Taeko, the Patient Avalanche

Most counter-payoffs reward creatures dying; this one deliberately routes around death. The growth trigger fires only when a creature you control leaves the battlefield without dying, which points the design at flicker effects, bounce, and blink loops rather than the sacrifice fodder a graveyard deck runs. You cannot chump-attack your way to value: you have to assemble a board that recurs through the exile-and-return door, and each round-trip both smooths your next draw and thickens the turtle. Note where the payoff lands: every counter goes on Taeko herself, never on the creature that left, so the growth concentrates rather than spreads. The 4/5 body reads defensive, arriving tapped and unable to swing the turn it lands, but the attack trigger reframes it as an aggressive engine: pay one hybrid mana and any attacker becomes unblockable, an evasion clause you can point at Taeko or at whatever threat the opponent has no answer for. The Ninja type is the tell. Ninjutsu decks already want to return their own creatures to hand and replay them, which is exactly the leaves-but-doesn't-die condition this card feeds on, and the unblockable rider is the setup ninjas have always wanted for their combat-damage triggers. It is a rare payoff that asks you to protect and recycle your own board rather than feed it to a sacrifice outlet, and the hybrid cost on the evasion clause keeps it live well outside a dedicated shell.