Spinewoods Paladin

Plot is a curveball mechanic wearing beater's clothing here. The body reads like plain green midrange: a 5/4 trampler for five mana, with three life on the way in as a footnote. What the plot cost does is bend the tempo math sideways. On a turn with mana to spare, pay and exile the card; on a later turn the 5/4 arrives for free, whole mana pool intact for a combat trick or a second threat. The exchange is deliberate: plotting costs up front, one mana less than the you would otherwise pay, but it delays the body a turn, so you are trading a delayed deployment for a mana-free one. What that buys is a smoothed-out curve and a threat that survives a board wipe because it was sitting in exile, not on the battlefield, when the wrath resolved. The three life is the least interesting line, and roughly the point: it is an enters trigger, so it fires whenever the paladin lands, a small buffer stapled to the deployment rather than a reason to plot early. Trample is what makes the arrival matter, converting a body into one that pushes damage through chump blockers. A straightforward creature whose one genuine wrinkle is that it lets you pre-pay for a threat and choose the turn it shows up.