Thing in the Ice starts with counters on it and takes counters off when you cast instants/sorceries (equivalent of Yugioh spells), when it gets to zero it flips to a big monster. Smoldering Egg adds counters, equal to the mana value of the spell cast, so for example the Egg costs 1+R = 2 mana value.

Sometimes I have people guess who said it, a lot of people guess Hitler. Nope!