Krumar Initiate

A 2/2 for two that idles cheaply until the game slows down, then converts a full mana pool into board presence paid for in life. The mana sink defines its whole role: pay , tap, and bleed X life, then choose between welding X counters onto this creature or budding off a separate X/X white Spirit. That fork answers the two ways the investment usually goes wrong. Sink into counters and eat a removal spell, and the mana is gone; but if you would rather the value survive the trade, the Spirit token walks away from any single kill spell aimed here. The life payment scales the ambition instead of capping it: there is no printed ceiling, so a surplus of mana becomes exactly as much board as your life total can afford. Activating only as a sorcery is what keeps it a fair threat rather than a combat ambush: an opponent gets a full window to answer before the counters or the token exist, with no dumping mana in response to a block and no instant-speed blowout. This is the grindy, repeatable engine black wants from its cheap creatures once the early exchanges have petered out: a low drop that never rots in a flooded hand, because every surplus point of mana buys either a bigger clock or a wider one.