Toadstool Admirer

Ward on a green one-drop reprices every spot-removal spell aimed at the earliest turns, and green is exactly the color that most wants to win the early creature race. A 1/1 for a single mana that opponents must pay an extra just to point removal at makes the reflexive kill a losing trade: an opponent burning a one-mana removal spell here has effectively spent three mana and a card to answer your one, and that math only gets worse for them. The Ouphe body invites the cheap answer; Ward punishes the reflex. Surviving that first exchange is where the growth ability earns its keep. Four mana total per +1/+1 counter is a deliberately steep rate, but because it carries no timing restriction, it lives at instant speed: pass with mana up and pump in response to a combat trick, ambush a slightly larger attacker, or push the last point of damage in a race. The two lines feed each other. Ward makes the creature expensive to answer cheaply, so the plan is to keep paying the growth tax and let a warded threat outrun the opponent's removal budget while threatening a surprise size boost every time you leave mana open. Nothing about the stat line is imposing; the value is entirely in the friction the Ward adds to your opponent's math, and in the fact that a card this small is not supposed to be worth spending real resources on.