Aviary Mechanic

The optional self-bounce is the whole point: a 2/2 whose enter trigger returns another permanent you control to hand, and the deck almost always wants that permanent to be a creature whose own arrival trigger is worth replaying. Pair it with something that does good work on entry and the body becomes a reset switch for a value loop; because the trigger reads "you may," it never strands you when there is nothing useful to pick up. The choice is made on resolution rather than by targeting, so it slips past abilities that care about being targeted, and the clause covers any permanent, not just creatures: bouncing a land for an extra play, replaying a permanent with a one-shot enter effect, or lifting a threatened aura or equipment to safety are all on the menu. The catch lives in the trigger's shape. This is not a flash blink you can hold up in response to a removal spell; the bounce fires exactly once, when the Mechanic itself enters, and only at that instant. If you want to rescue a permanent, you have to time the Mechanic's arrival to that need, because there is no way to fire the ability again later. It belongs with the cheap white bounce enablers whose reason to exist is making other cards' enter triggers repeatable, supplying the engine and asking the deckbuilder to supply the payoff. Alone it is a fragile two-drop with a shrug of a trigger; surrounded by enter-trigger creatures it becomes the recurring hand that keeps the machine firing.