Joshua, Phoenix's Dominant // Phoenix, Warden of Fire
A 3/4 that rummages on entry and then costs you five more mana and a tap, at sorcery speed, to exile and transform: eight mana all told between casting and flipping, which is the tax that pays for what waits on the back. The reward is a Saga Phoenix that flies and gains life as it ticks, burning each opponent for two on chapters one and two before the third chapter does the real work: a bulk return of creature cards from your graveyard capped at a total mana value of six, then a flip back to the front-face Human, front side up, ready to be spent again. That reanimation clause is the reason to build around it, and its exact shape dictates the deck. This is not a single-target raise-dead; it is a mana-value budget you spend across as many small bodies as fit under six, so it wants a board of cheap creatures worth rebuying in a batch rather than one fat threat worth looping. The rest of the structure is a rebuyable engine on your own clock: sink the mana, cash in a graveyard you have already filled, heal and burn on the way to the recursion payoff, then reset. It rewards a board you have committed and lost, which puts it on a different axis than the transforming threats built to snowball while ahead; this one wants to be behind first.
Rules text
, 
: Exile Joshua, then return it to the battlefield transformed under its owner's control. Activate only as a sorcery.
//
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter.)
I, II — Rising Flames — Phoenix deals 2 damage to each opponent.
III — Flames of Rebirth — Return any number of target creature cards with total mana value 6 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield. Exile Phoenix, then return it to the battlefield (front face up).
Flying, lifelink
