Sludge Monster

The static ability is the part worth studying: any non-Horror creature carrying a slime counter loses all abilities and drops to a base 2/2, a demotion that holds only as long as both the counter and the Sludge Monster remain on the battlefield. Ability-stripping usually arrives as a one-shot removal spell or a temporary aura; here it runs as a continuous effect the Sludge Monster grants, which means it comes with a built-in off-switch. Kill or bounce the Sludge Monster and every slimed creature snaps back at once, counters and all, so a 5/5 body that pacifies the opposing board also becomes the obvious thing to point removal at. The word doing the balancing work is "other": each enter-or-attack trigger targets up to one other creature, so the Sludge Monster never slimes itself, and the Horror clause in the static ability protects it from an opponent's slime counters while opening synergy with any other Horrors you run. What the effect answers is asymmetry without a graveyard footprint. It is not removal, so it sidesteps the death-trigger and recursion payoffs that reward killing a creature outright, leaving the target on the battlefield as a hollowed-out 2/2 rather than a resource anyone can rebuy. The attack trigger stacking a fresh counter each combat means every swing can declaw a new blocker, all while the 5/5 frame keeps the Sludge Monster a genuine clock as it dismantles the board around it.