Hog-Monkey

The evasion here is conditional on a resource you have to build first: the combat trigger only fires if you already control a creature carrying a +1/+1 counter, so the body's job is to set up a board where the trigger matters rather than to grant menace universally. That two-step dependency is what the exhaust ability quietly resolves. For five mana, once ever, it stacks two counters on itself, meaning it can bootstrap into being its own legal target and then hand itself menace on the following combat. The design is a small closed loop: a counters payoff that carries the seed of its own payload, so a stalled board with no other counter sources still has a way to force a creature through single blockers. The exhaust keyword is what keeps the loop from spiraling; each activation is one-shot, so the two-counter jolt is a single decisive investment rather than a repeatable pump, and it pushes the mana commitment well past when a 3/2 wants to be spending anything. What it is really built for is a board full of +1/+1 counters, where the trigger reads as recurring menace on your best threat every combat and the exhaust is a late-game top-off you were never relying on. On its own it is a modest beater with a delayed engine attached; surrounded by counters it converts accumulated stats into damage that most single blockers cannot stop.