arrangement that keeps otherwise-marginal answers worth their slot.