Hunger of the Howlpack

The math is the whole pitch. One green mana for a single counter is filler, but trip the morbid clause and the same spell drops three counters for +3/+3, a swing big enough to break a creature stalemate outright at instant speed. What makes the card work is that the death is one you can engineer: trade a token in combat, feed a sacrifice outlet, or simply let a chump block resolve, and the condition is live for the rest of the turn. That gate is exactly what pays for the rate. A guaranteed three-counter pump at one mana would warp any board where green has a body, so the payoff sits behind a death you have to engineer or wait out. The other half of the design is that it places counters rather than handing out a temporary boost: the growth sticks past end of turn, so a creature pumped in combat stays oversized for the rest of the game. That permanence is what separates it from a one-shot trick and ties it to decks that are already swapping creatures in combat, where a death each turn is the baseline rather than something to reach for. The punish is built in too, since an opponent who blocks expecting a known body can find the math redrawn the moment a creature has already died.