Arctic Nishoba

Most creatures saddled with cumulative upkeep are a slow bleed: you pay an escalating tax to keep an asset that gives nothing back when you finally cut it loose. This Cat Warrior flips the ledger. The body is honest, a 6/6 trampler for six that asks nothing extra the turn it arrives. The clock starts the following upkeep, when age counters begin stacking and each one demands another green or white to stay on the table. The death trigger is what redeems all that rent: every counter on it is two life waiting to be banked, so the same mechanism that strangles the creature pays out on its way to the graveyard. Letting it die (or sacrificing it) stops being a concession and becomes a deliberate cash-out. The split upkeep cost is the other half of the math: green or white, chosen fresh each turn, which lets the creature ride in either base and stretch a turn or two past what a single-color tax would allow. It is a clean piece of design from an era when this keyword was at its most punishing: the timer is meant to be a feature, with trample pressure while the payments stay cheap and a life swing waiting at the end. The answer to "why would anyone keep feeding cumulative upkeep on purpose" is written right into the card.