Soul of Zendikar

The Avatar cycle that this belongs to was built around a single insurance promise: pay six, get a body that keeps generating value even after it dies. Here the body is a 6/6 with reach, a fine roadblock against fliers, but the design's real interest is the graveyard line. The same Beast-making activation works whether the card is on the battlefield or has already hit the bin, which means the answer to "what do I do if they kill it" is "nothing, I still have the engine." Removal doesn't end the relationship; it just changes the address from which you're paying for a 3/3. That makes it a sink for excess mana in the late game and a hedge against decks built to trade one-for-one with your threats, since the second life is a feature of the card rather than a recursion spell you have to draw. The exile clause on the graveyard activation is the price: the second activation is a one-shot, so the value is real but finite, and you can't loop it forever. It's a mono-color, no-build-around answer to the perennial green problem of flooding out, dressed as a plain-looking fatty.