Heir of the Ancient Fang
The conditional counter is the whole mechanical hook, and it is a cleaner build than most modification payoffs get. The card asks a single yes-or-no question on entry: do you already control something modified? If the board is empty, it is a plain 2/3, an unremarkable green body. If you already control a modified creature, it arrives as a 3/4 carrying a counter of its own, which means it instantly becomes a modified creature itself and feeds the next thing that cares about modification. That self-fulfilling loop is the interesting part: the card is both an enabler and a payoff at once, snowballing a battlefield that already leaned toward counters and gear rather than jump-starting one from nothing. The whole design lives inside the tension it sets up: a green three-drop that wants to follow your earlier plays, never lead them, and pays a full stat point for correct sequencing. The Snake Samurai type line ties it to the plane's tribal texture, but the counter check does not care about creature type at all; it reads the board for modification, not tribe. As a green build-around at common tier, it gears up a modification plan that is already underway instead of asking you to warp toward one.
