Thallid Devourer

The Fungus archetype's first attempt at making spore counters do something beyond bookkeeping, and the seam where the saproling-engine idea starts to take shape. The original Thallid (and its kin) only ever converted three spore counters into a 1/1 body; the token sat there as a chump-blocker or a clock that you topped off every three turns. This one closes the loop by giving the saprolings a reason to die: each one fed back into the host pumps it +1/+2, turning a slow token factory into a creature that can spike out of nowhere in combat. That second half is the design lesson. The first sacrifice outlet for a token you also generate is where "I make a body every few turns" becomes "I bank bodies and spend them at instant speed to win a block or push damage," which is the structural shape every saproling deck since has been built around. The math is deliberately patient: three upkeeps per token, so the engine never floods the board, and the pump is a one-shot per saproling rather than a permanent buff, keeping the rate honest. It is a primitive version of the sacrifice-for-value loop that later sets would refine into full aristocrats engines, sketched here in green with fungi and counters instead of black and death triggers.