Simian Simulacrum
Two rounds of +1/+1 counters, one paid up front and one banked in the graveyard for later. The opening play asks nothing of your colors: a colorless artifact body that leaves a 2/1 Ape and puts two counters on any creature you control, the Ape included if you would rather field a 4/3 than pump a board presence you already like. The payoff arrives when you activate the green-heavy unearth cost and return the Ape directly to the battlefield with haste, dropping two more counters wherever they help before it exiles itself at end of turn. Because the second helping lives in the yard, mill and self-sacrifice can seed it ahead of a natural draw, converting a stalled hand into a running counter engine. Unearth is the leash as much as the reward: it activates only at sorcery speed, so there is no instant-speed combat ambush and no end-step surprise, just proactive growth you telegraph in advance. The split allegiance is the wrinkle. The initial deployment slots into any deck; the recursion locks the card into green, declaring its identity only on the way back. Both triggers land on a creature you already control, which lets the counters compound whatever the deck is chasing: a menace threat, a power-matters payoff, a body that just needs to win a race. The self-exile is the toll on cheap recursion: the first appearance is a keeper, the encore a rental billed in full green freight.




