Kabira Vindicator

A mana sink that turns into a team anthem, paid for in installments. Each activation banks a level counter on this specific permanent, climbing the body from one printed mode to the next, and the counters belong to the card rather than the name: if the creature dies, the climb dies with it, and a fresh copy starts from zero. The payoff here is communal, not personal. The base 2/4 holds the line while the levels accumulate, and every other creature you control grows, first by one and then by two across the board. That makes the climb a question of board state rather than card advantage: drop it onto an empty table and the anthem does nothing, but develop a wide front first and a row of small bodies inflates into something that trades up and races. The restriction is the sorcery-speed clause stacked on top of the mana tax, which keeps it from doubling as a combat trick. What it does not hand the opponent is a free turn: because you can level during your pre-combat main phase, the counter you pay for can land and then immediately swing the now-larger board the same turn. It is a slow engine that asks you to commit to the plan before it pays, the kind of design that lives or dies on whether your board is already wide when the counters start landing.