Wizard Mentor

Pick up a creature, get its enter-the-battlefield trigger back, and reset the engine for another go: that loop is what the design was reaching for, and it dates to a moment when blue was learning to convert one-shot value into recurring value. The pressure valve is written into the targeting. The tap ability returns this creature and a target creature you control to hand, so every reuse rebuys the Wizard along with whatever you bounced. Chaining triggers across consecutive turns is off the table, because the Wizard cannot stay put to do it; instead it bounces itself out of removal range, then redeploys at sorcery speed to repeat the motion. That self-return is what caps the engine at one bounce per cycle, forcing a real tempo cost (the mana to recast both creatures, plus the lost attack) in exchange for the value. Pair it with a creature whose entry does meaningful work and the body stops mattering, because the 2/2 is just the lever, not the payoff. Later sets refined this kind of repeatable bounce into cleaner shells, but the core idea (a creature that retreats from removal and rebuys an enters trigger in the same motion) is fully present here, built before the mechanic had a name.