Aethergeode Miner

A 3/1 that has to attack to do anything is fragile: it dies to almost any blocker, walks into combat tricks, and answers to the cheapest removal a color can muster. This Dwarf solves that problem with the resource its own attack generates. Swinging in produces exactly the two energy the blink ability costs, so the creature funds its escape hatch on the very turn it puts itself in danger. The flicker is the point: exile and return (under its owner's control, so it comes back to you) dodges targeted removal at instant speed, resets damage marked in combat, and refires any enter-the-battlefield trigger your board cares about. That last clause is what pulls the card off its aggressive stat line, turning a cheap evasion-light beater into a repeatable blink engine that happens to be self-sufficient. The balancing act is supply: each combat banks two energy, each blink spends two, so left to its own devices the loop runs once per attack and no faster. Spend that energy elsewhere and the protection dries up; feed it from outside sources and the Miner becomes a flicker-on-demand button, exiling and slamming back down at will with no enabler attached. The exile is doing the work, not a sacrifice; the creature never touches the graveyard, so it sidesteps death triggers and resists answers that punish dying. It is one of the cleaner expressions of energy as a closed-loop mechanic: a creature that mints its own protection and then decides whether to keep it or cash it for value.