Resolute Survivors

Exert was designed as a one-shot bargain: squeeze extra value out of a creature now, and leave it tapped through the following untap as the cost. Most of the mechanic's cards spent that bargain inward, on themselves. This one converts the act of paying the price into a payoff that scales with how often you pay it. Every exert anywhere in your army, including this creature's own attack, drains each opponent for one and refunds a life, so the harder your board leans into the mechanic, the more a go-wide aggressive plan doubles as a slow bleed. The wrinkle inverts the usual cost-benefit math: this card rewards exerting other creatures, not just itself. A permanent that taps down for a turn elsewhere on the board suddenly carries a free damage-and-life trigger here, which reframes the downside of exert as a resource you want to spend. The 3/3 body is honest enough to attack into contested ground without waiting for the engine to assemble, but the design's real work is turning a set of isolated exert trades into a coherent drain plan. Every payoff-hungry keyword needs a piece like this: the card that gives the mechanic a reason to be built around rather than sprinkled in.