Ajani Goldmane
The first member of the Ajani planeswalker line, and the one that fixed the character's mechanical signature before he had much else to lean on. The plus ability gaining life looks like the weakest tick on any early planeswalker, and on its own it is, but it feeds the ultimate directly: an Avatar whose power and toughness scale with your life total turns every passive loyalty bump into stored damage. The minus-one is the line that mattered most, an Overrun-adjacent team pump that hands every creature a permanent +1/+1 counter and vigilance, converting a wide board into a real clock while keeping the attackers back as blockers, so the swing forward does not leave Ajani exposed. That single activation does the structural work an anthem does elsewhere, except the buff sticks after the turn ends rather than evaporating. The tension in the design is between the slow life-gain mode and the immediate board impact of the counter spread, and a creature-heavy white deck rarely wants the former. What dates the card is the loyalty math: four starting loyalty with a minus-one as its workhorse means you are spending faster than you build, and the six-loyalty ultimate sits a long way off unless the plus does the climbing for you. It established the template later Ajani cards refined: lifegain as a resource that powers a finisher, and +1/+1 counters as the medium between the two.
