Otharri, Suns' Glory

The experience-counter engine here is a snowball wearing a Phoenix's feathers, and the math is the whole point. The first attack nets one counter and one token; the second, two counters means two tokens; the third, three. The counters accumulate but the token creation reads for each experience counter you have, not one per attack, so the board grows triangularly: every combat you survive raises the size of the next reinforcement, and the totals compound quickly even without doubling. That distinction is what separates this from a linear go-wide payoff. Lifelink and haste do the practical work of getting the engine online without a turn of setup and buffering the life total against the aggression it invites, but the Rebel tokens are what make the recursion clause more than graveyard insurance. Returning it costs mana and the tap of an untapped Rebel, so the tokens the card makes are also the fuel that brings it back, closing a loop where each cast leaves behind the resource for the next. Phoenix recursion has usually been tied to discard or upkeep triggers; tying it instead to a board state the card itself generates is the design's quiet cleverness, and it means the deck built around this wants to be attacking every turn, forever, because attacking is the only verb that pays.