Riptide Gearhulk
The bounce here is not a bounce: the target goes third from the top of its owner's library, which is a nastier removal shape than a return-to-hand tempo play. Your opponent redraws that permanent only after clearing two other cards, so a threat you tuck is off the board for the better part of three turns, and any hard-cast permanent (a resolved planeswalker, a keyed-up commander) pays its full mana cost all over again. That deferred-cost pressure is the real weapon, and the body is built to cash it in. Prowess turns each noncreature spell you play protecting the Gearhulk into a bigger swing, and those swings are already doubled: fire off a single cantrip or removal spell and the 2/5 becomes a 3/6, striking twice for six. The toughness of five is doing quiet work too, sitting above most of the burn and combat-trick math that would otherwise punish a prowess creature for tapping out to interact. It reads like a control finisher and a tempo engine wearing the same chassis: the enters-the-battlefield tuck buys the turns, prowess and double strike spend them, and a color pair that has historically struggled to convert a stalled board into a dead opponent gets a threat that both defends the stall and closes it out. Unusual for a control-leaning shell to want a creature this self-sufficient, and that is exactly the point.





