Balshan Griffin

Returning itself to hand for a discount and a card is the kind of evasive-blocker insurance that defined blue's defensive posture in this era: any time the 3/2 flier looks dead in combat, or a removal spell points at it, you spend a card to dodge and re-cast it next turn. Pitching a card every time you bounce it is steep, which keeps the loop honest and rules out the obvious recursion abuses; you are paying with cards to keep paying with mana, so the protection is real but never free. That trade-off made the most sense alongside a deck actively trying to stock its own bin, where the discarded card was not pure loss but fuel for whatever the yard powered. The escape clause turns each retreat into a deliberate hand-to-graveyard transfer, so the recurring threat the opponent can never permanently answer doubles as a way to feed your bin without spending a slot on it. The body itself is unremarkable, a five-mana flier that does nothing the rate alone would justify; the value lives entirely in refusing to die on the opponent's terms and converting that refusal into graveyard density.