Clockwork Dragon

The decay mechanic was an early-era experiment in self-limiting creatures: a body that arrives strong and quietly bleeds out the more you use it. Six counters make it a 6/6 flier the moment it lands, but every attack or block strips one away once the combat resolves, so a clock that starts impressive winds down toward zero unless you feed it. The that returns a counter is the answer built into the design, turning the card into a mana sink that lets a dragon outpace its own decay when you have the resources to spend. That tension (a creature that taxes its own combat) is the whole point: it asks whether you would rather swing now and lose a counter or hold mana to refill, and it punishes greed in either direction. As a printed 0/0 that exists only because of the counters it enters with, it also sits on the rules edge where an effect that wipes its counters leaves nothing behind. It comes from a time when designers were still mapping how +1/+1 counters could be a renewable resource instead of a fixed bonus, and the clockwork shell gives that math a flavor hook: a wind-up automaton that runs down and has to be cranked again.