Swooping Protector

Held up on an opponent's turn, this is an ambush blocker that eats an attacker and walks away, because the first damage or destruction it faces peels a counter off instead of the creature itself. Flashed in at the end step, it's a two-power evasive threat that has already absorbed the cheapest sorcery-speed answer they draw. That's the whole argument the design is making: a shielded body doesn't hit harder, it makes the tempo math sour for anyone trying to remove it, since their first damage-based or destroy spell clears a counter rather than a permanent. It recasts an old white instinct, the creature that survives the first thing thrown at it, but where Selfless Spirit spends its own life to save the team, this one folds the protection inward and keeps it. The result is a modest 2/1 that punishes reactive interaction: kill it now and you've paid full price to erase a counter, wait and it flies over the top. It doesn't win a race; it makes the opponent's answers arrive a beat late.