Kalitas, Bloodchief of Ghet

The double-edged tap ability is the whole proposition: three black mana and a tap turns any creature into a removal target, but the kill only converts into a Vampire token if the creature actually dies this way. That conditional carries real weight. Indestructible blockers, regenerators, anything that sidesteps the destroy clause leaves you with a wasted activation and no token to show for it. When it works, the math is brutal: you remove their best body and replace it with a Vampire copying its exact power and toughness, a two-creature swing in a single tap. The governor is not the cost but the structure around it: a seven-mana 5/5 that must survive a turn and then untap before the ability comes online, leaving opponents a window to answer it before the engine starts grinding. Its lineage is the line of black removal-creatures that pay for the privilege of being permanents rather than spells: the body sticks around to do it again, and the activation itself is cheap, but the up-front investment and the vulnerability of the 5/5 are the real tax. The reanimation flavor of building your army from the corpses of theirs is rare in this exact form: most black removal exiles or sacrifices rather than handing you a stat-for-stat replica of what you just killed.