Lucky the Pizza Dog

Two conditions have to line up for the counter to land, and the clever part is how the first ability feeds the second. Casting a Cat, Dog, or Hero makes a Food, but the Food is the setup, not the payoff: it sits there until you crack it, and cracking it is what registers the lifegain that the end-step check is looking for. So the growth is not automatic; it is a two-beat sequence per turn where you spend a Cat, Dog, or Hero spell to bank a Food, then sacrifice a Food to trip the counter. That separation of trigger from resolution is what keeps a self-growing legend from snowballing on its own. The tribal net (Cat, Dog, and Hero together) is broad enough that the Food faucet rarely runs dry, while the +1/+1 counter rewards you for actually cashing those tokens in rather than hoarding them. It is a Food payoff that reads more like a Dog than a token engine: the point is not the artifacts you make but the life you gain from eating them, and the body that grows on any turn you do. Any incidental lifegain from elsewhere on the turn satisfies the same end-step clause, so the counter is really a lifegain sensor wearing a Food costume, which is a tidier design than a card that simply grew whenever it made a token.