Demonic Gifts

Hold it up when the opponent aims a destroy spell at your creature, and the removal does its job in vain: the creature is destroyed, hits the graveyard, and the granted death trigger springs it right back under its owner's control. The removal resolves and technically succeeds; it just accomplishes nothing lasting. That is the sale, and the +2/+0 is window dressing. The trigger fires strictly on death, so the creature has to route through the graveyard for the insurance to pay out. Exile-based removal and bounce both sidestep it cleanly, since neither sends the creature to the yard. A -X/-X effect honors the deal: a creature dropped to zero toughness is put into the graveyard, which counts as dying and springs the trigger. Reading that distinction is the skill the card demands, because misjudging what the opponent holds turns two mana into a whiffed pump spell. The recursion also wipes the slate on the way back: the creature returns as its printed self, stripped of counters, attached auras, and any borrowed keywords. This is combat math built around a bluff-and-punish read rather than raw stats, which is why the pump number barely factors into the pitch. It works on offense outside the removal war too, letting an attacker trade into a bigger blocker and reappear afterward, provided the effect that killed it sent it to the graveyard rather than anywhere else.