Jocasta, Automaton Avenger
Most creatures that scale off combat damage want to be the one swinging; this one hands the job to your commander instead. It grows only when the general connects, which makes it a passenger that gets bigger the more your primary threat does its work. A 2/2 flier is trivially killable, and its accumulated counters vanish the moment it dies, so the whole engine ought to be fragile. The recursion clause answers that, but pointedly through the same channel that powers it: whenever your commander attacks, a dead Jocasta can climb back into the red zone tapped and attacking. A removal spell buys the opponent one turn, not a permanent trade. What holds the loop in check is not a life payment or an exile clause but a dependency: strip the general off the board, or hold it back from combat, and both the counters and the recursion stop cold. That keeps the card honest without any cost printed on it; the leash is simply that your commander has to keep attacking. The result reads more like a combat-triggered value engine than a beater, tuned for a deck built around a single durable attacker and rewarding you for keeping that general in the fight turn after turn while the flier stacks size and refuses to stay dead. Its entire strategic weight lives in how tightly your commander's aggression drives both halves of the card.
