Gonti's Machinations

The energy mechanic spent most of its life as a slow accumulator: shoot a creature, ramp a Servant, pay for incremental value over many turns. This builds a closed loop instead. Taking damage feeds it (once per turn), and once two counters stack up, the enchantment converts all of that absorbed pain into a single 3-life drain plus an equal life gain back to you. The structure is what makes it more than a one-shot drain spell at one mana: it rewards being on the back foot, turning the aggressor's clock into the very fuel that reverses the race. A six-point life swing across two players for sacrificing an enchantment you spent nothing to power (the energy was a tax the opponent paid you in damage) is a meaningful tempo and resource pivot in any game where life totals are the contested axis. Note the timing discipline built into the trigger: only the first life loss each turn yields a counter, so it cannot be looped or burst by repeated small pings within a turn. It is a patient piece that asks you to survive long enough to detonate, and against a deck that wants to push damage, that survival comes for free.