Aetherstream Leopard

Energy was a mechanic built to make resources feel earned rather than free, and this Cat is the simplest possible lesson in how it spends. It generates exactly one counter when it lands, then asks for that same counter back the first time it swings, converting a single point of energy into a one-turn +2/+0 push through trample. The math is deliberately tight: left to its own devices, the body refuels itself for precisely one boosted attack, after which it reverts to a plain 2/3 unless something else keeps feeding the pool. That self-contained loop is the point. It teaches the player that energy is a currency with a balance sheet, where a generator and a payoff folded into the same card net out to zero, and where the real decks are the ones running cards that produce energy faster than they burn it. A fair beater that occasionally hits for four, this Cat turns into a recurring threat once it is wired into a board that hoards counters, draining a shared reservoir other cards also want. The trample is the quiet enabler, making the pumped swings matter against chump blockers rather than fizzling into a wall. It is a starter-grade piece of a larger engine, the kind of common that exists to demonstrate a keyword counter's arithmetic before the build-arounds raise the stakes.