Phyrexian Fleshgorger

The ward clause is where this design earns its keep. Because the tax is pegged to power rather than a flat number, the same line of text costs an opponent three life when the creature comes down as a 3/3 for and seven when it arrives as the full 7/5. It defends itself hardest exactly when it is most worth defending, and that self-scaling is what turns the card's two modes into genuine alternatives rather than a discount and a penalty. Both casts carry menace, lifelink, and the same ward by rule, so the smaller body loses only size, never function: an early lifelinking blocker that threatens through crowds, or a late finisher that gains seven and demands a life payment before anyone can point removal at it. The split answers a familiar deckbuilding tension, the choice between a cheap early play and a top-end haymaker, by folding both into one colorless artifact that fits a black-heavy curve at the low end and stands as a colorless bomb at the high end. You never leave it stranded in hand waiting on the seven-mana mode; the three-mana body is the reason it is always worth drawing, and the big body is the ceiling you reach for when the game runs long.