Yavimaya Elder

The benchmark for green's "value body" template, the creature that proved a fragile 2/1 could be worth a full card and a half. Death triggers and sacrifice outlets are the two engines here, and they stack: the activated ability turns the body into a cantrip on your own terms, and that same sacrifice satisfies the death trigger, fetching two basics into hand. The sequencing is the part players misread and the part that makes the rate honest. Because sacrificing the Elder is the cost of the draw ability, that ability is already on the stack when the death trigger fires on top of it; the trigger resolves first, so you collect two lands and shuffle before you draw. The deck-thinning happens ahead of the card, not behind it, which is a small but real edge. So one creature, played out, replaces itself with three cards' worth of resource (a draw and two lands) while smoothing the manabase. It also rewards being killed, which inverts the usual cost of trading a creature in combat or to removal: an opponent's removal spell becomes a partial concession. That marriage of fixing, card advantage, and graveyard fodder made it a template Wizards has returned to repeatedly, from Sakura-Tribe Elder's chump-and-ramp to Wood Elves and beyond. None of those descendants does all three jobs at once. The Elder remains the purest version of green paying its dues now to refuse to be down a card later.