Skitterbeam Battalion

Most cost-reduction mechanics reward you for spending less, and every other construct that offers a smaller printed body wants to be cast for its cheaper number as early as possible. This one flips the incentive: the marquee mode is hiding behind the full nine. Cast it small for and you still trigger the entry clause, because a prototype cost is a hard cast: a hasty, trampling 2/2 that conjures two 2/2 copies, three bodies swinging the same turn. Pay the printed cost and the same clause scales without changing a word: a 4/4 that arrives flanked by two 4/4 copies, twelve power of haste and trample landing in a single attack step. The "if you cast it" gate is the discipline that keeps this from being a reanimation or blink engine; there is no flickering the 4/4 into a free trio, and no cheating it in for the swarm off the graveyard. The full cast is the payoff line, not the fallback. Cheap gets you a respectable early board; the top end is where nine mana becomes a lethal alpha strike rather than an overpriced trampling 4/4 attacking alone. A construct whose expensive mode is the one you actually want to reach is unusual for a mechanic built to make cheap the default.