Blademane Baku

The whole Baku cycle ran on a quiet bargain: cast the spells your deck already wants to cast, and ki counters accumulate as a byproduct rather than a cost. This one funnels that stockpile straight into combat. The activation buys +2/+0 per counter spent, so a fragile 1/1 inflates into a finisher scaled exactly to how many triggers you banked on the early turns. The skill is entirely in the dump. You pay one mana to fire it, remove as many counters as you choose, and the bonus disappears at end of turn, which makes the swing a one-shot you have to time against open blockers and removal. Hold the counters and you broadcast the alpha strike; bleed them off piecemeal and you squander the burst. The ceiling is genuinely high (a deck spitting out Arcane triggers can stack the increments into lethal in a single attack), but the floor is a two-mana creature that contributes nothing until you have spent several turns priming it. It is a payoff dressed as a cheap creature, and it only pays out in a shell built to keep the spells flowing.