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Putting counters onto a creature is something that has always been useful but typically the abilities is expensive because of the understanding that the player can put as many on as he wants but when there is some other limiting factor, even if it isn't a true negative the price can go down a little and that little may be all that is needed.

Ashling the Pilgrim is a rare, legendary elemental Shaman from the Lorwyn expansion set of magic the gathering. A 1/1 creature it costs one red and one colorless to put into play, but it has an ability with two distinct parts that makes for a very interesting creature.

The ability costs one red and one colorless mana and reads "Put a +1/+1 counter on Ashling the Pilgrim. If this is the third time this ability has resolved this turn, remove all +1/+1 counters from Ashling the Pilgrim, and it deals that much damage to each creature and each player."

The thing that I missed the first time that I read this card was that it was a permanent +1/+1 counter, that means that so long as you do not resolve it the third time it will keep those counters permanently, that means that every round of turns you can give this four +1/+1 counters (two on your turn, two on your opponents) making it a truly dangerous creature. In addition to this if you have the mana to keep one red and one colorless free then as this gets bigger you can have a bomb sitting in the middle of the table and even if at some point it is big enough to kill you as well as the opponent all that really means is that you have guaranteed a tie game, and a tie game is always better than a loss.

The second half of the ability is very important though. Red should be able to get ahead in any damage race but sometimes it then runs out of cards, this is one that lets you pump mana into it for some time in order to build up the number of counters that you need to kill your opponent, and so long as you have the mana you will still be able to blow it up before then if need be.

Finally it is worth noting that this card does not require that the counters removed be put on by itself, nor does putting on more counters activate the explosion ability. This means that a card like quest for the gemblade which gives 4 +1/+1 counters could be easily used on this creature upping the damage he does with his ability from a minimum of three to a minimum of seven.

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