Summon the School

The recursion clause is the reason to run this over a plain token spell, and it asks a question Merfolk decks are uniquely built to answer: can you keep four bodies untapped long enough to tap them on your terms? The two Merfolk Wizards off the cast are a down payment toward that tap cost, so a single resolution starts assembling the engine it later feeds. The tension is that the activation wants a developed, untapped board, but its cost competes with everything else those Merfolk want to be doing: attacking, blocking, crewing other tap-fueled abilities. Spend them returning the card and you have committed your tribe's tempo to refilling your hand rather than pressing an advantage. That trade makes it a grind card rather than a curve card. It rewards a wide, stable board over an aggressive one, and punishes a clogged or tapped-out battlefield by sitting in the graveyard until you can afford the toll. The tribal payoff here is renewable rather than explosive: every loop nets two more Merfolk Wizards, which both widen the board and lower the relative cost of the next return. The absent body is the point. The card never enters play itself; it manufactures the creatures that pay to bring it back, a closed loop that only turns over once your tribe is already winning the attrition war.