Vexing Sphinx

Most permanents with cumulative upkeep want to cash out and vanish before the rent spirals; this 4/4 flier inverts that incentive by making death the payoff. The upkeep cost is paid in cards discarded, and it compounds in the familiar triangular climb: one the first turn, two the next, three after that. But the dying trigger refills your hand equal to the age counters accumulated, so a sphinx that holds for three turns hands back three cards on its way out. That is not a full refund of what you pitched, and it was never meant to be: the gap between the discards and the draws is the rent you pay for a flying body and for choosing when the clock stops. The strategic axis is the timing of the collapse. Every card thrown to the upkeep stocks the graveyard for whatever lives down there (reanimation, delve, threshold), the body keeps pressuring the air while the counters stack, and the death draw converts an inevitability into a refill on a turn you select. Ride it too long and the upkeep outpaces the eventual draw; sacrifice it early and the refund stays thin. The skill is reading the decline rather than trying to outrun it, which makes this one of the rare keyword designs where the punishing clock and the reward are the same lever pulled from opposite ends.