Siren of the Fanged Coast

Tribute hands the opponent a knife-edge choice, and both edges cut. Refuse it and this steals a creature outright when it arrives: not a Threaten-style loan that returns at end of turn, but permanent control, so you gain an attacker and strip a blocker in the same beat. Pay it and the counters make this a 4/4 flyer that stays on your side and clocks fast on its own. The 1/1 printed body is the toll for that flexibility, and it is priced correctly, because the card was never sold on its stats; it was sold on the dilemma. This belongs to the design tradition of split-punishment effects, the lineage that runs back through cards like Browbeat, where the opponent chooses which way to bleed. The difference is that those older effects resolve and vanish, their choice spent the instant it is made. Here the choice is folded into a permanent that sticks around to press whichever branch the opponent conceded, so even the "generous" tribute outcome leaves a threat on the board and a decision you were happy to lose either way. The weighting is what makes the negotiation lopsided: neither branch is a clean out, and the opponent is only ever picking the punishment that hurts a little less.