Retaliator Griffin

Most creatures that grow do so on your terms: an attack trigger, a sacrifice outlet, a pump spell you choose to cast. This one inverts the arrangement entirely, handing the trigger to your opponent and asking them to decide whether hitting you is worth it. Every point of damage they push through becomes a +1/+1 counter, so a single big swing or burn spell that leaves you standing instead inflates a 2/2 flier into something that flies over the board and ends things on the backswing. The design tension is built into the politics of the attack: the more pressure an opponent applies to your face, the larger the evasive threat they have to answer, which makes aggressing into you a genuine cost-benefit problem rather than a free decision. Note the precise wording. It counts damage from any source an opponent controls dealt to you, not to your other creatures or planeswalkers, and the counters are optional, so you are never forced to telegraph the growth or stack counters you would rather not. The four-mana, three-color cost keeps the rate honest: you are paying for the privilege of turning incoming aggression into a clock, and you only collect if opponents are willing to feed it. It rewards a board state where attacking you is the natural play, then punishes that instinct one counter at a time.