Kujar Seedsculptor

The trigger reads "target creature you control," and on an empty board that clause turns inward: the counter lands on the Seedsculptor itself, resolving as a 2/3 that pumps the very body delivering the counter. That self-targeting is what keeps this from ever being a dead draw, and it separates the design from pump effects that need an established board to matter. The value is a permanent +1/+1 placed the instant it arrives, on whatever creature you choose (itself early, a real threat later). The body is modest by design: a 1/2 that buys a counter and steps aside. Where the card earns a second look is in anything that re-fires its arrival: blink effects, sacrifice-and-recur loops, reanimation engines. Any of those turns a one-shot counter into a recurring source of permanent growth, which is the axis that +1/+1 and creatures-matter decks actually build toward. The math rewards counter payoffs directly too, since each replay adds another counter for proliferate, doubling, or evolve-style triggers to leverage. Cast once, it fills the curve with a body that grows itself. Built around as a repeatable counter-placer, it becomes a slow, durable engine with a high floor and a higher ceiling: the floor is a two-drop that always does something, self-pumping into a 2/3 when there is no better target, and the ceiling is a fresh counter every time it flickers.