Molten Firebird

The cost of a phoenix is paid in cards, not mana, and this design states that bargain about as literally as it can. The recursion is automatic and mana-free: the bird dies, comes back as the turn winds down, and the only toll is your next draw. That reframes the body as a reusable threat rather than a creature you guard, since killing it just delays it a turn and taxes a card. The mechanic inverts the usual graveyard economy. Most recursion asks you to spend resources to bring something back; this one spends a resource (the draw) to keep something from staying dead, whether you want it to or not. That "whether you want it to or not" is the wrinkle. The skipped draw is mandatory and stacks, so chump-blocking with it repeatedly or feeding it to a free sacrifice outlet bleeds cards fast. The exile activation is the release valve, but the timing matters: it works only while the bird is on the battlefield, so you have to pull the trigger before it dies, not after. Once it has hit the graveyard the return is already locked in and the card cannot reach itself to escape. Read together, the abilities form a closed loop with a single exit: let the death trigger keep recycling the threat and eat the draw tax, or pay to exile the bird preemptively and shut the engine down before the card disadvantage compounds past the point the recursion is worth paying for.