Sinuous Striker

The pump ability runs the wrong direction on purpose. Most repeatable activations buy you a bigger creature; this one shaves a point of toughness for every point of power it adds, so each is a trade against the body's own lifespan. That makes the 2/2 a fragile thing to push damage through: one activation pumps it to a 3/1 that survives the turn, but a second turns it into a 4/0 that dies to state-based actions the instant the ability resolves, before it ever connects. The design wants a measured burst, one extra point to clear a chump or push lethal, not a creature you grind multiple activations out of in a single turn. Eternalize is the answer to that fragility. Once the snake dies, it returns as a 4/4 token carrying the same self-damaging ability, and the math opens up: a body with toughness to spare can spend two or three points to climb to a 6/2 or 7/1 and still swing. The whole thing plays out in sequence: a cheap early body that can cash out a single point of toughness for reach, then a late-game reinvestment that turns the same effect from a near-suicide button into a real attacking threat. It is a compact lesson in how a drawback ability and a graveyard mechanic can be tuned to cover for each other across the arc of a game.