Spiketail Hatchling

The body is the down payment on a tax. What two mana actually buys is a flying chump blocker that, the turn it dies, makes any one spell cost an extra mana to resolve. That structure is the whole point: a sacrifice-driven counter never sits dead in hand the way a hardcast permission spell can, and it never asks you to hold up mana in advance. The Drake itself is the warning sign. From the moment it hits the battlefield the opponent knows the tax is live, so the threat shapes their sequencing on every turn, not just the one you finally crack it. That is a kind of soft permission pressure even on turns the ability goes unused. The clause is what keeps the effect from being more than a deterrent: this is not Counterspell stapled to a body but a Force Spike with wings, easily paid through when the opponent has open mana and the will to spend it. The reward is timing. You cash the Hatchling when the extra mana actually bites, when the opponent has emptied their lands or committed to a turn they cannot afford to slip. It pulls double duty as a blocker that becomes a counter, two roles in one card slot, the kind of compression a tempo deck values when every card has to earn its place. The genre of "creature you happily trade for a spell" runs through the game; this is a clean, early entry in it.