Anthroplasm

Most mana sinks compound: you feed them turn after turn and watch the body climb. This one refuses to. Pay X and tap, and every counter already on the creature is scoured off before X new ones arrive, so the size is never the sum of your investments, only the value of the most recent one. It enters as a 2/2 (two +1/+1 counters on a 0/0 frame), but that starting size is a sunk cost the instant you activate, because the reset wipes it clean. The strategic axis is not "how much have I poured in over time" but "how much can I pour in right now," which makes it a battery sized exactly to the spare mana on the turn you activate, and a dead end for any effect that wants stacked counters to grow indefinitely. The 0/0 print is the honest version of the cost: the card has no body of its own. It is whatever the last X bought, and nothing more, until the next time the counters are removed and replaced. A Shapeshifter that reshapes its own dimensions on demand, balanced by the iron rule that it can only ever be one size at a time.