Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel
The exile clause fires exactly once per entry, and everything about this card is built around that single window. When it lands, it banishes another creature you control until it leaves, then converts that creature's power into a spread of +1/+1 counters distributed however you like. Exile a heavy beater and one body becomes a permanent stat swing across the whole board: the counters persist after the exiled creature returns, which is the line between this and a one-shot pump. Nothing loops on its own, though. Firing the ability again means blinking or bouncing the 3/3 itself, and each re-entry first returns the previously exiled body (re-triggering whatever enters-the-battlefield effect it carried) before a new one can be sent away. That dependency is the whole tension: a payoff that needs an external flicker package to become an engine, and a stranded vigilant body until it finds one.
Its partner, Nikara, Lair Scavenger, draws cards when creatures deal combat damage to a player, which is why the two read as go-wide-adjacent even though this half never sacrifices anything. It supplies the entry churn and the counter distribution; Nikara refills off the creatures that connect around it. The design wants a dense field of enters-the-battlefield creatures and a reliable way to reset itself, which makes it a builder's payoff rather than a plug-and-play beater: without the recursion shell around it, the exile clause is a one-time trick.
