Sandbender Scavengers
Two abilities that read like separate cards actually describe a single arc: grow while the sacrifices pile up, then cash the accumulated size into a reanimation whose ceiling is your own power. The self-scaling is the clever part. A 1/1 body would only reach back for the smallest creatures, but every fodder permanent you feed the sacrifice engine ratchets both the counter total and the mana value it can retrieve, so the card climbs toward the reanimation targets you actually want as the aristocrats plan runs. The death trigger's exile clause is the honesty in the deal: firing the return means consenting to remove the creature from the game, a one-time conduit rather than a recurring loop. That framing matters. It rewards the deck that has already been sacrificing profitably, because a version that dies small hands you back a small creature, while one that spent the game fattening up on sacrifices unlocks the midsize bodies rotting in your graveyard. The Rogue slot pulls double duty as both a payoff and a fuel line: it wants a graveyard full of dead midsize creatures and a steady supply of expendable permanents, and it converts the second into the first without asking for extra mana. A closer that grades its own reward against how well the sacrifice deck was already performing.
