Moonlit Lamenter

The -1/-1 counter is fuel, not a penalty. A 2/5 that enters as a 1/4 stays that way until you cash the counter in, and the ability does exactly that: pay, remove the counter, draw, and the body ticks back toward its printed size in the same motion. The first activation makes the creature bigger and refills your hand at once. That coupling is the whole engine. The card arrives pre-loaded with a single draw, and any counter stacked on later (a +1/+1 counter from proliferate, a generic counter from anywhere) becomes another card off the top, so a creature that reads as a repeatable cantrip in white counter-matters shells. The restriction on when you can pull the trigger is the tax: this is a turn-your-own-turn commitment, and once the counters run out the ability sits dormant until you feed it more, which keeps it from becoming an every-turn value spigot. What emerges is a grinding wall that blocks all day and turns surplus counters into cards, doing its best work in long games where nobody is racing and the extra draws decide who runs out of gas first.